OCT-NOV-DEC – 2013

Upcoming Events

December 7  3:00 PM – 6:00 PM – Holiday Parade and Open House at the Historical Society during which we will be selling our publications, maps, t-shirts etc. for your edification and Holiday shopping.  In the last seven years, we have discovered and published some fascinating slices of Stoughton’s history from the primary sources in our archives. Most of these publications and maps can be purchased ONLY from us. See the complete list later in the Newsletter.

December 7  8:00 P.M. Old Stoughton Musical Society Christmas Concert at the Historical Society.

President’s Report

Apologies for the tardiness of this Newsletter, but events at the Society and the recent editing and publication of the Elijah Dunbar diaries and the related program have occupied us.

On September 16, we held our annual Harvest Dinner at the Wales French Room of the Stoughton Public Library.  After eating a bountiful dinner orchestrated by Joan Bryant and Bertucci’s, we bestowed the Jack Sidebottom Service Award upon the Historical Society’s first secretary, Amelia Clifton (posthumously) and our previous President Joe DeVito, who is very much alive and with us after recently celebrating his 87th birthday!  Miss Clifton was elected Secretary of the Society at its inception in 1895 and served continuously for the next twenty-six years!   Joe DeVito served as President at a crucial time in our history, but it is for his dedicated and faithful service since leaving the presidency, that brought him this award.  Presenting the Award was Jack’s widow, Norma Sidebottom. Also present were former Sidebottom Award winners, Hank Herbowy, Evelyn Callanan, Joan Atherton O’Hare, Mary Kelleher, and Jeanne DeVito.

On a sadder note, one of the first Sidebottom Award winners, Emily Guertin, passed away in Vermont in October.  For many years, Emily served as one of our clothing curators and before that sewed uniforms for the Stoughton Grenadiers, of which her husband, Frank, was a member. Emily was such an intelligent, well-rounded lady with whom I had many wonderful conversations about nature, travel, birds, wildlife, gardening, and life. Emily’s family asked that donations be made to the Stoughton Historical Society and we have received many contributions.  As fate would have it, an 1837 “storage box” of the Stoughton Grenadiers was being auctioned off at Skinner’s and there were sufficient contributions to Emily’s memory  to pay for the purchase of this box, which is inscribed “Stoughton Grenadiers Presented by Abner Drake & Nathanl Capen 1837.”  We will place a plaque near this box with a dedication to Emily and have a program early in 2014 to dedicate the box, celebrate Emily’s life, and history of the Stoughton Grenadiers, including their last re-incarnation at the Town’s 250th.

On September 21, we had a table at the Stoughton Farmers Market, compliments of Teresa Tapper and Pam Carr.   Janet Clough performed essential preparation work and helped out at the tables along with Brian Daley, Richard and Ruth Fitzpatrick, and me.  Eric and Karen Dropps supplied us with their canvas gazebo, which sheltered us from the hot sun and was kept from blowing away by weight belts supplied by Teresa Tapper.  We sold a number of our publications and decorative gourds from my garden; we also picked up FOUR new members.

Our yard sale in September was worth all the items and effort, contributed by many of you.  We picked up several truckloads of items left over from our daughters’ yard sale in Sharon to benefit the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and added scores of items contributed by our members and others. Denise Peterson, ably assisted by Joanne Callanan, handled the sorting and pricing of the items.  On the day of the sale the following stepped forward to assist: Denise Peterson, Joanne Callanan, Maureen, Jim, Scott, and Mark Gibbons Terry Brens, Jacob Bryant, Evelyn Callanan, Joe and Jeanne DeVito, Brian Daley, Karen and Eric Dropps, Steve O’Brien, Mary Kelleher, Carrie Sievers, Louise Dembrowsky, Pam Poillucci, Teresa Camara, Maria Jardin, Loretta Martins, Dwight Mac Kerron, Millie Foss, Linda Woodward, Ralph and Janet Clough, Helen Sears, Vin and Marcia Drago, Hank Herbowy, Matt Orell, and David Griffin.  Sincere apologies to anyone I missed.

