Arlington Historical Society program ‘George Y. Wellington Remembers’

ARLINGTON – I helped found the Arlington Historical Society and was its second president. I also was a surveyor for the Lexington & West Cambridge Rail Road and continued railroading in Cincinnati. I later managed the Arlington horse street-railway and made my financial success in the insurance business. This will be my first talk before the Society in over 100 years, where I shall reminisce about some of the changes Arlington has undergone during my lifetime.

This exciting program in the first person will be held at the Masonic Temple, 19 Academy St., at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 26. It is free for members and $5 for non-members. The program will be simulcast live on our YouTube Channel – visit our website for a link arlingtonhistorical.org.

Arlington resident and Historical Society member Michael Ruderman will be presenting the dynamic founder of our own Historical Society. Ruderman adds. “Wellington’s extensive diary of the year 1900, ‘in my 74th year,’ records what he hopes will be ‘preserved and read in Jan’y AD 2000.’ That, and his frequent presentations to the Historical Society which he helped establish, portray a man with a keen sense of living between changing historical eras. There are pieces missing from this self-portrait, details of his varied enterprises that made him one of Arlington’s most successful businessmen. I hope to write those elements back into Wellington’s narrative of his life and times.

Michael Ruderman is a long-time Arlington resident and, like Wellington, he has a passion for Arlington’s history. His first presentation to the Society was more than two decades on “Why Old Houses Matter.” He delivered the last lecture before COVID suspended the Society’s live programs, a multi-media presentation on the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors monument entitled “What They Fought For.” Ruderman has expanded this last lecture and will offer it as a class in historiography through Arlington Community Education this June. He has also taught classes on understanding and getting involved in local government.