Recent Events and Features: March 2023 - Weston Historical Society

JST Exhibit Will Be Open for Celebrate Weston, May 20, 2023

The town-wide festival Celebrate Weston! is returning this spring. For all those who missed seeing the WHS exhibit “History Under One Roof: The Evolution of The Josiah Smith Tavern,” or would like to explore again this special exhibit, this is your chance. The exhibit will be open from 11 to 3 as part of the Saturday, May 20 event. Explore the history of Weston’s taverns and view furniture, decorative arts, household items, and photos belonging to the Jones family, who lived at the JST for three generations. Historical re-enactors will perform on the patio out front. Watch your WHS email and this website for other times this spring that the exhibit will be open.

According to Select Board member Laurie Bent, “The first Celebrate Weston was prompted by a desire to recognize and thank people and organizations who worked so hard to create our beautiful and vibrant new Town Center. It also gave us a joyful opportunity to banish the isolation of the Covid years by bringing residents of all ages together in our welcoming new gathering spaces.” With the enthusiastic support of Dusty Rhodes, the “Grand Marshal” of the inaugural event, the Select Board voted to make Celebrate Weston an annual town party.

For the historically minded, this is also an opportunity to take tours of the sanctuaries of First Parish Church and St. Julia Church, to climb the tower at FPC to see the Paul Revere Bell, and tour the Fiske Law Office, where information will be available for self-guided tours of Farmers and Central Cemeteries. Activities for all ages will take place in Town Center. Celebration Marketplace at the Josiah Smith Tavern parking lot will feature Weston clubs, businesses, and organizations along with the main entertainment stage. New this year, the Golden Ball Tavern Museum will be sponsoring a Beer Garden in the adjacent garden and pergola. Enjoy this relaxing place to view the day's activities as you sip a glass of beer or wine and imagine the days of tavern drinking on the Boston Post Road.

Also new this spring will be Weston-Wayland Children’s Business Fair, previously held in the fall. Sponsored by Rotary Club of Weston and Wayland, the one-day market gives children ages 6 to 14 the opportunity to showcase their own businesses. The fair will have some 50 booths selling products and services created entirely by the young entrepreneurs.

The 9th annual Weston High School Spring Fling will take place on the west end of Town Green, with games, crafts, musical entertainment, and activities like face painting and cookie decorating for children in grades K-5. Spring Fling is a fundraising effort to benefit Camp No Limits, a destination camp for children with limb loss and differences. On and around Town Green, the Celebrate Weston Kid’s Fair will have some of last year’s favorites plus new fun activities. The Inventor Mentor will be there — with his foam, smoke bazookas, and rockets — along with Weston Olympics, Touch a Truck, Bonaparte the Magical Musician, and maybe even a place to “decorate a dad.” For the artistically inclined, the National Art Honor Society will again create a mural to be colored and enhanced.

Coordinating festivities is the Celebration Committee, a group of local residents under the leadership of Dusty Rhodes, president of the event planning company Conventures Inc. Questions? Visit the Celebrate Weston information page.

Bob Lewis and Tom Brome on JST porch, Bob in Minuteman attire.

Weston Historical Society board members Bob Lewis and Tom Brome at last year’s Celebrate Weston.

Signboard about the JST on sidewalk in front of JST.

The 16 historical sign boards made by WHS last year will be scattered throughout the Town Center on May 20. Photo by Alanna Muldoon.

JST exhibit room including antique shovels and other tools.

Antique chairs and table by JST stairwell for exhibit.

Exhibit timeline.

Vendors in tents in the JST parking lot.

Photo by Lee McCanne.

Kids drawing on a paper mural on the town green.

“Remembering Norumbega Park
and the Totem Pole Ballroom”

featuring the documentary Return to Norumbega
by Joe Hunter

Thursday, April 27, 2023

7:00 pm

In person at Weston Public Library Community Room
Refreshments. All are Welcome

This program will not be taped.
Please come in person to enjoy this delightful presentation.

Poster advertising Norumbega Park with illustrated bird's-eye view of the park and the Charles River. — Throughout the early part of the 20th century, Norumbega Park in Newton, Massachusetts was the ultimate destination for thrill-seekers and fun-lovers. Its dance pavilion, the Totem Pole Ballroom, at one time called “America’s most beautiful ballroom,” presented nationally renowned big bands led by musicians including Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Artie Shaw.

Take a walk down memory lane in this history of Norumbega Park, located just across the Charles River in Newton. In its heyday, it was one of New England’s prime recreational sites and the home of the famous Totem Pole Ballroom. The documentary film Return to Norumbega is based on the work of the late Bob Pollock, a Norumbega enthusiast who spent more than a decade documenting the park’s rich history and gathering Norumbega photographs and memorabilia.

The April 27 program will feature three park experts: filmmaker Joe Hunter and authors Clara Silverstein and Sara Goldberg, whose recently published book Norumbega Park and Totem Pole Ballroom explores the colorful history of the park through nearly 200 images of vaudeville acts, aerialists, musicians, and rides. The book will be for sale and is also available from the Historic Newton Museum Shop.

One of many “trolley parks” that opened near American cities around the turn of the 20th century, Norumbega Park outlasted much of the competition because of its reputation for cleanliness and family-friendly fun. For 66 years, the park by the Charles River (where the Marriott Hotel is today) hosted canoeing, amusement rides, and explorations through its zoo and gardens. Norumbega Park and the Totem Pole Ballroom illustrates popular trends in the 20th century. Management adapted to changing tastes, over the years offering an assortment of live entertainment, rides, and games. The Totem Pole Ballroom proved prescient for the era of big band music, and brought in new audiences. Many couples who later married went on their first dates there.

From its Grand Opening in 1897 to when the gates closed forever on Labor Day, 1963, the legendary park drew thousands of people from all over New England. By following the journey of Norumbega from its start as a “trolley park” at the end of a streetcar line to its heyday as an escape for young people to explore independence and love, the book presents universal themes of recreation and romance to readers of all ages.

Book cover of "Norumbega Park and Totem Pole Ballroom" with photo of riders in a teacup ride. — *Clara Silverstein and Sara Goldberg, authors of the recently published* Norumbega Park and Totem Pole Ballroom *will be coming to the historical society’s April 27 meeting.*

“Remembering Norumbega Park and the Totem Pole Ballroom”

“Remembering Norumbega Park
and the Totem Pole Ballroom”