VOLUME XLXII NO. 3 APR-MAY-JUNE 2023 Upcoming Events
June 10 – Evelyn Callanan Memorial Sunflower and Plant Sale, 9:00am to Noon at the Lucius Clapp Memorial, 6 Park St. This date is tentative, depending on the sprouting of the sunflowers. Please let us know if you have plants to donate.
June 12, Spring Dinner, 6:00pm, the Community Room, formerly the Wales French Room, The Stoughton Public Library – We will have a catered dinner (sign-up on the last page.) The
featured program will be a video on the F. C. Phillips Company with special guest commentary from Brian Snow.
June 14 – Two-mile Walk at Glen Echo Park, 9:30am sponsored by the Stoughton Public Library. Meet at the Glen Echo parking lot. We will hike to the stone placed by our Society in 1896, briefly visit the Massachusetts at Ponkapoag tribal land, and finally check out the site of Lincoln Gibson’s sawmill to get the latest ruminations on that operation.
President’s Report
We had considerable activity at the Society from January to April with John Carabatsos presenting “Stoughton Photography Pt II,” featuring photographer George Gerard and other classic pictures from roughly 1890-
1930. Historical interpreter Sandy Spector gave us “A Personal Conversation in Mrs Washington’s Bedchamber,” and your intrepid President presented “Glen Echo, Past and Present” and created a revised, third Edition of our Glen Echo Booklet.
In conjunction with Girl Scout week the service unit of Stoughton Girl Scouts visited us on the evening of March 16 for a presentation on the origins of Girl Scouting in Stoughton, including Alice McGee’s role in that founding, some of her subsequent contributions over her lifetime, Camp Waluhiyo and the brief movie clips which included Girl Scouts marching in past Stoughton parades. Carin Weeks-Clipp used the many hats that she has worn in her lifetime to demonstrate how being in the Girl
Scouts helped her with all those vocations and avocations. Denise Peterson and Joanne Callanan put together girl scout exhibits in two of our display cases and ample refreshments were provided by the Girl Scouts.
The Glen Echo program was accompanied by a walk in which we led a group of hikers to the stone that the Stoughton Historical Society placed at the Southeast corner of the Ponkapoag Indian Plantation in 1896, as our first substantial activity in the community. It is gratifying to have been able to create a trail in to the stone, leaving from the Glen Echo parking lot. One of the signs placed by the Historical Commission at Glen Echo shows the dedication of that stone with over seventy people including early officers of our Society (some of the same people seen a few years later in the picture taken at the Dedication of the stone at the Isaac Stearns homestead on West St.) and members of the Native-American Crowd family, who had sold Elisha Monk some of the land on which Elisha Capen Monk created the Glen Echo resort. Fittingly, accompanying us on the walk was Craig Podgurski, a member of the extended Crowd family and the Massachusetts tribe at Ponkapoag. Here are some edited excerpts from the Introduction to the Third Edition: The most significant change in the last three years has been the development of Glen Echo Park with its much-improved entrance, parking area, and cleared vistas to the pond. It has been gratifying to those of us who have put so much time and effort into the acquisition and improvement of the land to hear the ringing praise for this refurbished Stoughton jewel. It was especially gratifying to receive a call from Joe DeVito, who called from the site to tell me how wonderful everything looked! As a student at Stoughton high school in the 1940’sJoe and some of his other classmates would skip a day of school in the Spring and go skinny-dipping at Glen Echo. The Stoughton Community Preservation funds gathered from the tax-payers of Stoughton and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have paid for the acquisition and the improvements. John Morton and John Linehan were instrumental in the purchasing of the land from Joanna Gibson. The Engineering Department of the Town of Stoughton under Mark Tisdell and Craig Horsfall greatly assisted in the improvements over the last several years. Some trails have been cleared and re-opened. The trail which heads north on the east of the lake now contains a loop and one may traverse a newly (re-)cleared trail along the shoreline. We have also discovered/created a trail from the trail/road out to Deady Ave, which descends to the southeast, crosses a stream, and rises further southeast to the stone marking the Southeast Corner of the Ponkapoag Plantation, which was placed there by Elijah Capen Monk and the newly formed Stoughton Historical Society in 1896. A trail is in the process of being created, which will continue all the way out to Pine Street. Conservation Commission Chairman Gerry McDonald, Bob Zepf, a long-time friend of Joanna Gibson, and the intrepid Stew Sterling have greatly assisted in the locating and clearing of some of these trails. Our walk on April 15, 2023 will be visiting this stone.