Near the end of the day, Mr Stephen Prone appeared and made a $1000 donation from the Prone Foundation, for which we are very grateful.  We later received a donation of $500 from Mr

Clifton Sawyer, which we have used to purchase a new signboard, (now displaying messages near our front door) and will apply much of the rest of both donations toward purchasing a new laptop computer for the Society. Thank you Mr. Prone and Mr Sawyer!

September also saw the first installment of David Lambert’s program on SMAC (our local cable tv) “The Stoughton Time Machine.”  David’s first program covered the Hurricane of 1938 and the State Theater; his guests from the Historical Society included Joe DeVito, Evelyn Callanan, Brian Daley, and me.  Joe DeVito made another appearance in November for a program on Stoughton Veterans.   In October, David Lambert also gave a well-attended program at the Historical Society in which he presented pictures from his Facebook site “The Stoughton Time Machine.”  This is the first time, I believe, that we have given a presentation from an active, online site.  John Carabatsos has also made a number of contributions to this site, from his extensive collection of pictures and has generously offered to digitize more of the Society’s archives.

Karen Dropps, who has been working steadily on transcribing the Capen memorandum books gives us an update on Adam Capen Jr.:   “Newest things to report: First he has built a new house!  Though he never says where it is located, through some research, maps etc., it may have been on Walnut St. near where Lincoln St. ends.  The house takes all of 1884, and he also builds a barn as well.  Both barn and house have full cellars, and there is also a shed, and privy.

Other developments; he goes on a trip in October 1886 to visit family in the Chicago area. While there he goes apple picking, to the cemetery and spends time with Elijah, who may be Eljjah Belcher, in the family of his first step-mother.  Here are his entries from that time:

6.  Went to Rochester N.Y. (fair)  7.Went from Rochester to Chicago by Niagara Falls  (fair)

8.Arrived at Chicago at 8 o’clock  A.M. + at Farm Ridge at 5P.M. (fair)  9.Visited the cemetery where Charles W. Belcher was buried and rode over the Vermillion River with Elijah, Robert taken down sick (fair)  10.At Elijah’s (fair) 11.Went with Elijah picking apples (fair) 12.Went to Streator with apples (fair) 13.Went to Deer Park on the Vermillion River (fair)  14.(Hard wind + rain storm) 15.Went to Grand Ridge with Clinton, saw Mrs. Belcher, Bayard + Lillie, in the afternoon went to see Mr. Mills horses (fair) 16.Went to Streator in the afternoon, saw the coal shafts + glass blowers (fair)  17.At Elijah’s (fair) 18.Went from Elijah’s to Chicago (fair) 19.Went from Chicago to Cleveland (fair) 20.Went from Cleveland to, Arrived at Ashtabula at 10-30 AM, Eerie PA at 12 noon, Dunkirk at 1 ½ PM, Buffalo at 3 ½ PM, Rochester NY, 6 PM, Furacun (?) 9 PM, Utica 11 PM (fair)  21.Arrived at Albany at 2 AM, Springfield 6 AM, Boston 9 ½ AM, and got home at 1 PM.

That is all for now, more updates next time.   -Karen Dropps.”

We are excited that Karen found an 1865 picture of the Elisha Capen house at the corner of Central and Turnpike Streets.  At the time, the house was considerably larger than the current Elisha Capen house and was set back further from the street.  This group photo includes many individuals whose names are listed on the back, including Mary Waldo, the mother of Pvt Edward Alfred Waldo, who had been killed in the Civil War the year before, and whose diary we have published.  Unfortunately, the identifications are not listed in a way that currently permits us to determine which of the many women in the photo is Mary Waldo.  Also of great interest is the view of the beginning of the excavation for the railroad cut, visible to the left of the picture, and the reason the house was soon demolished.  The replacement, smaller house, which now stands on that lot, is now a safe distance from the deep, abandoned, railroad bed well below Central St at that point.  As we have noted previously, when the railroad was in operation from Stoughton Junction to Randolph-Braintree, there was a double bridge on both Turnpike and Central Streets, where the railroad passed beneath them.  The bridges were filled in more than half a century ago, and the deep rail cut heading toward Randolph now appears to begin on the east side of Central St.  We are still searching for any picture, which would show those bridges from track level.

