First Holy Communion, Sacred Heart Church, 1890s

The original Sacred Heart Church was built in 1881 following Archbishop John Joseph Williams' blessing of the cornerstone on July 12, 1881. The church stood on Center Street approximately on the site today occupied by the church rectory and parking lot.

Prior to the construction of the church, the community's Catholic residents worshipped in private homes as well as the upper floor of the P. H. Peirce grocery store (now the Middleborough Police Station). Mass was celebrated by visiting priests and the first recorded Mass in Middleborough was celebrated in the home of Patrick Sullivan on Wareham Street in 1852.

Here a group of children celebrating their first Holy Communion have gathered for the photographer. The girls are attired in white dresses, veils and gloves while the boys wear their best suits. Several proud parents look on.

 Though the image is undated, it appears to be from the 1890s.

B. F. Tripp Trade Cards

Trade cards were a popular means of advertising during the late 1800s. Small and highly-colored, these illustrated cards became widespread with the introduction of color lithography in the 1870s and their free distribution helped retailers and manufacturers advertise their goods. The cards were frequently changed by merchants, helping entice shoppers back for a return visit. Children often collected the cards, pasting them into bound volumes, and they remain highly collectible today.

One Middleborough merchant who made wide use of trade cards for advertising was Benjamin F. Tripp, who conducted a combined ice cream, confectionary, fruit and cigar store on the site now occupied by Kramer Park next to the former Savings Bank Building on Center Street. Tripp utilized many different styles of cards which would have been purchased in bulk and printed by a local printer (most often Thatcher & Company) with Tripp's specific information.

The samples below from the collection of Recollecting Nemasket provide a glimpse of the variety of trade cards offered by Tripp's.

 

Nemasket Spring Water Company Drivers

In order to deliver its products, the Nemasket Spring Water Company required several drivers. From left to right are Sulo Jussila, Albert Malefant, George Chilian, Edmund Rondelli, Stan Sinoski and Armen Kayajan. With business reaching a new peak n 1937, the plant began 24-hour operation, requiring a fleet of 10 trucks to deliver its product throughout southern Massachusetts.

Nemasket Spring Bottles

During the 1930s, Nemasket Spring on Plymouth Street produced a variety of beverages, producing under its own name as well as the Cape Cod brand. Early in the decade, the firm bottled its sodas and mixers in pressed green glass bottles manufactured to resemble cut glass. Later, simpler clear bottles were used for bottling the Cape Cod brand sodas. During the mid-1930s, the firm also produced unflavored carbonated water retailed in heavy glass soda siphons, a development likely fostered by the repeal of Prohibition in December 1933.

Bottles from the collection of Recollecting Nemasket. The Cape Cod brand bottle still contains the original cola.

What would the Pilgrims have Thought?

This tidbit from the Brockton Enterprise of August 24, 1912 indicates that the cranberry truly was king in Middleborough, the harvest that year even postponing a traditional local meeting of churches.

   "There isn't going to be a meeting of the Plymouth County neighborhood convention of the churches next month because of cranberries.
   "That sounds rather strange, but Gen. Sec. A. H. Wardle of the [Middleborough] Y. M. C. A., who is secretary of the convention, announces this to be the reason for missing the September meeting.
   "Ordinarily the sessions are resumed in September after the vacation period, and it was expected the same custom would be in effect this year....
   "But it didn't happen. The active members of these churches are so busy gathering up cranberries, which literally translated means money, that they can't stop to entertain church delegates, Mr. Wardle states, so the meeting will go over till October.
   "It is said to be the first time the convention failed to resume its meetings in September, and the reason assigned is considered a very unusual one."

Source: Brockton Enterprise, "Cranberry is King, Religious Convention is Postponed", August 24, 1912.
  

Workmen Unearth Human Skull, 1931

Here's a Hallowe'en tidbit from the pages of the November 20, 1931 Middleboro Gazette.

Workmen Unearth Human Skull

   Mystery surrounds the gruesome finding of a human skull by Calvin R. Hosford, Albert Carr and Fred Blanchard yesterday morning as they were excavating for a small building on the new state highway [Route 28] on East Grove street on Mr. Hosford's property. As the men were digging towards the wooded section, the skull, which was but a few feet under ground came rolling down into the loosened sand. Although the men kept digging there were no human bones found.
   Chief of Police Sisson was called and to him was delivered the skull which was brought to the police station and viewed by Medical Examiner A. V. Smith. It was large and broad and had been in the ground a long time and was evidently from a man of more than middle life. The teeth were wide and heavy and a worn space in the side showed the man to be a smoker having gripped his pipe tightly.
   A checkup was started by the police, but as far as they can learn there have been no missing persons reported for years and in the absence of any more bones of a human skeleton and marks of identification the case does not promise any solution. There were no marks of violence which rather explodes any murder theory from head injuries at least, but its depth under the ground also dispels any suicide angle.
   The case will probably find its way into the archives of the police as one of those unsolved mysteries you have read about.

   The location of the discovery was on Hosford's property known in deeds as the "Sharing Brook Lot", a portion of which is now occupied by The Cabin restaurant (formerly the Log Cabin). Despite the rareness of unearthing human remains and the even greater curiosity of discovering an incomplete human skeleton, the news was "buried" on page 4 of the newspaper.

Lorenzo's 1971

Before Lorenzo's built a dining room in 1972, sit-down dining at the West Grove Street Italian restaurant meant a snappily-uniformed car-hop who brought your meal to you in your car. Although car-hop service is a thing of the past, Lorenzo's remains a Middleborough landmark. Here the staff and owners Lorenzo and Geraldine Grosso have assembled for a picture in 1971.