You are never really finished honoring the dead. Long after they are gone, our ancestors, both actual and inherited, are given respect and devotion. In Canton, the earliest of our founding families are buried in a small cemetery on Washington Street. And over the past several months we have been honoring our pioneer families. It […]
The young boy leaned over the low windowsill and deviously spit upon his classmates below. The retribution at the hands of the principal was swift and decisive. The next memory that I have of the incident was crying in a janitor’s closet spitting into a slop sink until my mouth ran dry. The point was […]
June 6, 1835. “The Viaduct at Canton, though yet unfinished, is a stupendous work. A view of it, many times repays the trouble of passage round … The Viaduct testifies in strong language to man’s dominion over nature … the road will stand for ages as an enduring monument of the high talents and high […]
David Ingram spent much of his life researching Colonel Richard Gridley. And as far as Canton’s famous citizens go, Gridley stands alongside Paul Revere and Roger Sherman when it comes to American Revolutionary superstars. Gridley played significant roles in King George’s War, the French and Indian War, and the American Revolution, and yet he remains […]
This story originally appeared in the April 26, 2018 edition of the Canton Citizen and was republished this week. There is a beautiful Irish song with lyrics that evoke a lovely scene. “How I longed for to roam, by Mount Massey’s green groves or poach by the light of the moon. That spot of my […]
We lose things all the time. I’m not talking about big things. Not the buildings, like the Crane School or the Canton Center train station, or even the old shovel shop. Recently we lost the historic waterfall and dam at Shepard’s Pond, and of course we are likely to lose the Canton Waterworks building while […]
Emeline Crane was born in Canton in 1829; by the time she was 28 she was likely insane and a guardian was appointed to oversee her affairs. At the age of 59, Crane died in Taunton after a life plagued with chronic mania. The Annual Town Report for that same year shows an appropriation for […]
As the moon rose over Canton on a cold January night in 1887, the distant sounds of laughter echoed across Forge Pond. It was a night for sleighing and late into the night the ritual was in the last throes of enjoyment. There is, of course, the refrain in Jingle Bells that calls the best […]
At the age of 54, Thomas Gibson slipped quietly away from this world on May 6, 1899. The end came at Boston City Hospital, and after a life of pain and sorrow, the hurting stopped. The details of Gibson’s life are very hazy, and yet today there are still people who care for this man […]
For anyone who has ever watched Antiques Roadshow, they know that provenance is key to the value of antiques. The dusty old box of china in the attic is just fodder for a yard sale until it can be established that George Washington actually nibbled a piece of toast from the dinner plate. And yet […]