On November 11, the judging of the entries (on tape) for the VFW’s  Voice of Democracy Contest took place at the Society.  Participating judges were Joe and Jeanne DeVito, Brian Daley, Ruth Fitzpatrick, Faith Crandall, and Joan Bryant.  First, second, and third place winners were determined and will be announced at a later date.

On November 17th, we met jointly with the (well represented) Canton Historical Society to introduce and celebrate the publication of  “A Man for All Seasons,” the Elijah Dunbar Almanac Diaries of 1762-3 and 1806, which was made possible by grants from both the Canton and Stoughton Cultural Councils. In the future, the Canton Historical Society will assist us in creating an index for the diaries.  The following are excerpts from the Acknowledgments and Introduction:

Acknowledgments

Stoughton Historical Society Vice-President and webmaster David Allen Lambert contributed the transcription, and much of the formatting and notes for the 1762-3 entries and most of content for the Dunbar genealogy.  He also compiled the Dunbar journal excerpts from Daniel T.V. Huntoon’s, History of the Town of Canton, Norfolk County, Massachusetts (1893) and previously had scanned other quoted chapters from this book onto the Stoughton Historical Society website.   Stoughton historian and musicologist, Roger Hall, who originally suggested the publication of the 1762-3 diaries in order to coincide with the 250th anniversary of recorded singing groups in Stoughton, wrote the essay on Elijah Dunbar’s contributions to the development of the first singing groups in Stoughton and the Stoughton Musical Society and provided information on Dunbar’s role as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1788.  The Canton Historical Society and President Wally Gibbs made available from their archives the 1806 Dunbar diary.  Stoughton Historical Society President Dwight MacKerron, applied for the Cultural Council grants from Stoughton and Canton, photographed the diaries from the archives of the Stoughton Historical Society and Canton Historical Society, transcribed the 1806 diary, added editor’s notes in parentheses for all of the diaries, and wrote the introduction. The journals are recounted in the present tense as if one were discussing a work of literature.  Apologies in advance for the inevitable errors of omission and commission in this first edition, which moves us another small step forward in our study of the life and times Elijah Dunbar, and his journals, but hardly concludes it.

Introduction

More than 250 years ago, Elijah Dunbar, twenty-two years-old and recently graduated from Harvard College kept a diary with pen and ink on the blank pages of an Almanac, produced and published by Nathaniel Ames.  Dunbar may have begun keeping a diary earlier, but if so, those diaries like many of the ones he would write in subsequent years have been lost.  For reasons that still remain unclear, during most of the last one hundred years, the two early diaries were thought to have been written by Captain Samuel Talbot, who began singing with Elijah Dunbar in 1762.  One source describes the diaries as having been in the possession of Samuel Talbot’s descendant, Alice Talbot, who supposedly identified them as her great-great-father’s.  In any case, the diaries apparently had been read primarily for the dates of singing meetings mentioned therein, but not for the rest of their contents, since they always refer to Capt. Talbot in the third person and clearly record the writer’s marriage to one Sarah Hunt, the woman Elijah Dunbar married in 1762.

Now that the two diaries of 1762 and 1763 have been properly identified and a third one from 1806 located in the archives of the Canton Historical Society, it possible to compare the life and writings of the 22 year-old, pre-Revolutionary War Elijah Dunbar, who is getting married and beginning a family in a Town called Stoughton in Suffolk County under the British Crown to those of the 66-year-old father of seven, who still lives in the same place, but now a Town called Canton in Norfolk County in the United States of America.By 1806, Elijah Dunbar had been a moving force in the creation of the new country, the new county and the new town and had also been instrumental in the naming of the latter.

Elijah Dunbar was "A Man for All Seasons:" a Harvard grad, farmer, lumberman, school teacher, mathematician of sorts, especially interested in astronomy, surveyor, singer and singing leader, lawyer, town treasurer during the Revolutionary War, selectman, moderator, town representative at the Massachusetts and Federal Constitutional conventions, founder of his town’s first library, and head deacon of the First Parish church for forty years.  No man influenced this era of Stoughton-Canton history more than Elijah Dunbar.  

