STOUGHTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY FOUNDED 1895

Volume IV, Numbers 7 & 8  - August, September 1973

PLEASE CHECK your membership card to see if your dues are current. The card should be PINK and/or dated 1973-74. If your card does not carry these dates or is not PINK then you are "in the RED" and your dues should be paid at the September meeting or earlier by mail to Mrs. Edward Podgurski at 168 West Street. Thank you for your cooperation; and kindly excuse this reminder if you are already in good standing.

THE OFFICERS and TRUSTEES will Beet on September 4 at 7:3O. The REGULAR MEETING will be held on Monday, September 17. At this meeting the rewritten by-laws should be ready for presentation to the membership for acceptance or revisions. The committee doing this revising into a sore concise and up-to-date form has net a number of times and has given such consideration to the task. Please be present on Sept. 17 to give this matter your attention. This is YOUR Society.

BIRTHDAY BAGS are always welcomed. The income from them is to be used to help defray the expenses of our celebration of the approaching 250th Anniversary of the incorporation of Stoughton on December 22, 1726. Bring your Birthday Bag to the next meeting and pick up another to use.

T-Viewing: television's offerings concerned with the bi-centennial will include ARC'S "The American Heritage" and CBS's "The American Parade". Add to these two new series the possibility of reruns of "The American Experience" from NBC. Watch for listings this fall and spread the word.

AN ORGANIZATION called The USS Constitution Museum Foundation has been formed for the purpose of preserving "Old Ironsides" and expanding the Constitution Museum which houses early marine artifacts and documents. For more information write the Foundation at 495 Summer Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02210. (Remember when, as children, our pennies "saved" the USS Constitution?)

WE ARE ASSISTING the public library in its research for materials to be used in a brochure to be published in conjunction with their 100th birthday. If you have old news clippings from 100 years aero or other accounts regarding the public library in Stoughton since that time we are sure the trustees of the library would appreciate your help. and you will be adding some items to our own collection.

OUR MUSEUM DISPLAY, essentially as presented in May, will remain intact until the September meeting. There have been some additions since the springtime tour so that there will be something new for even those of you who were with us then. A continuing maintenance and surveillance program has been continued throughout the summer months by a small, dedicated group (if the word "group" indicates more than two.). We will be grateful for any aid offered by other members this coming season ... fringe benefits will be immediately realized and we do offer a two-month vacation next summer.

A CALL GOES OUT FOR MUSICIANS ... no matter what your talent is in the musical field we want to know about it. Do you perform adequately on some instrument; do you know of someone within the Society who does? This information will help one of our members seeking to catalog such information . . . even comb-and-tissue players are asked to respond.

Amasa A. Lamb, father of F. Mortimer Lamb, famed landscape artist of Stoughton, was a native of North Easton and came to Stoughton in 1863. He was a carriage painter by trade and, while his painting contributions were mostly to the mechanical art, he gave more or less attention to the painting of pictures and scenery. He had the distinction of putting upon the road probably the first moving picture show even displayed in this country. It was called a Diorama and was built entirely by himself. He drew and painted all the figures, cutting them out with a jack knife, and he constructed the mechanism in such a way that they were a moving mass. He went on the road with that show in 1861, the year that his son was born. After locating in Stoughton he was employed to some extent in shoe factories; but in 1869 he purchased a shop and continued in the carriage painting business. His artistic nature, however, found expression and he became well known as a scene painter and also as a painter of various patriotic pictures, one of which, his "Emancipation", attracted wide attention and is now in the possession of the Stoughton Historical Society. Ardelia A. (Monk) Lamb, F. Mortimer's mother, was also a painter and decorator and did much work of a superior quality. She was for twelve or fourteen years at the head of the public schools of Stoughton before the turn of the century. (History of Norfolk County -1918) Editor's note; It is little wonder that F. Mortimer Lamb, with such a family background, became a successful teacher and famed artist.

WE WILL BE EMBARKING on a Membership drive this season. Prior to an all-out effort to be planned and announced later, why not do your part and enroll one more member NOW? It is an honor to belong to an organization such as The Stoughton Historical Society, Inc., and we feel _{r that you should share this honor with a friend. The Society has not only recorded history during its existence but has made some history of its own along the way since its inception by a handful of some seventeen citizens in 1895. The Society is continually receiving requests for information from all corners and can be justifiably proud of the statement made by the Arts and Humanities Commission that we give "unusual attention to inquiries".}

SOME OF OUR MEMBERS have made application to be placed on the Town of Stoughton's 250th Anniversary Oonaittee. Call the town manager's office and add your name to the list. Our Society should be better represented.

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