JULY-AUG-SEPT – 2012

Upcoming Events

September 10 –6:00 P.M. Harvest Dinner at the Wales French Room of the Stoughton Public Library-  We hope to project a slide show with many pictures of the activities of the past year.   Reserve your places with the form at the end of the Newsletter. A barbecue for our members at Glen Echo, which had tentatively been considered for September 22, has been postponed until the EEE virus threat in local mosquitoes has passed.

October 6 – The 2012 Awards from the Stoughton High School Academic Hall-of Fame, a joint venture of the high school and the Historical Society will take place at Stoughton High School Auditorium.  Check local news sources for the time, which is usually mid-morning.

October 21 -2:00 P. M. – The Stoughton Serenaders under the direction of Helyn Hall will entertain us with songs from the Forties and Fifties at the Stoughton Historical Society.

President’s Report

On May 21, we held our installation of Officers at Foley’s Backstreet Grille, paying tribute to Jeanne DeVito for her years of service on the Board of Directors and also welcoming Maureen Gibbons to the Board.  An Achievement Award was presented to Mikayla Williams for her work on the Historical Coloring Book, which is now available at the Society.  Dahlia Kushinsky, who received the John Flynn Award from the Society at the Stoughton High School graduation for transcribing the Susan Clapp (Bradley) journal also attended the dinner as our guest.

We thank the many generous givers who contributed to our yard sale on June 9.  The weather cooperated, shoppers appeared, and our slightly understaffed, but ever industrious work crew sold, and sold, and sold.  By the end of the day, it was our most successful Yard Sale ever. Thanks first to Denise Peterson for the many weeks of sorting and pricing in which she was assisted by Joanne Callanan and Maureen Gibbons.  Joan Bryant’s extended family provided several car-loads of items left over from their Avon Walk for Breast Cancer Yard Sale, which we lugged into the Society’s basement on a Sunday afternoon. John and Barbara Anzivino were out of Town during the sale, but had solicited many items for us.  We also picked up many nice items from John Theriaualt and Millie Foss. Our workers included Denise Peterson, Linda Weiler, Pamela Poillucci, Brian Daley, Joe and Jeanne DeVito, Joanne Callanan, Evelyn Callanan, Maureen Gibbons and her family, the latter providing essential early muscle, Gerry and Patrick McDonald, David and Brenda Lambert, Dwight MacKerron, Joan and Jacob Bryant, Sam Spencer, Janet Clough, Helen Sears, Sandy Spector, Millie Foss, Mary Kelleher, Jack, Louise, and Elizabeth Dembrowsky, and new member David Dwiggins. Thank you one and all.

On May 8, we hosted two of Joe Bridgeforth’s ninth-grade classes: 33 students, 3 chaperones, and teacher.  We had split sessions during which half the group would be with Joe and Jeanne DeVito, Richard and Ruth Fitzpatrick and Janet Clough in the Clapp and Pierce rooms, while I spoke and showed computer projected images to the other half in the Jones room.  The students were very well-behaved, the chaperones were interested, and the teacher won the VFW Teacher-of-the Year Award, so he must be doing something right.  A number of us attended the dinner and ceremony at which Mr Bridgeforth received his award at the VFW on May 20.

On June12, we were visited by close to a hundred students, teachers, and chaperones taking part in the 4th grade math scavenger hunt.    

On June 19, Ruthie Fitzpatrick and Dwight MacKerron attended a day-long conference at the National Archives in Waltham:  “Where the Funds Are: Finding Financial Support for Records.” Alas, most of the funding is not readily available to smaller, all-volunteer societies such as ours, but we learned of a few possibilities.

O’Donnell Middle School students and teachers Caitlin Murphy and Russell Clough visited Washington DC in June and Russell Clough, Janet’s son, took pictures of the group as they visited the grave of Stoughton Civil War Pvt. Alfred Waldo at the Arlington National Cemetery.  These pictures appeared in the Stoughton Patch, where David Lambert’s articles on Waldo had previously appeared.  We plan to continue the references to Waldo as we begin commemorating the actual 150th anniversary of his enlistment and service.

