Sutton Historical Society Inc. - Sutton, Massachusetts

Mark your calendar!!!
The Sutton Preservationists 4H Club is proudly hosting
Coffee With Cows
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Due to the generous Community Grant funded by the
Massachusetts 4-H Foundation,
complementary refreshments will be provided and prepared by the
Sutton Lions Club
until 12 pm
You must pre-register by clicking the QR code below.

Click image ABOVE to watch informational video on event

Click image ABOVE for printable flyer to share with friends

Meet the local cows, experience a cow show and watch donkey demonstrations.

The General Rufus Putnam Museum, 4 Uxbridge Road, will be open.

There will also be Society members available for tours of the Town Center Cemetery,
which has been undergoing a multi-year restoration program.

The Green Bean Project will be performing in the Gazebo.

The Congregational Church will have a vendor booth.
Play some yard games with our favorite librarians from the Sutton Public Library!
The Sutton Fourth Committee will be selling merchandise to support the upcoming 4th of July Festivities.

Bring your own chair or blanket!

Come celebrate Spring in Sutton!!

David Vermette, author

Thank You
David Vermette
April 26, 2022

A wonderful presentation on French-Canadian immigration with over 100 attendees.

Thank you to the Vaillancourt family for the use of Blaxton Hall.

Images of Manchaug's Franco-Americans

Asterie Bourgeois and fellow male workers in Manchaug Mill

1907 Manchaug Baseball Team

Circa 1900 Manchaug school children. Mumford Hill in background

Weaving Room, Manchaug Mills

Main Street Store circa 1909 - Laura Matte - Blanche Bessette - Naoemi Couillard

Manchaug Mills farm workers with wagons

The venue for this presentation is the historic Manchaug Mills in which hundreds of French-Canadian immigrants worked during the late 19th and early 20th century. The Village of Manchaug, recently named to the National Register of Historic Places, was a company-owned Village with over 1600 residents, mostly of French-Canadian descent, living and working in the one-square mile village at the turn of the 20th century. Manchaug, a surviving example of the hundreds of similar textile-manufacturing villages throughout New England, boasts period architecture including a company-store building, the mill office building which currently houses the post office, the Mill agent’s home with a distinct mansard roof, as well as many original tenement houses.

The Village of Wilkinsonville in Sutton also boasted a large Franco-American population. These immigrant workers were employed by the Sutton Manufacturing Company which was under the umbrella of Slater & Sons. The company founded by Samuel Slater (b. 1768 d.1835), continued operations in Wilkinsonville from 1829 through 1907. Samuel Slater was an early American industrialist known as the "Father of the Industrial Revolution" and the "Father of the American Factory System".

Town-Wide Yard Sale
Saturday, June 18, 2022
rain date - Sunday, June 19, 2022

CLICK ON IMAGE BELOW TO ACCESS REGISTRATION FORM

2022 CALENDAR OF EVENTS FOR VIEWING ON MOBILE DEVICE

2022 Calendar of Events

All events open to both Society members and the general public.
Updated event information will be posted here, on Facebook, and emailed to members
Upcoming meetings/events are listed in the Millbury-Sutton Chronicle, The Uxbridge Times, and the Blackstone Valley Xpress.

April 26                       7:00 pm          David Vermette, Author Blaxton Hall
Tuesday                                              A Distinct Alien Race Manchaug Mills
                                                            The Untold Story of Franco Americans 9 Main Street
                                                            Presentation of French-Canadian Immigration

June 7 4:00 pm Samuel Slater Experience Museum Tour 31 Ray Street
Tuesday                     8:00 pm          Samuel Slater is considered the “Father of Webster, MA
                                                            the American Industrial Revolution Group Rate Admission
                                                            His company owned and operated Sutton $14 adults
                                                            Manufacturing in Wilkinsonville for several $10 seniors (age 60+)
                                                            decades. Samuelslaterexperience.org $ 7 children
June 18                      8:00 am          Annual Yard Sale M. M. Sherman Blacksmith Shop
Saturday 1:00 pm 6 Singletary Avenue

June 26                      TBD                 4th of July Parade and Celebration Sutton Town Common
Sunday General Rufus Putnam Museum will be open

July 9-July 17 Can/Bottle Redemption Drive M. M. Sherman Blacksmith Shop
                                                            Drop off your returnable cans/bottles at 6 Singletary Avenue
                                                            your convenience 24-hours
.
August 5                     6:30 pm          Annual Potluck Supper Eight Lots School House
Friday 54 Eight Lots Road

September 6              7:00 pm          Christie Higginbottom First Congregational Church
Tuesday                                              An Infinite Variety of Fruit: 307 Boston Road
Historic New England Apples
This program will explore the role played by apples
at the table and on the farm landscape in the past,
and will look at the revival of interest today.

