In addition to the useful information mentioned above, you can also find a compendium of names that were common in the 18th century but now bring a smile to our faces.

Noteworthy examples: Thankful Clark, Thankful Penniman, Silence Fisher, Silence Lovell, Experience Morse, Experience Wheeler, Czarina Plimpton, Alone Smith (buried next to her husband Henry).

Several grave markers contain probable spelling errors for all time, such as Sibbel Plimpton, on whose grave appears this epigram:

prepare for death, and follow me.

Vine Lake Cemetery is one of more than a hundred cemeteries in the United States using a new mobile application and website enhancement. This mobile application maps each gravesite on satellite maps, and offers walking tours of landmarks throughout the cemetery. Choose among a number of Walking Tours.

Click here to learn more about these walking tours or on the image to the right to connect to the app, which can be accessed on your desktop or mobile device.

Cheers!

Our board of curators is a diverse group of people who are enthusiastic about Medfield and its history. We need to fill a couple of vacancies with people who share this interest and can complement the people now in place.

We especially welcome people with expertise in programs, membership, development, collections processing, and/or historical research, but your interest in and passion for Medfield and its history is first and foremost.

You should have at least five hours per month to give to the society for helping visitors with research on a Saturday morning, helping with society presentations and events, assisting with collections and accessions, attending board meetings, etc. Interested? Send us an email.

 

In addition, the society is looking for people to write occasional short articles (with photos, we hope) for The Portal, our on-line newsletter. The articles should relate to Medfield people, events, and/or history, but beyond that, the subject is wide open.  

Maybe you’re from an old Medfield family with interesting ancestors that we don’t know much about? Maybe you’ve found some interesting artifact while you were digging in your garden? Maybe you have some new dirt on an old, forgotten scandal? Maybe you noticed this is the anniversary of a significant Medfield event? Maybe someone you went to school with in Medfield has moved away and has done something notable?

If you’re thinking about writing an article but are not sure it’s appropriate, please send an email of inquiry.

This is your historical society. We need your input to make it better.  

It doesn’t look like much now: the embryonic replacement building on East Main Street next to the Peak House – site of the circa 1740 Clark tavern.  But progress has set in, and where possible in the construction some of the old wooden beams are being reused to good effect.

The saga of the historic but badly rundown Clark tavern began with the death of owner Lorraine Laverty in 2007, a time of major financial turmoil worldwide.

Several years later a proposal to restore it and reuse it as a tavern/bed & breakfast won widespread support of townspeople – but a few neighbors were able to scuttle the project by filing objections, one after another after another in court, so the Linnerts finally gave up. 

Next, a proposal for a large Alzheimer residential facility drew so much local opposition that the developer gave up.

In early 2020 Dave and Rob MacCready, long established as builders and developers in Medfield, presented their proposal. They’d restore and relocate the tavern on the land in order to create space for two more buildings that would add up to five residential units of around 2,000 square feet each. The additional buildings were necessary to make the project financially viable. The MacCreadys received the necessary town government approvals, and everything looked great. 

However, they had to backtrack when Dave announced that on further examination, the tavern was too rickety to survive a move – he would have to disassemble the tavern, save and reuse what wood was salvageable, and, using mostly new material, build a replica. It was a disappointment to all, but it seemed like the best option to most – so that’s the direction of the project.

For example, once the tavern had a festive ballroom with a curved ceiling. In a winter storm in 2021 a large tree bough crashed through the roof, as shown in the picture above. But the MacCreadys were able to salvage and reuse in a decorative, not structural, way, four of the five oak beams that are upwards of 300 years old. 

As work progresses, they plan to continue using as much of the old timbers as possible to enhance the look and value of the five new housing units. They expect to have the entire project completed by early 2023.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places* in 1976, First Parish Church on North Street is of course a familiar Medfield landmark. It is the third building erected on the site by colonists who settled on what was the ancestral land of the Wampanoags. The first was put up in 1652; the second in 1706, and the present building in 1789. 

The front of the meetinghouse building originally faced North Street until 1839, when it was rotated 90 degrees to face Main Street. It was then raised about six feet to accommodate the Greek Revival “temple-front” design, complete with wide stairs, portico, columns, and cornice – an expensive renovation. The Greek Revival style was a popular expression of the democratic ideal that was coming to fruition in the first half-century of the new nation.

(Another factor contributing to raising the church six feet may have been the prospect of renting part of the newly-created basement; in that era some other New England churches did so to help make up for government support lost as the wall between church and state stiffened in the early 19th century.)

In those days, selling pews was a common way to help finance a church. At the historical society is a deed showing that in 1839 Nathan Wight paid $66 ($2,000 in today’s money) for pew #44, which became the property of him and his heirs. First Parish church records (not at the historical society) include other pew deeds, transfers of pew ownership back to the church, and pew taxes paid as late as the 1950s. However, pew ownership and taxes were eliminated in the new Articles of Government adopted May 11, 1960, when the Unitarian and Universalist churches merged. 

In 2022, with church membership and attendance on the decline nationwide…a mobile population…and an egalitarian approach to church seating…selling pews (reserved only for their owner’s use) seems like a bizarre obstacle put in the way of someone who wishes to attend the service.  

Here’s what Wikipedia says about the practice that developed after the Protestant Reformation:

The National Register of Historic Places* includes at least six structures designed by William Pitt Wentworth in the late 19th century, including, of course, what we know as Medfield State Hospital. Although there are thousands of photos of the hospital buildings, there appears to be no photo of Wentworth anywhere. 

What we do have, however, is Wentworth’s 1892 sketch: Bird’s Eye View, Proposed Asylum for Chronic Insane, Medfield, Mass., W. P. Wentworth, Arch’t, Boston, Mass. This turned out to be the last major project of Wentworth’s career.

Wentworth’s 1892 sketch: Bird’s Eye View, Proposed Asylum for Chronic Insane, Medfield, Mass.,

Previous hospitals had been designed according to the Kirkbride Plan, which characteristically had one large central building, with corridors connecting sometimes dozens of subordinate buildings, so one could walk a multi-acre complex without stepping outdoors.