Putting poor farm to use

Housing advocates, historic preservationists have eyes on Milton site

By Jenifer B. McKim

Globe Staff / December 1, 2009

MILTON – Preservationists, housing advocates, and other residents here are at odds over what to do with the town’s centuries-old poor farm. Should the 34-acre site be preserved as a historical reminder of how the community once aided its less fortunate citizens or be used for affordable housing that would benefit today’s residents?

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In Concord, a bid to save tie to abolitionist days

By Peter Schworm

Globe Staff / September 14, 2009

CONCORD – Amid such historical touchstones as Walden Pond and the Old North Bridge, the quaint cottage barely merits a second glance, just another Revolutionary-era New England house in a town steeped in the past.

But the brown shingled house on Bedford Street, built in the 1780s by the town’s first freed slave, is the last of its kind, a crucial but long-forgotten link to the town’s early black community and abolitionist movement. With the house in danger of being demolished, its history has emerged from obscurity, and advocates have mounted a spirited campaign to stave off its demise.

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