The Massachusetts Historical Commission has a marvelous website. You can find photos and information about historic properties throughout the commonwealth. The main page to this site has a Learn & Research section. Click on "Search MACRIS Database," and you will see Search Filters on the left hand side of the page. You may search by town from by clicking on the first option. There are 346 listings for West Brookfield when you select West Brookfield. Information provided includes a complete property description including location, architectural style, year building was built, and whether or not any there have been any renovations. One may also learn who owned the property, what it was used for and its significance in the community. All the information is available to download. This is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in the West Brookfield homes and their history.
Saturday, July 30, 2022
Sunday, May 29, 2022
All honor to the heroes true,
And to the warriors brave,
Who nobly fought and nobly died,
America to save .
To save our grand old Union's strength,
To save her honor, too,
To save our loved old stars and stipes,
And all that's good and true.
To save our land from slavery's rule.
That killeth like a blight,
And let her stand forth strong and brave
For God and for the right.
When we recall the cruel war,
The perils dark and dread,
From which our land and homes were saved,
By these our honored dead.
With bated breath we sing their praise,
And give them honor due,
And say again with thankful hearts,
God Bless the boys in blue.
About the author - Clara Hamilton Reed was born in West Brookfield. She was the granddaughter of Alanson Hamilton for whom West Brookfield's G.A. R. Post was named. She was well known for her work in the church; as well as, for her numerous published short stories which appeared in newspapers and magazines of her time.
Source
Grand Army of the Republic : Department of Massachusetts: Personal War Sketches of the Members of Alanson Hamilton Post No. 160 West Brookfield; type written copy of poem, and newspaper clipping of the obituary of Clara Hamilton Reed; online images, Brookfields Research (http://www.brookfieldsresearch.com/resources.html : accessed 29 May 2021.) Compiler - Grace D.Wilbur, Clerk of G.A.R.; Copyright 1890 by Louis Everts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Update 10 December 2022
Updated Link Quabog Research Look under Military Resources
Friday, April 1, 2022
West Brookfield in the 1950 Census
Today the National Archives released the 1950 Population Schedule for public viewing on the archives' website . Indexing has been done using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and thus, there are errors in this index right now. Users are encouraged to take advantage of the abilty to add corrected information so that the index will improve over time with use. The index may be searched under name, location, and/or Enumeration District Number. West Brookfield had two enumeration districts in 1950. They are 14-438 which includes the village area, and 14- 439 encompacing the surrounding outlying areas.
The first image of District 14-438 is an adminstrators page showing who the enumerators were (Ralph Barrows led the team,) and the count for the district. There were 1070 individuals living in 454 dwelling units in this district. The following pages named the individuals living in town, their realtionship to others in the household, ages, birthplaces, occupations and earnings, and military status. Ralph Barrows began Sheet No. 1 on April 1, 1950 listing his own household and continuing down Church Street to the home of Clarence Lyman, He covered some of Lake St., Crescent Avenue and Myrick St. I searched Clarence Lyman and I scrolled down to the bottom of the page to get