Your Monthly News & Updates | |
|
Caution... Viewers May Find Some Scenes Disturbing | |
|
I’ve been watching and replaying in my mind the excellent but exhausting six-hour Ken Burns-Lynne Novick-Sarah Botstein documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust, which ran on PBS September 19-22.
Watching it, I couldn’t get out of my mind the line, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
I ask, what’s the difference – in principle, if not always in degree?
…between Nazi thugs in Berlin rampaging through streets clobbering Jews – and Proud Boys in Charlottsville rampaging through streets shouting, “Jews will not replace us!”?
…between Nazis hosting outdoor book burnings – and the surge in the number of banned books in schools in the United States?
…between the Nazis adapting and adopting Jim Crow laws to persecute Jews – and Jim Crow laws themselves, adopted in the south after Reconstruction ended?
…between the Nazis burning the Reichstag in 1933 – and the Oath Keepers and their ilk storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021?
Your vote still counts – use it.
| |
Legacies of Lowell Mason, Medfield’s Master Musician | |
|
Monday, Oct 3
7:30 pm
First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church
26 North Street
Medfield
The Medfield Historical Society will present what promises to be a fun program entitled “Legacies of Lowell Mason, Medfield’s Master Musician” on Monday, October 3, at 7:30 pm at the old meetinghouse, aka First Parish Unitarian Church, 26 North Street. The program will include a talk and music, including one or two audience sing-alongs.
The featured speaker will be Stephen Marini, who has taught at Wellesley College since 1976. Prof. Marini, who is also a pianist and choral conductor, made a very significant donation of Lowell Mason papers, music, and memorabilia to the historical society last spring.
Lowell Mason (1792-1872), Medfield’s most famous and accomplished native son, was music director at First Parish in his youth. He went on to write some 2,000 hymns and establish the curriculum for public school music education in the United States. Today, one of the highest honors for a music teacher is to be selected as a Lowell Mason Fellow by the 130,000-member National Association for Music Education.
Prof. Marini will be assisted by Eva Kendrick, who is the current music director at First Parish. She has just discovered that she is a fifth cousin, several times removed, of Lowell Mason!
About the October 3 program, Prof. Marini says “I plan to present a number of Mason’s legacies – spiritual (his Savannah materials), educational (public music education), performance (Handel and Haydn, etc.), compositional (the hymns), and commercial (publishing and more) – to interpret him as a quintessential 19th-century Bostonian.”
The presentation is free and open to the public, of course. Please join us!
| |
|
Monday, Nov 7
7:30 pm
First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church
26 North Street
Medfield
On Monday, November 7, at 7:30 pm in the old meetinghouse, retired Judge Thomas A. Connors of Medfield will speak on the legal history of Norfolk County and its courts. Amid controversy, Norfolk split off from Suffolk county in 1793, and Medfield was initially proposed as the county seat! He will talk about some of the noteworthy cases that have been heard in the 1827 Dedham Superior Court, including Sacco-Vanzetti, the Millen-Faber Needham police officers murder trial, and the 19th century Jason Fairbanks murder trial.
Tom retired in late 2020 after serving 25 years on the bench, the first nine at Dedham District Court, followed by 16 years as a Superior Court Justice, the last six years as Regional Administrative Justice for Norfolk County.
The presentation is free and open to the public. Mark your calendar!
| |
Child's Side Saddle Donation | |
Last month the historical society received an unusual gift donation – a wicker seat, probably 100 years old, for a child to ride side saddle on a horse. The donor was Annie Lewis, who was clearing out a house and barn on North Street that once belonged to her grandfather, Arthur Lewis. Lewis was an ardent supporter of the hunt club. | |
Annie writes, “This photo was taken on the road behind my barn in August of 1950, just before I came into this world.
Fay was a little over two years old, dressed more appropriately for party and play time, even though this is what we thought of as the perfect play time. And she did have her seat belt on! We also knew that Meadowgold (Grandpa’s horse) would take care of us.
We were led around by Grandpa or Dad on the very trustworthy Meadowgold . As we graduated from the child’s side saddle, we would go out “lead line” on one of our ponies, mostly with my Grandpa on his horse Meadowgold, on the horse trails behind the barn. It was a happy time!”
| |
|
About the Norfolk Hunt Club
The Norfolk Hunt Club’s 50-acre tract at 240 North Street, Medfield, encompasses much of the land on the west side of North Street between School and Farm Streets. Once a golf course, for over a century it’s been the site of horse shows, polo matches, and most importantly, drag fox hunts, wherein the scent of a fox is spread across the ground to excite the hounds, who are then pursued by riders on horseback. Tally-ho!
On November 3, 2014, David W. Lewis, Jr., of Dover (no close relation to Annie) gave a droll and engaging account of the early history of the hunt club, which was founded in 1895. Lewis was the editor of the definitive history of the hunt club, “The Norfolk Hunt: One Hundred Years of Sport.” He’s been a member of the club for decades and was master of the hounds from 1973 to 1980.
