Artifacts

You never know what you are going to find in an old workshop on what was once a rather fine Dover estate.  On the invitation of the last member of the family to have lived there, my son Philip and I were looking through the clutter in the garage when he approached with an object looking more like a Medieval war club than a tool!  The heavy 21 inch long monster was the largest adjustable wrench I had ever seen. Upon closer inspection we noted that it was stamped “BLAKE” in three places, clearly identifying it with that family that

The Lower Level at the Sawin Museum is chock-full of kitchen tools.  Part of the story of these items is the way in which we as humans are constantly improving our methods and technologies.  The Museum illustrates this progress in an interactive 19th century Dover kitchen exhibit. Several objects in this collection have as yet unknown purposes, and it is satisfying when we succeed in answering the question: “What is it?” This small, well-worn utensil had an "unspecified use" as it sat on a museum shelf for many years. This mystery object sat on the shelf for years,

I came upon the above artifact some years ago while exploring the Luke Dean cellar hole, which lies on the northwest side of Powisset Pond on land now owned by Hale Reservation. I believe Bob Campbell excavated the site in the 1970’s though I have never seen any documentation of that work. In Biographical Sketches of Dover Soldiers Frank Smith states that he was born to Joseph and Hannah (Baker) Dean on May 29, 1750 on “the homestead” which was then (in 1909) the grounds of the Powisset Club. He married Rebecca Russell in 1771 and had 11 children before

There is a large walk-in combination safe at the Sawin Memorial Building. It was clearly installed when the Sawin was built in 1906-07 and has some beautiful brickwork forming the interior walls and ceiling. The safe door has a date of 1906 and was purchased (probably in that year) from the Morris-Ireland Safe Company of Boston. The firm was located at 64 Sudbury Street, a site now occupied by the JFK Federal Building. Morris-Ireland has been out of business for ninety years but it had a colorful history. The Morris & Ireland Safe Company (note the ampersand) was founded in

Visitors to the Sawin Museum will note a small collection of Native American artifacts on the Main Level, including both stone tools and a number of baskets. While relatively small in size, the collection is of interest in that it spans roughly 6,000 years of human occupation. Native Americans first arrived in New England with the retreat of the Ice Age roughly 10,000 years ago, however the majority of the stone artifacts in our collection can be reliably dated by their size and shape to the Late Archaic period, between 3,000 and 6,000 years ago.  Distinguishing characteristics of the Late

As President of The Dover Historical Society it gives me great pleasure to announce the recent (2009) discovery and safe return of Dover’s Boston Post Cane, discovered in an antique shop by Dr. Stephen Kruskall, a member of our Advisory Board. The story of the Boston Post Canes began in August of 1909 when Edwin A. Grozier, publisher of the Boston Post, hired J. F. Fradley & Co. of New York to produce them for presentation to the Selectmen in 700 towns throughout Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island.  The canes were to be awarded by the Selectmen to

In the last edition of Tidings I remarked upon the fun that can be had in researching the more obscure items acquired by an Historical Society in the course of 120 years. There is much that can be learned from our more significant items as well. The portrait shown above is that of an early Dover resident, Ruggles Whiting. It was donated to the Society by a Mrs. Frank Willey in 1961. While unsigned, the portrait was attributed to the celebrated American portrait artist, Gilbert Stuart (1755-1827). Ruggles Whiting was born in Dover on December 29, 1779 to Aaron Whiting

“The hat maketh the person”; although Shakespeare did not say that, he could well have.  Indeed, in addition to recreating an old schoolhouse atmosphere, there has also been work on new exhibits showcasing the evolution of certain items over three centuries. These include watches, maps, compasses, some weapons and especially, hats.  We have a brown fantail hat of a type favored by the local farmers who rushed to Lexington in 1775, a fine Civil War forage cap identical to that worn by Dover veteran Edwin Gay, a World War I campaign hat and a suitably crumpled World War II pilot’s

Many a visitor to the Sawin Museum has admired the engaging mural painted by Diane Gilson in early 2016.  Since this allegorical view of Dover and its setting is replete with details meaningful to the artist who grew up across the street from the Museum as well as the curators, Pam Kunkemueller and I, we feel that it might be beneficial to provide some information on these details so that future art historians or Dover history enthusiasts will not have to wrack their brains in order to grasp and explain the “inner meanings” of the scene represented. First of all,