VOLUME XLXI NO. 2 JAN-FEB-MAR 2022
Upcoming Events
\March 31 – 6:30 pm. – The History of the FC Phillips Company in Stoughton – Joe Mokrisky will present an overview of this long-time Stoughton business/factory. Joe has been communicating with Brian Snow, as the business has been closed down with an auction of much of the machinery etc. Both of them have been supplying us with artifacts. It has come to light that the only person to serve more terms as a Stoughton selectman than Joe Mokrisky, is Fred Phillips, founder of the company. This will be presented as a zoom program from the library. The possibility of in-person attendance has yet-to-be-determined.
CONTACT: jolshin@ocln.org 7813442711 jolshin@ocln.org
LOCATION: Community Room
April 28 – 6:30pm – The Stoughton Fire Department since 1927
Joe Mokrisky has acquired a movie via the Fred Phillips collection of the fire trucks being transferred from the old station under Town Hall to the new station on Freeman St. We look forward to seeing how this movie adds to the footage that we already have. In any case, most people will get a chance to observe images that they have not seen before. This will also be presented via the Library’s zooming capacity and, again, attendance in person will depend on Library policy at that time.
President’s Report
Dues for 2022 are now due. Please send your payment using the form at the end of this Newsletter. Thank you to those who have already sent them in.
While we have had no meetings at the Historical Society, we have sponsored two programs via the library with Dan Mark presenting a program on Harris Pond on Nov 18 and Joe Blansfield delivering another program on the History of Bay Road via the Library zoom link on January 20. Thank you to Josh Olshin for his planning and preparations at the Library that made both programs possible.
Around twenty of us attended Dan’s program in person, whereas we all (including Joe) were online for the second program. We learned many fascinating facts and some lore in both programs. We learned that at one time, the Harris Pond watershed, probably called Lincoln Farm at that time was considered as a replacement for the Muddy Pond watershed as the main source of our Town water supply. However, the purchase of that land and the placement of the Town well there was eventually stopped by a court decision. The fact that one of the water commissioners owned the land in question had cast a pall on the whole proceeding. Early in the 1920’s William Harris owned the land and proposed an extensive plan for development with many, very small lots. Over time, those lots were combined to form some of the current house lots near the Pond. GAR Commander Holmes remembered that the Paul Revere Company test fired their cannon at Lincoln Farm in West Stoughton, but no other corroborating evidence has been found. Dan Mark’s falling through the ice, has been vouched for.
As for Bay Road, Joe Blansfield told us how that there were a number of possible Bay roads at the end of the route, connecting one to Cape Cod Bay, Buzzards Bay or Narragansett Bay, depending on which fork you took. When Winslow and a few other men from Plymouth Colony came inland to visit Massasoit, they noted a very well worn path heading north, which seems to be one of the earliest known references to our beloved Bay Road/path. Some Wampanoag claim that Metacom/King Phillip was born at a fishing weir/camp just off Bay Road at Mulberry Brook in Easton. We also saw fascinating images of how Easton Five Corners looked more than a hundred years ago and many other historic and/or distinctive dwellings.
For those who missed the presentations, Josh Olshin at the Library tells me that edited, recorded versions will be available soon.
With the invaluable help of Dave Foley, we have regained access and added material to stoughtonhistory.com, our website, which was begun by David Lambert, who compiled 90% of its current content and then transferred the site to us. Several years ago, we upgraded the look of the site and added a number of past Newsletters, but until very recently had been unable to regain access to add more material. Dave Foley found the way to get inside the site and has added some great aerial photos with commentary and two Diaries from Erastus Smith, a life-time Stoughton resident of Dry Pond, portions of whose diaries have often found their way into these newsletters. His first diary entries were written when he was 12-13 years old in 1845/6.
For better or for worse, the aerial photos from John Stiles as early as 1927 to Town aerial photos taken in 1953 and views of the stretch of Rt 139 between the Rt 24 on-off ramps and the intersection of Page/Turnpike, and Pleasant Sts. always get more views that do the diaries. There are several views of Chemung Hill-French and Ward and Rock Manufacturing site over the years, the downtown during the celebration of the Town’s 200th Anniversary Parade, the intersection of Central and Washington Streets, the intersection of Plain and West Streets, the Phillips Screw Company section of Washington Street, and others. Dave Foley has added commentary gleaned from comments that we have made on our Facebook site, when some of the pictures were posted there. We will be making more additions, including more of the Newsletters written by Past-Historical Society President Ed Meserve, “Ye Olde Ed,” during his long run as its writer.
