Enslavement in the Puritan Village: The Untold History of Sudbury and Wayland, Massachusetts
By Jane H. Sciacca
Foreword by Rachael Robinson
Colonial Sudbury, Massachusetts, was designated the Puritan Village by author Sumner Chilton Powell in his 1964 Pulitzer Prize–winning history of the founding of this quintessential New England town in 1638. Yet this quiet rural village also had a darker history that is often overlooked. Sudbury’s Puritan inhabitants, including some of the most prominent citizens in town, held and sold enslaved Black people throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Stories gleaned from preserved records highlight the lives of men, women and children held in bondage, including a court case involving an enslaved boy repeatedly beaten and left scarred by his master less than thirty years after the town’s founding, as well as the bill of sale of Phebey, age two, to a woman in another town. Local author Jane Sciacca uncovers the hidden side of suffering in this New England town.
Available: Locally at The Wayland Depot or Sudbury Historical Socieity or on Amazon.com
The Puritan Village Evolves: A History of Wayland Massachusetts First Editionby Helen F. Emery (1981)
A chronological history of the town from 1638 to 1980, written by a local historian and scholar.
$ 20.00
Available: Wayland Historical Society, Wayland Depot
Edited by Barbara Robinson (Paperback)
The story of Wayland’s first three centuries told through three historical tours.
$ 10.00
Available: Wayland Historical Society, Wayland Depot
Click here for a free PDF version.
Wayland A to Z (2004)
by Evelyn Wolfson, Dick Hoyt (Paperback)
THE book to own if you can have only one Wayland history – full of meticulously researched stories and details about the town of Wayland, MA
$ 10.00
Available: Wayland Historical Society, Wayland Depot
Legendary Locals of Wayland (2015)by Evelyn Wolfson (Paperback)
A multitude of photos accompanies visionaries who have influenced both Wayland and the country, along with current town folks who continue in their footsteps.
$18.67
Available: Amazon, Arcadia Publishing, Wayland Depot.
Growing up in Wayland: Life in a Massachusetts town during the Depression (1997)by George K Lewis (Paperback)
Beautifully written memoir of a very active and observant boy who grew up to be a professor of geography at Boston University and local historian.
$ 10.00
Available: Wayland Historical Society, Wayland Depot
This is Wayland 375th anniversary year’s celebratory recipe book, written for town residents (including those from centuries past). Linking the 17th to 21st centuries with popular foods, drinks, and “this and that” (i.e. boiled hot soap or teething cookies), this book contains more than 250 recipes.
$ 15.00
Available: Wayland Historical Society, Wayland Depot
Unframed 18 x 24” copy of map made by James Sumner Draper (1811-1896) of what he thought Wayland was like in 1775/6. The original is owned by the Wayland Historical Society. There was no Boston Post Road, (Route 20), west of the First Parish Church in Wayland Center, nor did Commonwealth Avenue, (Route 30), go west of the School Street intersection in Cochituate.
$ 10.00
Available: Wayland Historical Society, Wayland Depot
DVD: by Zander Cowen and Jacob Sussman
Our most ambitious work, Five Miles Astride the River is a 20-minute film exploring the development of our hometown, Wayland, Massachusetts. Showcasing the village’s evolution over 375 years of history, the film explores three distinct eras of American life and illustrates how the town’s past has shaped its present.
$15.00
Available: Pelham Island Pictures, Wayland Depot
by George Lewis (Paperback)
More than 200 photographs, selected primarily from the extensive collection of the Wayland Historical Society, of farmers, factory workers, trolleys, and schools help to tell the unique and fascinating history of Wayland’s two separate neighborhoods, Wayland Center and Cochituate Village.
$21.89
Available: Amazon, Arcadia Publishing, Wayland Depot
uritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town (1963)by Sumner Chilton Powell
A detailed account of the early government and social organization of the town of Sudbury, Massachusetts, present- day Wayland.
$ 20.84
Available: Amazon.com
Annual Meeting
ANNUAL MEETING AND A PEEK BEHIND THE CURTAINS Wednesday, May 17 7:30-9:30 PM Grout Heard House Museum. At the close of the Business Meeting, Jane Sciacca will display a few of our collection items, sharing with you their backgrounds. At least one will never before...
Favorite Spaces – Photographs
Payment – Living in Long-Ago Days
Thank you for registering your child(ren) for the Living in Long-Ago Days! Please send your payment of $ 50.00 per child to: Wayland Historical Society Grout Heard House P. O. Box 56 Wayland, MA 01778 Or you prefer you can pay now by credit card: Program Registration...
Living in Long-Ago Days
After School Program - Living in Long-Ago Days for first and second grade girls Early American Games Clothes Foods and Crafts Tuesday afternoons 3:15 - 4:45 February 28th, March 7th, 14th and 21st $ 50.00 per child [vfb id='1']
Favorite Spaces – Memorable Places
Sunday, February 12 2-4 PM Wayland Town Building Share a photo of a spot in Wayland you treasure. Tell us what makes it special to you, be it a riverbank, tree house, beaver dam, or people Jane Sciacca from the WHS will facilitate a discussion and presentation of...
Aqueducts Run Through It
Sunday, January 8 2:30-4:30 PM Wayland Public Library Together with the Wayland Library, we will present Aqueducts Run Through It featuring our own Tom Sciacca. Do you know how many aqueducts run through Wayland? Since 1848, most of Boston's drinking water has come...