Original members were wealthy Boston Brahmins who loved to ride early in the morning and then catch the train at Medfield’s Farm Street station to go to work in Boston. Many eventually bought summer homes in Medfield, Dover, and nearby towns. Notable among them were Dover residents Amelia Peabody (1890-1984), a sculptor-philanthropist who owned thousands of acres of farmland in Dover, and U. S. Senator Leverett Saltonstall (1892-1979), who lived on Smith Street, which runs off Farm Street.
Although the membership in the hunt club has broadened, the important traditions – love of the sport, horses, and dogs; and respect for the neighboring property owners and the environment - live on.
More on the Norfolk Hunt Club and Miss Peabody is available here.
| |
|
The Second Amendment states, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
The Grey’s coat and headgear, on a headless mannequin, were exhibited at Medfield Day. The Putnam* Greys were a Medfield militia formed on April 20, 1839. Captain Francis D. Ellis headed the company which, according to William S. Tilden, “figured as the crack military company for several years” before they disbanded in 1848. It initially consisted of 47 men (including, as musicians, Titus and Jeremiah Smith) with family names that frequently appear in town records of the time.
In the 19th century, in peacetime, there was no standing United States Army. States were required to have militias that could be called up in wartime, which first happened in the U.S. in the War of 1812. In Massachusetts and other places there were two militias: the enrolled militia, which just consisted of a list of untrained men 18-45 who could be called into service, and the volunteer militia, which trained regularly. The Massachusetts Militia Law of 1840 mandated the 1840 Massachusetts Volunteer Militia.
Even in wartime, drafts have always been controversial and have often sparked riots. In 1863, at the height of the Civil War, over 100 people were killed in the New York draft riots.
The first peacetime draft in U.S. history occurred in 1940.
*Probably named for Revolutionary War General Israel Putnam (1718-1790), a native of Danvers, Massachusetts, though he lived most of his life in Connecticut.
| |
Baxter Park and the Harwoods | |
|
Ed. note: Paul and Rebecca Harwood, who live in Oregon, visited the Medfield Historical Society August 27 and spent a couple of hours doing research.
Most residents of Medfield are likely aware of Baxter Park: a patch of green at the intersection of Routes 109 and 27, directly opposite the CVS Pharmacy. It’s home to a series of memorials commemorating Medfield residents who’ve served their country in the armed forces, dating back to the Revolution.
| |
Paul and Rebecca Harwood researching the Baxter and Harwood families. | |
Fewer people may be aware that the land for the park was donated to the town of Medfield by Willard Harwood, my great-great-grandfather; fewer still will know who he was, or his connection to the Baxter family, or possibly even the Baxter family’s place in Medfield’s history.
The first Baxter in Medfield was the Reverend Joseph Baxter (1676-1745). He graduated from Harvard College in 1693, at age 17, and was such an impressive preacher that he was called to be Medfield’s second minister in 1695. He remained in Medfield for the rest of his life, serving as minister for over 50 years.
Click here to read more >>
| |
People and Places of the Past | |
Midcentury Medfield Memories: Fishing, etc., at Kingsbury Pond | |
|
by Tim Flaherty
There was fear in the 1950s – of communist infiltrators, of the H-bomb, of mutations caused by radiation and of science.
On the humanistic level of how people treated others, there was sometimes the loss of dignity and sensitivity. More precisely, there was a fair amount of bullying taking place either physically or via intimidation. Back then, that humiliation was a fact of life that went unspoken and at times unsolved.
That type of domineering from the 1950s and 1960s toward victimized people has remained with us right up to the present. Some young teenagers convey this destructive action through what is now called online bullying. There is also the behavior called body shaming. The instigators of this action have caused some of the young recipients to be emotionally depressed and even suicidal.
That same physical aggression towards others perceived to be vulnerable can take place on any school playground. Likewise, it can take place in many other venues of our society where the strong can take advantage of the more passive. That enigma has sometimes been demonstrated in an idyllic setting of Medfield and surrounding communities. Now let’s journey in time and reflect on what could have been possible in the small town of Medfield’s history.
| |
Children swimming in Kingsbury Pond in the same era as this story takes place. | |
Kingsbury Pond in the fall. | |
|
It was nearing the end of summer in late August in the year of 1954, just within days before Hurricane Carol made landfall and descended upon Massachusetts.
Young Steve Mendez, Bernie Flynn, and Harry Bloomfield planned to go fishing in the warm afternoon sun on Kingsbury’s Pond. Around noon, Steve waited for them to arrive at his parents’ house on Curve Street, enjoying his perfect view of the entire pond. Steve was dressed in his worn-out white PF Flyer sneakers, faded blue jeans, and a yellow T-shirt that had the words, Cape Cod blazoned in big red letters across the front. His fly rod fishing pole ready for action.
With the sun in the afternoon sky, Steve’s friends were nonchalantly coming down Curve Street. First to arrive was Bernie, dressed in a gray athletic T-shirt and blue Bermuda shorts, and white boat shoes. His fiber glass fishing pole was in his right hand, and his buck knife was in its sheath at his left side. Harry brought up the rear, in a tight-fitting plaid short-sleeve shirt and navy-blue jeans with black and white Keds.
“Welcome to my humble abode! Hey, Bernie, you brought the night crawlers, didn’t you?”
Click here to read more >>
| | | | | |
