History of Dedham, Massachusetts, 1700–1799
Similar battles were taking place within the churches, as liberal and conservative factions bristled at paying for ministers with whom they had differences of theological opinion.
Both the lightest and the harshest sentences ever given for violating the Alien and Sedition Acts were given out to men who erected a liberty pole in Dedham.
[4] At the March 6 Town Meeting that year, three of the five incumbent selectmen, Samuel Guild, Joshua Fisher,[a] and Joseph Fairbanks, all men from the village, were voted out of office.
[4][5] In their place were elected three newcomers, Ashael Smith, Amos Fisher, and Nathaniel Gay, who collectively had just one year prior service on the board, but at least two of them came from outlying areas.
[7][5] In that election Guild was returned to both his posts as selectman and treasurer, but Fisher and Fairbanks both lost again and were replaced with men from other parts of town.
[7][5] Still upset with the outcome, several men from the village took the issue to the Suffolk County Court where they argued that both March elections were invalid.
[15][14] The meeting then elected by secret ballot three men, a majority, from the outlying areas of town: John Gay, Comfort Starr, and Joseph Smith.
[17] An act of the colonial legislature gave town meetings the right to elect their own moderators in 1715, but this had already been in practice for several years in Dedham.
James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1794 that "Ames is said to owe his success to the votes of negroes and British sailors smuggled under a very lax mode of conducting the election there.
[41] Samuel Dexter, who had a grandson with the same name that served in the cabinets of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, was hired as the minister following Belcher's death in 1723.
[65] The congregation attempted to move the church to Franklin Square in 1797, but the entire structure collapsed, sending a cauldron of bats out of the belfry.
[87] In 1796, a new company was charted by the General Court granting Calvin Whiting the right to deliver water from Federal Hill to houses in the High Street and Franklin Square areas using hollowed out pine logs.
[107] Thanks in large part to Nathaniel Ames, the existing road was maintained but Dedham was required to straighten her portion of it between Roxbury and Medfield.
[91] By the end of the 19th century, the communities of Bellingham, Dover, Franklin, Medfield, Medway, Millis, Natick, Norfolk, Needham, Norwood, Plainville, Walpole, Wellesley, Westwood, and Wrentham would be established within the original bounds of Dedham.
[127] After the election of 1726, when those from the central village recaptured the entire board of selectmen, they went directly to the General Court asking to be set off as a new town.
[50][130] When Parliament imposed the Stamp Act 1765 on the 13 colonies, Town Meeting appointed a committee to draft a set of instructions to Samuel Dexter, their representative in the Great and General Court.
[132] Pitt was credited, according to the inscription on the base, of having "saved America from impending slavery, and confirmed our most loyal affection to King George III by procuring a repeal of the Stamp Act.
"[132] After Parliament adopted the Townshend Acts, Town Meeting voted on November 16, 1767, to join in the boycott of imported goods:[133] Eleven days after the Sons of Liberty dumped tea into Boston Harbor, Town Meeting gathered to "highly approve" the actions taken by the mob and to create a Committee of Correspondence to keep in touch with other communities.
"[139][140] In May 1776, Town Meeting voted that "if the Honourable Congress should, for the safety of the Colonies, declare their independence of the Kingdom of Great Britain, they, the said Inhabitants, will solemnly engage with their lives and fortunes to support them in the measure.
[64] The "influx of lawyers, politicians, and people on county business forced the town to abandon its traditional insularity and its habitual distrust of newcomers.
[144] In 1786, they instructed Nathaniel Kingsbury, Dedham's representative in General Court, to reform the practice of law or to simply abolish the profession of lawyer all together.
[151][150] Federalists began wearing black cockades in their hats while the Jacobins wore red, white, and blue versions in support of the French Revolution.
"[151] Nathaniel Ames wrote in his diary that his brother had convinced "a few deluded people" into signing the letter by "squeezing teazing greazing" them with food and drink.
"[152] A laborer rose to speak after him and said "Mr. Moderator, my brother Ames' eloquence reminds me of nothing but the shining of a firefly, which gives just enough light to show its own insignificance.
[152] Residents awoke one October morning in 1798 to find a large wooden pole had been erected on the Hartford Road in Clapboard Trees parish.
[176] On May 14, 1700, Lt. Joseph Colburn[q] was paid "forty shillings of the Town rate" for constructing an animal pound measuring 33' square on his land.
[179] The first post office was established in 1795 in Jeremiah Shuttleworth's West India Goods shop on High Street at the site of the present day Dedham Historical Society building.
[186][183] He hung a sign out of front of the tavern, which was now officially his, that showed Benjamin Lynde and Paul Dudley, the two justices who voted against him, with their backs to books containing the laws of the province.
[175] Following Braddock's Defeat, Colonel George Washington passed through Dedham along East Street on his way to see Governor William Shirley to obtain a military commission.
[175] A legend first published in 1932 by William Moore tells the story of Black Bear, a descendant of King Phillip, who allegedly haunts the woods surrounding Wigwam Pond.