On Facebook, John Carabatsos, David Lambert, recently, Dave Foley and myself post many pictures from Stoughton’s past, usually with substantial responses, and additions from our online local history followers. As for the above-mentioned transition from French and Ward to Rock Manufacturing, I found the following in my notes:
Stoughton news items from The Stoughton News-Sentinel, July 20, 1939.
Middleboro Firm purchases French & Ward Factory. The French & Ward woolen mill property was said to have been sold to the Rock Manufacturing Company of Middleboro, the sale being perfected at a special meeting of the Board of Selectmen, Monday evening. The Rock Manufacturing Company was recently burned out of their Middleboro plant and at the time (of the) fire employed approximately 100 men. The company is well-known for silverware. Workmen began cleaning up the property Tuesday, preparatory to the moving the plant to this town. The French & Ward Company ceased business about three years ago and since that time the factory building have not been in use. Last May the Selectmen were given authority to dispose of the property by vote of a special Town Meeting. John J. Rogers turned the deed over to the town, signed by the former owners, the matter of unpaid taxes being involved.
Our volunteers have been showing up to work, and, of course, schmooze about recent and distant local history. Our Tuesday, full, or part-time crew consists of Richard and Ruthie Fitzpatrick, Janet Clough, Dan Mark, Rich Pratt, and John Carabatsos. Thursday evenings bring out Richard Fitzpatrick, Denise Peterson, Joanne Callanan, David Lambert, Dave Foley, and student volunteer Zachary Mandosa. I am usually there for all of them. Dave Foley and I have been meeting fairly regularly, recently on Sunday afternoons, 1:00-3:00 to discuss the website.
Joe Mokrisky, David Lambert, and I combined efforts to retrieve approximately ten boxes of written materials and a few artifacts that had been stored in Howard/Elliot Hansen’s barn. Among the collection were the following: detailed plans and proofs for a second edition of the Stoughton Sampler, or a related publication-to-be that Howard called Stoughton Vignettes, the proofs for Frank Reynolds’ second volume of his autobiography, and many Stoughton Sentinel newspapers from 1914, part of a purchase from the Henry Britton estate for which David Lambert remembers accompanying Howard to an estate sale auction, many, many moons ago, undoubtedly, years before your intrepid President got bitten by the Stoughton history bug. We have just scratched the surface of exploring Howard’s collection, and I could pass on some early impressions, but instead, I will copy and paste this response that Howard wrote to someone named Dorothy, regarding the history of Stoughton. I gleaned this from my previous version of “Stoughton Historical Society Journal,” which has an account of Society doings from 2013 to November of 2021 and many snippets of Stoughton history that I have copied and pasted into it. At 240 pages and 155,000 words, it was sufficiently full that it was evoking protests from Microsoft Word programs that “the fields are nested too deeply.” Onward into a new journal.
From: Howard Hansen, Stoughton Historian
Dorothy,
The Dorchester South Precinct was established in 1716, primarily centered around what is now Pleasant and Washington Streets at the northwest side of the Ponkapoag Plantation. That is the original civic center of the Town of Stoughton. The Province of Massachusetts Bay General Court “sett off from Dorchester the south precinct as a township by the name of Stoughton on December 22, 1726 (Julian Calendar). The warrant establishing the town was delivered to the inhabitants of the new town by Nathaniel Hubbard, Esq. on December 23. That warrant is in a double glass frame at the Stoughton Historical Society [Provincial Laws 1726-27, Ch. 16]
Among the conditions of the incorporation becoming official, the town had to hire within six months an Orthodox minister of the Parish. Orthodox meant the Puritan (now known as Congregationalist). Ironically it was in 1692 then acting Governor William Stoughton signed that act, the same year he was Chief Justice and Presiding Judge over the Salem Witch Trials. William Stoughton, the son of Israel Stoughton was born in 1630 in Dorchester. His father had a mill on the Neponset River near Dorchester lower Mills. That mill is depicted in the Dorchester Town Seal, which is now part of the Stoughton Town Seal. The Canton Town Seal has the original ornate seal of the Stoughton family. Sharon, formerly Stoughtonham(1765-83) also uses part of the Stoughton family crest in its town seal.