After graduating from Harvard in 1760, and just before his twentieth birthday, Elijah Dunbar returned to his father’s home in Stoughton.  In History of the Town of Canton, Daniel T. V. Huntoon reports that he began teaching school in the town in 1760.  Elijah was the youngest child of the Rev. Samuel Dunbar, the only Minister for all of Old Stoughton, (all of the current Canton, Stoughton, Avon, Sharon, and half of Foxborough) from 1727 to 1740.  During the latter year, Precinct II (now Sharon) came into existence by petitioning the General Court, building its own meetinghouse, and hiring a minister, Rev Phillip Curtis. Precinct III (now Stoughton) did likewise in 1744, choosing for their minister the Rev. Jedediah Adams.

Rev. Samuel Dunbar would continue as the minister of the First Precinct until his death in 1783, a remarkable service of 56 years!  His first wife, and mother of his four children, Hannah Danforth Dunbar died when Elijah was six years old.  Her family, the Danforths of Dorchester, acquired extensive land-holdings in western Massachusetts, and from them, Elijah Dunbar would eventually acquire a large tract of land for small services rendered. After Hannah Danforth died in 1746, Rev. Samuel married a second wife, Experience Woodward, who died in 1750, the same year Rev Dunbar accompanied a local company of troops on the long march to Crown Point on the northwest shore of Lake Champlain to serve as their chaplain. His third wife was Mercy Pierce, who would have been in the household when Elijah writes his early diaries.  Elijah names his first child after Mercy, who died in 1777, and his last daughter after his biological mother, Hannah

One of the first entries in Elijah Dunbar’s 1762 journal records that he concluded teaching the school in ‘Mr Coney’s Corner” on January 9 and “John Coney comes home with me,” possibly returning Elijah to his home.  The report of one of the town meetings in 1762 indicates that Samuel Coney’s land was near Moose Hill in the Second Parish, now Sharon.  Two days later, Elijah opens “the Grammar School in the Third Parish (now the Town of Stoughton) kept at the Widow Talbot’s. During the six-week school term, he boards with Rev Jedediah Adams, the minister of the Third Parish.  The school begins with few scholars, and by the end of the week he is brooding: “very few Schollars – no news - & To day after day – week after week - & year after year passes away & an awful Eternity is Swiftly advancing[g]” but suddenly, at the beginning of the second week, he announces, “full school.”

Young Dunbar socializes considerably during his sojourn in Precinct III, playing checkers with his host, Rev. Jedediah Adams on a board Dunbar makes.  He records and presumably helps celebrate the birthday of Rev. Adams, who turns 51 and his wife, who turns 44 during the time Elijah boards with them.  He and Rev. Adams also entertain a number of guests: Dr. Joseph Hewins, who is chosen Town Moderator and treasurer in March, Christopher Wadsworth and wife, Mr. E. Talbot at whose house he also dines, Samuel Bird, Daniel Bacon, and Solomon Cummons/Cummings?  Another guest is Mr Robert Capen and wife, whose home he also visits “we Sup’d on a P(l)umb Pudding & a roast Goose, Apple pye &c  Dr: Atherton & wife were there: we were very well treated,” Singing meetings later in the year will held at Robert Capen’s house as singing is one of Elijah’s passions.  Samuel Dickerman visits and with whom Elijah has “very good singing.  He drinks tea with the Widow Talbot at whose house his school is kept, but he usually returns home on Sundays to attend his father’s church, on many Sundays writing, “Sab. Pater preach’d.”

Although Elijah does not comment specifically on the ending of the school in Precinct III, he begins a new session back in Precinct I on Feb. 22.  During the next month, he writes of a Town Meeting, the men chosen for town office, and a blizzard, which leaves four to five feet of snow, cutting off travel and causing cattle to starve.  By March 26, warmer weather has arrived: “fair Snow go off considerably – but it is a distressing time.”

