CAPTION: Tom Coots, treasurer of the Charlestown Historical Society and captain of the Charlestown Militia Co., displays an officer’s sash worn in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

For a Revolutionary War buff like Tom Coots, the return of an officer’s sash worn in the Battle of Bunker Hill to Charlestown is a nearly unimaginable occurrence.
“Finding an item from the 18th century is great. Finding an item from the Revolutionary War is even better,” said Coots, treasurer of the Charlestown Historical Society and captain of the living history group, the Charlestown Militia Co. “Finding an item that was worn here in Charlestown at the Battle of Bunker Hill is like finding the Holy Grail.”
Coots said the sash belonged to Thomas Wheat Sr., an officer from Hollis, N.H., who fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill alongside his son, Thomas Wheat Jr. The younger Wheat died in combat and his name is listed along with other fallen soldiers from the battle on the stone tablets found in the Training Field. The sash was passed down for at least four generations until it came into the possession of Ellen Wheat, a Philadelphia native who now lives in Florida. Ellen contacted the historical group, the Bostonian Society, in early 2008, which, in turn, referred her to Historical Society President Arthur Hurley. In early August, Ellen sent Hurley the sash, along with letters documenting the life of its owner and a letter of authenticity from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, via regular U.S. mail.
The sash, measuring 112 inches long and 11 inches wide, is made of red woven silk and was originally worn across over the shoulder with a gorget, a steel collar used to protect the neck. It is typical example of what was worn to identify an officer’s rank from the Revolutionary War until the midway through the Civil War when sashes were abandoned in favor of ornamental shoulder pieces on uniforms called epaulets. Coots said sashes were often used to pull injured officers from the battlefield and this particular one is adorned with slits near the fringes, which likely held the officer’s sword.
Coots said that the sash is in pristine condition given its age, leading him to believe that it was treated as a prized possession and carefully stored over the years. In contrast, he said soldiers’ clothing was often destroyed upon returning home from the Revolutionary War.
“Finding something in this condition is very rare, but not unheard of,” Coots said. “It’s not just a piece of cloth. It’s a full and complete item.”
The officer’s sash will be put on display at the Charlestown Historical Society’s members night at the Battle of Bunker Hill Museum, 43 Monument Square, on Friday, Oct. 17, from 7 to 10 p.m. The event will include refreshments and entertainment and is open to all CHS members and guests interested in joining the organization.

CAPTION: Rev. Wayne Boulton, interim pastor at The First Church in Charlestown.

