PHOTOS: Medfield High School Students Get Hands On with Town History

A musket from the Mayflower, a pistol from the Civil War and countless old photographs of Medfield were just a few of the many items from the on display for history classes last week.

On May 17, in the high school's main lobby, curators from the Medfield Historical Society set up a daylong display featuring a variety of artifacts, photos, and yearbooks to be viewed by Medfield High School history students. Artifacts ranged from the historic Mayflower Musket to swords used on the USS Constitution, to paintings, military uniforms, high school yearbooks going back to the 1920's, a Colonial spinning wheel and a wedding dress out of the 1700's.

Town historian Richard DeSorgher said the daylong display was done in an effort to increase youth interest in the historical society.

"[It was] an attempt to introduce the students to Medfield's rich history and the organization responsible for the care and collection of that history," DeSorgher said.

Students were brought to the MHS lobby from their history classes throughout the day to peruse the display and have their questions answered by the Historical Society's curators.

Two of those curators were MHS seniors Kabir Thatte and Kyle Andrulonis. Thatte said he thought the historical society could generate more youth interest if students knew what artifacts were in the society.

"The other curators were actually curious to see how to get people to see what is actually inside the historical society so I thought up the idea of instead of having people go to the society, bring the society to them," Thatte said. "I presented the idea to the curators and it was backed up by all graciously by a unanimous vote. Mr. DeSorgher became very supportive of the idea and pretty much ran the whole thing."

Thatte and Andrulonis, who were both invited to be student curators of the historical society by DeSorgher after he amended the society's bylaws, chose the items to display at the May 17th event.

"We have an actual musket from the Mayflower and guns from the Civil War," Thatte said. "Old yearbooks, photos throughout Medfield. It’s really cool, a lot of kids have been really interested."

Andrulonis said his favorite artifacts that were on display for the MHS event were hands down the firearms.

"I have to go with the firearms on this one," Andrulonis said. "I just think it’s so cool to have a 500-year-old gun and then have a 150-year-old gun that looks like it can be fired right now if somebody took it out to the range. Just seeing the swords and everything like that – that is the history of the world right there. War is how it was built and just to see the different weapons [was really cool]."

Thatte and Andrulonis both had a strong interest in history after taking classes at MHS and were hopeful the May 17th event would generate more student interest in history and the town's historical society.

It exceeded everyone's expectations.

"We are looking for people to replace us [as student curators at the historical society] and we [had] a sign-up sheet [at the event]," said Thatte. "We only expected five or six people to sign up and 19 people had signed up. It’s a huge interest. Obviously doing what we’ve done has worked."

Andrulonis said he wasn't surprised that so many students were interested in getting involved with the society.

"My favorite part about the event was seeing how interested everybody was in everything that we have here," Andrulonis said. "I was not surprised how interested people were in the different weapons we had but seeing people talk about the old wedding dress, some military uniforms, some of the old pictures of current buildings in Medfield … it’s just eye-opening to me to see how interested a lot of people are in history."

Why Get Involved with the Historical Society

Andrulonis said if you saw anything at the event that interested you then "there's a lot more where that came from."

"There’s a lot in the vault and basement and a lot of the stuff that was brought [to the event] isn’t even on display at the historical society," Andrulonis said. "There’s even more military uniforms, there’s a lot of paintings of Medfield and by people from Medfield. If you were really interested in what you saw or if you heard about anything that was seen then definitely come to the society and see more."