Diary of Dedham hero granted to society

The voice, clear and commanding, was Bill Gould's. But the words he spoke were from the diary of his great-grandfather, William Benjamin Gould, an escaped slave who joined the Union Navy and kept a daily acount of his incredible passage to freedom.

Among the diary entries Bill Gould chose to read aloud last week was one of his favorites, dated April 15, 1865.

General Robert E. Lee had just surrendered at Appomattox, and the war, and slavery, were about to end.

''On my return on board I heard the glad tidings," he read, ''that the Stars and Stripes had been planted over the capitol of the defeated confederacy by the invincible Grant.

''While we honor the living soldiers who have done so much, we must not forget to whisper for fear of disturbing the glorious sleep of the many who have fallen, martyrs to the cause of right and equality."

With that, Bill Gould on Tuesday donated the 144-year-old diary, possibly the only one of its kind, to the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The diary was discovered in 1958, when Bill Gould's father, William B. Gould III, stumbled upon it while cleaning out the attic of the family's home in East Dedham where, after the Civil War, William Benjamin Gould became a building contractor and community pillar.

Some diary chapters, unfortunately, were thrown out by accident. But the sections that remain -- hundreds of pages detailing William Benjamin Gould's wartime adventures to the day of his discharge at the Charlestown Navy Yard in 1865 -- provide an invaluable account of an African-American who joined the Union military months before Colonel Robert Gould Shaw recruited blacks for his fabled 54th Massachusetts Infantry.

The ex-slave's words are eloquent; his thoughts, considerate; his penmanship, extraordinary. On top of that, he had quite a life.

Bill Gould, a Stanford law professor who headed the National Labor Relations Board under the Clinton administration, has made researching the yellowed journal his life's passion.

Gould trekked to Spain to find the harbor where his great-grandfather's ship pursued a Confederate ironside; to North Carolina to trace the 28-mile escape route William Benjamin Gould took after fleeing the plantation; and to Dedham, where he became a familiar face at the Dedham Historical Society.

William Benjamin Gould and his wife, Cornelia, raised eight children in their Milton Street home, which still stands today. He helped found the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, dressed in his Union uniform annually for parades, and, upon his death in 1923, was buried in Brookdale Cemetery.

His research complete, Bill Gould -- whose full name, William Benjamin Gould IV, echoes his grandfather's -- published a detailed book about the diary, ''Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor," in 2002.

Wanting to share the diary with even more readers, he contacted members of the Historical Society.

Last week, the group happily accepted the gift.

''Not all diaries are equal," said Peter Drummey, the society's librarian. Too many offer little more than mundane observations, even about intrinsically interesting events, he said. But the Gould diary is a wealth of insight. ''This is clearly like no other diary," said Drummey.

Bill Gould, who was born in Boston and remained a Red Sox fan even though he later moved to New Jersey, returned last weekend to throw out the first pitch at Fenway Park for ''Jackie Robinson Day."

On Tuesday, with his wife, Hilda, his sister, Dorothy Gould Gerber, two sons, and other relatives and friends by his side, he officially gifted the diary to the historical society, which will have portions on public display throughout the summer.

''The diary has taught me that I really got a lucky chance in life," said Bill Gould. ''He was able to persevere under the most adverse circumstances."

Escaping from slavery, serving under difficult circumstances during the war at sea, facing real bullets, then forging his own way on the basis of a craft.

''Hero is an overused term these days, particularly since 2001," he said. ''But it seems to me that he fits this word very well."