Latest / The Starfish Storytellers / Season 2, Episode 3: Historical Narratives - Framing Everyday Life from a Historical Point of View with Sharon McDonald

Transcript

Season 2, Episode 3: Historical Narratives - Framing Everyday Life from a Historical Point of View with Sharon McDonald · The Starfish Storytellers

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Starfish Storytellers, the podcast that makes a difference one story at a time by bringing storytelling to life.
• 0:13
  I live in Bedford, a small town in eastern Massachusetts, a small town, but it has plenty of good stories.
• 0:22
  Stories about Minutemen who go through the wars carrying their red flag. Stories about a witch who wore a red cloak.
• 0:34
  Stories about a train, a little train that went up and down a narrow track.
• 0:40
  And stories about cord wainers and dairy farmers and scientists looking into their computers for radar.
• 0:50
  But this story isn't about people. It's about a pair of boulders, rocks, called the two brothers.
• 0:59
  And it begins thousands of years before there was a Bedford. It begins in the Ice Age when all was ice.
• 1:08
  And even Bedford, the proto-Bedford, before Bedford was here, was under perhaps a mile of ice.
• 1:18
  And no living things could survive here. No humans, no animals, no plants.
• 1:26
  It was just ice and the living things were stopped by the barrier of ice and lived to the south of here.
• 1:36
  But now jump forward. To 15,000 years ago, the endless smothering ice was melting.
• 1:45
  And the meltwater was making rivers and streams and brooks. It was pooling into lakes and ponds.
• 1:55
  The river that flowed past had several names. It was called the grassy river. It was called the musketequid.
• 2:03
  And now we call it the conquered river. And it's hard for me to tell you about long ago and the conquered river.
• 2:11
  That's just a conflict of time, but you're just going to have to put up with me because I don't know another way to do it.
• 2:19
  So the glacier is receding and losing its grip on the rocks and stones and pebbles that it's been carrying.
• 2:30
  As it melted back, this proto-Bedford, it dropped rocks everywhere.
• 2:37
  But the particular rocks that I want to tell you about are two big boulders on the side of the river called the Two Brothers Rocks.
• 2:48
  Now why are they called the Two Brothers Rocks? That's what I'm going to tell you.
• 2:54
  But it starts with the first people. The first people arrived in this area around 11,000 years ago.
• 3:05
  They didn't make a village when they first arrived. They were traveling people and they traveled through the forests to hunt.
• 3:13
  They waited beside the rivers for the alewives to spawn. They waited in the marshes to catch the migrating birds.
• 3:24
  And they went to the seaside to dig up mussels and clams.
• 3:29
  They knew the area well, but they traveled. But there were favorite places that they would return to again and again.
• 3:39
  And this area may have been a favorite place. Anyway, there was a hunter here 10,000 years ago.
• 3:49
  And the evidence is that he dropped the stone point of his spear. He may have been hunting muskrats or beaver.
• 4:00
  And he lost the point, went on, didn't find it.
• 4:04
  And incredibly, in modern times, a man out walking his dog found the point and gave it to the Bedford Historical Society where it is treasured.
• 4:18
  Over the years, the past the indigenous people walked became trails.
• 4:26
  And the trails, three of the trails led to these boulders, these two twin boulders on the riverside.
• 4:35
  Which is interesting, why would paths lead to rocks?
• 4:39
  It's not that the rocks marked a shallow place, a ford in the river, where people could wade across the river.
• 4:48
  One of the trails came from the north, one of the trails came from the south.
• 4:52
  And the third one started across the river and went west.
• 4:57
  What did the indigenous people call their landmark? Too much time has passed and it's not remembered.
• 5:05
  But there is a name by which they're known now, which I mentioned, the Two Brothers Rocks.
• 5:12
  So I'm speaking of the time when the English colonists were coming to Massachusetts Bay to settle.
• 5:23
  It was 1630, ten years after the pilgrims had made a village at Plymouth, which was called Pawtuxet,
• 5:32
  when the indigenous people lived there.
• 5:36
  Eleven ships sailed into Salem Harbor, carrying some 700 or more English colonists.
