Civil War Monuments
We may think that arguments about Civil War monuments are something new, but right here in Madison, 123 years ago, a controversy developed over whether a planned memorial to the town’s Civil War soldiers should be in the form of a monument or a building with public meeting spaces. Only
Smallpox Burying Ground
Capt. Ichabod Scranton and many of the soldiers under his command died in the nearby forest in 1760, even though not a shot was fired. The Madison Historical Society offers a public tour each April of the “pock lot,” otherwise known as the Smallpox Burying Ground. Ichabod Scranton, a fourth-generation
The General’s Residence
Some houses are historic simply because they have survived the wear and tear of many decades of use. Others are historic because they housed famous people or witnessed noteworthy events. The General’s Residence in Madison – that old dilapidated white house on the corner of the Post Road and East
Caroline Washburn
Among the treasures in the Madison Historical Society’s collection is an exquisite miniature portrait, painted on a sliver of ivory and mounted in an ornate frame. Only about five inches tall, it was created 176 years ago when the sitter, Catherine S. Scranton, was around twenty years old. Striking in
Jack Tweed, Aviator
Some lucky people seem to know their calling early in life. For instance, take Madison resident John Hancock “Jack” Tweed, said to have built – and crashed – his own airplane as a 15-year-old kid. This was in 1910, just seven years after the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight off
The Leisure Class
I sometimes wonder what people did to entertain themselves a hundred years ago before texting, cell phones, television and, indeed, even before commercial radio nibbled into our leisure. It appears that, after World War I, Madison’s residents hit upon a new pastime that has since grown nation-wide and still occupies