Please join us on Friday June 16th at 11am at the Pembroke Council on Aging.
Just over 100 years after the Pembroke suffragist Judith Winsor Smith took part in the first Women's Vote, there will be a bridge dedication in her name, the Judith Winsor Smith Memorial Bridge. Judith was a pioneer women's suffrage activist, social reformer, and abolitionist that lived in Pembroke in the 1840s near the North Pembroke Post Office. While the house she and her ship builder husband Silvanus Smith lived in is no longer, their barn still stands and is part of Rapture Salon. Her father, Lewis McLauthlin, ran the South Shore Underground Railroad that ran through Pembroke so to no surprise that influenced her abolitionist interest. Born in Marshfield, she moved to Duxbury as a young woman to take a teaching job. She and her husband spent their early married years in Pembroke and later moved to East Boston where she immersed herself in women's rights starting as the president of one of the first women's clubs in Massachusetts. Together they raised 6 children. Edith Winsor Smith died December 12, 1921, at the age of 100, having lived long enough to enjoy her work in the passing of the 19th Amendment at age 99. Learn about the life and influence of Judith Winsor Smith.
Presenting at the dedication will be Josh Cutler, Massachusetts State Representative (6th Plymouth District); Dr. Laura Prieto, Professor History, Women's and Gender Studies, Simmons University; Miles Prescott, Research Director, Pembroke Historical Society; and Collin Smith, Great Great Grandson of Judith Winsor Smith.
Following the dedication at the Council on Aging willbe the unveiling of the Judith Winsor Smith Memorial Bridge. The bridge is located on Schoosett Street (Route 139) right after Hafta Havat on the way to Hanover.
