RSS Feed
|
|||||
|
It was in the spring of 1910 that the Orange County Telephone Co. set a pole smack-dab in the center of the town-owned ball field behind the white church in Randolph Center, and strung its lines across the site. Ten years earlier the selectmen had dedicated this "common" for the use of local ball players, and for playing Fox and Geese in the winter. It was only natural that they should gather there for fun. From earliest days, it had always been the place for a good time. The grandest holiday of the year—June Training Day—was held there for more than 40 years by the Randolph Militia. There was much pride and excitement as crowds watched the men march in columns to the roll of drums and the shrill notes of fifes. At noon they broke for dinner at the nearby tavern. Usurping this time-honored playground made the boys hopping mad, and they immediately appealed to Dr. Allen, who was a selectman living up the street. The good doctor complained to the president of the telephone company and to Ed Kent, a local director, but time passed and there was no action. Then one morning a couple weeks later, telephone customers woke up to find their phones dead as a doornail. The wires across the playing field had been cut, Mr. Kent discovered. Kent swiftly called in State’s Attorney Stanley Wilson to investigate, and the two men interviewed boys within a radius of five miles. Finally, they brought Joseph Bean and Allen McMurphy before a justice of the peace on a charge of wire-cutting, and a hearing was held. Squire N. G. Boyden, Randolph Center attorney who was once a boy himself, defended the boys, declaring that the charge against them could not be sustained "by the requisite measure of truth," and they were discharged. Two days later the offending pole was removed from the ball field. Justice had prevailed. Play ball! ____________ |
for larger version     |
||||