There is considerably more drama and emotion expressed in the diary in the year 1762 than in 1763 or 1806.  There are traumatic events, droughts and accidental deaths in this year, such as young Isaac Fenno’s falling to his death on Oct 6, in front of the assembled crowd of helpers, while attempting to guide into place the church steeple, which was suspended from a primitive crane.   Although it is likely that Elijah being a young man at a more challenging stage of his life, frames his actions and moods more dramatically than he will do forty-four years later, it is also apparent that life was more of a struggle for all of Stoughton’s inhabitants in 1762 when they were in the second year of a terrible drought.  In a community supported almost entirely by what it could grow, severe droughts were of biblical proportions and evoked biblical responses.  Dunbar mentions the drought in eleven entries, including four referring to Fast Days, days of prayer, and one of his father’s sermons in response to the drought. Their fasting and prayers are finally answered in mid-August, when normal rainfall returns.

There is also drama in the betrothal of Elijah’s sister Mehetable to the Rev. Mr Searls

of Stoneham. The Rev. Searls preached in Stoughton several times earlier in the year and then visits a number of times, apparently courting Mehetable. A few days before the  marriage is published, there is an emotional outburst in the diary, rebuking Mr Searls for his apparent forward and/or recalcitrant behavior:

“If Mr Searl was of my Kidney, as the matter is now agreed on between him & my Daughter would not I stand Shilly Shally but be married & above with it, then he would come to see his wife, might go to bed to her, lie on her side all night & take his fill of Love, as I did with your mother & wish you my dear Soul. [more text crossed out].

This strange entry reads as if it had been written from the point of view of Rev. Samuel Dunbar, Elijah’s father, referencing his daughter, Mehetable and Mr Searls’ pre-nuptial Behavior: “…my daughter,” “…your mother,” and “…wish you my dear Soul.”  But since the hand writing appears to be Elijah’s, it is a puzzling entry.  For whatever reason, he may be writing in his father’s real, desired, or imagined voice, possibly repeating something his father said.   A few days later, the marriage is published, and takes place within a month.  The celebration includes an extensive singing presentation and Elijah’s written admiration thereof reflects the passion which he will hold for music the rest of his life:

“Sept. 7  This day before Dinner – Mr Serl & my Sister were married – those present were: Mr Adams & wife, Mr. Curtis – Mr. Robins – Mr. Taft – Mr Wibird & Mr Haven – after Dinner came on the famous Singing Lecture the whole exercise performed by Mr Robbin in this Manner – a Short prayer - & then Sung mear tune (See Roger Hall’s essay on the music of the time.  Ed.) – a Long prayer – then Quercy – the Sermon, then Colchester New – a prayer, then Wantage – then concluded – the Singing  was carried on with great Order, Dignity & Harmony on this Occasion there was a very Large Brilliant Asembly.

Stoughton Historical Society Publications: Christmas 2013

Maps

• *(New!) 1793 & 1835 Maps to accompany the Dunbar Diaries  $5/$3
• Aerial views of 800Y squares in Stoughton in 1953 $10/ Members$5
• Color-coded trail/topo maps of the Bird St. Conservation Area $2/$1
• *Large topo map of Bird St Cons. Area, with stone walls and lot lines $10/8
• Topo map of Bird St to Bay Road with glacial boulders marked  $3/2  
• *Beautiful, color Maps of the 12 (1695) and 25 (1725) Divisions $15@/$10@  (free booklet with purchase of both)