• 5:48
  And that wasn't the least or the most of the immigrants who came.
• 5:52
  The governor of the company was elected to be John Winthrop.
• 5:56
  And the deputy governor was Thomas Dudley.
• 6:00
  They worked together for years and years and years.
• 6:04
  Sometimes Winthrop was elected the governor, sometimes Dudley was elected the governor.
• 6:10
  Their children actually fell in love and married, but the men were not friends, they were rivals.
• 6:19
  Now the great and general court, which was the legislature, wanted the people to settle in inland.
• 6:29
  And most of the towns were on the seacoast, so they decided to give out land grants to important people.
• 6:40
  John Winthrop's rule of thumb was that if the land was improved, if it had houses on it, if it had cornfields,
• 6:51
  somehow improved, then you had to compensate the indigenous people for taking the land.
• 6:57
  And that's how Concord was done.
• 7:00
  The English colonists wanted this part of this village called Muscatequid.
• 7:07
  And they exchanged for six miles square some iron tools, some wampum, and a complete set of English clothing.
• 7:23
  Now down by the twin rocks, the twin boulders, the land was not seen to be improved.
• 7:32
  There were no villages, there were no planted fields.
• 7:37
  Actually there were trails and there were hunters and there were fishers.
• 7:43
  But to the English eye it appeared unimproved, so they felt fine about taking it.
• 7:50
  And in 1638, Concord saw Winthrop and Dudley borrowing a boat and paddling down the river to this impressive landmark
• 8:03
  that everybody pretty much knew about.
• 8:05
  They got out of the boat and stood by the rocks and decided from here north is going to be Dudley's land.
• 8:16
  And from here south is going to be Winthrop's land, 1200 acres apiece.
• 8:24
  And because they had agreed so peaceably and because their children were married and they were in a way related,
• 8:33
  they called the rocks the brothers rocks.
• 8:36
  And you can see them now.
• 8:38
  You can paddle down in your boat and pull up and climb out.
• 8:43
  Or you can walk down a trail like the indigenous people did, maybe it's their trail.
• 8:49
  And when you go, remember the history that these stones witnessed and then enjoy an hour in a beautiful place.
• 9:19
  Hello, my name is Leanna Henry and welcome to the Starfish Storytellers.
• 9:29
  I'm the CEO of the Black Dog Group, a Marcom and project management firm headquartered on the east coast of the US in Quaint Colonial Bedford, Massachusetts.
• 9:38
  I'm your host and passionate about storytelling.
• 9:41
  I'm actually on a mission to raise up the next generation of storytellers.
• 9:45
  We've named ourselves the Starfish Storytellers after the Starfish story.
• 9:49
  The moral of the Starfish story is based on the power of one.
• 9:53
  No matter how big the challenge, each action we take makes a difference and has an impact.
• 9:58
  One step, one starfish or one story at a time.
• 10:02
  Every episode we welcome a new storyteller who will share their story meant to inspire and connect with you.
• 10:08
  Then we'll break it down and offer tips for any listeners who are ready to tell their own stories.
• 10:13
  So thanks for tuning in. Now let's get started.
• 10:16
  Today's episode is about historical narratives framing everyday life from a historical point of view.
• 10:23
  And with me today is Sharon McDonald.
• 10:25
  She's the historian for Bedford.
• 10:27
  She has been appointed by the town of Bedford and is on the board of directors of the Bedford Historical Society,
• 10:33
  which is a nonprofit organization that's been collecting and sharing the stories of Bedford and its residents since 1893.
• 10:40
  We really appreciate you giving us your time today. Thank you so much for being here.
• 10:44
  Oh, you're welcome. How kind of you to invite me.
• 10:47
  I'm just really glad you're here.
• 10:50
  So we usually get started by hearing from our guests just an introduction.
• 10:54
  Would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us a little bit about you?
• 10:58
  I'm a resident of Bedford this year, 50 years.
• 11:03
  Wow.
• 11:04
  And I feel that it's my home, even though my first 25 years were scattered all over the place.
