You can live in a place your whole life and still find surprise in your own backyard. Over the past year I have been exploring the Blue Hills Reservation. Trekking from Quincy to Canton and sometimes back again, the 7,000 acres of woodland and marsh is majestic and exhilarating. Some of the greatest views in […]
Click here for Part 1 of George Comeau’s profile on Frederic Endicott. Perhaps water was in the Endicott family’s blood. There was a fairly antiquated water system in Canton developed in the late 1700s by William Crane. As it turns out, Crane was the great-grandfather of Endicott. The primitive system was constructed of wooden pipes […]
As you stand at the kitchen sink and turn on the water, reflect upon how that water makes its way through a complex system of pipes from deep wells and through a well-established network, ending at the glass of water in your hands. The person most responsible for our modern system of wells and clean […]
In the corner of my kitchen is a tube of reproduced historic maps of Canton. I use these maps regularly to help me write these stories. The best is dated 1855, a copy of an original that hangs framed in a back corner of the Historical Society. The map is actually a picture, a sketch, […]
We trace the arc of the seasons across the years, and the old adage quickly points out that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Looking back at Canton exactly 100 years ago, the year 1911, the observer is struck with the normalcy of life and the fact that things really don’t […]
The quintessential New England road is one that is overarched with gracious old trees and dotted with ancient stonewalls. There are a few notable candidates that spring to mind: Elm Street, Green Street, Chapman Street and certainly York Street. Of these, York Street is one of the oldest and most developed, and is considered a […]
Last Saturday was a beautiful day, and to be outside was especially wonderful. Wally Gibbs, the chairman of the Canton Historical Commission, convened a meeting in an unlikely place. We met under the arching leaves of an ancient oak tree on a winding path inside the Canton Corner Cemetery. The purpose of the meeting was […]
What happens when time and architectural tastes shift and a historic building becomes so transformed as to actually lose all integrity and fall out of its historical importance? For several weeks I have been watching the work at the small
This story originally appeared in the Canton Citizen on November 3, 2011 and was reprinted in this week’s edition. ~ Just about every day since 1834, for more than 177 years, trains have been part of Canton’s landscape. The sounds of bells gave way to horns, and smells of coal have given way to diesel. […]
Ed Bolster was a good man. The question always remains: how do you measure the life of a good man? Recently, while going through a box of papers, I came across five neatly typed pages with the heading “What I did for love.” Edward Bolster, one of Canton’s favorite lifelong residents, wrote the short essay […]
