Willard Dean of Pleasant St.

Willard Dean (1844-1936)

Frances M. Dean Dean (1848-1887)

Balch Dean (1837-1899)

Willard Dean at his home on Pleasant S

Willard Dean was born in South Dedham on July 17, 1844. He was the son of Thomas Balch Dean and Catherine Fuller Dean  (also lot 66). Willard Dean was the fourth generation of Deans to be born in the homestead at the corner of Pleasant Street and Dean Street. The land was originally a King’s grant. The house was one of the first to be built in this section of the village and featured hand-hewn and pit-sawn beams and boards. Few alterations were made to the one-and-one-half story house over some 200 years of family life. Open land when the house was built, by the end of Dean’s lifetime the village had become a well-populated town and the buildings of the Morrill Ink Works were within sight.

On January 29, 1885, Willard Dean married Frances M. Dean who was born on April 16, 1848. Frances’s parents were Ebenezer Dean and Mary Gould Farrington Dean (lot 86).

A farmer, musician, and great marksman with a rifle, Willard Dean was left a widower when his wife, Frances, died on October 10, 1887, at the age of 39 of dysentery and internal complications. Her obituary noted that “The deceased was a faithful wife and an affectionate daughter to her aged mother.” The couple had no children.

Fiddler, Willard Dean lead musician for this 1916 event.

Frances Dean land sale in 1878.

Willard never remarried but continued to reside in his home alone for nearly 50 years until his death on February 7, 1936. At the age of 91 years, 6 months, and 21 days, he was one of the oldest residents of the town at the time of his death. Dean left no surviving near relatives.

The name of Willard Dean’s brother Balch Dean (1837-1899) is also inscribed on this side of the family gravestone.