Events

The Sudbury Fight, King Philip’s War

April 20, 1 PM
Fort Devens Museum, 94 Jackson Road, Devens, MA

On April 21, 1676 over five hundred Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Narragansett warriors attacked the frontier settlements of Sudbury (today Sudbury and Wayland) in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Various companies of English militiamen from nearby settlements marched to that town’s defense and were drawn into ambushes and suffered heavy losses. The battle was the largest fight and the last major Native American victory in King Philip’s War before their final defeat in southern New England in August 1676. All but forgotten today, the sites and stories of this battle are still there to be found by the curious who look for them.

Mark Nichipor is a local historian interested in the Colonial and Revolutionary History of New England. He was a National Park Service Ranger at Revolutionary War sites until retiring after nearly thirty years. He served as an instructor in the NPS Historic Weapons Safety Program and ran The Staff Ride Programs for military visiting Minute Man and Bunker Hill parks. He has a number of published articles on Revolutionary War history.

The Fort Devens Museum is located at 94 Jackson Road, Devens, MA, on the third floor and is wheelchair accessible. This event is free and open to the public with donations gratefully accepted. Thanks to the Harvard Cultural Council.

The Ammo Dump: A Taking of Heritage

Saturday May 18, 1 PM
Fort Devens Museum, 94 Jackson Road, Devens, MA

Join us for an afternoon of local lore and history with the authors of a new and facinating book, The Ammo Dump: A Taking of Heritage. Co-authored by Maynard historian Paul Boothroyd and his sons Paul Boothroyd, Jr. and Todd Boothroyd, the book explores the U.S. Army’s seizure by eminent domain of some 3,100 acres of land spanning Maynard, Stow, Sudbury and Hudson in the spring of 1942.

What if you received a knock on your door tonight and were told you had to leave? You had no more than a month to do so, and you could only take what was not nailed down? Eighty Massachusetts families faced that predicament on March 25, 1942. This book tells their story.

At the breakout of World War II, 1942, the U.S. government required four square miles to create an ammunition depot. Explosives would be staged in 50 bunkers before shipping via Boston to Europe for the war against the Third Reich. Eminent domain was ordered, and the land taken, forever.

However, that’s only the surface of the tale…

Explore the who, how, and why. Learn about close-knit families in Maynard, Stow, Sudbury, and Hudson, Massachusetts, who lost their farms, their livelihoods. They not only had to find new places to live and work, they had to deal with the loss of all they had built. Their heritage was taken.