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Health & Fitness

Discover Medfield Trolley Tour: A Wonderful Lesson in Medfield's History

Discover Medfield Day - A trolley tour well worth the trip~

 

MEMO's Annual Discover Medfield Day Trolley Tour, narrated by Richard DeSorgher was great!  No matter how much you might know about Medfield's history, taking this tour is well worth it.

MEMO President, Brandie Erb told me that this event was sponsored this year by Rockland Trust, Roberts-Mitchell Funeral Home and Jing's Garden.  It is a perfect way to learn about the history of our town. 

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The Trolley Tours both began and ended at the Dwight-Derby House, so it was wonderful that Cheryl O'Malley, President of the "Friends of the Dwight-Derby House" gave tours of the House and the DDH Shoppe was open for business too!

Once sitting on the trolley, you get a sense of how things used to be in Medfield.  With the pictoral handout and listening to DeSorgher, it was easy to imagine what areas used to look like "way back when" ... the mansions, businesses and farmlands of yesteryear.

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This year's tour featured a stop at the Vine Lake Cemetery and the Medfield State Hospital Cemetery and tourists got off the trolley and walked to the Medfield State Hospital Memorial at Vine Lake which lists all the names of all patients buried on the knoll. 

The trolley then took the tourists to into the Medfield State Hospital Cemetery further down Rt. 27. 

It is hard to imagine that over 500 State Hospital patients were buried at Vine Lake Cemetery and over 800 were buried at the State Hospital Cemetery.  You get a real sense of how different Medfield was when half of its population was made up of the people who lived on the Medfield State Hospital grounds.

Our town is rich in history, and our newly elected Selectman, Richard DeSorgher, is knowledgeable, passionate and dedicated to keep telling the history of all things Medfield!

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