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 1, 2021 Farmers from Dedham first settled Medfield in 1949, only 29 years after the Mayflower landed. The colony had grown rapidly through immigration and reproduction after 1630, and in William S. Tilden’s History of Medfield, the population was reported as 18,000 in 1643. The influx forced settlers to look
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May 1, 2021 Every Man a Hero is an engrossing new memoir by 98-year-old Ray Lambert, an Army medic who landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day…before the fighting men got there!I have read many good books about World War II, but what makes Every Man a Hero unique for me
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April 1, 2021 Serendipity is a curious thing.While setting final plans to visit the Berkshires, I received an email telling me of “talk” on Facebook about one Israel Bissell, an American patriot who, like Paul Revere, was a post rider during the American Revolution, but performed a much more impressive, yet
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Mar 1, 2021 In these COVID-19 times, we often hear of food shortages. It’s especially troubling when the shortage involves children who haven’t been able to go to school, where in some cases they get their best meal of the day. Unfortunately, there’s nothing new about food shortages for the
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Feb 1, 2021 I’m excited to be writing my first article as a “newer” member of the community. My family and I moved to Medfield five years ago from Richmond, Virginia and have really enjoyed getting to experience all the wonderful things that make Medfield special – one of which is
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Jan 4, 2021 Who can deny the appeal and tradition of a big, beautiful Spanish piñata? They come in mostly all bright colors and sizes, the most popular being a colorful donkey. The idea behind the fun of the piñata is to fill it with chocolate and other candies and popcorn
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Nov 1, 2020 “Medfield is holy ground to me”Nicolai Cikovsky, Curator of American and British Painting, The National Gallery of ArtCikovsky wrote these words in a letter accepting the invitation of Medfield’s library trustees to visit Medfield, and to speak about some of his great enthusiasms: 19th Century American landscape painting and
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Oct 1, 2020 When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, there was a young kid named Harry who was pretty good at finding ways to make money in Medfield. Grace Roberts was an elderly neighbor of his who lived on the left side of the two-family house at
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Oct 1, 2020 It is perhaps the strangest and most horrifying story in all of Medfield history. The fact that events unfolded on Halloween just adds to the intrigue.This very spooky tale takes place here in Medfield back in the year 1802 and involves both the Mason and Allen families. Asa
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Sept 1, 2020 Medfield began in 1651 as a farming community, although the climate was colder, and the growing season shorter than today. But farms have been extinct in Medfield for decades, with one notable exception: the Medfield Community Gardens, originally on Dale Street and now on Plain Street, with
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Sept 1, 2020 Linda Morse, formerly of Medfield, teaches history at the Foxboro Regional Charter School. This history of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, focusing on its impact in Medfield and Millis, will be serialized in The Portal. Her complete article is being published in the New England Journal of History.
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August 1, 2020 Linda Morse, formerly of Medfield, teaches history at the Foxboro Regional Charter School. This history of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, focusing on its impact in Medfield and Millis, will be serialized in The Portal. Her complete article is being published in the New England Journal of History.
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