Special Event: Historic Banners Walking Tours
Faire on the Square 2017
Saturday, September 23, 2017
10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Saltonstall Park
149 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472
Visit the Historical Society of Watertown table at Faire on the Square and join HSW Executive Board member Mary Spiers for a free Watertown Square walking tour that will feature historic lamp pole banners depicting eleven prominent men and women who made historic contributions in Watertown and beyond. Tours will depart from the Civil War Soldiers' Monument located in Saltonstall Park at 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM. The banners were made possible through the generosity of Watertown Savings Bank.
This program is free and open to the public.
For more information, contact Joyce at 781-899-7239 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Special Event: Ringing of the Bells
Boston Charter Day
Thursday, September 7, 2017
4:30 PM
Church of the Good Shepherd
Redeemer Fellowship Church
Watertown, MA 02472
The Partnership of the Historic Bostons' celebration of Charter Day each year begins with a joyous ringing of church bells in the three towns that received their present names on September 7, 1630: Boston, Dorchester and Watertown. Church of the Good Shepherd and Redeemer Fellowship Church in Watertown will ring their bells on Thursday, September 7, at 4:30 PM (16:30 in 24-hour notation), the same time that bells will ring in Boston and Dorchester to commemorate the occasion.
Charter Day 2017's theme is Medicine and Mortality in 17th-Century Boston. Visit the PHB web site for a full list of Boston Charter Day, which run though October 3. All events are free, but registration may be required.
September Public Program
The Strangers' Tomb
A slideshow lecture by author Robin Hazard Ray
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
7:00 PM
Watertown Savings Bank Meeting Room
Watertown Free Public Library
123 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472
Robin Hazard Ray's murder mystery, The Strangers' Tomb, is set in historic Mount Auburn Cemetery during the tumultuous period before the Civil War. A night watchman is assaulted. An extra corpse turns up in a tomb. How are these incidents connected--and what's next?
Ray will discuss how the histories of Cambridge and Watertown, including the growth and development of their police departments, influenced the plot of her novel. She will also talk about the impact that some of the wider issues at play in science and society in the era leading up to the Civil War are having on the composition of the next book in her Murder in the Cemetery series, tentatively titled The Soldier's Grave.
Ms. Ray studied geology and biology at Brown University and European intellectual history at UC San Diego. A freelance writer, editor, public speaker and media escort, she also volunteers for the Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery. There she gives talks and tours on themes ranging from glacial geology and the history of science to gay Bostonians and Isabella Stewart Gardner's circle of friends. She is currently collaborating with Heyward Parker James, Ph.D., on a world-historical biography of Sir Victor Sassoon. She lives in Somerville with her husband and two black cats.
This program is free and open to the public.
For more information, contact Joyce at 781-899-7239 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..