Contentment: a brief history of Dedham

Dedham was one of two towns established in 1635 to create a buffer around the Mass Bay Colony, protecting it from "... an attack from the interior" by Indigenous peoples (the other was Concord).

The earliest settlers wanted to name the town Contentment, but the Mass Bay governance called it Dedham.

Dedham was granted more than 200 square miles of "virgin wilderness," including land that now extends to south to Plainville, west to Bellingham, and north to Wellesley.

As Dedham approaches its quadricentennial (400th) anniversary, much of the 10.6 square miles of current-day Dedham has been developed.

But if you look closely, you can still find of nature, including a town forest in the median strip of a highway, two ponds hidden behind box stores and train tracks, a couple hand-dug canals dating back to the 1600s, one tenth of the entire length of the Charles River, and a couple thousand more acres of undeveloped open space.

When I started to look for nature in Dedham, I didn't know much about flora and fauna. In a pre-iNaturalist world, I used field guides, asked friends, and on a dare, I called Peter Alden and invited him to come to the 2011 Dedham BioBlitz. We did it again in 2012, and the number of observations came in at just under 900. Many of those species have since been recorded in iNaturalist and the total number of species in Dedham is almost 1,900.

More than a decade later, the Dedham Conservation Commission is hosting the Dedham Biodiversity Day on Sunday September 15 from 9am to 3pm at the Dolan Center (269 Common St, Dedham).

The town website has a page with details about the day's events.
https://www.dedham-ma.gov/departments/dedham-biodiversity-day

Also, there is an iNaturalist project page which will capture all observations between 3:30PM on Saturday 9/14/24 and 3:30PM on Sunday 9/15/25.
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/dedham-biodiversity-day-2024

All are invited to the Dolan Center (269 Common Street, Dedham) for some fun activities, or you can contribute from anywhere in Dedham by posting observations on iNaturalist.

I'm tagging a few folks who participated in the 2011 and 2012 events. I took the dare, and you all made it happen. Thank you.

@azik, @donlubin, @jef, @ophis, @jformanorth, @cottonmanifesto, @taikarami, @reynoldsj13, and many more that I still have to reconnect with.

Credit for the history bits goes to The Dedham Museum and Archive website.
https://www.dedhammuseum.org/learn/dedham-history/

Publicado el septiembre 5, 2024 07:53 TARDE por stephanieradner