All earlier acknowledgements still stand. For this edition, John Carabatsos, Dave Foley, and Richard Fitzpatrick have made vital
contributions. Bob Zepf’s memories have been valuable in identifying the use of the structures in the later Gibson era. Boy Scout Aadil Khond is working on the identification and signage on two of these foundations as his Eagle Scout project. Mysteries remain; we have pictures on a postcard of the bowling alley and have seen its tax assessments on town records, but we are still searching for the exact location. We have begun to study in more detail the aerial photo taken by John Stiles in 1926/27 and the much-more-detailed aerial photos taken by the Town of Stoughton in 1953. At our presentation on April 16, 2023, we attempted to cover four eras in the property’s history: 1. the Ponkapoag Plantation/York Pond years. 2. 1895-1934: Glen Echo I when our founder Elisha Capen Monk re-named York Pond to Glen Echo Lake and built the Park, which included the large Inn, a bowling alley, a ballroom, a boat landing, and placed the stone identifying the Southeastern Corner of the Ponkapoag Plantation. During this period, there was trolley service directly into Glen Echo Park. 3. 1934-2009 – The Gibson years during some of which the inn was rented out as a restaurant to Silvas, Perdigaos, and Darlings. 4. The Town-owned years: 2010- Present.
Each one of these eras has far more in it than can be covered in one presentation, or one booklet, but we continue to collect/rediscover the knowledge, record it in our files, and hope that the learning and remembering will keep pace with the forgetting. Some of that is the responsibility of the reader. – Dwight Mac Kerron, April 14, 2023
As mentioned above, Stoughton Boy Scout Aadil Khond is researching and placing signs at two of the foundations at Glen Echo. To assist in his research, Dave Foley blew up pictures from the 1953 aerial views, which show many of the buildings still standing, and Bob Zepf provided his first-hand memories of the two decades after the photos were taken, when he worked for and with Joanna Gibson, after the death of Lincoln Gibson in 1950. In the course of our subsequent explorations, we opened the trail to the 1896 marker stone and explored the site of the Lincoln Gibson saw mill.
I had roughly identified the site several years ago and found a small concrete foundation of 20+ square feet, which housed some unidentifiable machinery. Once I led our intrepid explorers to the site, serious investigation began. Ken Beauregard and his wife Tania dug out the hole and also flagged several low concrete piers set parallel to each other on both sides of the enclosure. For more than a week we exchanged various theories of the nature of the machine, until several more sessions of digging and clearing revealed “Boston Blower Company” at the base of the machinery. It became clearer to us that this was the blower which blew the sawdust away from the saw and into nearby piles. The source of the power that ran this machinery and the saw itself was an engine, no longer present on the site.
I had heard from Joanna Gibson that her father had purchased the saw mill machinery soon after he bought the property in 1934. It turned out to be a very fruitful investment after the Hurricane of 1938 blew down many thousands of trees and some of that wood
made its way to the Gibson saw mill. The concrete piers apparently supported the carriage that fed the logs to the saw. There is also a coil of heavy steel cable nearby and the remnants of sheets of metal roofing, as well. The 1953 aerial views reveal the presence of some roofed structures, probably sheds, at this site. The heavy truck that was removed from a nearby garage when it caught fire, and then sat on site for several decades was the logging truck used to transport the logs and lumber. We have posted many pictures from this site on our Facebook page, and John Carabatsos is supplying Aadil with pictures from his father’s collection and old post cards to be included on the signs.
We are in the process of setting out another trail which will traverse the south-east quadrant of the Glen Echo property, running East in to Monk’s Meadow from the location of the entrance sign and then turning north along the meadow to connect with the trails/roads to the north. The trail from our marker stone out to Pine St. has also been marked and cleared. It reaches Pine St. approximately seventy five yards from the exit road from the Dawe School.
In preparation for a visit from students, teachers, and parents from the Dawe School on May 9, we assembled a unit specific to that school.
After considerable effort, Dan Mark found a map, which shows the current areas of Stoughton, covered by each of the elementary schools. The Dawe’s territory includes all of North Stoughton from Washington St. over to the Randolph Line on the east side of Rt 24, then south to Central St., where it crosses the Avon line, then west to the center of Town and north to the starting point here, minus a small triangle of streets north of Pleasant and south of Central, whose students go to the Wilkens School. We had some of students who attended, find their house or apartment on a large map of Stoughton and sign their name beside it.