Within 25 years, the population of Old Stoughton was large enough in that area which now encompasses 1/2 of Plainville, Foxboro, Sharon, Stoughton and Avon, and some odd lots in Dedham, Norwood, and Walpole west of the Neponset River, in order to meet their religious obligation to attend Sabbathday worship, folks in the southernwestern tier petitioned to divide the town into two parishes in 1740, which became Stoughtonham in 1765. That left Stoughton with one precinct which included the village of East Stoughton, present town of Stoughton as well as the present town of Canton including the old Ponkapoag Plantation (reservation). The native Ponkapoags were descendants of the tribe of Algonquins who were Christianized by Rev. John Eliot in the late 1630s. The northern edge of the plantation runs through the Bradley Estate off Washington St. near Route 128/138 cloverleaf, once known as “Indian Line Farm”. There remains today, apple trees that were cultivated by the Native Americans still growing in that area. The southeast corner of the 6,000 acre Plantation is off Pine Street, Stoughton near Grove Road in the Glen Echo Blvd. neighborhood.
By 1744, the first Parish (precinct) was divided along a West to East line near Steephill Brook, between Canton and Stoughton. This became the Third Precinct. When Stoughtonham was given full township status, the Third Parish became the Second Parish. It was about this time that the folks in East Stoughton, mostly transplants from Braintree complained that the “house of worship in Pecunit Plain was nearly seven miles of rocky, twisting trails making Pigwackett Way” the only route to attend church and town meetings. “We live in a gore” wrote Ashley Curtis from East Stoughton in 1740, hoping to take the village into the Plymouth colony town of (North) Bridgewater. This confusion with other incorporation petitions at that time, failed to recognize East Stoughton residents. During the Revolutionary War, the three Precincts each raised companies of soldiers and put aside their local rivalries.
In 1783, after the Treaty of Paris was signed, the Commonwealth allowed those towns who were named for places or heroes of the British, to pick another name. The Stoughtonham village easily got the name of Sharon. But, the second precinct folks ended up opening a sore wound in East Stoughton, when it met in the spring of 1783 to choose a new name, first “Freedom” which was a choice of several other towns, another session of a Town Meeting, moderated by Dr. Peter Adams changed its selection to “Danbury” and sent Capt. Jedidiah Southworth to the General Court to present the petition for Danbury. The East Stoughton folks, some of them who signed the petition for Danbury, also embarrassed Capt. Southworth by signing a protest of the cutting off the parish from the northern section of the Town. The rivalry then flared up in the early 1790s when Maj. General Elijah Crane and his nephew Thomas Crane controlled the Board of Selectmen with Jabez Talbot representing the south parish. The duo complained that folks from the south were not attending Town Meetings and didn’t get involved with town affairs. By 1794, when all Towns were to file maps and census with the General Court showing their bounds, population and roads, the parish line was clearly noted. Town Meeting in old Stoughton finally voted to authorize the Selectmen to start the process of making the original town of Stoughton a separate town.
On February 21, 1797, the General Court authorized the north parish to become a separate town, leaving Jabez Talbot, for three weeks to be the sole town official holding onto the name Stoughton for his home town. It was not a name to be proud, for even though William Stoughton was an acting governor, an orthodox clergyman, his reputation as the witch-hanging judge in Salem would follow for another century, and the name of Danbury was never to be. The original proposal to name the original town for Rev. Samuel Dunbar, the first settled minister in Stoughton, was taken taken as an honorable gesture by his son Nathaniel, Esq., also a close friend of Jedidiah Southworth, but was not getting far enough away from Stoughton. The younger Dunbar suggested Canton because Canton China was about as far away from Stoughton as you could go on this planet. And it was politically correct for then there were many merchants in the area, including the Forbeses in Milton who were in the China trade importing and exporting business.
So remember, Dorothy, you are living in Old Stoughton and I should be living in Danbury. Oh, by the way, East Stoughton finally got its way 125 years ago next month when it became the Town of Avon, named for the river flowing through Stratford England, William Shakespeare’s birthplace. —So much about getting rid of those English names.
