Maynard History Blog

Our friends down the road are having an auction, and we thought our readers would be interested.  If you are interested in sponsoring or attending this benefit auction for The Wayside Inn please read on and/or download the flyers (see the end of this post).

Longfellow’s Wayside Inn is a nationally recognized Massachusetts Historic Landmark, licensed as an Inn and tavern in 1716 and continues today to provide hospitality services along the former Boston Post Road.

Preview Party and Reception May 14, 6:30pm to 9pm $125 by advance registration and $150 at the door

General admission $10 Saturday, May 15 and Sunday, May 16 10am to 5pm

A 501(c)3 not-for-profit 120-acre historic site on the National Register of Historic Places, the Wayside Inn offers rich educational public programming, with trained interpreters detailing a variety of colonial customs at several his – toric building locations. The village campus was originally conceived by former property owner Henry Ford, and is general – ly recognized as the first living-history museum in the United States. The Wayside Inn remains dedicated to the preservation and stewardship of its open campus, as well as the interpretation and operation of the old Howe Tavern; represented today by the multi-room facility known as the Wayside Inn.

In order to ensure the longevity of this landmark property we need your help. Please consider a sponsorship at any level, or attend the opening night reception to preview some of the most extraordinary antiques on the market while enjoying fine food and drink in a grand canopy tent housing 44 top-notch dealers.

For sponsor information and preview tickets please contact Kathy Quinton, Director of Sales , (978) 443-1776 x102 or sales@wayside.org. Sponsor press kits are available at www.wayside.org/event/wayside-inn-antiques-show.

Presenting Sponsor: SKINNER, INC. Auctioneers and Appraisers of Antiques and Fine art

Sponsorships range from $10,000 (Preview Party Sponsor) to $500 (Bronze) and Show Catalog Advertising ($250).

General Admission Preview Tickets for 6:30 Admission
• $125 pre-purchase • $150 at the door
Preview Party tickets are transferable and are good for admission all three show days. Sponsors are allowed early-admission to Preview Party, beginning at 5:30pm. General Admission to Preview Party begins at 6:30pm. Advertising rates include ad setup.

Wayside Antiques Show Insert (pdf file)

Wayside Inn Antiques Show Sponsor and Preview Info (pdf file)

Just over a year ago we released a digital version of the 50th anniversary (1921) history of Maynard by William Gutteridge.

After completing that project we sought a sacrificial copy of the 1971 history of the town so we could make that important document available to everyone.  Roy Helander was kind enough to donate one of his paperback copies and it sat in my “to do” box for several months — it’s a hefty book and it would take some time.  I needed a couple of pages scanned for an upcoming presentation, so today seemed like a good time to attack this project.   Armed with a microplane rasp I removed the adhesive binding and then carefully worked the pages off the staples that held the book together.  It was scanned at 200 pixels/inch – which makes for a nice file size and is reportedly a good resolution for OCR (optical character recognition).  I processed the file with Adobe Acrobat’ s OCR and it cranked away for a few hours. The results were pretty good (as OCR goes)!  So the text of this book is also searchable (I wouldn’t trust it 100%, but my random sampling implies that it works pretty well for casual searches.)

So here we are in February 2010 and the second major history of Maynard is now available on any computer in the world.  (I wonder if the 3rd one will even make it to paper?)

If you look at the book the last page is 234, but due to the way it was published pages with photographs weren’t numbers.  The actual page count is 366, not counting the cover pages.  So this is a substantial work and full of wonderful details about Maynard.  It is the current bible for town history buffs and we hope you will take advantage of this electronic copy.

You can download it from the Maynard Historical Society web site.  The file is just under 100 megabytes:

The History of Maynard, Massachusetts 1871-1971 (pdf, 95MB – right-click to download)

The book was published by the Maynard Historical Commission and encapsulates the work of numerous people, many in the Maynard Historical Society, in anticipation of Maynard’s Centennial celebration.  1000 copies were printed (400 hard-bound and 600 soft-bound).

A quick reminder that we will have our regular monthly Society meeting on Monday, Feb 22nd, at 7pm. As usual we will meet in the lower level of Town Hall.

February’s program will be on the Maynard Dramatic Club. Roy Helander, who was a thespian in the club for many years, will talk about the history of the club, which started in 1936 and produced plays through the 1970s. We hope a few other past members of the club along with some former audience members will help share some memories of this popular arts organization.

As always our meetings are open to the public and light refreshments are usually served after the meeting along with some time for socializing. We hope to see you there.

Our March 2010 program (March 22) somewhat continues the theme of February’s program only we’ll go wide instead of deep. In March, Dave Griffin and Paul Boothroyd will cover the history of many of Maynard’s well-known and not so well-known clubs and societies. Before radio and television anchored people into their living rooms every night, people actually went out and socialized with each other. Starting with the Iola Lodge of Good Templars in 1866, dozens upon dozens of clubs and societies sprang up along the streets of Maynard. While organizations like the Knights of Columbus, Masons and Elks are still known today, many more are shrouded in history: Eagles, Odd Fellows, Nashoba Tribe, Knights of Pythias, Loyal Order of Moose, Maynard Cricket Association, and the D.Y.W.Y.K. Club to name a few (and if you want to know what those initials stood for, come to the meeting!)

The first issue in 2010 of Maynard Memories, the bi-monthly newsletter of the Society, has been published.  Those of you receiving it via mail should have it soon.  Those that elected to receive it electronically had it delivered on Monday.

Maynard Memories #51 has an in-depth article on the history of the Marble Farm by David Mark.  David, along with Peg Brown, made a presentation to the Society in November on this very topic and we appreciate his taking the time to write up an article — especially for those who could not attend.   Over the years the Marble Farm was the home of the Marble, Whitney, and Parmenter families and David’s article dips into their genealogy as well.

