Welcome to Centers and Squares

As a Cambridge real estate agent, the city squares of Cambridge, Somerville and Medford and the town centers of Arlington, Watertown and Belmont, Massachusetts are my home turf. And as a lifelong New Englander who’s lived within twenty miles of Boston most of my life, I can introduce you to other nearby towns as we search for your new home. If you’re planning to sell your home in Cambridge, MA or nearby you’ll find plenty of info about the home selling process here too. Questions? Send me an email or call me at 617-504-1737.

Tercentenary Signs In Massachusetts

The Boston Globe had a wonderful article on Sunday about the Tercentenary Signs you bump into around Massachusetts.  The signs were erected in 1930 as part of the celebration of  the tercentennial – Massachusetts’ 300th birthday by the Massachusetts Bay Colony Tercentary Commission.

The article is fascinating – I love the signs but hadn’t known a great deal about their history.  (I’ll soon fix that – an article like this one puts me on a quest for more info – and a 1930 copy of Samuel Eliot Morison’s Historical Markers of Massachusetts is now heading my way courtesy of ABEbooks.com and a bookseller in Vermont).

Turns out that the research and text used on the signs was done by Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison and the Globe‘s article touches on how the signs are a reflection of what was considered important by Eliot and others from the vantage point of 1930.

Me? I’m just happy that we have any semi-permanent reminders of what happened here since our memory seems to get shorter and shorter. 

While many of the signs have remained almost half are no longer in place.  Happily there are efforts underway to restore the missing markers, according to the Globe, including a proposed bill to provide funds for restoration and replacement.

Next time you come across a tercentenary sign take a minute to read it and think about what once was not that long ago.  Here are a few of the tercentenary markers from Arlington, Cambridge, Medford and Watertown.

Tercentenary Slide Show

Categories: Everything Else
Tags:

Leave a Reply

Copyright © 2008 - 2011 Centers And Squares     Agent Login     Design by Real Estate Tomato     Powered by Tomato Real Estate Blogs

Real Estate Tomato