Several months ago, Joe DeVito expressed his desire for the Stoughton Historical Society to have a float in the 4th of July Parade.  Joe got right to work  and arranged for the DPW to supply a large truck, and considerable time was spent in preparing the “We Honor Veterans of all Wars” theme.  Young people in the community were recruited to wear military uniforms from our collection, representing almost all branches of the military from the American Revolution to our current engagement in Afghanistan. We thank  Joe DeVito, , clothing curator Janet Clough, Evelyn Callanan and Charlie Wade, along with the Stoughton Public Works Dept which offered great assistance as well.  Also thanks to Richard Fitzpatrick, Liz Fitzpatrick, Jeanne DeVito, and Brian Daley, who assisted in  assembling the float and Brian Turner of the VFW who loaned us some of the newer uniforms and other items.

Late in June, we received an email from one Phillip Mead, seeking information on the Tilden journals.  Mr. Mead is a doctoral student in History at Harvard, and in the course of our exchanges, informed us of some valuable Revolutionary War documents, which could be found on Fold3, a historical subscription service.  A quick introductory search revealed a cache of papers from Ezra Tilden’s military pension files, including an image of the actual letter which he wrote home from Ticonderoga, informing his neighbor’s wife, that her husband, John Wadsworth, had just died of camp fever.  He sent the letter to his father, Elijah Tilden and asked him to take it over to Wadsworth’s widow and tell her in person. He refers to her several times as “Sister Wadsworth,” and we have not yet determined if she is literally his sister and therefore Elijah’s daughter, or if it is simply a term of neighborly or religious endearment.  Also present were pension application papers which included journal entries copied from a 1775 journal regarding his service on Dorchester Heights, (a journal we have never seen) and references to the other journals he kept during his lifetime after the war, all of which the family was reluctant to send along the original copies. Strangely, there seem to be no excerpts from the 1779-1781 journal, which we are about to publish, but there are letters in support of the pension application from surviving Dry Pond Revolutionary War Veterans Lemuel Smith (who walked home barefoot, after being released by the British in White Plains, New York) and  Captain Asa Waters. Nathan Drake (2) (the central figure in Sandee Lemasters’ Drake Letters from Stoughton) also writes a supporting document: “The said Tilden and his wife Sarah attended the same society for public worship for many years where I attended in said Stoughton. And I further testify and say that I well remember that in the year 1775, and believe three weeks, certainly not over four weeks, after Lexington battle April 19th 1775, a number of officers and soldiers in said Stoughton and Stoughtonham engaged, turned out, and went off into what we called the first eight months service at Roxbury, Brookline and the other neighboring towns of Boston where the enemy then lay - that I well recollect that Capt. William Briggs, Capt. Samuel Payson and Capt William Bent went into said service the time aforesaid, also, Ezra Tilden, James Allen, Ambrose Morton, Benjamin Clark and Elias Drake, all of said Stoughton in my neighborhood went into said eight months service as soldiers at the same time, and according to my best recollection, they went into this service under said Capt William Briggs,”  One of these letters includes a reference to his brother Elijah being “feeble-bodied,” unlike Ezra. At this point in time, after Ezra’s widow Sarah has died, and Ezra and Sarah’s son Abner to applying get the pension payments increased because of previously unacknowledged service. He is eventually able to retroactively collect a lump sum of $80 and a small increase in his monthly stipend.

We also found pension applications for brothers in the Native-American-“of color” Moho family, soldiers with whom Ezra Tilden marched to Claverick, New York in 1779, and another for the descendants of Jeremiah Moho, a soldier in the Continental Army (Tilden and the other Moho brothers, George, Samuel, and Asa, were in the Town/State militia) who drowned in York Pond in the 1790’s.  From these references alone, we decided that it would be worthwhile to subscribe to Fold3 for one year. It has connections to innumerable public records, but seems to be exceptionally productive with Revolutionary War pension records.

