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 Dedham is a historic
suburban industrial town on the principal southern corridor
of metropolitan Boston, and is the site of the earliest surviving framed
house in New England, the handsome 1737 Fairbanks House. The 10.7 square mile
community received its grant as a town from the Massachusetts Bay Colony
in 1636, placing it among the oldest communities in the state. Its colonial
agricultural economy was expanded by industry only after the town, in
1639, built on of the earliest water power canals connecting the Charles River
with a tributary of the Neponset River and creating sufficient water power
for grist and fulling mills.
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The character and future of the
community changed drastically when it became the
county seat for Norfolk County and the court house was built in 1796. As local
historians pointed out, this brought in lawyers and officials, trained, educated
and ambitious men who changed the face of the community by investing in
and supporting industrial development. Woolen mills were developed in Dedham
and innovations  four sawmills and five factories
staffed by Irish and German immigrants who made up 27% of the Dedham
population. Everything from pianos to furniture was made in Dedham, including
famous world,
with its monumental granite court house of Greek Revival design, its limestone
Neoclassical Registry of Deeds, Romanesque Revival public library and
Renaissance and Georgian revival schools. In addition, Dedham has a remarkably
well preserved town center, with handsome, historic houses of which the
community is very proud.
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