Saturday, October 13 ~ 11 AM – 2 PM
Past Program
Co-sponsored with Wayland Historical Commission and Friends of the Wayland Rail Trail. Walk or bike the new Rail Trail between Russell’s Crossing (Town Center) and the Tower Hill Station site (Plain Road). Although the Central Massachusetts Railroad has been described as “a railroad that should never have been built,” Wayland enjoyed passenger train service from 1881 to 1971; freight service continued until 1980. Guides posted at the Tower Hill station site, the cattle pass, the freight house, the Wayland Depot, and at the turntable and water tank will explain how it all worked. At Town Center MassEnergize will have ecars and ebikes to see and drive and free bike tune-ups. Russell’s annual Pond Sale will be that day.

This map below shows the five locations where knowledgable guides will be posted along the rail trail route from 11 am to 2 pm as well as good places to park. Start and end anywhere along the route you wish. See old train and station photographs on display at the Grout Heard house. Click the map for a full size copy you can print.

Sunday, December 2 ~ 2-5 pm
Past Program
Wayland Museum & Historical Society

Open the holiday season with your friends and neighbors in Wayland Center! Come and enjoy music, activities for kids, caroling, refreshments, and inventive seasonal decorations at the Wayland Museum & Historical Society, the Wayland Free Public Library, First Parish in Wayland, and the Wayland Depot.

Step inside the Wayland Museum decorated in holiday finery and enjoy refreshments and musical entertainment during your visit.  Aida Gennis and Kathy Heckscher, assisted by Sally Lamprey and Ginny Steel, chair the Wayland Museum and Historical Society Open House, and will be busy with many bakers and servers who will provide home baked cookies, tea and punch. The Wayland Museum and Historical Society’s festive decorations, appropriate to the period of each of the Grout Heard House Museum’s rooms, are fashioned by the Wayland Garden Club.  Many volunteer Garden Club members decorate the House under the guidance of Gretchen Schuler and Lois Toombs. Girl Scout troops from all over town have crafted handmade decorations for the tree in the alcove of the Stone Room illustrating this year’s theme, “Board Games.”  Elisa Scola organized the Wayland Girl Scout efforts.

The Wayland Depot, in our historic 1881 train station, will be open from 12-5 p.m., offering an array of handcrafted gifts and unique holiday items for sale, along with Wayland Booster apparel.  Refreshments and sweets will be served by volunteer members of the Depot. As a part of the Wayland Center Holiday Open House, Ben Rudnick & Friends will perform a Holiday Concert for all ages at the Wayland Free Public Library, from 3-3:45 p.m. With seven Parent’s Choice awards to their credit, this tightly-honed string quartet with vocals is guaranteed to entertain the entire family.  Come and sing your favorite holiday songs and learn some new ones!  The performance will be upstairs in the round room.  Refreshments will be served.  This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Wayland Public Library. At 4:30 in the afternoon, join in caroling on the steps of First Parish in Wayland, with lively music provided by members of the Sudbury Valley New Horizons Band.  Following the caroling, led by Rev. Maddie Sifantus, founder/director emerita of the Golden Tones, say hello to Santa in the vestry, and enjoy cocoa and cookies provided by the youth of the congregation.

Sunday, January 27 ~ 2:30pm
Past Program
Tony Howes, MD, PhD
Raytheon Room-Wayland Public Library

Medical practice before the modern era in a town such as Sudbury(Wayland) was limited by a shortage of trained practitioners and by a dearth of knowledge regarding the cause and treatment of disease. Most people would often rely initially on folk or home remedies to treat symptoms of disease as described, for example, in “ The Frugal Housewife “ by Lydia Maria Child. However, if expert care was required they would turn to a country doctor such as Ebenezer Roby.

Such a doctor was expected to differentiate between potentially fatal and self-limited disease and prescribe appropriate palliative remedies. He could dress wounds, set fractures and remove painful teeth. He may have worked with the military in the Revolutionary War and gained experience with amputations, wound care and removal of foreign objects as well as caring for men with contagious diseases such as smallpox and dysentery.

Great advances were being made during this period which set the stage for many of the miracles of modern medicine and we owe a debt of gratitude to the caring country doctor and his long-suffering patients for providing the material  that we now often take for granted.

Refreshments follow the program.

Sunday, March 24 ~ 2:30 PM
Past Program
Jane Sciacca, Curator
Raytheon Room – Wayland Public Library

In the 1830s, a group of Wayland women expressed their political concerns about abolition in the only way they could–by sending petitions to the House of Representatives. This extraordinary act of bravery was the first organized protest of women’s voices in U.S. history.  Jane Sciacca, former president of the Historical Society, shares her interest in the women of our town who deeply opposed slavery.

Refreshments follow the program.

Wednesday, May 15 ~ 7:30 PM
Past Program
Annual Meeting at 7:30
Wayland Museum & Historical Society