We learned from John Flynn’s Beyond the Blew Hills: “The post-war baby boom created the need for immediate construction of elementary schools and the expansion of the upper grade facilities. The first school to be erected in this era was the West Elementary School on Central Street which
opened in 1951 and was added to three years later and again in 1962…Other new neighborhood classroom facilities came along through a score of years. The South School at Cedar and Ash Streets opened in 1958 and was enlarged in 1966. The Chemung Hill School, opposite the water works in West Stoughton opened in 1962 and within four years required additional rooms. To better serve the families in the North Stoughton area, the North Elementary School was located off Pine Street. This school when occupied in 1970 was designed to accommodate handicapped and special needs students. The North school replaced the seventy-nine year-old Capen School at Turnpike and Page Streets which had been torn down in 1970.” Janet Clough, a long-time teacher at the Dawe told us that some of the furniture from the Capen School was in the basement of the Dawe for many years. “A year later the Gibbons School (1971) began holding classes in a Morton Street facility that is an exact copy of the North Elementary School.”
Joseph Dawe had a 44-year career in education as an elementary school teacher and administrator in Revere and Stoughton. He served as principal of the North Elementary School in Stoughton for 27 years and upon his retirement in 1996, the school was renamed in his honor. We showed our visitors a picture of the ground being cleared for the North School and learned that said picture is in their lobby.
We had a great time with the students, teachers, and parents! Needless to say, giving a comprehensive presentation to a group of more than sixty folks within a less-than-one-hour window was a challenge, but it was nice to give it a shot. Outside, near our sign with the old trolley tracks in front of them, I used a bull horn to give a quick summary of how Park St. right in front of us, had changed over the years from a tiny cart path in the early years, let’s say 1650-1720, to an actual road-street with our first small school house built near the site of our building in 1768, to the street with our building as the brand new library in 1904 and the trolleys transporting passengers to and from all points of the compass, from or to Brockton, Cobb’s Corner, Glen Echo, Mattapan, Dorchester, and beyond. One student’s question stumped me: “why did they call them trolleys?” Hmmmm.
Once inside, we had the students divide into three groups, as there were three 4th grade classes, including grandson Marshall and his mother, Nellie. It would be fanciful to say that things progressed like a well-oiled machine, but there was a lot of generally joyful humming. And then it was quiet. The group left for lunch at Faxon Park and I reminded Carrie Morrison, who with Dan Mark had been instrumental in making the event happen, that there was a Paul Revere Co. Civil War cannon there. Said cannon, like much of our history has been described over and over to a small number of people, including those of you who have read this newsletter over the years, and a great number who have no idea. Ah, the challenge of local history!
We plan to expand the Dawe School unit to include more of the Massachusett tribe at Ponkapoag and Ponkapoag Indian Plantation history. The Historical Society’s marker stone for the latter, which was placed in 1896, is now easily accessible by a newly-opened trail from Pine St. to the stone and not far beyond that, Glen Echo and the current Massachusett at Ponkapoag tribal land. Fourth
grade (and other) classes will be able to walk there in considerably less time than it takes them to walk downtown. In a previous era, Janet Clough took her classes out on such expeditions. Clearly there is support from parents to chaperone such expeditions as needed, so that is a goal for the near future. Other elementary schools have historical places close to them which could provide their walks, should they prove to be viable. Each could have a downtown visit for the math scavenger hunt, as they do now, and also a local walk.
A draft of the consultant’s report on the Gay-Hurley-McNamara barn on West St. has been received and the Historical Commission and CPC will be mulling over the various possible repairs to roof, inner beams, and floor, as well as removing all the vegetation, which now envelops the structure and removing much of the material and scrap inside the building. There are complicated determinations and decisions to be made.
Recently, we were thrilled to receive two more packages from Win Southworth, which contained the actual letters that Charles Eaton sent home during his Civil War Enlistment. Richard Fitzpatrick gives more specifics in his Archivists Report, later in the Newsletter. Since he wrote his report, he has passed along to me an invoice: “Mrs Hannah V. Eaton, To E Blake Dr, January 1861, To plugging 4 cavities with gold (for C. H. Eaton,) $4.50, Stoughton, Rec & Pay, E Blake.” By my reckoning, Charles would have been sixteen years old at the time.
Early in May, Rad Williams brought us many historical treasures, including a Charles Vermoske painting of the island on Ames Pond, 100+ year old documents from the water department, a Grenadiers drum, a painting of Swan’s Tavern and a lot of other good stuff. He says that there will be more coming.
