STOUGHTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY FOUNDED 1895

Volume 1, Number 6 - July 1970

MORE ON PILGRIMAGE. . . attending and participating in most visits were thirty-two members and three guests...the age span of the entire group, including Miss Susan Crandall (age four) was eighty-two years! Our members were Marian Balamoutis, Phyllis Batchelder, Robert Benson, Ruth Burnham, Alice Cherry, Faith Crandall, Viola Gay, Helen Healey, Mrs. Kenneth Healey, Esther Hill, Mildred Holmes, Wilfred Hooper, Mrs. H.P. Hughes.

Also present were Hazel Kelleher, Ada Meserve, Edward Meserve, Helen Pye, Bertha Reynolds, Frank Reynolds, Mr. and Mrs. Chester Rockwood, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Smith, Carl Smith, Doris Soper, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Vermoskie, Mr. and .Mrs. Shepard Wilbar, Freda Wade, Gustav Winroth, Leonard Whitten.

OUR SINCERE SYMPATHY goes out to the family of Henry Leuthold who has preceded us to a better world.

WE HAVE EXTRA COPIES of the Newsletter at each meeting if you wish to use them in recruiting new members. It's, one small way of informing them that we are not stagnant. Those who have not attended meetings recently will be pleased at the amount of room now available for our gatherings and for display. (Our files need some more organizing now in order that artifacts and documents may be removed from storage and then returned to their proper places. This project has been under- , taken by a few...more are needed for this NOT uninteresting job..and more and more items are being displayed as they are correctly catalogued.) Come and see.. and bring a prospective member next fall.

STOUGHTON IS NAMED for the first Lieutenant-Governor appointed under the charter of William and Mary. The first County Congress was held here in the year 1774, and, later, a powderhouse and supply center was located in the Town during the Revolutionary War.

(Continuing a series)... 

OTHER ELECTRIC TROLLEY lines in the Stoughton area (compiled by Past President Carl Smith)...in 1901 the Stoughton and Randolph Street Railway had a lot of hard luck trying to get its trolley line started. First of all, thieves had stolen a lot of material needed in construction .including reels of valuable copper wire. As the company was fearful of losing its franchise it had to resort to having a horse car brought from Boston and ran it with two horses on Jan. 19, 1901. Later they experimented with a battery-propelled car until they were able to purchase power from the Blue Hill St. Ry. The line started in Stoughton Square, went up Porter St., Grove St., up Pleasant St. past the private spur to Glen Echo Park and on through North Stoughton into Randolph via West St. to Main St. From there they obtained track rights from the Old Colony-Bay State-Eastern Mass, to run up through Crawford Sq. and on down to the Holbrook depot of the New Haven R.R. The Electric Cars started running from Stoughton Square to Holbrook depot Nov. 16.

Another trolley line organized about the same time was the Easton St. Rwy., built during 1902-1904. This line ran from Morses Corner, S. Easton, up Washington St past Daly's Corner. It crossed the South Stoughton. Branch RR on its own bridge at Stoughton Jet. (mentioned in March NEWSLETTER). From there it continued to Stoughton Sq. where it joined the tracks of the Brockton Bay State and Randolph lines. The Easton and Randolph lines merged and became known ai the Bristol 6 Norfolk St. Ry. a name the Randolph line perpetuated until the end. (The Easton Line is believed to have run only in the Summer and Fall of 1903 - 1904) The line shut down around 1919 and a Mr. Raymond Branch, with the help of other interested citizens, rescued the rails and equipment... from a junk dealer who was about to tear up the road. Mr. French, a former Bay State St. Ry. employee, operated the line until 192 3 when the Commonwealth rebuilt the highway. (Mr. French retured recently after more than 40 years of service.)

THE FOLLOWING SPACE is what the NEWSLETTER would amount to without

                                                                                                                                        .....not very interesting, is it?

So if you have a particular interest in local history and have already gained some knowledge of your subject, please put it into writing and send it along. Perhaps you may recall something from your memory that would be of interest to us all. Possibly you believe your information is not very interesting to someone else. Put it in writing anyway... ye ol' ed's job is to decide what is of interest... .and I'll do my best to sort out and publish any worthy items.

YE OL' ED wishes all of you a pleasant summer where ever you may be, at home or away...if you go away and visit historical places in N.E. please send a. card. We may still have an August issue but vacation time1 may interfere. . .contributions will help if time is short. Have a good time...be happy...and return safely.

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