• 11:11
  I've come to love this town so much.
• 11:15
  All the people are my dear, dear friends and the land is something that I love to walk over.
• 11:23
  I hang out in the graveyard, the old burying ground and down by the brothers rocks and at the library.
• 11:32
  Bedford is my favorite place.
• 11:35
  Nice.
• 11:36
  I really appreciate you sharing this historical story with us.
• 11:41
  You know, history, historical narratives really give us, those of us who are here now,
• 11:47
  a way to organize a course of time and to frame our everyday life from what happened before.
• 11:54
  And it also gives us a reason, you know, this way we understand where our roots are, who our ancestors were, what our predecessors went through to give us the life that we have today.
• 12:04
  And, you know, I've been a journalist and I am a publisher and I have retold historical stories, not for Bedford yet, but with another town.
• 12:16
  And I had publications that I, which I covered for whom I covered.
• 12:21
  And I really am a firm believer it's important for us to pass it on to the next generation so that they have, they have the history too.
• 12:29
  And historical narratives will always give people a reason to take action, making sense of our past and our past realities.
• 12:37
  So you were appointed as the town historian.
• 12:42
  I was.
• 12:43
  You were.
• 12:44
  Okay.
• 12:45
  Yes.
• 12:46
  I was the select man, had a meeting and said the candidates for town historian, please come to the front and tell us why you want to be town historian.
• 12:57
  I had a dear, dear friend, I have a dear friend who also wanted to be town historian.
• 13:04
  And when she realized I wanted to be the town historian, she withdrew.
• 13:09
  That's such a good friend.
• 13:12
  Such a good friend.
• 13:13
  So I've been town historian for about 10 years now.
• 13:16
  For 10 years.
• 13:17
  So what does a town historian do?
• 13:19
  Like what are you tasked to do by the town?
• 13:22
  I answer questions that come up, but there are lots more things than answering questions.
• 13:29
  I do a little genealogy when people say, gee, I think my father's father's uncle lived on hillside.
• 13:37
  Can you tell me which house it was?
• 13:40
  Or my cousin was killed on the railroad.
• 13:44
  Can you tell me about the railroad?
• 13:47
  I also try to be proactive.
• 13:50
  I write.
• 13:51
  I've written three books now about Bedford.
• 13:55
  And I do a lot of speaking programs.
• 13:58
  Oh, I was just recently a program about Juneteenth.
• 14:03
  I was the speaker when Bedford has its polecapping the last 17 years I've been the speaker.
• 14:11
  And I read.
• 14:12
  I just read and write and study.
• 14:16
  And it's fun.
• 14:18
  Now you said in your introduction you've been here over 50 years.
• 14:24
  You know, how have you seen the town evolve in the time that you've been here?
• 14:30
  You know, from new buildings, new businesses, the coming and goings of, you know,
• 14:38
  really prominent important people.
• 14:40
  You know, what are some of the memories that you have from your time here that really stand out for you?
• 14:47
  And maybe even from a historical standpoint.
• 14:51
  Well, let me see.
• 14:54
  People do say Bedford has changed a lot.
• 14:57
  The buildings are getting larger and the streets are getting busier with traffic.
• 15:06
  I don't see a lot of difference because my Bedford is the people.
• 15:14
  People are so kind.
• 15:17
  And people are so helpful.
• 15:19
  I just got a new TV.
• 15:21
  And the neighbor across the street was mowing his lawn.
• 15:25
  And I said, ooh, could you help me carry this TV down to the street to get rid of the old one?
• 15:31
  Oh, sure.
• 15:32
  And he came over and carried it right down.
• 15:34
  It was raining.
• 15:35
  No problem.
• 15:36
  No problem.
• 15:37
  Bedford town, I think, though people are afraid that the people are going to change,
• 15:43
  has been warm and supportive.
• 15:49
  When we met each other and we were talking about what sort of things we might talk about on the podcast today,
• 15:56
  you brought up that the 1800s and the 1900s were very important moments in time that shaped Bedford.
• 16:04
  What makes those eras so important and what are maybe some specific stories that might kind of stand out for you from those time frames?
