Milton Historical Society
Return to the Curator's Corner home
 

Clues to the Suffolk Resolves House

 Welcome!
1760: Vose lot #1
1762: Daniel Vose marries
1762: Vose lot #2
1764: Vose lot #3
1773: mason's account book
1774: Continental Congress
1774: Suffolk County Congress
1774: Suffolk County Convention
1775: Suffolk County meets again
1781: Vose lot #4
1782: John White's map
1783: Patience marries
1785: first documentation of the house
1785: mason's account book, part 2
1807: Daniel Vose's will
1810: first drawing of the house
1826: Edmund J. Baker's map
1859: Rachel Vose as a source
1861: Vose "mansion" burns
1862: Milton bicentennial address
1874: first commemoration of the Resolves
1874: novelty of the commemoration
1874: signed in the parlor
1874: subsequent meetings at the house
1887: History of Milton, Mass., 1640-1887
1895: Suffolk Resolves House confirmed
1899: 125th anniversary
1912: first known questioning
1923: letters to the editor
1923: the sacred parlor
1924: Committee on the Suffolk Resolves House
1924: expert decides
1924: Historical Society weighs in
1924: memories from parents
1924: plan of colonial frame
1932: Ellen Vose publishes
1949: condemned
1950: Suffolk Resolves House moves
1951: refugees from the siege
1953: controversy reviewed
1957: second history of Milton
1973: Hamilton confirmed
1973: National Historic Register
2012: framing mistakes
2012: Phase 1: colonial frame
2012: Phase 2: beams in colonial attic
2012: Phase 3: Georgian frame
 

expert decides

At the request of the town of Milton, Worthington C. Ford of the Massachusetts Historical Society reviews the evidence of the house's history and concludes that the Suffolk Resolves were signed in Vose "mansion" which burned in 1861.

He concludes: "It is not enough to say that the presence of men so distinguished in Milton history gave a full confirmation of the tablet and its claims. Nor is it enough to assert that objection was open to anyone who might doubt the truth of the tablet and its claims. What the energy of one man, influenced or not by self-interest, can accomplish in such matters is a well recognized feature of like occasions."

 
Source: Worthington C. Ford, editor, Journals of the Continental Congress
Year: 1924