Medfield Police Chief Praises Efforts of All Involved in Move of Lowell Mason House

The Lowell Mason House made it safely to its 59 Green St. address Tuesday night because the various workers involved in the move worked well together, according to Medfield Chief of Police Robert Meaney Jr.

“A general observation is how well all the various utilities, the house movers and town employees worked together with little regard to who had responsibility to who had the responsibility for various tasks,” said Meaney. “Obviously, the utilities needed to stay within their fields but even then they leant a hand to each other and coordinated their efforts very well.”

The house travelled for 11 hours down Adams, Dale, North and Green Streets before safely arriving in front of its foundation on 59 Green St. just before 7 p.m. Tuesday night. While spectators made their ways home shortly after, workers stayed to restore power, repair utility wires and direct traffic.

“The [police] officers were clear of their traffic assignments by 10:30 p.m. [Tuesday],” Meaney said. “NSTAR restored power to the majority of the area shortly after 7 p.m. but there were still some individual service wires that needed to be reattached after that. Verizon and Comcast were still working to reattach their lines and restore cable and telephone service at 9 p.m. [Tuesday].”

Verizon overcame a challenging day after learning it had the wrong measurements of the width of the house, resulting in delays as workers needed to disable more wires than originally anticipated. Meaney recognized the Verizon workers for their efforts in working well through the adversity.

“Verizon, even though they faced a very difficult situation, carried on, got the wires moved, worked with the movers to arrange the wires so the house could pass over and then stayed until late into the night to restore services to houses in the area,” Meaney said.

Meaney called the move a “complex task,” saying it was completed because of the positive attitudes of the various companies and individuals involved in the project.

“This doesn’t even get into the Lowell Mason House people who got the project off the ground, kept it moving and will see it through to the end,” Meaney said.

There were very few complaints from residents in the area regarding traffic, according to Meaney, as police only received “a few calls” questioning when the power would be restored.

“The area residents were very patient and that should be acknowledged," said Meaney.