History in the making: Onset Historical Society in the works
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Wickett’s Island on a post card featuring the mansion. Photo source: Onset Historical Society.
Onset beach painted for a post card.
A view over the water.
Waterfront in front of Glen Clove.
Wickett’s Island on a post card featuring the mansion. Photo source: Onset Historical Society.
Onset beach painted for a post card.
A view over the water.
Waterfront in front of Glen Clove.
With a rich history and decades of memories to be shared, two Onset residents are looking to create a group to immortalize all that the coastal village has offered.
Onset Historical Society co-founders Mark Maxim and Marie Strawn are gauging public interest in the newly formed group. Currently, the society only has a website but plans to establish a physical location as a nonprofit.
"Wareham and Onset have a very distinct history. Wareham is older and has colonial history. Onset has a vintage history like nobody else on the East Coast," Maxim said.
Maxim, a lifelong Onset resident, has been collecting post cards from the village for the past 30 years and has a family lineage in the area dating back 300 years. He said his love for Onset is what inspired him to create the group.
"This is all about giving back," he said. "I went to school in Wareham, went to Cape Cod Community College and graduated from UMASS Dartmouth. I've taken the local road my entire life."
A self-proclaimed, "local boy," Maxim said his favorite piece of history had to do with the wild recreational activities that used to occur.
"They were called the aeronauts," he said. "They'd go up in hot air balloons and they'd release people with a parachute. Then they'd parachute into the bay."
Maxim hopes to gather more stories like the aeronauts with an event at Salerno’s Hall on 196 Onset Avenue on Sunday, August 24 at 1 p.m. The gathering will feature antiques from Onset collected by Strawn, Maxim and the Knowlton Family.
Maxim obtained items from George Decas' personal collection and will be displaying them at the event.
"We're excited because a lot of people in Wareham knew and loved George, and he loved Onset," he said.
Maxim said he's seen positive reactions to the society with his phone ringing off the hook with calls from supporters.
"We want people to know what their history was because obviously we got here somehow," he said.
Postcards, events and frequently asked questions can be found on the Onset Historical Society website at onsethistoricalsociety.com.
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