good evening and welcome to the bomb on historic site east two thousand and fifteen meeting my name is emilio jr and i'm the president of the belmont historical society tonight we close the two thousand and fourteen two thousand and fifteen program season and soon we will end our fiscal year i want to thank all of our board members and volunteers for all their hard work this season to make our going to say shine a success i also want to thank all of you our members for your support of our society this year and over the years as our season closes i thought we would take a quick look back at some of the highlights of the year in september chyme mike rosenberg lectured on the life and times of francis cabot lowell where we learned about the origins of the industrial revolution in america in october and marie lambert lectured on the history of the belmont uplands and the importance of historically preserving open spaces in november  of the gardner museum lectured on the history of local art theft including the one nine hundred ninety gardner museum theft in boston and he took us into the minds of the criminals who steal artwork as well as the history of the thefts themselves in december vanessa shu guests of the powers music school performed a holiday program for us that featured singalongs in february terry allen brack lectured on the history of mclean hospital we learned about the history and evolution of that world renowned institution in march down the clare helped us commemorate the centennial of world war one with his lecture on the local yankee division in the great war in april jerry wright brought us back in time with this in person ation of frederick law  olmstead and of course we will have a program tonight celebrating our fiftieth anniversary as an organization the most notable achievement of our organization the season was to secure twenty six thousand three hundred dollars in community preservation act funding for the from the town of belmont for the rehabilitation and restoration of the roof of our wellington hill station which many of you know is the yellow octagonal structure at two common street with the conical roof i know i speak for all of us at the belmont historical society when i say thank you to our community and to our town government for supporting our project to restore a town icon this season the belmont historicity has also continued our work to preserve and expand our collection in the claflin room and i would encourage all of you to both visit our claflin room and to contact us if you have any items related to belmont history that you would like to donate to us we continued also to reach out to our members and neighbors by participating in such events as town day and meet belmont and had the wellington school second graders visit our claflin room as well we also continued to work to expand our website and surveyed  membership with a survey to get your thoughts on how we were doing and suggestions you might have that camilla french scholarship award the david r johnson preservation boards and historic house plaque program among other activities have continued to be successes so the first act to start our next season will be the election of our two thousand and fifteen two thousand and sixteen officers and directors i want to thank our nominating committee for all their work to get our nominations slate ready for tonight's meeting i would also like to thank and acknowledge some of our board members who are leaving their positions tonight or in the coming months and also mentioned that the whole spring we've  other i would also like to acknowledge some of our our board members who are leaving as i had mentioned lois farrel who has been our vice president and program director this past season and we've all enjoyed the programs that that she's helped to organize season audrey martin who served as our recording secretary this past season for our meetings gloria bushman who has provided refreshments and decorations for our programs as a hospitality chair for many years and to nelson bolen who  been our webmaster for the past two years and has been instrumental in helping us build our website and i will also be my last evening as your president i would like to thank all of you for the opportunity to serve as your president these past two year terms and i will always cherish all of the great memories that i have had of these two years with you we have a great team at the belmont historical society and we accomplished a lot together history is indeed important in our lives and it helps define our communities and our community's character so it is great to have led in our going to say dedicated to protecting and educating our community about local history and with that i will now pharrell the chair of our nominating committee to read the two thousand and fifteen two thousand and sixteen nominating slate please rise as your name is mentioned was is there a motion to close the thanks loss is there a motion to close the nominations is there a second in favor of post ok i will now ask phil hughes our acting recording secretary for tonight to make a motion to accept the slate of officers and directors for the two thousand and fifteen two thousand sixteen season as read  joe cornish is the chair of both are david r johnson preservation award committee and our historic house plaque program committee and he will prepare me presenting the awards and plaques this evening please help me welcome joe cornish thank you thank you good evening everyone this is a really fun part of the year that i look forward to and to really have the privilege to be on this committee which honors and celebrates the people  projects in belmont that go a long way to preserving our town and our towns character so it's really been a treat to work on this and that is named for david r johnson who was our past treasurer for many many years and a great supporter he and his wife of historical society our first award goes to mr james and levitt for his work as the chair of the waverly trail advisory committee and really for his ongoing work to promote the waverley trail many of you may be aware that the waverly trail has received national recognition as a national