Shortly before the Newsletter was printed, we received a package of pictures from Darlene Hayner, which were from the collection of her late husband, Gordon Hayner. A number of the pictures were of Stoughton at about the time of the 200th Anniversary in 1926, including several of the Square, Chicataubut Club, Doty’s Tavern, train station, Lucius Clapp, Andrew Capen, “the first treasurer of the Old Stoughton Musical Society,” the Universalist and Methodist Churches, and a stream that looked like one we have been trying to identify. Another picture showed a group of darkly made-up men in a variety of attire with bows, tomahawks, spears, and paddles in front of a long canoe, next to a body of water, re-enacting the presence of the Massachusetts-Ponkapoag Native-Americans. In 1926, the term “Native-American” would not have been part of the vernacular.
I posted several of the pictures on our Facebook site, and mentioned the “mystery stream,” asking for comment. We were leaning toward identifying it as the water-way that runs toward School St and Britton’s Pond, coming from the south, and looking north toward School St. Richard Fitzpatrick reminded us that the celebrations-pageant had taken place in the fields of the then recently built high school. Rich Pratt then posted two pictures from the site of the Anniversary celebration including the location of the grandstands on both sides of a long pool, the corner of the high school, an improvised replica of Doty’s Tavern that had no back walls, and many parked cars. Rich pointed out that two of the pine trees on the horizon perfectly matched the two in the mystery stream picture! Dave Foley posted two aerial views of the high school, which showed the stream running through the fields. They did not show the long pool visible in the Anniversary pictures, but they clearly showed the course of the stream, which could have been expanded as a temporary long pond for the occasion. The re-enactors in front of the canoe were apparently having their pictures taken beside this pond. Paddling was done in the pond, as it was between two sets of grandstands.
Most of these pictures are already in our files, along with detailed description of the pageant, its participants, and the schedule of events. We have the booklet for the 200th on our website and it is definitely worth a look. We may be able to identify the names of the men in the picture, including that of a man dressed as an Englishman, who is among them. I suspect that he represents John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians, who helped found the Praying Indian Plantations and translated the Bible into Algonquin. In the Pageant, John Eliot was played by Rev Thomas F. Marshall. Morton Bird (father of Forrest) played Chicataubut. Overall, there were over sixty men, women, and children cast as Native Americans in the various programs. It is impressive (and a bit daunting) just how many people were involved in the planning and participation in that 200th Celebration! Our 300th is only a few years away.
Around the Lucius Clapp Memorial – Janet Clough has been a great help letting us know what was available for free or for a reasonable price from the liquidation of Congregational Church and opening the building for us when we had things to retrieve. Among them was a LARGE screen, which now is mounted at the Lucius Clapp and our Glen Echo pictures were shown on it. Its purchase may change the plan to buy an 85” television screen. We may spend money on a higher-end projector. Assisting in the lugging of the screen, as well as two large horizontal file cabinets, a large board to connect them and several other large boards were Richard Fitzpatrick, Richard Pratt, Stew Sterling, Dan Mark, and your President. Stew Sterling has taken on the task of checking and re-cataloguing as needed, ancient books in Cabinet #85. Zachary Mandosa has continued summarizing and transcribing notes from the logs of Stoughton Fish and Game. He will receive the John Flynn Award at our dinner on June 12th. Dan Mark has read hundreds of old Stoughton newspapers and regularly passes on things of interest and value. Dave Foley has printed out our address labels and retrieved many valuable images, especially of maps and aerial photos. John Carabatsos posts many pictures and “cleans up” any photographs of which we need better copies. David Lambert has retrieved important historical records from the Congregational Church. Denise Peterson has volunteered to take on the job of Corresponding Secretary, sending thank-you notes to our donors.
Walks: We hope to schedule several other walks this Spring at yet-to-be established dates. The lady’s slippers are slow this year, but they should be out by Memorial Day. We need to make another expedition to see the old road between Easton and Stoughton, either via the new Palisades Circle-Morse-Totman Meadow trail, or the parking lot at Roche Bros. plaza. We will have another walk from the barn on West St. And then there is the new back trail to Goat Rock, Phantom Brook, and the new trail from Pine St. in to Glen Echo. The trail to Flyaway Pond in Easton has plentiful jack-in-the pulpits and continues on to the remnants of the earth-berm dam, and now can be taken another two miles west to Chickadee Lane, not far from Bay Road. Rattlesnake Hill in Sharon also awaits us. By the day of the Sunflower sale, we hope to have a supplement to the “25 Local Walks” booklet, which will include a few more trails.
Archivists Report
– Kenneth Gay, of Stoughton Donated a copy of a Stoughton Map, c. 1874, which was formerly on display in the Gibbons School.
– Win Southworth of Swannanoa, NC has donated 10 Civil War Diaries, written by Stoughton Soldier Charles H. Eaton. File No. 899.90. He has since donated a number of other items. A copy of a Glen Echo Inn Menu.
