Commissioner Edward Wiest, who joined the commission in the winter of 2017-18 shares this about his love for Medford, its architecture and its history:

Our family blundered into becoming temporary custodians of Medford’s Edward Oakes House – earliest elements erected c. 1729, moved to current site 1977 – more than 30 years ago.  We’re still there. I am on on the Commission now to continue paying forward the work of Joseph Valeriani, Greg and Maia Henderson, John Hand, Fred Knox and many others who preserved the home in which we have lived so long, and the history of Medford as a whole.

The Oakes House, in what the commisson’s neighborhood surveyors now call “Medford Square South,” with its distinctive roof line – which could be described as both gambrel and saltbox. Photo from MACRIS.

[I resigned as a Commissioner in January 2022. It was a pleasure to serve and to learn so much about our community and its history.]

Now, a word from the current webmaster of the Medford Historical Commission, me – Abigail Salerno. I also administer the Commission’s ongoing neighborhood-by-neighborhood survey of historical buildings, landmarks and public spaces and have served on the commission since 2016.

I recently moved to Medford with my young family and I am interested in neighborhood history, and the similarities and differences in the historical development of Boston, and Philadelphia, where I worked at the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. I enjoy walking in the Fells and riding my bicycle “over the river and through the woods” on our expanding network of trails.

Below, Annie Londonderry – Boston resident and the first woman to bicycle around the world. Illustration (and more info) from the Jewish Women’s Archive, in Brookline, MA.