October 1                   12:00 pm–     Wagon and Cart Show M.M. Sherman Blacksmith Shop
Saturday 4:00 pm 6 Singletary Avenue

October 4                   7:00 pm          Annual Meeting First Congregational Church
Tuesday 307 Boston Road

October 29                 7:00 pm          Historic Cemetery Tour Sutton Center Town Cemetery
Saturday                                             Re-enactors will tell the tale of early 4 Uxbridge Road
Sutton settlers buried in the Sutton
Center Town Cemetery

November 1               7:00 pm          Michael Tougias, Author First Congregational Church
Tuesday Until I Have No Country   307 Boston Road
Presentation about King Philip’s War

December 3               Various            Chain of Lights Eight Lots School House
Saturday Annual Town-wide Christmas Event General Rufus Putnam Museum
M. M. Sherman Blacksmith Shop

December 6               6:30 pm          Christmas Potluck First Congregational Church
Tuesday 307 Boston Road

December 31             Midnight         Last Night Cannon Firing M. M. Sherman Blacksmith Shop
Saturday Cannon Club 6 Singletary Avenue

Thank You!!
Bill Reid, Chief Ranger
The Last Green ValleyThe Return of the Bald Eagle

On Tuesday, November 2, 2021 at 7 pm, the Sutton Historical Society hosted Bill Reid, Chief Ranger of The Last Green Valley, for a presentation entitled, “The Return of the Bald Eagle.” The Last Green Valley is a National Heritage Corridor covering 35 towns in Eastern Connecticut and South-Central Massachusetts with a rich history in a surprisingly rural landscape. With 84% forest and farm, The Last Green Valley is the last swath of dark night sky in the coastal sprawl between Boston and Washington DC. Information on this National Heritage Corridor can be found at thelastgreenvalley.org.

The presentation was a huge hit with over 60 attendees!!

Cemetery Tour - Enjoyed by over 100 visitors!!

Rescheduling and weather that did not cooperate did not hamper the spirits of the visitors who toured Sutton's oldest Cemetery on
Sunday, October 31.
Interpreters shared their stories about some of those interred in this historically-significant cemetery.
The Society hopes to make this an annual event!!!

THANK YOU!!!

ROBERT ERNEST HUBBARD, Author
Presentation about General Rufus Putnam

Robert Ernest Hubbard, a retired professor and author from New Haven, Connecticut, recently presented his book
General Rufus Putnam, George Washington’s Chief Military Engineer and the “Father of Ohio.”
to our Society. It was a well-received presentation.

Go to israelputnam.org to order a copy of this book in addition to one about Israel Putnam.

Prior to his presentation, Robert and his wife, Kathy, discussed how to become an author with a group of home-schooled children. This, too, was greatly appreciated.

Thank you to member, Malcolm Ketchum, for sharing his images of Sutton

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Annual Meeting Update

- Donation by Mike and Sheila Moss to the General Rufus Putnam
  Museum of a framed 1915 Boston Herald photo spread of
  Purgatory Chasm prior to its being established as a State Park in 1919

- Election of 6 non-officer Board positions for a 2-year term

- Presentation of work completed on the Sutton Center Meeting
House and tour of the inside

- Update on status of Cemetery cleaning/repair at Sutton Center
and Dodge Cemetery. Almost complete. Committee will continue
work in other town cemeteries. Thank you to the countless
volunteers. This group is definitely "Quietly making noise!"
Volunteers always needed.

- Update on progress of organizing General Rufus Putnam
  Museum. Grant received through the Massachusetts Board of
  Library Commissioners to help move forward with cataloguing
  and digitizing collection. Thank you to Joyce Smith, Curator, and
Betsy Perry, Sutton Librarian, for this great effort.

