By Donald Hafner When Lincoln formed its first church in 1746, the hymn singing at Sunday services must have been dreadful. One of the deacons would stand before the congregation and read a line or two of the psalm that had been selected for the day. The parishioners would sing the one or two lines…
history
Some say “Tra-PELLo,” some say “TRAP-elow”
By Sara Mattes (Editor’s note: The Lincoln Historical Society used this raging controversy as its theme for this year’s July 4 parade float — see the first picture in this photo gallery.) In Lincoln’s earliest history, the road was known simply as Middle County Road. Lincoln lore has it that the name “Trapelo Road” derived…
Lincoln was divided against itself in the mid-1800s
By Donald Hafner During the early 1800s, Lincoln was pretty much a Whig town. Time after time, it voted overwhelmingly for the Whigs’ presidential candidate, who then lost to the candidate of the Jacksonian Democratic party. But the election of 1848 was different. The Whig party had been ambivalent about whether slavery should be allowed…
Did you know… that Lincoln once had a murder of crows?
By Donald Hafner Crows can be a nuisance for farmers. They raid grain fields and orchards in flocks numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands. Apparently the patience of Lincoln’s farmers ran out in March 1791, when a warrant at Town Meeting proposed “a bounty to the inhabitants of the town to encourage and bring…
Local Patriots Day events start on Saturday
Following are events scheduled in Minute Man National Historical Park (MMNHP) and other sites to commemorate events surrounding Patriots Day. Saturday, April 9 The Capture of Paul Revere: A Dramatic Narrative MMNHP Visitors Center at 2:45 p.m. or Capture Site at 3 p.m. March with the Lincoln Minute Men along Battle Road or meet at…
Addendum
After the story headlined “Did you know…” who the first inhabitants of Lincoln were? story was published on December 9, town historian Jack MacLean offered this additional information abut the map that was included: The map here shows Massachuset territories extending further north than was the case at the time of contact. Along the coast,…
“Did you know…” who the first inhabitants of Lincoln were?
By David P. Braun When people ask, “who were the first inhabitants of Lincoln,” they often mean, “what tribe lived here?” The short answer is, probably Massachuset. But as best we can tell, most Native American “tribes” were somewhat fluid. They did not have rigid boundaries or a concept of land as property in the…
Addendum
A new photo has been added to the photo gallery at the bottom of the December 8, 2021 story headlined “Archivist, family members unwrap a historic quilt.” The inadvertently omitted image shows a square hand-written by Joseph Flint….
Archivist, family members unwrap a historic quilt
The Lincoln Public Library archives contain all sorts of historical items, but not all of them are on paper — a quilt that was made for a woman before she sailed off to be a missionary recently came out of the vault to be admired and rewrapped. The Flint family, which has lived in Lincoln…
Historical misunderstanding once shrouded the “muster field”
By Rick Wiggin Contrary to popular Lincoln myth, the town’s Minute Men did not muster in the field at the corner of Sandy Pond and Baker Bridge Roads. The mistaken identity of that field as the “Muster Field” came about from a misreading of Lincoln’s history and from the politics of the town’s acquisition of…