Happy Greenwich 379th Founders Day! Linda Heald Joins us from Boston

The Feake Ferris House, Oldest House in Greenwich, Connecticut
Photo Credit: Greenwich Historical Society. 

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Thursday, July 18 is Founders Day in Greenwich, Connecticut -379 years ago! 

My guest on Talk of the Town is Linda Heald. A resident of Jamaica Plain in Boston, Massachusetts, Linda Heald is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution who has extensively researched and documented her ancestry. 

In June she visited Greenwich in part to photograph the gravestones of her ancestors. One ancestor’s stone -Clarissa Sackett- had fallen and was overturned with its inscription facing downward. The other -Dr. Elisha Belcher- was no where to be found. 

When news of this reached my email box I knew that Linda Heald needed to be on the show -and that we needed to find the gravestones of these ancestors. 

And find them we did! For the first time in decades both Clarissa Sackett’s and Dr. Elisha Belcher’s gravestones can be seen again. 

The Gravestone of Dr. Elisha Belcher, New Burial Ground Cemetery, Greenwich, Connecticut. 

The Dr. Elisha Belcher Family Home, Circa 1745, Round Hill Road. Photo Credit: Jeffrey Bingham Mead

The Gravestone of Clarissa Sackett, New Burial Ground Association Cemetery, Greenwich, Connecticut. 

Justus Sackett House, 42 Patterson Avenue, Greenwich, Connecticut. 

I want to thank Christopher Shields, archivist, and Nola Taylor of the Greenwich Historical Society -as well as Andrew Melillo of the Acacia Lodge No. 86 Greenwich Free Masons for your valuable support and efforts. 

Thank you, Linda Heald, for your sponsorship of the Wednesday, July 17 Founders Day broadcast of Greenwich, A Town For All Seasons on Radio 1490 WGCH and WGCH.com anywhere.

Linda mentioned that she is a recent member of the DAR, or Daughters of the American Revolution -which is over 125 years old, founded in 1890. It is a non-profit organization that can be found online at www.DAR.org. It is a fantastic web site where you can find your local chapter and see if one of your ancestors served in the American Revolution.

Greenwich has the Putnam Hill DAR Chapter with monthly meetings on the fourth Thursday of the month resuming after the summer in September. 

The objectives of the organization are threefold:

• HISTORICAL -to perpetuate the memory and spirit of the men and women who achieved American independence;
• EDUCATIONAL -to carry out the injunction of President Washington in his farewell address to the American people, “to promote the general diffusion of knowledge,” and;
• PATRIOTIC -to cherish, maintain and extend the institutions of American freedom, to foster true patriotism and love of country, and to aid in securing for mankind all the blessings of liberty. 

Greenwich, A Town For All Seasons broadcasts from the studios of 1490 WGCH Greenwich, Connecticut and anywhere via audio-streaming on WGCH.com. Jeffrey Bingham Mead, a descendant of the 17th century founders of Greenwich, is your host. Tune in at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. 

Can’t listen in real-time? All shows are freely available and archived on Podcasts.com via a special channel. You can also find archived shows on SoundCloud. 

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