As the newly named interim pastor at The First Church in Charlestown, Rev. Wayne Boulton has a unique role because he has been selected to perform the typical duties of a chaplain, as well as to help reorganize the church. But, in this position, he also realizes he will only be there for a limited time.
Boulton was born in the small town Gaffney, S.C., before relocating with his family to Ardsley in Westchester County, N.Y. While Boulton would go on to graduate from Ardsley High School in 1959, he said his father was a Pennsylvania native and a Pittsburgh Pirates fan who passed his love for his hometown team — and his distaste for the New York Yankees — along to him at a young age. “I was made to order to come to Boston,” Boulton said.
After high school, Boulton attended Lafayette College, a private liberal arts and engineering school in Easton, Pa., where he majored in English and minored in math. Boulton was also a member of a touring choir as an undergraduate and met his future wife, Vicki Rubin, following a concert appearance in Long Island.
Upon completing his bachelor’s degree, Boulton decided to follow his father’s example as a businessman and entered a MBA program at the Kellogg School of Business at Chicago’s Northwestern University. He moved to Yonkers, N.Y., after earning his master’s degree and accepted a summer internship with the sales department of New York Bell Telephone Co. “By the end of the summer, I had sold a bunch of phones and knew I didn’t want to go into business,” he said.
Boulton instead entered the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago and spent the next three years working towards a divinity degree. After graduating from McCormick in 1967, Boulton and Vicki moved to Bangkok and spent the next two years in the Frontier Internship Project, which he described as “a model for what the Peace Corps would become.” He said his work during this time entailed helping United Nations civil servants build relationships with the local church communities.
In 1969, Boulton entered a PhD program in religious studies and ethics at Duke University in Durham, N.C. After completing the program three years later, he began his teaching religious ethics at Hope College in Holland, Mich. “I went where the job was, but it turned out very well,” he said, adding that the small summer resort town of 35,000 was an ideal spot to raise his and Vicki’s two sons, Matthew, now 38, and Christopher, 34. Boulton eventually left Hope College in 1992 after serving as department chair of the school’s religious department.
Next, Boulton accepted a position as president of the Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Va. — thus beginning what he described as his trek up the East Coast that eventually brought him to Boston. He left the position in 1997 and was named interim pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Annapolis, Md., the following year.
From 1999 to 2005, Boulton served as the settled pastor of the Roland Park Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. He then worked as interim pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in New Vernon, N.J., before retiring in 2007.
Boulton and Vicki relocated to Wellesley in 2007 to be closer to their two sons and their grandchildren who all live in the Boston area. “We’re here for the duration, we love Boston, and we’ll spend the rest of our lives here,” he said.
While he planned on enjoying his retirement, Boulton reconsidered after being offered the interim pastoral position at First Church. “I wouldn’t come her if I didn’t feel called here,” he said.
Besides leading worship, coordinating the church council and performing other duties of the pastoral minister, Boulton is now faced with the challenge of guiding the future course that the church will take. He must help determine whether to grow the congregation, which he said consists of between 10 and 20 regular parishioners, or to keep it the same size.
Meanwhile, there’s the question of whether First Church can sustain the building on Green Street, and if so, whether it will share the space with another church. “I’m not sure that Charlestown has enough religious opportunities,” he said.
Boulton will also play a major role in the search for First Church’s next settled pastor who will replace him when he leaves approximately a year from now.
“[The church] has such a distinct history, it’s a question of what to do with it,” he said.

CAPTION: A child proudly shows her Plaster Fun Time creation.

More than two and one-half years after Curves relocated to its current Main Street location, the former space it occupied at the Bunker Hill Mall will have a new tenant when Plaster Fun Time opens there next week.
Launched in 1995, Plaster Fun Time operates seven stores in eastern Massachusetts where children ages 4 to 12 can custom paint their own plaster pieces. Plaster, unlike ceramic or clay, dries almost immediately when sprayed with a polyurethane finish, so children can bring their creations home with them. And at a cost of $8 to paint a dinosaur or other plaster piece, Joe Selvaggi, cofounder and president of Plaster Fun Time, said it was affordable for nearly any child.
Selvaggi said the new Charlestown store would be the company’s first foray into an urban market, although he and his partners have been looking for a good location in Boston since the beginning.
“Charlestown is great because it’s very family oriented and centrally located,” Selvaggi said, adding that the parking lot at the mall provides more than 200 spaces and the site is also easily accessible to the Community College stop on the MBTA’s Orange Line.
Selvaggi added, “If it’s successful, we’ll take more risks and go into more densely populated communities.”
Mayor Thomas M. Menino is expected to be in attendance as the guest of honor at the Charlestown store’s grand opening on Friday, Oct. 3. The mayor often accompanies his grandchildren to Plaster Fun Time in Dedham and has mentioned their fondness for the store in interviews, Selvaggi said.

James W. Conway, Past National Historian, the American Legion, and President of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, gave the following speech on Sept. 20, 2008, at the Rededication Ceremony of the Civil War memorial at the Training Field sponsored by the Charlestown Preservation Society.