Of course, all history connects to some other history, and there are several references to Samuel Moho, the father or grandfather of some of the Moho’s listed above, in the Elijah Dunbar 1862-63 Almanac Journal, which is being transcribed by David Lambert and Roger Hall.  Samuel is mentioned when he wins a court case against a white settler, and soon thereafter, when he dies of a sudden fever.  Elijah Dunbar, in his early twenties at this time, appears to hold great respect for Samuel Moho as a Town patriarch. In the 1779-1781 journal being transcribed by Missy Petersille and Howard Hansen, Ezra Tilden often refers to Elijah Dunbar, who by the time of the Revolutionary War has become Town treasurer, usually responsible for paying the bounties and salaries of the soldiers. Rumors of another Elijah Dunbar journal existing in the bowels of the Canton Historical Society persist, and Huntoon quotes from some Dunbar journal when referring to Dunbar’s school-teaching career, but we have not yet seen said journal.

The third journal in the pipeline is that of  Stoughton schoolteacher Susan Clapp (Bradley) for which Dahlia Kushinsky has finished the initial transcription, but introduction writing and the search for more information on Susan Clapp Bradley’s teaching of freed slaves after the Civil War and her late marriage and ministry in Martha’s Vineyard remains to be done.  Joan and I did find the Susan Clapp Bradley Chapel in Oak Bluffs and took pictures, but were disappointed at the lack of information available in Oak Bluffs. The Chapel itself has obviously been closed up for some time, but one can still see a small organ inside, which was used for services. We hope that a future visit to the Edgartown Library will yield more information.

The previous reference to the death of John Wadsworth and Tilden’s letter to his widow calls forth another sad, modern connection.  After we received word from Nancy Munroe of the imminent demolition of the house at 282 Pine St., we were able to determine that some portion of the house had been built on that site c. 1790 by a member of the Wadsworth family.  Apparently, the house was not listed on the Old Houses Map of Stoughton in 1976, because it was in disrepair and the owners asked not to have it listed.  Local florist and Historical Society member/advertiser Frank Fenton recalled his childhood in that house as he and his wife Doris accompanied Nancy Munroe, Warren Dahlin, Howard Hansen, Building Inspector Tom McGrath and myself on a visit to the site, not long before the house was demolished.  He showed us a picture, which included the two large greenhouses his father had constructed parallel to Pine St., which many older Stoughton residents may recall. He realled that it was a challenge to keep the oil flowing through the pipes to get to the furnace, which heated the greenhouses., especially on the coldest winter nights, when the pipes themselves had to be warmed.  He remembered the wooden-pegged, tongue-in-groove connections of the rafters to the frame of the house, which were just above the bed in which he slept on the second floor, ancient beams, which, alas, are now lost. He recalled that the family had to spend virtually 24 hours a day during the tourist season at their flower shop out on Route 138, which at that time was one of the major routes to Buzzard’s Bay and Cape Cod.  Since they kept too many plants outside the store to bring them all in each night, at least one member of the family always had to remain during the night to guard them. Frank said that at that time Route 138 was for the most part uninhabited between the Fenton Shop, near the Canton line all the way to Ponkapoag, several miles to the north. The house at 282 Pine, which was in serious disrepair, has since been demolished and a new house will be built on the site.  It is a pity that there are not cost-effective ways to salvage certain items, when houses, which have been deemed unsafe, are now demolished with huge machines in a matter of minutes.

As the summer progressed, the potential sale of our Historic (1888) Railroad Station became a front-burner issue.  Doing research for commentary on the Train Station for this year’s Community Calendar has helped me appreciate the incredible effort put forth by Alice Petruzzo, Dorothy Woodward, and other members of the Railroad Station Restoration Committee from 1977 to 1988.  Two valuable historical articles can be found on our website at stoughtonhistory.com, but a box of records left by Alice gives even more specifics on the many fund-raising activities sponsored by the Committee. Here are a few paragraphs from the commentary on the restoration of the Railroad Station:

