WHITMAN – As the lights of the out-sized Toll House Cookie – crafted by South Shore Tech students in 2013 – sparkled on the stage of the Spellman Center on Saturday, April 5, Whitman 150th Chair Richard Rosen welcomed those attending the kickoff diner to the first of the events celebrating the town’s sesquicentennial.
The cookie, created to top off the 75th anniversary of the Toll House cookie by Whitman’s Ruth Wakefield, when the town held a First Night celebration ending the year and welcoming 2014 with a “Cookie Drop” in the frigid night of Whitman Center [See end for trivia].
The Toll House was among the many past and present business Rosen featured in his keynote address.
Noting that, at the 125th celebration in 2000 a guest speaker rose to give a speech, apparently covering Whitman’s history from the “Ice Age to the Present,” and it caused a bit of discomfort.
“By the time he got to the part where the ice was melting, I saw that people began to fidget,” Rosen said in the speech recorded for rebroadcast and streaming on WHCA-TV and on the cable access YouTube Channel. “After about 45 minutes, people were sticking forks in their eyes. I do not want to see anybody lifting a fork while I’m speaking tonight.”
He did speak about history – but from a different chapter: the flourishing business community Whitman once enjoyed as the “backbone of our town.”
While there are businesses in town that trace their own histories to the 1800s and 1900s, Rosen’s focus was on “history that many of you remember.”
“I want to talk about the history that’s fading – and I want to make sure its preserved,” he said.
While reciting a long list of businesses that included every manner of commerce except used car dealers – “because we have to be out of here by morning.” – Rosen started with the oldest business in town, D.B. Gurney.
“David Gurney is here representing the eighth generation of Gurneys” in a business started in 1825,” Rosen said. “Harding Print, that’s still in operation, goes back to 1891.”
Beginning with shoe manufacturers, to tool and dye companies, news stores, bakeries, emporiums supplying kids with penny candy … “We had a bunch of funeral homes,” he said, Rosen’s list was an oral timeline of changing business climates and fortunes in Whitman and the national and global marketplace.
“We had lumberyards, believe it or not.” he said. “A lot of these things, people don’t remember, didn’t know about and don’t exist anymore – and that’s what I felt [was] important to bring up.”
At one time there were five new car dealerships in town. McLaughlin Chevrolet, established in 1922, is still one of the country’s oldest Chevrolet dealerships still run by the same family.
He listed cleaners, tax preparers, a “slew of attorneys,” King’s Castle, several businesses on Bedford Street, real estate businesses, pharmacies, jewelry stores, a draft board, farms, furniture storms, doctors’ and dentist’s offices, insurance companies, hardware and clothing stores, electrical businesses, builders, beauty parlors, florists, plumbers, oil firms, mechanics and auto parts stores, a “ton of grocery stores” and several miscellaneous businesses.
“Of course, we had the world-famous Toll House on Route 18,” Rosen said to applause.
He had opened his remarks by thanking his committee.
“I’ve been involved in many committees over the last 40 years,” he said. “This one is probably the best one I’ve been involved with.”
He also gestured to an empty table that, he said, would be full in a couple minutes.
“That’s the Fire Department table and, unfortunately, prior to our sitting down to dinner, the Fire Department had to go fight a house fire,” Rosen said. “But they’ll be here shortly.”
In fact, the firefighters arrived while Chair Mary Joyce of the Historical Commission was beginning her remarks, and she lead the applause to welcome them.
During her remarks, Joyce provided an update on project being done around town with grant funding that the Commission had been acquiring for the town, including funding obtained, in collaboration with the Fire Department and the Whitman American Legion, to renovate the WWI memorial arch at the fire station on Temple Street.
Thar work is expected to be completed by June 8 – when the Whitman 150th Road Race is slated to begin by passing through the arch.
Joyce said the commission is also working with high school students conducting interviews with a number of town seniors for an oral history to be broadcast on radio and WHCA-TV through April 2026, releasing an interview a month.
A grant from the Mass. Historical Commission, with matching funds from the Community Preservation Committee, is also funding an inventory of historic homes in Whitman. An early September ceremony is planned for presentation of a full documentation of their property, as well as plaques for the homeowners to hang on the street-facing side of their homes.
“All of these projects will provide a visual and audio record of what was before for generations to come,” she said.
Rosen presented to Select Board Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski a certificate of special Congressional recognition of the town’s anniversary from U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, Kowalski also accepted proclamations or citations on behalf of the town from state Sen. Mike Brady, D-Brockton and from state Rep. Alyson Sullivan-Almeda’s office and from Register of Deeds John Buckley.
All were dated March 13, 2025 – Whitman’s official anniversary date.
Plymouth County Sheriff John McDonald, DA Timothy Cruz and Clerk of Courts Robert Creedon also offered brief remarks.
Toll House Trivia – How many years has Whitman celebrated First Night and the cookie drop?