Sept, 2022
This trophy awarded 100 years ago begs the question – what else happened in Medfield 100 years ago? 200 years ago? 300 years ago?
1722
Three hundred years ago, Medfield was a very different place than we see around us today, with acres of undeveloped land, free-flowing streams and rivers, paths that led through dense forests and significantly fewer houses. As is still the case today, though, there was an issue about education, and Medfield was “held to answer for not maintaining a grammar school according to law . . .” (History of the Town of Medfield Massachusetts 1650–1886, by William S. Tilden) The selectmen were Adams, Bullard, Ellis, Plimpton, names well-known to us by streets named in their memory. There were approximately 130 landowners in town, a small number of whom were women who had been widowed.
In this year, the United States of America was yet to be formed, and its inhabitants lived under British rule. Nonetheless, it produced some remarkable individuals and events. Boston’s own Samuel Adams was born on 27 September. A graduate of Harvard College, he went on to become active in the Revolution. Benjamin Franklin’s first letter from Mrs. Silence Dogood was published in the New England Courant, a Boston newspaper.
In London, Moll Flanders, a scandalous novel by Daniel Defoe, was published anonymously, and General Johnny Burgoyne, the British general who fought against us in the Revolution, was born.
In a curious set of circumstances, a statute in the colony of Pennsylvania was enacted requiring a fee of £5 for any individual who brought into the colony a person previously convicted of sodomy.
1822
It seems that this was a fairly quiet year in Medfield. Tilden reports only that the Baptist church was enlarged, the Town granted $50.00 for a “singing school,” and the Congregationalists collected $26.55 for a gentleman in Mendon whose house had been destroyed by fire.
But what was happening in the rest of the country during this time? Missouri was admitted to the Union in 1821, but a star wasn’t added to the flag until Fourth of July, 1822. Some famous people were born in this year: Harriet Tubman, a relentless adversary of slavery; Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York’s Central Park and Boston’s own Emerald Necklace, which includes the Boston Public Garden (not Gardens); Ulysses S. Grant, America’s 18th president; Matthew Brady, renowned Civil War photographer and John Jacob Astor, III, American philanthropist.
The powerful Oglala chief, Red Cloud, was born in this year and was a constant thorn in the side of the U. S. Army in the Western Territories in the 1860s.
On July 2 of this year Denmark Vesey, former slave and pastor, was hanged for plotting a slave rebellion in Charleston, South Carolina.
photo by Matthew Brady.
Hampton Park, Charleston, SC
1922
By 1922, Medfield had grown. The tax rate, per 1,000, was $28.00. The voter registration list contained 496 males and 406 females. The Harding post office was still in operation with Harriet Hotchkiss as Postmistress. There were 34 births, 39 marriages, and 17 deaths in the town and the Medfield Cooperative Bank was built at number 6 Pleasant Street, now the location of the Medfield Historical Society.
According to the Grange Massachusetts State Constitution and By-Laws, the Educational Aid Fund was established in December, 1911, with the purpose of helping “people to help themselves by loaning money and by awarding scholarships to Grange members desiring a higher education than is afforded by the high schools of the Commonwealth.”
At the same time, exciting events are happening in the rest of the world. Toronto saw the first successful treatment of diabetes conducted by Frederick Banting; in Rome a new pope, Pius XI, was elected; prohibition is the law of the land; a challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment, ensuring that women be allowed to vote, was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, while in India, Mohandas Gandhi was arrested for sedition.
Italian opera star Renata Tebaldi was born in this year as were actors Betty White, Paul Schofield, and Doris Day, musicians Charles Mingus, Carmen McCrae and Elmer Bernstein, and writers Jack Kerouac and Marcel Proust.
In Egypt, the tomb of King Tutankhamun tomb was uncovered by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvan. The world lost Alexander Graham Bell and British Explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton; Actress Lillian Russell, Journalist Nellie Bly and Lothar van Richthofen, brother of the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, WWI flying ace.
What changes will have been wrought by 2122? What might remain the same? How many of Medfield’s babies born in 2022 will bring changes affecting the entire world? Will they create a masterpiece? Win a Nobel prize? A Pulitzer? Achieve fame and fortune? Our hopes for the future lie with these little ones and their generation. We must set the best example we can.