“….After the World War II, the continued ascension of the automobile led to decreased use of the train and a general deterioration of the station.  All its beautiful wood interior was painted over in two shades of green and a freight station had been cut into the side of the building. In 1958, rail service to North Easton was discontinued and Stoughton, once again became the end of the line.  An urban renewal plan for downtown Stoughton in the 1960’s called for the demolition of the railroad station. In response, the Stoughton Historical Society, and soon thereafter, the newly formed Stoughton Historical Commission conducted extensive research and made applications to State and Federal commissions, eventually leading to the Stoughton Railroad Station being recorded as an historic property with the Mass. Historical Commission (MHC), and on January 24, 1974, it was placed on the National Historic Register.

From 1974 to 1988 plans were made, grants acquired in order to restore the train station.  In August of 1975 crews from CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) began work, but were put on hold by the MBTA until a lease agreement could be reached. In May of 1777, the Town Manager appointed a Committee to oversee the restoration efforts; it consisted of Alice Petruzzo-Chairman, Ann Petterson, Dorothy Woodward, Earl McMann, and Marilyn Huffman.

A frustrated Alice Petruzzo was soon quoted in the Boston Globe; “(The train station is) an excellent example of the architecture of that time.  It has a beautiful fireplace inside and to my knowledge, it is the only clock tower station still standing in Massachusetts. But here I am getting old and gray, waiting for someone to sign the paper so we can start the restoration.”     By July, the lease had been signed and the first full CETA crew began exterior work.

Gants were acquired from the MHC and the Arts Lottery and some were matched by a warrant article at Town Meeting for $12,000.  During the next ten years, the building was systematically refurbished inside and out with the help of many more small grants, thousands of hours of volunteer and paid physical labor, and significant fund-raising by Stoughton Railroad Station Restoration Inc., which was formed in 1980.  Over the next seven years, the group sponsored seven Flea Markets (three with auctions,) eight Model RR shows, six Christmas shows, four Open Houses, three Truck Shows, a Rock n’ Roll dance, a Fashion show, a Craft show, a Quilt Show, and a Coffee House. (In a separate document, Alice’s records show that at total of $81,000 was expended on the Restoration, $20,000 of which came from these fund-raisers.)

On Saturday, October 1, 1988, the One Hundredth Birthday Celebration was held, which included an open house, a building rededication, and a reception.  The last sentence of the Stoughton Railroad Station Restoration Inc. page in the 100th Anniversary booklet reads, “The Stoughton Railroad Station is a historic and architectural Victorian treasure and a lasting testimony to volunteer effort at its best.”

Repairs to the front and back steps at the Historical Society are nearly completed.  The large granite steps in front have been re-aligned and re-mortared.  In the rear, the collapsing brick retaining wall has been rebuilt and topped with new granite slabs near the steps.  A new drainage pipe was put in, connecting to the dry well on the Pleasant St. side. Still remaining to be done is the replacement of the railings and the completion of the concrete floor around the drain.  Joe DeVito has been checking regularly on the extent and progress of these repairs.

Memorial Contributions

Joann and Mark Bussey in honor of Paul “Boofy” Bishop.  Chris Peduto in honor of Marie Sheehan

Archivist’s Report - Acquisitions

• Box of personal items belonging to John Theriault, Army photo album, medals, discharge papers and various other army related papers, a  glass plate neg. of Stoughton square, Donated by  Denise Peterson.
• A box of misc. items from belonging to Jane Sheehan's husband Michael. Photo of Mr. Pourery, Headmaster of Stoughton High School. From A. R. Fletcher of Braintree, MA.
• Stoughton documents, newspapers, and phone books  c. 1960's, donated by Lawrence Thomas of So. Easton.
• Box of misc. items related to 26 Pleasant St. and the Connel, Jasmin, and Batchelder families, Donated by the Jasmins.
• Two bags and a box of old town reports from Mary (Atkinson) Gateward.
• Tapes of the first twenty-five Snyder's Stoughton TV shows (four VHS tapes) to be broadcast on the local cable access channel. Also included this donation is the backdrop used for the shows. Donated by Mark Snyder.

