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 […]
This story originally appeared in the Canton Citizen in October 2011. As the leaves fall and autumn returns to New England, there is one house that stands apart as a silent reminder to the pilgrims from England. Three hundred seasons have come and gone, leaves fallen on the roof, snow at the lintels, wind against […]
On the subject of collecting, I have had plenty of experience and much of it began at a fairly young age. I must have been in the fourth grade, perhaps as young as 9 when I picked up my first piece of Canton memorabilia. It came from a classmate: a small round box with a […]
This story originally appeared in the Canton Citizen on September 1, 2011. For more than a week the warnings had been coming, forecasting the hurricane that just passed us this weekend. For many of our generation, we shrug at the warnings — perhaps buy extra water or batteries, but do we really take the forecasters […]
Passing a sign that reads “On this site…” usually means that the buildings or events associated with the property are long gone and history lessons can now only be found in books or a place marker. There are plenty of examples of this throughout Canton. Great examples include the site of Roger Sherman’s boyhood home, […]
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame sits on the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio. My wife and I stopped in while driving to Chicago when we needed a halfway point to rest. The hall of fame is a shrine to rock in all its forms — from jazz to punk and all […]
At the edge of my property is a small stream, the Pequit Brook, and its source is the Reservoir Pond past Pequitside Farm. Living on a brook is an amenity that allows for plenty of opportunities to observe wildlife and the marking of seasons. Over time we have come to know the animals that inhabit […]
