52 weeks and 52 essays: A year of local history

Over Memorial Day weekend in 2024, I quietly set out on a project to write about local history, intending to publish every Sunday on TownHistory.org — one essay each week. Without making a formal announcement or setting expectations, I committed to exploring the places, people, documents, and stories that shape the past of our community.

And since Memorial Day last year, I have not missed a single week. Over the course of a year, these essays have chronicled topics from the Revolutionary War to the delivery of our mail, from forgotten trolley lines to families who suffered devastating fires, and from one-room schoolhouses to historic buildings remembered through photographs and tax ledgers. Along the way, I’ve unearthed old maps, scanned archival images, and highlighted stories tucked inside diaries, census records, and court proceedings.

Today marks my 52nd consecutive weekly post. With that, I’ll be pressing pause. I won’t be publishing on Sunday, May 25 — a deliberate way of breaking that streak. There must be something in the Calvinist blood that has been passed down to me from some of our original colonial settler families — the kind who frowned on games of chance and insisted on self-restraint. Keeping a perfect streak going feels a little too close to compulsion, and I suspect the old-timers would look askance at this. (Perhaps they’d recommend a few days of repentance, maybe followed by a serious review of the Town Meeting minutes to help ground me in the business of the here-and-now.)

But I do plan to return to publishing sometime this summer, with something slightly different — perhaps an essay that revisits and reflects on my year of storytelling and the introduction of a new twist, using technologies like audio, video, maybe even applying some artificial intelligence to unearth hidden connections.

My archive of essays remains here for readers to explore. In the months ahead, I may rework this material into other formats — perhaps a podcast, a series of videos, a virtual walking tour. I also plan to return to a few long-form research projects, like creating a finding aid for viewing scans of old photo albums or searching the catalog of gravestone inscriptions in our old burying grounds to discover family connections buried in an unseen network just below the surface. And I may simply pause for a while and look back with gratitude for what this year of storytelling has meant to me, and the remarkable community of readers it has made possible.

If you’ve read, shared, commented, or reached out with your own memories: thank you. This work has always been about more than history — it’s about community, connection, and continuity.

I’ll end today’s post with a handy compilation of some of my favorite resources, described and linked below – and with an invitation to you, dear readers: dive in and explore for yourselves, or share with your own network of family, neighbors and friends. There’s so much to explore! After all, every day we are making more history, together.