The 250th Anniversary of this Country is an ideal time to remember the Veterans from Dedham who gave their full measure to win the Freedom and Democracy we celebrate this year. The number of soldiers from Dedham who fought in the Revolution, including the outlying Parishes, is over 600 according to A List of Revolutionary Soldiers Who Served Dedham in the Revolution, 1775-1783 published in 1917 by the Dedham Historical Society (Now the Dedham Museum and Archive).
Over 100 of these honored dead are interred or memorialized in the Old Village Cemetery on Village Avenue, one of America’s most ancient Colonial Cemeteries. Men like Ebenezer Paul who marched under the command of Captain Aaron Fuller and helped to build the fortifications on Dorchester Heights from which the cannons placed by Col. Henry Knox forced the British to evacuate Boston; women like Rebecca Whiting Guild, daughter of Revolutionary War veteran Joseph Whiting, who, as a young girl knitted socks for the soldiers of the Revolution, and at 90 for the men going off to the Civil War. The Old Village Cemetery is the final resting place for many of Dedham’s most prominent citizens. The ground for the Cemetery was set aside in 1636, the year that the Town was incorporated, which means that in 10 years both will celebrate a 400th birthday.
For the past 9 years the Dedham Village Preservation Association has been working in cooperation with Joe Flanagan, Director of the Dedham DPW, to repair and restore sites within the Cemetery that were in danger of being lost. This year, with a generous grant from the Dedham Savings Community Foundation, we are planning to restore the eroding plot of the Farrington Family, which contributed importantly to the Town’s historic legacy. The Old Village Cemetery is one of Dedham’s most visited historic resources for tourists and genealogists, and a gem in the rich panoply of Dedham’s important place in American History.
Dedham Village Preservation Association 