Annual Members Meeting with Election of Board Members and May Public Program

Spies, Patriots, and Traitors: American Intelligence in the Revolutionary War
A presentation by author Kenneth A. Daigler

Wednesday, May 4, 2016
7:00 PM Annual Members Meeting
7:15 PM May Public Program
Watertown Savings Bank Meeting Room
Watertown Free Public Library
123 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472

Students and enthusiasts of American history are familiar with the Revolutionary War spies Nathan Hale and Benedict Arnold, but few studies have closely examined the wider intelligence efforts that enabled the colonies to gain their independence.  Kenneth A. Dagiler will discuss his new book, Spies, Patriots, and Traitors, which provides readers with a fascinating and well-documented account of American intelligence activities during the era of the Revolutionary War, from 1765 to 1783, while describing the intelligence sources and methods used and the way in which our Founding Fathers learned and practiced their intelligence role.

Kenneth A. Daigler is a retired career CIA operations officer.  He earned a BA in history from Centre College of Kentucky and an MA in history from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and served in the U.S. Marine Corps.  He has written articles about intelligence for the CIA Historical Division's journal, Studies in Intelligence, the Association of Former Intelligence Officers' Intelligencer and other publications.  Spies, Patriots, and Traitors is available for purchase from Amazon.com.

This meeting and program are free and open to the public.
For more information, call Joyce at 781-899-7239.

Special Public Program

A talk by Stephen Kendrick, author of The Lively Place:  Mount Auburn, America's First Garden Cemetery, and Its Revolutionary and Literary Residents

Sponsored by:
The Watertown Free Public Library
The Historical Society of Watertown

Tuesday, April 12, 2016
7:00 PM
Watertown Savings Bank Meeting Room
Watertown Free Public Library
123 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472

Author Stephen Kendrick will talk about his new book, which celebrates a vital piece of our nation's history.  The Lively Place tells the story of Mount Auburn's founding, its legacy and the many influential Americans interred there, from religious leaders to abolitionists, poets and reformers.

Kendrick is a senior minister at the First and Second Unitarian Universalist Churches in Boston.  He is the author of Holy Clues (Pantheon, 1999), Sarah's Long Walk (Beacon Press, 2004) and Douglass and Lincoln (Walker & Co., 2008).

The Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery will provide books for purchase at this event.

This program is free and open to the public.
For more information, call Joyce at 781-899-7239.

March Public Program

Documenting Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown's East End
A slideshow lecture by William A. McEvoy, Jr.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016
7:00 PM
Watertown Savings Bank Meeting Room
Watertown Free Public Library
123 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472

After four years of work, Bill McEvoy's research of the Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery, also known as Sand Banks Cemetery and Cottage Street Cemetery, is complete.  Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery, a less than 7 acre parcel, is owned by and receives minimal care from the Archdiocese of Boston.  The cemetery has many exquisite and finely carved monuments erected to residents from all walks of life.  Not all of the graves are marked and many of the monuments are weathered, in need of repair, have fallen or are at risk of falling.

This presentation will provide a sampling of the monuments in the cemetery and the people they commemorate.  It will also provide a detailed description of the difficult times faced by the Irish immigrants from the Great Famine in 1847.  Bill's study is based on data he collected for 22,000+ people buried from 1854 to 1920.  His talk will impart a better understanding of the state of residential and economic conditions, lack of proper sanitation, substandard to nonexistent healthcare, ethnic prejudices and mortality rates.  Bill entered all of the information he gathered into a downloadable Excel spreadsheet.

Mr. McEvoy was presented with a Historic Resources Preservation Award by the Watertown Historical Commission for this work in 2013.  Click here for more info on this project.

This program is free and open to the public.
For more information, call Joyce at 781-899-7239.

November Public Program

Memories of Marash: The Legacy of a Lost Armenian Community
A documentary film by Roger Hagopian

Sunday, November 22, 2015
2:00 PM
Watertown Savings Bank Meeting Room
Watertown Free Public Library
123 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472

This 68 minute documentary film was originally created in 2002 and is presented on the 100th year commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.  Producer Roger Hagopian remastered the film in 2015 to widescreen format with high resolution photography, hundreds of new high resolution images and animated maps.  The film traces the ancient history fo the city of Marash, Turkey, from its Hittite, Roman and Crusades periods, through a series of massacres from the late 1800s to the final expulsion and genocide of the Armenians by Ottoman Turkey between 1915 and 1923.  "I wrote and edited this film with the initial desire to tell my family story within the context of history, " Hagopian said.  "In the process of my research, the theme of the story shifted from the plight of my grandmother and uncle to the tale of a vibrant way of life that had once existed in Marash and is now forever a memory."

A history lover since his youth, Roger is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he received his degree in music.  His films include:  Journey Along the Middlesex Canal (1996), Journey of an Armenian Family (1999), Victory at Van (2006), Our Boys, Armenian-American World War II Veterans (2006), Memory Fragments of the Armenian Genocide (2007), Destination Watertown: The Armenians of Hood Rubber (2009), The Canal that Bisected Boston (2011) and A Company of the Committed: The Armenian Memorial Church of Watertown (2012). Hagopian has presented his films at high schools, universities, libraries, community centers and private homes. "For me, video is a way of telling history that is educational, multidimensional, and compelling."

This program is free and open to the public.
For more information, call Joyce at 781-899-7239.