Mar 1, 2024 Women’s History Month, 2024: At the coffee shop, I see women with beverages, children, friends, notebooks and folders, and I can’t help but imagine them in a billboard-sized group photo of all the Medfield women who have kept this town going for over 300 years. As a volunteer in Medfield’s archives, I […]
The Medfield Lyceum Gazette Read More »
Mar 1, 2024 Medfield native Nathaniel T. Allen established a cutting-edge progressive school in Newton in 1854, and in the next half century he educated some 5,000 boys and girls, rich and poor, from every state in the U.S. and dozens of foreign countries, white and black, including former slaves. Allen’s remarkable achievements were presented
Nathaniel T. Allen, Trailblazing Educator from Medfield Read More »
Mar 1, 2024 On a 70-degree, late-summer day, under fair skies in 1875, Medfield hosted a “Woman Suffragists’ Picnic” in Curtis Grove, which was once a popular day resort located at the north end of Adams Street and current West Mill Street. The picnic served as a convening of suffragettes from towns in the
Medfield “Suffragists’ Picnic” Bolstered Women’s Movement Read More »
Dec 1, 2023 The Boyden Homestead at 120 High Street (Rt. 27), near Plain Street, heading towards Walpole, has a long and varied history. It has significant historical ties to both national and local events starting with the great migration to America, the King Philip War, the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War and
The Jonathan Boyden Jr. Homestead Read More »
Nov 1, 2023 October in Medfield – it’s a magical feeling, somehow comforting and spooky at the same time. This week, my thoughts turn to our own Hannah Adams (1755-1831). I think she would have enjoyed being a contestant in the town’s Scarecrow Spooktacular contest, for it seems that she had a personal connection with
When Spirits Visited Hannah Adams Read More »
Oct 1, 2023 October is National Roller Skating Month, according to the Roller Skating Association International of Indianapolis, Indiana. – news item Roller blades, skateboards and roller skates are popular forms of entertainment that are seen on the streets, sidewalks, skate parks, and rinks all over the world. All trace their roots to Medfield and
The Medfield Inventor of the Roller Skate Read More »
Sep 1, 2023 Christina “Tinah” Levant, the daughter of Frank LeVant and his wife who were brought over on a slave ship from the east coast of Africa1, was born into slavery in 18422 on a plantation in Marion, South Carolina. Tinah’s first work as a slave began at the age of 13, when she
Christina “Tinah” LeVant Platt Read More »
Jul 30, 2023 It’s 5:00 pm on a Friday in June and you are in Medfield Center, standing at the corner of North and Main Streets. It’s eerily quiet. There are no cars, no trucks, no cement mixers clogging the intersection. One or two people saunter across the street without looking! You hear the wind
Medfield 1723 to 2023 Read More »
April 1, 2023 Portal readers of a certain vintage will recall 20 or 30 years ago a delightful annual fall fundraiser called the “Emperor Onion Fair” at the venerable Unitarian Universalist church. It begs the question, what or who was the Emperor Onion? It was not a vegetable of the genus Allium. Charles “Emperor” Onion
Mar 1, 2023 Longtime Medfield resident Tom Connors sat as a judge in three Norfolk Country district courts and then moved up to spend over 16 years in the Dedham Superior Court. Dedham courthouse has been the site of many famous trials -and it will be the site of the trial of Brian Walshe, who
The Bizarre Jason Fairbanks Murder Case of 1801 Read More »