recreational trail by the national park service some of you may have been present in two thousand and seven when the wave really trail was dedicated and this trail has really been a wonderful way to celebrate the waverly neighborhood of belmont with these wonderful plaques and key ox that you see along the trail that really help interpret the buildings and the past and present people that make this neighborhood such a special place and also goes a long way to celebrate the conservation efforts in the waverley oaks and the to preserve the waverly o our next award celebrates three rehabilitation projects in belmont and so much of historic preservation is not freezing buildings in time but really finding new uses for historic buildings so they can survive into the future really is a touch tone to the past but also to function and to to be useful pieces of the community at the mclean hospital there were three buildings that were  purchased and redeveloped by northland with additional residential corporation and its north wind residential corporation that receiving our ward and the first of these buildings the mclean hospital stables you see here built in one thousand nine hundred three to eight hundred ninety four  when they were used really as storage for the hospital and here you see it now converted into residential living space and really very successful and really a great example of adaptive reuse of historic houses and historic buildings another building out mclean the south cottage this wonderful nine hundred twelve arts and crafts style building which was a residence for one patient at the hospital so it's quite interesting that you had this one residential building for a patient at mclean and to send some of you may remember it really fell into a derelict condition and this would have been lost by many standards and fortunately with northland and working with the bellman historic commission which approved plans for these buildings it's been converted and restored into a private residential building again and ongoing preservation and i hope all of you after tonight maybe you will have an opportunity to drive or walk through mclean to see the great transition of the up in house and here you see in this historic postcard from eight hundred ninety two what it looked like when it was constructed a wonderful ambitious colonial revival building that was really left derelict in abandon for many many years  this building again what has been lost if it wasn't for north and residential corporation in their vision for this property and this was taken about two weeks ago and you can see the active work going on in this is what it will look like when it's completed through three very us one of my other hats the historical society is being the chair of our historic house plaque program and this is about i think two three years old now that we've been doing this test or this is our second ok and i invite you to visit our website i know everyone's going to want to plug for their historic house after they see the two beautiful ones we're going to award tonight the first plaque that will be awarding it for the samuel orlando mead house located at three forty six concord avenue and this house was built by samuel orlando mead he was married to maria wellington and when they were married in one thousand twenty six they built a very ambitious federal style house at the location of the belmont women's club on pleasant street and that house was moved to five zero four concord avenue so that still survives today in eight hundred thirty six samuel mead and his wife built this house and this house is located directly behind the library and i think we're probably all sitting over here in this pond right now so it's amazing how the wonderful images that the historical society has access to that can document these wonderful buildings in belmont  wonderful part of this house is it's still very intact and i would argue it's probably one of the best representatives of the greek revival style in belmont that you have this wonderful town and these great ionic capitals w really represent one i think belmont's legacy of being a market garden community and one of the last great examples of the greenhouses and belmont had many many greenhouses and this is one of the last surviving ones in town and  represents the underwood family's interest in athletics there was a squash court located in the greenhouse and their interest in landscape and plants the greenhouses were purchased by restored and again you have generations of the current family that still enjoy the greenhouses so let's word our next war plaque for the underwood green houses so now we will move to our main program for the night for fifty years the belmont historical society has endeavored to preserve our local history and educate our community on the history and educate our community on that history our claflin room has been the venue for countless inquiries and our wellington station has inspired generations of belmont residents whether you are seeking historic artifacts information on our prominent citizens researching our historic structures studying our natural environment or you are interested in the many other topics activities and events in our town's rich history the belmont historical society has served as the curator of our town's past and we are committed to continuing that role for the next fifty years and beyond tonight program will be a celebration of our organization's fifty year history and game show format victoria has served our society for many years and in a variety of ways she has been a member of our executive board served as our former wellington hill station master she has spent countless hours serving on a number of our committees is a past president of our historic site and currently serves as our newsletter editor and claflin room curator has collaborate collaboratively authored several books featuring local history and has and she was the executive producer of the for the experience belmont d v d which is a d v d on our town's history which can be purchased at the claflin room she is a frequent speaker on the history of our town and tonight she will test our knowledge on our history