- Sutton Cultural Council grant received and utilized for the
creation and production of a brochure on Society holdings to
be distributed at events. Thank you to member, Dave Pizzi, for
his efforts.

Cemetery Project Update - June 2020

During the period of higher COVID-19 restrictions, members of our Restoration Committee cut and burned a lot of brush and wood debris while maintaining the individual "social distancing" guidelines in this open area.
Still more to do, but the difference is very noticeable in the Sutton Center Cemetery.

More recently, some stones have been reset, including repaired stones, and others cleaned. A few photos are below.

As we have now reached the second round of re-openings, we are going to proceed with our original planned workdays at Sutton Center Cemetery on the second Saturday of each month.

Weather permitting, start day will be Saturday, June 13. We will be on-site starting at 9:00 am

Come with a mask or face shield.

PROGRESS PHOTOS - SUTTON CENTER CEMETERY (behind Town Hall)

BEFORE AFTER

Image above is Elliot stone reset and cleaned. GREAT JOB - Restoration Committee!!!

1816 - The Year without a Summer

Our ancestors weathered crazy times before us.
See a few events noted below

The year 1816 was known as ‘The Year Without a Summer’ in New England because six inches of snow fell in June and every month of the year had a hard frost.

Temperatures dropped to as low as 40 degrees in July and August as far south as Connecticut. People also called it ‘Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death’ and the ‘Poverty Year.’

The Year Without A Summer had a far-reaching impact. Crop failures caused hoarding and big price increases for agricultural commodities. People went hungry. Farmers gave up trying to make a living in New England and started heading west. Politicians who ignored the melancholy plight of their constituents found themselves out of office.

Flurries fell in Boston on June 7. The snow was 18" deep in Cabot, VT, on June 8. One June 11, a temperature of 30.5 degrees was recorded in Williamstown, MA. Frozen birds dropped dead in the fields. Some Vermont farmers who had already shorn their sheep tried to tie their fleeces back on, but many froze to death anyway.

Many people believe the Year Without a Summer was caused by a massive volcanic explosion on Mt. Tambora in Indonesia, killing 15,000 instantly. Soon after, another 65,000 perished of disease and starvation. The volcanic ash and debris thrown up into the stratosphere is thought to have blocked the sun and caused a gradual lowering of temperatures.

The Influenza Epidemic of 1918
Sutton

The great Influenza Epidemic of 1918 appeared in the Blackstone Valley in September 1918. It is believed that Patient 0 was a soldier from Company D 75th Infantry from Camp Devens, who came to Whitinsville to visit. He died in Whitinsville on September 19, 1918. By September 1918, Fort Devens had 9,000 dead, dying and sick.

Sutton's first death came on September 30, 1918. The individual was employed by Whitin Machine Works.

Between September 30, 1918 and December 30, 1918, Sutton lost 19 of its approximately 2,800 residents, including the renowned Manchaug physician,
Dr. Pierre Couilliard.

For more information about the
1918 Influenza Epidemic
Click on Image below
to view film
pbs.org

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GRAVESTONE MAINTENANCE WORKSHOP
GREAT SUCCESS!!!
August 25, 2019

Thanks to all who joined in the workshop on Sunday, August 25, 2019 and those restoring the Reverend Hall memorial crypt.
Special thanks to Betty & Carlo Mencucci for sharing their vast knowledge, demonstrating proper methods and giving us opportunities to learn hands-on

Plans are in the works for a workday in September at the Town Center Cemetery. The exact day and time will be determined soon.
The notice will be emailed to those who signed up at the previous event, will be passed out at the Labor Day breakfast, will be published in the
Millbury-Sutton Chronicle and posted on the Sutton Historical Society website and Facebook.

The focus that day will be on resetting the front or back leaning gravestones - which are the most prone to breaking - and honing the skills that Betty & Carlo have taught us. Also, if your preference is to put your effort into cleaning of the gravestones and memorial stones, please join in. And, if you have friends who have expressed interest in - or curiosity about - restoration, please bring them along!

SPECIAL THANKS TO
Tiny Leaf Designs Photography, April Eaton Brown
for the amazing images below from the April 25 event!!!