• 16:15
  When people think about Bedford history, I've found generally they're thinking about the Bedford flag,
• 16:22
  which is one of the oldest flags in the United States and Canada and Mexico.
• 16:28
  I mean, it's an old flag.
• 16:30
  I see it in your office.
• 16:31
  Yeah, it is.
• 16:32
  And I've written a book about the Bedford flag.
• 16:35
  And still I feel that Bedford history is more than the Bedford flag and it's more than the American Revolution.
• 16:45
  Bedford has been a real town, a growing town, and I want to emphasize that, that Bedford is more than the Bedford flag.
• 17:00
  So I've been very interested in the 1800s and have done three programs now for the Historical Society on historical characters.
• 17:13
  And people who are not just your New England founders,
• 17:20
  I have read about an enslaved man who was bought when he was five years old and the Bedford Historical Society has that deed for Jeffrey, age five,
• 17:37
  for, I don't know, 20 pounds to be conveyed to Hartwell.
• 17:42
  I think that's an important story.
• 17:44
  I think stories about people whose ancestors were not New Englanders are important as well.
• 17:53
  And at the turn of the century, there were many Italian people who were coming.
• 18:04
  There are many Irish people who were coming and they were, to a large extent, Roman Catholic.
• 18:12
  So this nice, comfortable, congregational and Unitarian town panicked a little at these strange people.
• 18:26
  And I think it's important to find stories that make that history continuous and not just bounce it into something else.
• 18:38
  The early 1900s, there were more pigs than people in Bedford in 1935.
• 18:47
  It was a very small town.
• 18:49
  It was a dairy town and a pig town.
• 18:53
  There were lots of pigs.
• 18:54
  People who grew up here have told me it smelled like pigs years ago.
• 18:59
  It's so fascinating to learn about all of Bedford history.
• 19:08
  Well, not all of it, but I say John, you know?
• 19:13
  Nice.
• 19:15
  Wow.
• 19:17
  And you said that down in the Bedford Historical Society, you're sort of the keeper of the artifacts.
• 19:25
  You're also the keeper of the records.
• 19:27
  What artifacts are down there?
• 19:30
  What do you have?
• 19:32
  Oh, well, the Historical Society is the keeper of the artifacts and the documents.
• 19:40
  We have letters from long ago.
• 19:46
  We have a letter, well, we have the deed for Jeffrey when he was sold.
• 19:52
  We have deeds from the bacon family and we have letters from the bacon family that's about 1890,
• 20:02
  saying I was riding in my wagon and the horse bolted and the wagon fell over and all my eggs broke.
• 20:10
  It's a wonderful letter.
• 20:11
  There are lots of letters like that.
• 20:13
  There are files and files that go by street address.
• 20:19
  You learn who lived at one Fletcher Road and what did they build and when did they live there all through the town.
• 20:27
  So not every house, but most of the older houses.
• 20:30
  So people can come and see what the history of their house is.
• 20:36
  Oh, we have, I was there this morning.
• 20:39
  Let me see, artifacts.
• 20:41
  We have some of the milk bottles and some of the milk, you know, those boxes, those metal boxes that they used to put.
• 20:48
  The boxes that they used to put the milk in and from Bedford was a dairy town.
• 20:55
  So the blue ribbon dairy, the JB Prescott dairy, all the dairies in town are important and we have lots of stuff from the dairies.
• 21:08
  We have a cobbler's bench from the time in the 1800s when Bedford was a shoemaking town, a cord waning town.
• 21:20
  And there were, oh, 100 people who were working as shoemakers.
• 21:26
  And it's written that one year Bedford produced 90,000 shoes.
• 21:34
  Wow.
• 21:35
  90,000 shoes.
• 21:37
  Do you have an idea what year that was?
• 21:39
  Oh, I do, but I can't tell you right now.
• 21:42
  Probably 1830-ish.
• 21:45
  And how long was Bedford a shoemaking town?
• 21:49
  It started about 1805 and was fading at the time of the Civil War.
