“Services appropriate to the great calamity which has befallen the nation will be observed at the First Congregational Church to-morrow.” So said the April 15, 1865 Quincy Daily Whig and Republican.

In the 1930s, area naturalists were suggesting that Quincy residents plant a dogwood tree, either pink or white. Mrs. Ward Best, president of the Garden Club at that time, encouraged the club members ...