– Most recently (May 3, 2023) Two envelopes, full of personal letters etc.
o A packet of letters from Andrew J. Corey, a first cousin, during the period 1858 – 1863. o A packet of letters from Charles H. Eaton, to his family, dated 1861-1863.
o A packet of various others both to and from Chas. H Eaton, dated between 1850-1870’s. o A large number of loose letters, from a wide variety of other people, some are dated, others are not. o A small envelop with about 10 pages labeled “From Chas. Eaton’s diary. A quick look found no
dates, the same color pages as the Civil War Diaries first mentioned, However the pages are a different size. So maybe, there are other diaries still out there somewhere?
o Letters from Inez M. Eaton.
o Two versions of Eaton Genealogy.
o More letters from C. H. Eaton.
o Hanna Vose Eaton, Letters.
o School compositions by Charles H. Eaton, dated 1861
2/21 Half day spent assisting with folding and sealing the First Quarter Newsletters. 28 Several large files were delivered sometime during the last week from Town Hall. Two Large Flat files and two files for storing rolled documents. Spent the morning filing obituaries. Received a partial copy of SPURR Family Genealogy from Dave Lambert, for our files.
– 3/11 Sat. To Sharon Historical Society to meet Their Archivist, Doug Southard, and pick up a bag full of Stoughton Postcards. I have managed to go through all of them and discovered quite a few that we did not have several others that are variation of cards we already have. During this process I created a number of additional categories for use as finding aids.
– I also spent a few hours (Spread over several different days.) creating a collection of Glen Echo Postcards. Arranging all of them in one book, for display during our Glen Echo program.
– 3/21 Helped move some additional Filing cabinets from the Congregational Church to the Historical Societies Office etc.
– Stew Sterling has sorted out and refiled the contents of Cabinet # 84. Items are now refiled where the finding aid indicates they are.
– 3/28 Assisted Rich, with some of the 943 items and numbers.
– The 200 series book shelves are in need of a major re-work. Locating specific information within this series is nearly impossible
– 4/11 worked at rounding up Glen Echo material for Dwight.
– 4/13 Filed a framed Swan Tavern Print Received from Town Hall. Took several others out of frames in preparation for filing elsewhere -Richard Fitzpatrick Curator’s Report
With the assistance of Ken Beauregard, we’ve resumed the long-term project to identify and more completely record the location and particular attributes of the individual artifacts which have been donated to the Society over the past 127 years. Acquisitions: From The First Congregational Church, via John Bagloe, David Lambert has donated the 44”H x 18”W octagonal wooden Baptismal Font which was used from 1942 to 1958, when the Church was located on Pearl Street; also, the plastic Baptismal Font Cover used from 1958 to 2023 at the Pierce Street location. From Ed Ivaldi: a Memorial Bell in a 20”H wood and glass case which was presented to the First Congregation Church on 20 Nov 1983, in memory of Grace E. Ivaldi, by the Ivaldi Friends and Family; and from Denise Peterson: a vinyl I.D. Holder promotional item from the Paul C. Bissett Travel Agency. We are grateful to everyone who donated these artifacts and to Ken for his valuable assistance. ` -Richard Pratt
Clothing Curator’s Report
With the help of Ken Beauregard, we have finally stored away our bicentennial quilt, safely wrapped in linen fabric until the time we can display it again. Ken also assisted in returning the large fabric storage boxes to their proper place in the shelves in our storage area. These boxes are heavy and the shelves go to the ceiling. I greatly appreciate the work of the men who have helped. They include Dan Mark, Dick Fitzpatrick, Richard Pratt, and Stew Sterling. Denise Peterson has also helped me on a regular basis, recently. .
New items that have been donated to the clothing collection include:
3 military shirts and 1 Boy Scout shirt by Ken Beauregard
First Communion Dress by Linda Woodward
Bridesmaid gown and a prom gown that was worn by Evelyn Callanan donated by her daughter Jan Callanan Byron.
With the closing of the First Congregational Church, we have sold or passed on a number of items to the Historical Society including a large projection screen, which is now in the Jones Room, large horizontal file cabinets, and a number of large, table-top boards, one of which has created a bridge over Beaver Meadow Brook on the trail to our marker stone at Glen Echo. Three rolls of blue-prints from the construction of the church were also given to the Society. ` -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 with their fresh ideas to join us on any Tuesday from 10:00 to 3:00, on a Thursday evening from 6:00-8:00, or on the first Sunday of the month from 1:00- 3:00pm.
Memberships
New members: Heidi and Dave Hudson, Patricia DeRosa, and Janet Wiederhold
