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

The Medfield Historical Society opened its vault and brought some of the town's historical treasures into the main lobby of Medfield High School last week for history students to see, touch and learn about.

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 Historical Society on display for Medfield High School 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…

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Uniquely Medfield

DeSorgher: The Medfield Inventor of the Roller Skate

James Leonard Plimpton, a Medfield native, invented the roller skate in the 1860s.

Roller blades, skateboards, roller skates; popular forms of entertainment that are seen on the streets, sidewalks, skate parks and rinks all over the world. All trace their roots to Medfield and to the invention of the first roller skate by James Plimpton. James Leonard Plimpton, the fifth of nine children born to Leonard and Sarah (Lane), was born on April 14, 1828. The Plimpton’s lived on 230 North St. in Medfield and James was brought up in the then rural Medfield, helping his father with the small family farm and with his father’s business of manufacturing cloth, which was run out of a small shop by their house.  James attended the nearby North School, which at the time was located at the corner of North and Harding Streets. As a boy, …

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Author Tells Story of Medfield's Daughter of Liberty, Miss Mercy Scollay

Editor's note: The following press release was submitted by Jo Ellen Collins, curator of the Medfield Historical Society.

The Medfield Historical Society will present the second of its spring programs, “Dr. Major General Joseph Warren and Medfield's Own Daughter of Liberty - Miss Mercy Scollay,” taking place at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church at 26 North St. in Medfield on March 5 at 7:30 p.m. Samuel Forman, author of the newly published "Dr. Joseph Warren: The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the Birth of American Liberty," will share new discoveries about Miss Scollay, a most distinguished and unrecognized Medfield resident. Joseph Warren, a pioneering doctor who quickly became the most prominent physician in Boston, played a leading role in the early Revolutionary period. He was author of The Suffolk Resolves, the person who sent Paul …

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DeSorgher: Attack on Medfield

While Hawaii will note Pearl Harbor and NYC will always remember 9/11, Medfield will never forget the events of Feb. 21, 1676.

This week, 336 years ago, Medfield was trying to recover from the worst disaster ever to hit the town. While Hawaii will note Pearl Harbor and NYC will always remember 9/11, Medfield will never forget the events of Feb. 21, 1676. Some 17 residents and soldiers were killed, at least one resident was taken alive hostage and never returned, many were wounded, at least one was scalped and so bloodied that friends and neighbors could not recognize her, one was killed by friendly fire, 32 houses besides barns, two mills and other buildings were burnt, horses and livestock were burnt alive and an unknown number of Native-Americans were killed. It was in the midst of the King Philip War when somewhere between 300 to 1,000 Native Americans snuck …

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DeSorgher: The New Development; Medfield’s First Housing Development

The first housing development in town history was built in the area of Summer and Pine Streets and later extended over to the Lowell Mason Road area.

After WWII, the population of Medfield took a dramatic upward turn. The first housing development in town history was built in the area of Summer and Pine Streets and later extended over to the Lowell Mason Road area. Those ranch and Cape Cod style houses brought in “new city people,” including WWII veterans with young and growing families. Those young and growing families soon filled the school system to the brink, causing new schools to be built. In 1947, at the time of the building of Medfield’s first housing development, there were just two schools in town. The current Pfaff Center held all the elementary grades and the current Dale Street School, minus the addition, held the high school students. In 1950, a town meeting was held to …

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DeSorgher: Prejudice Against Medfield’s Acadians, Irish and Italians

The Medfield Historical Society will present a program on immigration on Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the First Parish Church on North Street.

This Monday evening, Feb. 6 at 7:30 p.m. in the main sanctuary of First Parish Church on North Street, the Medfield Historical Society will present a program, free and open to all in town, that will highlight the prejudice, threats, cruel treatment and outright hostility towards three groups of people that came to Medfield. The Acadians brought here by forced deportation, the Irish and the Italians. Current town residents and public officials whose nationalities experienced such treatment will also highlight their family tree from that first immigrant to their family’s arrival in Medfield. The program will go into depth on six diverse groups that came to Medfield and impacted the town; the first Puritan settlers, the Acadians, the Irish, …

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DeSorgher: 'Sheep' Monks; Famed Medfield Etcher of Sheep

Editor's note: This is the third installment in a three-part series on the artists of Medfield. Part One profiled George Inness, Part Two profiled Dennis Miller Bunker and Part Three profiles John Austin Sands Monks.

John Austin Sands Monks was born in Cold Springs, N.Y. on Nov. 7, 1850. Early in his life he had a talent for carving in wood; boats and other craft that sailed the Hudson River. At age 18, he moved to Connecticut and became an apprentice with a large firm of engravers. At age 19, in 1869, he went into business for himself and began a successful etching business. It was at this time that he moved to Boston. In Boston he met artist George Cass. Cass was a student of George Inness, who at the time was painting in Medfield. A prominent firm of picture dealers arranged an exhibition of Mr. Cass’s work and they asked Monks for some sketches to fill out the exhibition. His sketches attracted a great deal of attention and were sold at a good …

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DeSorgher: Artists of Medfield: Dennis Miller Bunker

Editor's note: This is the second in a three part series on the artists of Medfield. Part One was last week on George Inness. This week is Dennis Miller Bunker.

Just as they flock to Giverny, France to see the French setting where Claude Monet found inspiration for his paintings, art lovers may some day make a pilgrimage to Medfield to view landscapes immortalized on canvas by the likes of George Innes, John Austin Sands Monks, Dennis Miller Bunker and John J. Francis. While Medfield was not an artist community as such, the artists did come here. Part II: Dennis Miller Bunker Dennis Miller Bunker was one of the most promising Impressionist painters of his time. Bunker’s introduction to Medfield came from world renowned composer and concertmaster with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Martin Loeffler and Loeffler’s patron, Isabella Stuart Gardner. Loeffler moved here to Medfield and Gardner …

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DeSorgher: The Famous Medfield Artists

Editor's note: This is the first in a three-part series looking at the famous artists in Medfield. Part I profiles George Inness.

Part I: Just as they flock to Giverny, France to see the French setting where Claude Monet found inspiration for his paintings, art lovers may some day make a pilgrimage to Medfield to view landscapes immortalized on canvas by the likes of George Innes, John Austin Sands Monks, Dennis Miller Bunker and John J. Francis. While Medfield was not an artist community as such, the artists did come here.                                     George Inness First, George Inness—One day in 1859, the stagecoach that ran between Needham and Medfield crested the Dover hills. Landscape artist George Inness peered out the window at the broad meadows, trees and marshlands that he would immortalize in so many of his paintings. Traveling with him were his wife…

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DeSorgher: Cross That Bridge When You Get to It

The following is a history of the bridges in Medfield and a look at the unique way they got their names.

Clearly, the Charles River has been an important geographical feature throughout Medfield’s history.  In the very beginnings of our history, up until 1713, when Medway broke away from us, the land on the west side of the Charles River, what is now Millis and Medway, was also part of Medfield. In those early years, the bridges spanning the Charles River were extremely important, as they served as the connector keeping the two parts of Medfield together. The earliest maps show three primitive bridges crossing the Charles River; one called The Great Bridge, at what is today Bridge Street, Medfield and Dover Road, Millis, one crossing the Charles near the current Route 27 Bridge between Medfield and Sherborn and one crossing at Dwight Street, …

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