• 21:55
  The Civil War was a real hard time for Bedford.
• 21:59
  So many of the men went off to war and the women were left to work the fields and...
• 22:06
  You remember that?
• 22:07
  Milk the cows and all that kind of stuff.
• 22:10
  The paper mill burned.
• 22:12
  So a lot of people, 40, 50 people lost their jobs.
• 22:16
  In the country it was, there was a depression.
• 22:20
  And they had invented somebody, some rascal, had invented a sewing machine that could sew the soles onto shoes.
• 22:32
  And all these people who were cutting the leather and then sewing it together in Bedford were suddenly out of a job because the machine could do it.
• 22:42
  So it dwindled down to, again, there were four or five shoemakers in town, and not a hundred.
• 22:49
  Wow.
• 22:50
  Well, you think about tailors and people who fix shoes.
• 22:56
  I mean, that's just, cobblers are very hard to find, so that's a very specialty skill.
• 23:04
  And these were cord wainers.
• 23:06
  Cord wainers make new shoes, cobblers fix old shoes.
• 23:11
  So when I say Bedford was a cord waning town, people go, huh?
• 23:16
  What is that?
• 23:17
  So I get to define it as pretty fun.
• 23:20
  And I would think other artifacts that you had were things, probably a lot of clothing.
• 23:26
  We have a lot of clothing.
• 23:27
  Yes, we have, I want to say, 35 boxes of clothing.
• 23:33
  Some beautiful dresses with tiny, tiny waists that somehow they wore 150 years ago.
• 23:45
  We have babies christening dresses.
• 23:48
  We have navy and army uniforms from the First World War.
• 23:57
  Lots of cool clothing.
• 24:00
  We have the Witch of the Shawshin, who was supposedly a witch and came to town with her red cape.
• 24:08
  We have that red cape.
• 24:09
  Wow.
• 24:10
  Yeah, and that's 1762.
• 24:13
  Wow.
• 24:14
  Mm.
• 24:15
  It's so exciting to work down there.
• 24:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:19
  And you must, I mean, everything is, is everything like specially preserved in like special boxes
• 24:25
  or how do you, how do you keep all of these things from not falling apart?
• 24:30
  Indeed, yeah.
• 24:31
  We have special acid-free boxes that we put the documents in.
• 24:36
  And a lot of the smaller artifacts, we wrap in acid-free paper, not bubble wrap.
• 24:43
  Sometimes we say, gee, we wish we could do this in bubble wrap because it's so fragile.
• 24:48
  But paper.
• 24:49
  Yeah.
• 24:50
  Paper.
• 24:51
  We were very careful to preserve this stuff as long as we can.
• 24:58
  We have a cradle that comes from before 1600.
• 25:05
  And we want it to last another 400 years.
• 25:09
  So we, we treat it so lovingly and so carefully.
• 25:14
  Well, I mean, it's just these artifacts.
• 25:17
  I mean, I can't even imagine how you even handle them at all, like wearing gloves or being very, very careful.
• 25:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:23
  Sometimes we wear gloves and sometimes, you know how awkward gloves are.
• 25:26
  Yeah.
• 25:27
  And sometimes it's safer to wash your hands and get the soap off and then handle things
• 25:32
  with your bare hands just so you're not in for, in, in danger of tearing the documents
• 25:37
  or something.
• 25:39
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:40
  Well, that makes sense.
• 25:41
  That makes sense.
• 25:42
  I had, I've been in the historical room at a library and I've had artifacts handed to
• 25:48
  me and I've worn gloves and I've like, I haven't even wanted to touch them because it's just
• 25:53
  so, they're very precious and they're very delicate and, but it's, it's amazing how
• 26:00
  things are catalogued and organized and preserved and stored.
• 26:04
  You have to store it a certain way.
• 26:06
  Oh, yes.
• 26:07
  Because the temperature changes can be impacting them.
• 26:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:10
  And film on the window so that the UV light doesn't come in.
• 26:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:16
  Mm.
• 26:17
  That's, that's quite a, quite a labor of love.
• 26:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:22
  I'm just a volunteer there and, and do it as a labor of love.