BOOKS

• (New!) A Man for All Seasons; 1762-3 & 1806 Diaries of Elijah Dunbar $10/$7
• The Revolutionary War Diaries of Stoughton’s Ezra Tilden $15/$10  
• The Drake Letters from Stoughton to Strongsville  Ed. by Sandee LeMasters $20/15
• The Civil War Diary of Stoughton Pvt. Alfred Waldo $20/$15
• The Civil War Diary Of Stoughton Pvt. Charles Eaton  $5/$3
• Images of Stoughton by David A Lambert - $20/18  
• Postcard Images of Stoughton by David A. Lambert $22/$20
• October Stories by Jim Barber   $13
• Postcard History of Norfolk County, Massachusetts $40/$35
• Booklets:
  • Commentary on our ancient maps $8/$5 (free with purchase of both maps), Glen Echo Park: Commentary, Pictures, and Recollections $5/$3
  • The Stoughton Songster, Music in Stoughton, The  Story Behind Stoughton’s Napoleons (cannon)The History of Education in Stoughton, Dry Pond Farms,  “Strolling Around the Dry Pond District of My Boyhood Days” by Ernest Gilbert, Billy White’s Field, Farming at Capen-Reynolds, The Hodges Tavern-Store on Bay Road $3/$2@   Town of Stoughton Coloring Book $2, Color Stoughton History Time-Line $1 Farming in Stoughton in 1850 $1
  • Illustrated Community Calendar Commentary on Gay Cotton Manuf. Company (1813), West Street, Bird Street Conserv. Area.  Stoughton RR Station $2/$1@  
• 1928 Stoughton Maxim Fire Engine # 2 T-shirts - $10.00
  • These items may be purchased by mail.  Send your check to Stoughton Historical Society, Box 542, Stoughton MA 02072  Include $4 for postage for books and $5 for large maps.(*)

Archivist’s Report

We provided copies of research on Isaac Stearns family from Vital Records to 1850.  We received a Bible circa. 1846, which contained genealogy information on Robert Erskine of Stoughton, who married Joanna W(h)itmarsh of So. Abington in 1840; donated by Richard Bancroft of Hanover, MA, who found it at the Hanover landfill swap shop. We assisted Carolyn Holmes and several boy scouts from Troop 88, who were studying genealogy resources for a merit badge.  Other Donations: ledgers from the Lithuanian Club/Association and high school pictures from Judy Getchell; a library card and envelope circa 1985-90 from Liz Fitzpatrick; a hand-written copy of Helen Lutted’s memoirs, “Long Ago and Far Away” from Helen Sears; a Charles Vermoskie painting of Stoughton boxer Micky Bishop and a memorial plaque for Billy Joyce, a Marine, who lost his life in Vietnam from Joseph Macaluso.  We made multiple copies of a Randolph Civil War Diary for future use and reference.  We did research on Camp W(h)ispering Willows and the Stoughton Grenadiers storage box, which was recently purchased at Skinner’s Auction.  We also visited the Canton Historical Society to inspect display cases they have offered to us. - Richard Fitzpatrick

Curator’s Report - Donations

A pewter spoon set commemorating Stoughton’s 250th from Peggy Gray daughter of Mamie Gray, a former select woman of Stoughton; a spoon rack, a brass chestnut roaster, a branding iron a cranberry scoop and a wood and metal shuttle from Millie Foss; a wooden block puzzle from Wentworth Novelty Shop, a medicine box from Cobb the Druggist, a Civil Defense helmet, and a Shawmut Woolen Mill button from Carrie Seivers; an antique doll and crib from Pat Wessling.

We recently purchased at a Skinner’s auction an antique storage box from the Stoughton Grenadiers with the inscription of “Nathaniel Capen and Abner Drake – 1837.”  The Grenadiers evolved from the West Company Militia, which was formed in 1774. On Feb. 9, 1822, the West Company was honorably retired as a militia and reactivated, upon voluntary enlistment of forty-five new members, as the Stoughton Grenadiers, attached to the Third Regiment of Light Infantry, Massachusetts Militia.   –Brian Daley

Contributions in memory of John Theriault; Joe and Jeanne DeVito, Chris Peduto Contributions in memory of Emily Guertin:  Mary Kelleher, Ruth MacDonald, Joe and Jeanne deVito, Chris Peduto, Betty Owens, Evelyn Callanan, Eliann Strug, William Bartels, Betty Owens, Easton Garden Club, Dwight Mac Kerron

New Members –Peter Gay, Loretta Martins, Bill Murphy, Jane Meunier Powell,  Bonnie Jean Molin, Michelle Mattingly, Marjorie Barret, Shirley Lindberg, and Stephen Prone (Lifetime.)