Welcome to the 125th National Fairbanks Reunion 2026 with Sharmin Fairbanks McKenny
125th National Fairbanks Reunion 2026
A reunion to remember. On July 10 & 11, 2026, I attended and participated in the 125th National Fairbanks Reunion at the old Fairbanks House Museum at Dedham, Massachusetts. Wish you could have been there.
July 10, 2026
Historical Tours and Sip Sip Huzzah
Fairbanks House Tours
Sharmin dressed as Grace Fairbanks
welcoming guests into the house.
Friday was filled with hustle as the board members prepared for the reunion guests to arrive. However, they diligently continued to hold guided tours of the house that day. Many out of town reunion guests attended these tours. I helped greet the guests as they waited for their tour. I shared their awe as they walked back out the door of the house into the 21st century after being submerged in the 17th and 18th centuries while inside.
When you step into the Fairbanks House, it is just like stepping back into the 17th century. If Grace were still here, she would greet you at the door after gathering herbs and vegetables from her gardens. She’d be used to the dim light inside, coming only through the front windows. The House doesn’t have electricity even today.
Grace would probably leave all the doors and windows open for a breeze to flow in. She’d probably damper the fire in the hall hearth even during the the day. She’d use her hand fan because she had no way to move the air and cool herself. The house doesn’t have the convenience of air conditioning or heating other than by the three hearths. In the winter, low ceilings, a large hearth in the hall (kitchen), parlor and upstairs, and the lean-to on the north side of the house would keep it warm. The upstairs hearth was in the children’s room. They were privileged.
There is still no modern climate control nor plumbing.
Grace would welcome and entertain you in the parlor until she realized you were family or close friends. A docent would fill you in on how it looked in Grace’s time, because the parlor is no longer furnished with the stately four-poster bed draped with bed curtains in which Grace and Jonathan slept for warmth and privacy. Though called the parlor, it doesn’t have a couple of chairs or perhaps a small table with one of Jonathan’s 14 books and a pair of his reading glasses on it any longer.
The kitchen has changed little except the hearth has been partially bricked in to provide an indoor brick oven. Some bricks have been imbedded in the floor around the hearth for a later free-standing wood stove used by later generations.
The lean-to was added to the house after the original house was built possibly about 1641, but definitely during Jonathan’s lifetime. It has an array of farm tools, dairy and cheese making equipment and spinning wheels and accessories.
The rest of the house extensions, east and west, were added on shortly after the Revolutionary War and in the early 1800s. Your tour can extend into those areas also.
If you haven’t visited the Fairbanks House Museum in Dedham, MA, I highly recommend you do so with your family, young and old. I encourage you to read Made to Last Forever: A Family. A House. A Nation. prior to your visit to enhance your experience and understanding of the courage, determination, and hardships the people of early Massachusetts Bay Colony dealt with in starting this nation.
Dedham Museum & Archive
Later, reunion guests were welcomed to the Dedham Museum & Archive in Dedham town center by Johanna McBrien, Director. I did much research about early Dedham and its founders for Made to Last Forever at this location. The facility is under renovation and construction, so the museum was limited at this time. Jim Parr, Fairbanks House docent, historian of Dedham and author of Dedham: Historic and Heroic Tales from Shiretown was available to answer questions about Fairbanks related and Dedham’s Revolutionary items on display.
The Fairbanks’s brass sundial engraved with London, England, 1650, was on display. I had never seen a historic hand mill for grinding grains to flour before. Mary, the oldest daughter, would have been using a hand mill like this one before Dedham built a water driven grist mill. The actual Fairbanks full sized chest made by John Houghton was also on display. A replica of the chest is at the Fairbanks House since the original needs special environmental control to delay deterioration. All of these were mentioned in Made to Last Forever.
Fairbanks sundial engraved
London, England 1650 DM&A 2026
Fairbanks Chest made by John Houghton
DM&A 2026
Hand grist mill missing top stone and handle DM&A 2026
Sip Sip Huzzah!
Made to Last Forever book display
As the tours came to an end, even more reunion guests arrived to enjoy the fellowship of distant relatives from near and far. At times, guests have come from Washington, California, Canada, Texas, and even Hawaii. While board members met and hosted the guests, I displayed “Made to Last Forever: A Family. A House. A Nation.” The display included items such as a mask like a 17th century Plague doctor wore during the time Jonathan and Graces’ family lived in England. A 17th century folded letter with a likeness of the wax seal that Jonathan used lay near a pewter inkwell and mock quill pen. The correspondence was addressed like one received by Jonathan Fairbanks in 1650 when his half-brother died.
I signed books which guests brought with them or purchased at the Fairbanks House gift shop. Then I stamped it with the likeness of Jonathan Fairbanks’s signature that was found on a 1665 document.
To end the evening, I led a tour outside the Fairbanks House which included details of the outer house and the family who built and lived there in the early 1600s. The House was open the next day with docents stationed in each room to answer questions and point out things of interest.
Outdoor tour of the Fairbansks House by Sharmin McKenny 2026
Book discussion on porch of bungalow 2026
Outdoor features of the Fairbanks House by Sharmin McKenny 2026
July 11, 2026
Annual Meeting, Revolutionary War Commemoration, Honorable Guest
The Fairbanks Family of America’s “The Homestead Courier,” a quarterly newsletter for members has just been published with more details of this part of the reunion. However, I’d like to mention a few things that I found special. This year we celebrated the many Fairbanks descendants with various surnames that contributed to the freedom of this nation during the American Revolutionary War. Flags demonstrated many of these near the old house. Our speaker was Daniel Hart who spoke of the many Dedham Patriots who participated. Descendants of John and Jonathan Jr. lines and some of the Mary and Susan’s line would have been among the Dedham Patriots. Memorabilia of Fairbanks descendants who participated in the Revolutionary War, particularly pension records, and the historic diamond paned windows from before the Revolutionary War which are being preserved and restored were on display.
One of the things I liked best was the fife and drummer. Although they were dressed in Civil War uniforms, they played the fife and drums in the tunes that would have been heard during the Revolutionary War.
Another of my favorite parts was seeing Jonathan Leo Fairbanks, an esteemed personage in New England history and art, Board of Director of the Fairbanks House, and much more. He was the youngest attendee of the Reunion long ago and is now the oldest attendee this year. I was privileged to visit his art studio several years ago.
Drummer Josh Thorlo
Third Marine Field Musicians
Fifeer Brendan Hart
New England Book Signings
New Englanders, even if not descendants of the Fairbanks family, are interested in the history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As a visiting author, I discussed, signed, and stamped books and made new friends. Of the five bookstores, two signings were outdoors and 3 were indoors. They included: The Blue Bunny in Dedham, Barnes and Noble in Hingham, Book Love in Pine Hills, Titcomb Bookstore in Sandwich and Barnes and Noble in Wareham. I visited one library, the Endicott Library in Dedham, which also displayed my book, Made to Last Forever.
Book display in
1600s costume at
Book Love, Pine Hills
Sharmin & friends at Barnes & Noble, Hingham, MA
Sharmin and Scholar at Titcomb Bookshop in
Sandwich, MA
For those who have signed up for the newsletter, I’ll include more pictures of “Grace,” the House, and the trip. Thank you for all who follow and share the book and the website with others.
Are you having a Thanksgiving family gathering? Made to Last Forever: A Family. A House. A Nation will be a great host/hostess gift or fuel for a lively family conversation if several have read it.