• 26:26
  Yeah.
• 26:27
  For sure.
• 26:28
  So, when talking about a historical story, you know, I, I've told historical stories and
• 26:35
  research is key and getting it right is key and citing your sources and having lots of
• 26:41
  sources is important.
• 26:43
  Do you have any advice for a history buff who might like to dive into some historical
• 26:49
  storytelling?
• 26:51
  What should they do to perhaps get themselves started?
• 26:54
  Well, so often these days you think, well, I'll just bop into the internet and, you know,
• 26:59
  into Google and then I'll learn about it and then I can make a story and you don't do that.
• 27:04
  You, there are, there are history books written in Bedford.
• 27:10
  1891, A.E. Brown wrote a history of Bedford up to 1891 and right now it's being edited
• 27:20
  and annotated and made more accessible to us.
• 27:26
  A.E. Brown will say, well, the Fletcher House on the corner had a, had a new cow and this
• 27:33
  editor will say, the Fletcher House on the corner of Fletcher and the Great Road, which
• 27:40
  is number 14 now and was started, you know, she's really editing the whole book and it
• 27:46
  should be out in the fall.
• 27:48
  So that's going to be even greater when you can read Mr. Brown's book.
• 27:52
  There are other books that are written about Bedford that you can, that you can plow through.
• 27:57
  I've written a history of Bedford for children.
• 28:02
  And then you have to find the documents if you can.
• 28:07
  You go back and see, mostly in the Historical Society, the Bedford Library has a Bedford
• 28:14
  collection room too when they have documents and trying to find letters, trying to find,
• 28:23
  well, when I was studying Jeffrey, the young boy who was enslaved, I found out that later
• 28:33
  he was a Revolutionary War soldier, that he wasn't paid, that his, his, his money was
• 28:42
  given to his master, which made him very annoyed.
• 28:45
  And you can look and see where was he paid, how much was he paid, and what was, what was
• 28:52
  he doing that he got paid for, and did he die in Bedford?
• 28:56
  You go through the old Bedford records and see if he's there.
• 29:02
  In Bedford, there's an old African burying ground, an African reservation, where all
• 29:09
  of the black people were buried.
• 29:12
  You weren't allowed to be buried anywhere else, but in that African reservation.
• 29:18
  So you can, you can really run into a blank wall when you're trying to research that,
• 29:24
  because there are no records.
• 29:25
  There are no records.
• 29:27
  So I went through the vital records of the town, all the way through the births, the
• 29:33
  marriages, the deaths, and it will say, Casco, married, Caesar, and, and you just kind of
• 29:43
  have to figure out what they are.
• 29:45
  There's a lot of, there's a lot of researching and getting a question, and then more research
• 29:50
  to answer that question, knowing how to research is also knowing how to ask other people.
• 30:01
  And then verifying it back and forth.
• 30:04
  Yeah.
• 30:05
  Yeah.
• 30:06
  It is a very lengthy detailed process to do research and to get it right.
• 30:11
  I love it.
• 30:13
  Oh, it's so much fun.
• 30:14
  I was a librarian for 40 years.
• 30:16
  So it's just the ideal thing for a retired librarian.
• 30:20
  Well, that's all the time we have for today.
• 30:23
  I want to thank you so much, Sharon.
• 30:26
  I, I've learned so much about Bedford in just this short time that I've been sitting
• 30:30
  here with you and just really loved the stories about, the story about the twin brothers,
• 30:37
  that's the two rocks, and, and then just learning about all the different things that were going
• 30:43
  on in town, you know, the shoemakers and the mills.
• 30:47
  And thank you so much for being here and thank you for sharing that.
• 30:50
  Oh, you're welcome.
• 30:51
  I enjoyed it.
• 30:52
  Thank you.
• 30:53
  And to our listeners, whether you hear us locally from the BTV studios in Bedford, Massachusetts,
• 30:58
  or across the globe on such podcast channels as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Prime,
• 31:04
  thanks for listening.
• 31:06
  We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time.
• 31:09
  Happy storytelling.