Yes, we have our sibling rivalries, but we can all proudly claim that Old Stoughton was “The Birthplace of American Liberty” when we hosted the first session of the Suffolk County Congress in September 1774. The congress produced the Suffolk Resolves, from where Thomas Jefferson paraphrased in the conclusion of the Declaration of Independence with these words: “. . .in support of this Declaration we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor”. -Howard Hansen
Roxann Freedman who is the executor of the Robert Linwood Morrill estate, visited the Society with more documents to pass along to us, including a Guild deed. Years ago, she brought us the Edward Marden diaries, which were retrieved from Robert Morrill’s house. I filled her in on some Marden family history, including such things as the fact that the Guilds were the parents of Etta Guild Marden, Edward’s wife, who died young after having given birth to a daughter, Etta, leaving her husband Edward with Harold, Gertrude, Ruey, Ray, John, and Etta. Circling back to the present, the late Robert’s father was Labin Morrill and his mother was Gertrude Marden Morrill, one if the daughters mentioned prominently in Edward Marden’s diaries. Ms. Freedman is in touch with Ruey, Bob’s sister, named for one of his mother Gertrude’s sisters. The executor is taking money from Bob’s estate to get Ruey a plot at Maplewood, where many in the family are buried
It is gratifying to me to be able to connect the names in the Edward Marden diaries, to folks who are still with us or just left us. As has been chronicled here in previous newsletters, Edward Marden became a widower with several young children in the early Twentieth Century. Most were sent to relatives and friends in the Greater Boston area and Edward would send along money for their support. As happenstance would have it, we just discovered this entry in Edward’s diary for 1909. It concerns his son Ray, who later would be Stoughton’s last casualty in combat in WWI, when he was killed the very morning of the Armistice in 1918.
“Dec11, 1909. Mr. Henry Holbrook called at factory to see me. He informed me that Ray had got a girl in trouble. Dec 12. Went to Stoughton to see Ray’s intended. Mon. Dec 13 Went to Stoughton in evening. Filled out permit for Ray to get certificate (and) took electric for Mattapan, car went to Canton only. Could not get out so took train to Stoughton, stayed at hotel 75 cents. 12/14 Took first train to Boston in time to get in factory. 12/15. Work did not go good today. Start(ed) on arnette machines in morning. 12/22 Charles Holbook comes to see me at factory. Dec. 25 spent day in Stoughton snow storm, 26 snow storm cars did not run. Dec 27, started for Boston at 6am, took train from Randolph, got at factory at noon time (same day)` Ray got married to Marion Holbrook in Stoughton (Ray would have been 17).”
The records that we have been able to find, list the marriage, the birth of a child and the fact that Ray and Marion were living together in 1910, but after that, we cannot find information. There is no mention of the wife and child in Ray’s brief biographical sketch, which is on the page devoted to him in the Town’s WWI Memorial booklet.
Even more poignant to me is the image of the middle-aged, working-class Edward, having to take the trolley to Stoughton, getting snow-bound,having to pay for a hotel to spend the night, signing the papers for his 17-year-old son’s hastily arranged marriage, and getting back late to a job in a factory where he is trying to learn the use of new machinery.
The Stoughton Historical Commission is submitting a new article to study and possibly repair the Town-owned Gay-Hurley-McNamara barn on Conservation land just off West St. Our research on the barn has revealed that the first incarnation of the barn was likely built around 1806, when Jesse Gay inherited this portion of the land from his father, Timothy. It is becoming more apparent to us that the current barn contains an older barn inside it with hand-hewn timbers, still standing, more or less as they were assembled.
Archivists Report
Acquisitions- a copy if the indenture papers of Joshua Britton from David Lambert
– two sketches drawn by Len Whitten, while he was in a nursing home were donated by Barbra J. Forde.
– Peggy Sewick, donated various printed materials on life and times of Helen Hansen. These were added to a pre-existing folder on HH.
– Brian Snow, Donated a “Fellowship Hall” Book
– A 1918 diary belonging to Peter McGarvey was donated by Gyneth McGarvey.
– An early copy of Alice in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll was donated by Joanne Callanan. The date of this edition is undetermined.
– A certificate of participation in the First Stoughton High School – Science Fair, held in 1959, given to Kenneth H. Bradley; SHS ’61, was donated by Susan (Bradley) Hill.
– Forty-two, old Stoughton Town Reports of various dates between 1873 -1948, were donated by Keven Mooney.
– Elaine R. Leahy, donated a poster advertising an “Administrators Sale of Real Estate on Saturday December 22, 1860.” The property being sold had a minimum bid of $200.00, to cover debts accrued by the former owner Ephrain Curtis, deceased. A search of the location placed the property on the North (or East side) of Pearl Street, about half way between High School and football stadium and Central Street at 279 Pearl St. The book Stoughton Houses 100 Years 1726 – 1826, indicates this house was built by Ephraim Curtis in 1817.
