Stoughton Remembers Resident Lost on Titanic [VIDEO]

One hundred years to the day of the sinking of the , the Stoughton community honored a resident who was among the more than 1,500 people who lost their lives when the ill-fated ship collided with an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank in the North Atlantic ocean on April 15, 1912.

, a Stoughton resident and President of the George E. Belcher Last Company on Capen St., was among the victims in the Titanic tragedy.

Returning home from a European business trip where he was looking for more business for the Stoughton company, Clifford, only 40-years old at the time of his death, left behind a wife, two adult children and two grandchildren when the ship sank. His body was never recovered.

Dozens of community members gathered on Sunday, April 15, at the site of the Belcher Company Factory on Capen St. (now the Stoughton Housing Authority building) for an unveiling of an 18" x 14" bronze plaque memorializing the fallen resident. 

"The Titanic took away the hopes and dreams of over 1,500 souls, including George Quincy Clifford's," Stoughton historian David Allen Lambert told the crowd at Sunday's memorial plaque dedication.

Lambert spearheaded the efforts to honor Clifford.

"In June 1912, 1,200 people filled Stoughton's Town Hall for a memorial service for George. A photograph, a few newspaper clippings and a faded program are all that remains at the Stoughton Historical Society as a testament to his life," Lambert told the crowd.

"I thought it more fitting that we educate the young children of Stoughton that the word 'Titanic' is not a 3D movie. It is a story of 1,500 souls that never made it home. George never came home to Stoughton and has remained forgotten for far too long."

But with this plaque, which hangs on the exterior of the Capen St. building where Clifford once worked, Clifford will "never be forgotten again," Lambert said.

Three of Clifford's descendants - Lauren Redfern, his step-great-ganddaughter; Robert MacArthur, his step-great-grandson; and Jennifer Bond, his step-great-great-granddaughter - helped to unveil the plaque. Lambert presented them with a shoe stretcher made at the Belcher Factory in 1912.

The memorial plaque was erected thanks to the generosity of several Stoughton individuals, families and businesses.