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Deerfield, Massachusetts, has become famous as a town that celebrates, even lives on, its past. But there were critics of the first steps the town took in memorializing its past. This column is written by a resident who no doubt was a close neighbor of "S," or George Sheldon, the leader of the memorial movement and later founder of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association. Sheldon's push for a monument above the grave of the townspeople who were killed during the 1704 Raid on Deerfield ultimately would be successful, but as is typical in small towns, not without a fair amount of discussion and dissent. Here, Sheldon is criticized for working to duplicate what the town's recently erected soldiers' monument already memorialized. As perhaps this writer feared, Deerfield residents continued to memorialize other historical places in the area in and around the town.