– Dave Lambert donated a stack of business advertising cards, with the name John Egan, Washington Street, Stoughton, Mass. A search of our records reveals that a John E. Egan, lived at Washington St., corner of Central St. in 1897 and was a Laborer. By 1911 he was listed as a Carpenter, living at 377 Washington Street. He remained listed as a Carpenter until 1936. (We than have a 3-year gap in the records,) and from 1940 thru 1948 he is listed as retired. By 1948 he is 81 years old. (This places his home about where Walgreens is today.) He disappears from the records in 1949.
– Dwight MacKerron and Dave Lambert retrieved more than a dozen cartons of various types of material from Howard Hansen via Joe Mokrisky. Dave Foley shoveled the steps and helped bring in the boxes. While I have just begun to sort out some of the material, we have found the following: About three dozen Stoughton Sentinels, dated 1914 or before. Stoughton Town Reports from 1970’s & 80’s. Printing Layouts, and a single proof copy, for a second book written by Frank Reynolds. A box of A. Lincoln pictures some with negatives, a large collection of material, that he apparently had planned to use in a second edition of the “Stoughton Sampler” and a small amount of political advertising. More to come at a future date.
We have added a few copies to our list of Town Reports, poll tax lists, real estate evaluations, and persons listed that we have out for reference. We then removed all duplicate copies and are filing them away separately. We are mulling over how many duplicate copies we need. -Richard Fitzpatrick
Curator’s Report
Our long-term project to inventory the artifacts in our collection continues.
Acquisitions: From Brian Snow: A pair of “Ben Hogan” golf spike cuff links in a case, made by F.C. Phillips Inc. and 2 sets of “Nylon Golf Spikes” with wrenches in the original case made by F.C. Phillips, Inc.; from Linda Weiler: Railroad Memorabilia in a case, including a NH Patch, (2) NY,NH & Hartford buttons, a “REA” button, and “Boston and Maine Pin; from W.R. Rhoda: 2 pair of Wood Shoe Forms, one of which is marked “C.S. Pierce, Brockton, MA; from Howard Hansen: 3 items from Hansen’s Store including a Printing Press for size 3”x5” prints made by Kelsey & Co. Meriden, CT, a large/heavy adding machine with a label stating “THIS ADDING MACHINE IS Y2K COMPLIANT” “Been that way since 1950”, and a large Cash Register made by R.C. Allen, with a label stating “THIS CASH REGISTER IS Y2K COMPLIANT” “No chips, just cash needed to operate”; from David Lambert: a small piece of wood from the Helen Hanson House, (6) rifle brass Shell Casings from the 11/11/2019 Stoughton Veterans Day parade and 6 inch diameter round ceramic Plaque of the Wentworth Cobbler Shop sold at the Mary Baker Eddy Museum Shop. (During the years 1868 through 1870, Mary Baker Eddy lived with the Wentworth family in Stoughton. Mr. Wentworth as a shoe cobbler, and his shop was located next to the house at 133 Central Street.) I also assisted with the identification of the 11 individuals posed in the ca. 1888 picture, recently donated by Brian Snow, of the Pratt & Pierce families taken at the Pierce homestead in Townsend, MA. Thank you to everyone who donated these artifacts.
-Richard Pratt
Clothing Curator’s Report –
Donations: a first communion dress from Carol Green
Some of you good people have said you would be willing to help in our clothing department. That is greatly appreciated and I could the help at this time. I need help in moving some of our boxes so we can verify the computer list with the actual contents of each container. Some of these boxes are heavy and others are difficult to reach. If you can donate at least a couple of hours on any Tuesday (10am to 3 pm) it would make the tasks move along much quicker. If you are not available during the day, we can talk about Thursday evenings.
I have taken on the task of writing “Thank You” notes to those who have donated items to our Society. It is not a difficult task nor are the number of notes needed plentiful. If there is someone who would like to do this, we would be very happy to have you join our work crew.
We have a lot of excess fabric, much more than we can use and we will sell it to interested members for a reasonable price. -Janet Clough
We are pleased that we have picked up a number of new members in the last year. Whether you are a new member, or a seasoned veteran, even if you cannot come to the Society every week, but have a sincere interest in the Stoughton Historical Society, we welcome volunteers to join us, possibly to serve as a Membership or Corresponding Secretary. We also need a Recording Secretary, but that individual must be committed to attend most of our programs, which pre-Covid were approximately five or six a year plus two dinners.
Memberships
New members: Dean Geddes, Stuart McGuirk, Dave Foley, Katherine Ritterhaus.
Monetary Donations
The Minerva Lodge 1846 Daughter of Italy via Victoria Pancio, Steven and Geraldine Farrell