As always, thanks go to our newsletter editor, Nancy Wasiuk, and to Bobby Stakus for mailing it out to our members.

We’ve just completed the digitization of nearly 40 video tapes in our collection.   The majority of these are recordings of various Society programs, but some document interesting events from our town’s history.

If you have a videotape of historically significant event / subject / person related to Maynard, please let us know about it and consider letting us make a digital copy of it for our archives.

Eventually we plan to make these videos, like everything else in the collection, available for everyone to view — but that might take awhile.

Songs of the Abolitionists

Anti-Slavery Programs at Concord’s Old Manse

On Sunday, January 17, at 2 pm, visit The Old Manse and experience the inspiring music of the 19th century anti-slavery movement. From the 1830s through the Civil War, rousing Anthems, Marches, Hymns of justice, and plaintive Ballads were all employed in the effort to gain emancipation for the slaves.

Come “Help the chorus on!” as Deborah Anne Goss shares a tuneful and varied selection of “’Songs of the Abolitionists”’ in the guise of fictitious, but fact-based, abolitionist Deborah White. Miss White sheds the restrictions of early 19th century Boston to sing alone in public and tell her 21st century audiences about the importance of music and verse to the anti-slavery movement.

The program includes 19th century refreshments, including the famous “Brooks Cake” often served at Anti-Slavery Society meetings by Concordian Mary Merrick Brooks, a leader of the local abolitionist movement.

Deborah Anne Goss is originally from Vermont and has a BFA in Acting from Boston University’s College of Fine Arts Theatre Division. Historical projects have been a favorite part of her career. As one half of the a cappella duo “The Proper Ladies” with Anabel Graetz, she has toured both coasts and performed throughout New England with their arrangements of popular songs of 19th Century America, highlighting the culture, social movements and personalities of the nation’s past. She has studied and taught classical, jazz and pop vocal technique as well as performing in both dramatic and musical roles.

Reservations are suggested. Adults $12, TTOR members $10. For more details and reservations, contact The Old Manse at 978.369.3909 or email us at oldmanseassistant@ttor.org.

Also on Sunday, January 17, at 1 and 3 pm, a special anti-slavery themed tour of The Old Manse will explore the movement in Concord through the involvement of The Manse residents—one of Concord’s most influential families. While enjoying this historic and fascinating home, learn how Concord transcendentalists influenced the antislavery fight for freedom, why Concordians were divided over John Brown and his activities to free the slaves, and what famous abolitionists visited the Old Manse.

Tour admission is $8 or free with paid admission to “Songs of the Abolitionists.” Reservations suggested.

A property of The Trustees of Reservations (TTOR), The Old Manse is located next to the Old North Bridge at 269 Monument Street in Concord.

Happy New Year to all of our blog readers.

Our January meeting is scheduled for January 25th, 7pm in the lower level of Maynard Town Hall (195 Main Street).

Originally we didn’t have a planned speaker and were going to dig up a video.  A bit lame, but we can only do so much.

However Paul Boothroyd graciously offered to give his talk on the people, homes, and farms that were displaced by the 1942 annexation of  some 800 acres of Maynard to create the Maynard Ordnance Supply Depot (commonly referred to in Maynard as the Annex or Ammo Dump).   We are grateful to Paul for volunteering to do this for the Society.

We hope you will be able to attend.

If any of our readers had visited the Society in the past 10 years or so while we were still in the lower level of Maynard Town Hall you might have noticed some fairly large wooden structures tucked in the corner collecting dust.  These were pieces of a loom that came from a Fairfield Street house and was used to make carpets at the turn of the 20th century.   Since we acquired this piece we’ve never had the room to assemble it — until last week…

During one of our Wednesday morning work sessions Len Palmer, Paul Boothroyd and I brought a bunch of pieces out to a work area and we took our shot at putting it together.  We didn’t think we’d get it right on the first shot (and we had a couple of small errors along the way) but we think we have an accurate reconstruction.

Today I spent some times working on the heddles.    If I’ve counted properly the loom is set up for 88 warp threads.  Untangling them after a decade of storage and at least 3 moves took a bit of time.

We are looking forward to having some folks familiar with looms and weaving help us with the next stages.

We’re going to do a light cleaning of the loom to remove (or mitigate) some mildew and dirt.  The loom needs some wedges to secure the major elements.  The weaver’s seat is also missing and we’ll likely cajole a local craftsman into building a replica.

Sometime next year we hope to load some warp threads on the loom and perhaps start weaving some cloth on it, perhaps, for the first time in 90 or 100 years.  When we do so, we’ll be sure to make a video of the process and share it with everyone.

We had our November meeting yesterday.  David Mark and Peg Brown teamed up to present the history of the Marble Farm and the families that called it home (Marble, Whitney, and Parmenter).

The Marble Farm is the oldest surviving house foundation in Maynard (the building burned to the ground in 1924).  Earlier this year an Eagle Scout project cleared the 85+ years of growth around the foundation making it once again visible to the public.  The Maynard Historical Commission is looking into grants that may allow us to do some archeological excavation of the foundation and grounds.

If I can get there before the snow falls, I’ll try to publish some photographs and perhaps a short video on the farm.

Our speaker for September was taken ill and so we hurriedly moved our October meeting to September (my thanks to Bill Duggan of the Maynard Police Department for being so accommodating).

On top of that, Maynard is holding a Special Town Meeting on our October date and so we decided to cancel the October meeting (rather than try to reschedule it).   So there is no Maynard Historical Society meeting on October 26th.  We encourage folks to attend Town Meeting instead.

Our November meeting is slated for the the 24th and we are looking forward to a program on the Marble Farm, presented by David Mark and Peg Brown.