Scanning Project Yields Unexpected Benefit

The Society has a large number of unlabeled portraits.  We would love to be able to connect descendants of Acton families with their ancestors’ images, so unlabeled pictures are frustrating.  We are hoping that our unidentified pictures page may reach someone who can identify the pictures. 

One collection of unknown portraits was the dubbed the “Flagg & Wetherbee Collection” because the only labeled photographs were of Fannie H. and Harland Wetherbee Flagg and James, Lois and Allen Wetherbee.   We assumed that the majority of the pictures were from an extended family.  They may be, but our project of digitizing the Society’s photographs led to a surprise.  When we scanned photos given to the society in 1975, some of the images looked familiar.  It turns out that some were identical to those in the Flagg-Wetherbee collection and were identified as members of Acton High School’s class of 1887.  Of the seven graduates, five are in the Flagg-Wetherbee collection as well.   Identified so far: Bertha Dupee/Dupree, Bertha Hosmer, Albertie Preston, Sadie Sawyer and Hattie Tuttle.  We have not yet found the two remaining members of the class, Susie Conant and Ernest Wetherbee.

The "Flagg & Wetherbee" photo collection may be more varied than we originally thought; perhaps as scanning progresses we’ll come across more familiar faces!

Five members of the 1887 Acton High School graduating class.