The Windham Historical Society has a lot of big projects nearing completion, including one that will have them retouch the local monument that resides on Mike Paul’s property, off of Werger Road, which is dedicated to the first house ever built in the township, as well as building a replica of the monument and installing it on Brick Chapel’s Green, adjacent of Windham Township Hall.
As The Villager has previously reported, the WHS had recently embarked on a project to have a street clock installed on the Windham Township Hall’s green courtesy of The Verdin Company. The street clock project is being funded through a One Time Strategic Community Investment Fund grant of $27,950.
According to Lynnea St. John, founder and President of the WHS, the street clock was just one of several projects that the WHS implemented through the OTSCIF grant, including retouching the Township’s local monument.
Located on what was formerly known as the old Alford property, one of the original 16 founding families of Windham, the monument was erected in 1883 on the property which commemorated the site of the first house built in the Township in 1811 when the first 16 families flocked to Windham from Beckett, MA.
St. John said that the monument also contained the names of the four young men who built the house, two sets of brothers of the Alford and Messenger families, respectively. They built a cabin on the property where the Alford family resided for generations before the property was transferred into the hands of Mike Paul, owner of Valley Tire Sales.
The monument has remained in place for 142 years but has eroded, been plagued by local vandalism, and no longer stands upright.
St. John said that the Milano Monument Co. will retouch the monument and clean it. They will then plant a concrete post into the ground and apply a bronze plaque on the back of the monument, which will contain some of the exact writing the monument originally had before it became desecrated.
St. John added that Milano Monument Co. will also put a replica of the monument on the Township green adjacent of the Township Hall and the replica will also have a bronze plaque molded on, which is expected to be delivered on Tuesday. She noted that there have been discussions about having a public ceremony to commemorate the monument’s replica sometime in the spring, but no date has been selected yet.
The WHS’ Founder/President said that she and Paul had discussed retouching the monument for some time but lacked the necessary funds.
Once the WHS received the OTSCIF grant, those discussions became a reality. St. John said that the replica of the monument is expected to be delivered shortly and the WHS plans to have it installed on the Brick Chapel’s green as soon as the weather improves. It is expected to take four hours to install the monument’s replica on the green and even more time will be spent on retouching the original monument on Paul’s property.
In addition to retouching the monument and building a replica on the Brick Chapel’s green, St. John said that the WHS is also working on another project to have a bronze plaque molded onto the boulder of the Township green, which was originally put in place in 1986 to celebrate Windham’s 175th anniversary.
The plaque will acknowledge the individual that supplied the boulder as well as the person who buried a time capsule underneath the boulder.
The WHS will also have a replica of the boulder built by Milano Monument, which will also feature a bronze plaque, and have it placed near the Gazebo on Windham Township Hall’s green, the same area where the Township celebrated its bicentennial in 2011.
St. John added that another project in the works will allow the WHS to digitally enhance the yearbook pictures of Windham graduates who are not currently featured on the walls of Windham High School.
