Articles from the Portal
The Medfield Historical Society publishes a monthly newsletter, The Portal, containing articles about our events, our collections, and people and places of the distant and not-so-distant past. Below are selected articles from past newsletters. Looking for a specific topic? Use the search function below to search by subject, author or date. Click to sign up for our free monthly newsletter, The Portal.
May 2, 2023 Sane, insane, or idiotic? Temperate or intemperate? Epileptic or paralytic? Able to labor? Startling, but these were four of the boxes town hall workers were asked to fill out in the early 20th century as they made entries in the Medfield Pauper Register.The volume at hand covered the
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May 2, 2023 The c. 1780 Peregrine White clock – also known as the Morse clock – is running again, keeping good time, chiming on the hour, and even telling the date! It stands right beside the society’s front entrance. Peregrine White (1747-1834) of Woodstock Connecticut was a prominent silversmith and
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April 1, 2023 What was it like to be living in Medfield 70 years ago? Thanks to a donation by Jane and Warry Lomax of almost all the issues of the Medfield Enthusiast, edited by Joe Coan, we have been granted access to first-hand, and in some cases, quite personal, information
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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”
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April 1, 2023 The last weekend in April will be Medfield History Weekend, thanks to the efforts of Chris McCue Potts.During that time, many of Medfield’s historic sites will be open. We hope people will come to visit the historical society building at 6 Pleasant Street, right behind the library.Medfield split
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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
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Mar 1, 2023 Medfield’s first honor square, at the intersection of North, Main, and Pleasant streets, was created by a town meeting vote in 1921 in memory of Clarence Meredith Cutler. Cutler was the valedictorian at Medfield High School in 1910, a mere seven years after the Wright brothers’ first flight.
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Feb 1, 2023 From February 5 to 7, 1978, the Blizzard of ‘78 hit New England. It started later and was much more powerful than most local meteorologists had anticipated. In the preceding days, weather centers knew something was coming, but they just couldn’t make up their minds about how much.
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Feb 1, 2023 On the issue of slavery in America, one usually thinks right away about the Southern States, but as William Tilden reminds us in his “History of Medfield 1650-1886,” that in Medfield’s early history, “slavery was common with most wealthy citizens.”The earliest slaves in the then Massachusetts Bay Colony
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Jan 1, 2023 My grandfather, Joe Marcionette (1901-1991) gave us memories of the way things used to be! He was an incredible man and larger than life figure. Joe was a town selectman in the 50s and 60s, and he enjoyed the office and position immensely.He also owned the Jenny gas
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Jan 1, 2023 After the news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord reached Connecticut, and after the British had retreated back into Boston, a patriotic wave of enthusiasm swept over thousands of Connecticut minutemen, inspiring them to go and support their fellow patriots in Massachusetts.With the British penned inside Boston,
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Jan 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. At the November 7 meeting of the historical society, he spoke about little-known aspects of the evolution of our
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