[2] As early as 1853, Henry Orin Hildreth was calling for the creation of a historical society dedicated to the history of Dedham.

[3] On February 1, 1859, Hildreth, along with Calvin Guild, Danforth Phipps Wight, Jonathan Holmes Cobb, Francis Marsh, and William Bulliard met in the office of the Dedham Institution for Savings to form an organization dedicated to "preserving and transmitting to posterity all possible memorials of past and present times.

Additionally, Cobb, Bullard, and Waldo Colburn were selected as curators, and Enos Foord and Henry White Richards were elected auditors.

[3] Three years later, on April 23, 1862, the Great and General Court passed an Act incorporating the Society for the “purposes of collecting and preserving such books, newspapers, records, pamphlets and traditions, as may tend to illustrate and perpetuate the history of New England, and especially the history of the town of Dedham.”[1][5] The Act was accepted on the 9th day of the following June.

[3] Before the adoption of the new by laws on March 2, 1887, quarterly meetings were held at which papers were read on subjects relating to Dedham.

[3] At a special meeting was held in the Vestry of the First Church on September 14, 1885, to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the settlement of the town, at which time "interesting historical sketches were read by several members.

[3] When the bank needed the space, other quarters were secured in the Court House basement through the friendly offer of the County Commissioners.

[3][11][9][12] The home, which served as the first post office in Dedham under her father, Jeremiah Shuttleworth, was moved and a new building constructed.

[11] The fireproof, colonial style building[3] consisted of a lecture-display hall, basement storage area, and office space.

"[13] As he wrote in Dedham Records, published in 1888 “The morning following her funeral, a cold blustering February day, Gariboldi, the statuary manufacturer, was summoned from Boston, and inside the receiving tomb a plaster cast of her face was taken, and from this alone, with the descriptions which a few friends who knew her best could furnish, Miss Annie R. Slafter, of Dedham, made the crayon portrait which now hangs in the place of honor over the great mantel in our Historical Society room.”[13]The addition of a second exhibition room and more storage space in the basement was added in 1965, permitting the original basement to become a historical and genealogical library.

[14] The Society's collections include Dedham Pottery, Katharine Pratt silver, paintings, photographs, pre-Columbian stone tools, local and Civil War artifacts, and a historical and genealogical library.

[4] Other paintings include those by John Constable, Gilbert Stuart, Amasa Hewins, Henry Hitchings, and Alvan Fisher.

[11] On the 21st of March, 1864 the library contained 68 bound volumes, a large collection of pamphlets, and a small number of newspapers and manuscripts.

[3] It contained the record of the original allotments of land in the centre and upper villages and a heliotype of the plan made by Henry Sylvester Talbot, facts for which were collected by William Billiard and assisted by the late Judge Colburn.