-Richard Fitzpatrick

Ruthie Fitzpatrick writes: Most of my energies have been spent in renumbering the 300 files, which cover the schools.  When I'm finished, 300.1-50 will be various schools in town, teachers, principals, superintendents, school committee, school histories, etc.  Each class will have its own number (i.e. 300.1885, 300.1985,etc.,) and the reunions of those classes will be 350.1966, etc.  I've also helped dig up information for visitors and made a little money for the Society with the research fees on those projects.   Joshua and Mikayla Williams have been working on computerizing the card files into the Past Perfect Museum system.

Curator’s Report

I helped with the set-up for the 4th of July Parade and supplied muskets for several of the participants to carry.

Acquisitions

• -a wooden box from the Brockton Crayon and Color Company, which was located behind our building; the box was  purchased from eBay;
• -a banner from the set of the Mark Snyder television show; from Mark Snyder;
• -three packages of U.S. military M.R.E.’s given by Charlie Wade and John Theriault.

-Brian Daley

Clothing Curator’s Report

Our time in the last month has been involved in the preparations  of our float in the 4th of July parade.  On three separate occasions we tried to fit our volunteers into the various uniforms we had available for use on the float.  We had approximately 10 people representing various branches of our Armed Forces in six different wars. Following the parade, the uniforms were returned to our building.  We shared in the cleansing of those items that could be washed and sent the remainder to be dry-cleaned. All of the items that belonged to the Society have now been returned to their storage area.  All of this took several hours by four members of the Society. We feel it was time well spent to give recognition to our Service Men and to draw attention to the work of our Historical Society.

-Janet Clough

Membership

Welcome to new members: David Dwiggins, Michael Hardman, Warren Dahlin, (Life), Toni Arsenault/Jesse & Jacqueline Campbell, Mrs Sandra Jardine, (returning), and William H. O’Brien Jr.

Historical Society Publications (Member prices are for one copy only)

• NEW! Historical Coloring Book $3/M$2
• NEW!  Map of location of nine glacial boulders and ledges between Bay Road and Bird St. $3/$2
• Memories of Glen Echo $5/$3
• NEW! “Working Historical Notes on Glen Echo/York Pond…with glossy maps” $5/M$3
• The Story behind Stoughton’s Napoleons (Cannon) Model 1857 12 Pounder Guns $3/M$2
• Excerpts from the Civil War Diary and Letters of Stoughton Private Alfred Waldo   $3/M$2
• Billy White’s Field (expanded with new photos and content added) $5/M$3
• Reproduction of our History of Stoughton Time-Line Panels on glossy photo  paper $2.00 Members $1.00
• Historical Maps of the 12 (1695) and 25 (1726) Divisions $15/M10 each (a ten page booklet of commentary, free, when you buy both of these beautiful colored maps.)
•  October Stories by James Barber $13.00
• The Drake Letters from Stoughton to Strongsville  $20/M15
• “Exult O Americans and Rejoice”: The Revolutionary War Diaries of Ezra Tilden 15.00/M10.00
• A Stoughton Sampler: 1895-1995;   $15./M $10
• The Civil War Diary of Stoughton Private Alfred Waldo: $20/M$15
• Images of Stoughton,  Postcard Images of Stoughton both by David Allen Lambert - $22.00 @ M/ $20
• Booklets: Price for each copy; $3/M$2
  • A Few Farms of Dry Pond, A Walk Through the Dry Pond Neighborhood of my Youth by Ernest Gilbert
  • Pleasant Pines Farm- Frank Reynolds entries on his work at  the Capen-Reynolds Farm in the early 1900’s
• Updated color-coded trail/topo maps of the Bird St. Conservation Area - $2.00
• Large topo map(with two-foot elevation lines) of Bird St Conservation Area, showing stone-walls and lot lines - $10.00

To order by mail, add $5.00 to your total purchase.  For the large maps, add $8. The Stoughton Historical Society, Box 542, Stoughton, MA 02072