History for sale

For $28,440, tavern sign from 1700s could be on its way home to Canton

(Robert Hawking)

It was a piece of Revolutionary history, literally a sign of the times. It had hung, history buffs say, outside the Doty Tavern, the Colonial-era establishment in Canton where rebels gathered in August of 1774 - safely out of sight of their British rulers - to discuss the revolutionary principles that would become the Declaration of Independence.

When the tavern, nestled at the foot of Great Blue Hill, burned down in 1888, the sign survived. Local historians kept loose track of it until 27 years ago, when it fell off their radar screen. No one knew where it was.

Until last month.

That's when local history-lover David Lambert saw the sign on eBay, listed for sale by the Skinner antiques auction company. Local historians were excited, but anxious. Could they buy it? How high would the bidding go? They hoped no one else would want the weathered panel.

No such luck. Come auction day, there was stiff competition, and bidding started at twice what they had hoped to pay. But in the end, they came home with the sign.

Now all they have to do is raise the $28,440 they bid on it.

"This is an important piece of history for both Canton and Stoughton," said Lambert, of Stoughton, the online genealogist for the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Local history lovers hope the sign's palpable presence will help awaken contemporary interest in the Doty Tavern's role in Revolutionary history. They are calling on backers to help raise the purchase price of the sign they obtained on a pledge of credit, suitable to a band of Massachusetts revolutionaries.

Leading the campaign are history-loving members of the Friends of Prowse Farm, the site where the Doty Tavern once stood. The Friends administer 80 percent of the historic horse farm, which is now owned by the company Meditech.

The Friends hope to not only raise enough to pay for the sign - the auctioneers gave them 60 days to raise what they owed - but also eventually create a museum on the site where the sign would hang.

A photo of the tavern taken in the 1880s, along with a later archeological investigation, confirmed the location, according to Stoughton historian Howard Hanson, who lectures on the origin of the Declaration of Independence.

The Doty Tavern sign is a wooden board with two iron rod stanchions along the sides, 71 inches along and 44 inches wide. One side of the sign depicts a lion standing up on its hind legs with a collar and chain around its neck - believed to be an allusion to the British government. The other side is ornamented with a faded image of a horse and traveler. "T. Doty," - the name of the inn's proprietor - is written below.

"We know that it's a very old sign that was hanging in front of Doty Tavern," said Stoughton historic commission member Dwight MacKerron.

Lambert, the local historian and geneologist from Stoughton, knew about the sign because a replica exists in Stoughton, which was part of the town of Canton during Colonial times.

Lambert said he regularly scouts eBay - where auction houses often list antiques - out of a desire "to bring our history back to Stoughton." During one of his eBay scans, he saw the notice that the sign was to be auctioned off.

Lambert told MacKerron of his discovery. MacKerron, too, was familiar with the sign, which he said had been for sale decades ago in an antique gallery on Newbury Street in Boston. But at that point local historians were too busy concentrating on preserving Prowse Farm itself to attempt to buy it. After that, they lost track of it.

But having rediscovered it, they found the prospect of owning irresistible.

Harvey Robbins, president of Friends of Prowse Farm, vice president Leo Walters of Sharon, and Thelma Rando of Canton made the trip to Boston on auction day, Feb. 17. They did so with high hopes and limited resources.

The Friends of Prowse Farm is a small nonprofit that earns some money by hosting events on the farm. They had $15,000 in the bank and "no way to know" how the bidding would go or who else would be involved, Robbins said.

When the bidding started at $15,000 "we looked at each other" and agreed to go as high as $25,000, Robbins said. That was more than three times what they had hoped to pay.

"It all happened very fast." Bids came by e-mail. Bids came by phone. Several other people in the hall bid as well. Pushed to the limit - "we were all in," Robbins said - the bidding ended with the Friends' $24,000 offer, plus another $4,440 in commission for Skinner.

Aware of the group's nonprofit status, the auction company gave them the extended time to make good on the bid.

Now they are looking ahead to the day when it is paid off, and hanging proudly in the hoped-for new museum.

Where, exactly, would it be displayed? Robbins said he hopes the sign will eventually hang "in the Doty Tavern Room" of the museum.

Robert Knox can be reached at rcknox@gmail.com.