Wakefield Charitable Trust Calendar Of Events

This year, Milton is celebrating its 350th Anniversary. In conjunction with the "sesquarcentennial," the Wakefield Estate is organizing a lecture series that will highlight the estate's history and its occupants over the past 300 years, looking at the evolution of one Milton family as a microcosm of the history of Milton. The lectures will be based on the research and discovery that has taken place at the estate over the past five years, and will include a display of material culture including rare books, documents, art, and unearthed artifacts from archaeological investigations.

The second lecture in our series will be given by Alex Keim, a doctoral student in archaeology at Boston University who directs the estate's Summer Archaeology Institute for youth. His lecture entitled "Hidden History: Archaeological Investigations at the Wakefield Estate" will present the results of more than five years of archaeological exploration at the Wakefield Estate, from its 18th-century beginnings to the present day.

Summary: Since 2006 the Wakefield Estate in Milton, MA has been the subject of a number of archaeological surveys and investigations. Every area of the estate has been studied with techniques ranging from Ground Penetrating Radar, to manual excavation, to construction monitoring. The result has been not only an impressive collection of artifacts – including Native American stone points, 18th-century ceramics, as well as every-day items from the past 300 years – but also new knowledge about the many different people who lived and worked on the Estate. This lecture will summarize these findings, detailing what archaeologists have found so far, what that tells us about activity on the Estate in the past, and what important questions archaeology has the potential to answer in the future.

Alexander Keim is a PhD Candidate in the Archaeology Department at Boston University, currently working on his dissertation on Boston’s North End neighborhood in the 19th-century. He has studied the Wakefield Estate archaeologically since 2008, and is co-director of the annual Summer Archaeological Institute for high-school students held each year at the Wakefield Estate.

Other lectures (May 2nd and June 13th) will focus on the history of the buildings, the estate's occupants, and the material culture of the estate's earliest occupants dating to the mid-1700s. Call 617-333-0924 for more information.