At the outset of my remarks, I would be remiss if I did not personally thank our vocalist Linda Morceau, the Color Guards of the USS Constitution, the Chelsea Soldiers’ Home, the Korean War Veterans of Massachusetts, the Charlestown Militia Company 1775, Colonel Thomas Gardner Regiment, the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War and the Bunker Hill Pipe Band, K. of C. #62, as well as Bugler Matthew Small, for their participation this morning, which has enhanced this Rededication Celebration.
Though we are here today primarily to celebrate the Charlestown Preservation Society’s professional conservation program that has cleaned and repaired this marvelous Soldiers and Sailors’ Civil War Statue and commend the efforts of the CPS officers and its members, especially the organization and fundraising expertise of the CPS Training Field Statue Committee Chair Marilyn Darling, we must never forget the original purpose for building this Charlestown Civil War memorial — which was dedicated with an impressive ceremony on June 17, 1872, and inscribed as follows:

“In Honor of the Men of Charlestown who fought in the War of 1861 for the preservation of the Union. Erected by the City 1872.”

It is refreshing that today — here at this statue — we are remembering those men of this community, Charlestown — which was a city in 1872 — who fought and laid down their lives to preserve the Union. This is only the second time in my lifespan of almost 79 years that such a ceremony has been held here.
The first was approximately two and a half years ago, when Bunker Hill Post 26, The American Legion, under the co-chairmanship of Past Commanders Paul Morceau and Arthur Hurley, with the help of historical researcher Past Commander Ron Taylor, held an impressive ceremony here at the Training Field on April 9, 2006, to commemorate both General Robert L. Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox in 1865 and the laying of the cornerstone of the Charlestown Soldiers and Sailors’ Civil War Memorial in 1872. I would like to share them and other thoughts with you.
We in Charlestown have a long history of answering the call of our country in time of war — as a matter of fact, Charlestown as a community has one of the highest enlistment rates in the country — from the time of the Revolution, the Civil War and all wars since, up to and including the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the Civil War, starting with the bombardment of Fort Sumpter in April 1861, which was declared an act of war, until its conclusion in 1865 — the City of Charlestown and its approximately 25,000 residents — both men and women completely and patriotically supported the preservation of the Union. Shortly after President Abraham Lincoln initially called for 75,000 of the militia of several states to maintain the Union and Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrews set a demand for a certain number of men to be raised from the various communities – Charlestown at once mobilized the Fifth Regiment, including two companies of the city, the Charlestown Artillery and the City Guards, plus volunteers totaling 4,307 men for the war, which was a surplus of 111 men over the demand of Governor Andrews. One hundred-twenty of those were commissioned officers. Not only did Charlestown men answer the call of their country, but the City of Charlestown also contributed $168,654 to the war effort and paid $175,771 for aid to the soldiers’ families.
Charlestown also had three of its men honored with the Congressional Medal of Honor: Captain John Harties Brown, Company D, 12th Kentucky Infantry; U.S. Navy Boatswain Mate Richard Dennis, who served on the USS Brooklyn; and Pvt. Charles Wellington Reed, Bugler, 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery.
During the Civil War, the City of Charlestown had a total of 171 men who were killed in action or died as a result of wounds or disease. Of this 171, 83 were killed or mortally wounded; 13 died as POWs; 69 died of disease; and the cause of death was not listed for six.
The City of Charlestown’s City Council in 1869 appropriated $20,000 to build a memorial and subsequently selected sculptor Martin Milmore to create this magnificent statue to denote the sacrifices of the men of Charlestown during the Civil War.
Would that we today were as efficient as they were 136 years ago when they scheduled the memorial to be constructed by June 1872, yet it was completed a month earlier.
I would like to conclude my remarks by quoting the closing words of the speech of the distinguished Charlestown historian, the Honorable Richard Frothingham, who was Guest Speaker at the June 17, 1872, dedication of this statue, which is as follows:

“This monument is erected to those who have sought to preserve the Union. Young men, as you look upon that loftier monument, it tells the story of the heroism, the self-sacrifice, the treasure, and the blood required to establish the Union, and as you look at this monument today, it will tell you that whenever called upon again to rally to the standard of the law, a grateful community will bear you in remembrance.”