Lynnfield High School senior Matthew Squadrito combined his two passions — Boy Scouts and history — to leave his mark on his hometown.
Squadrito joined Boy Scout Troop 48 when he moved to Lynnfield in first grade and recently completed his Eagle Scout project after 12 years in the troop.
“I love Boy Scouts,” he said. “Some of my best friends I’ve made in the troop, and I’m still friends with.”
For his Eagle Scout project, Squadrito created a digital map of veterans’ graves in Lynnfield cemeteries. Before his project, he said the town relied on two systems — a cemetery worker who has the areas mostly memorized and a filing system of index cards.
Squadrito wanted to help modernize the town’s history.
The project began in April 2022, he said. With the help of volunteers, he mapped out the cemeteries throughout the town, compiling information about each veteran he could find.
While working on his project, Veterans Services Officer Bruce Siegel approached Squadrito, asking for help with the new Veterans Memorial being built on South Common Street.
After connecting with Siegel and his team, Squadrito’s focus took on new significance.
He spent nearly three months researching all of the town’s veterans to gather information for the Veterans Memorial. The names on display are the result of his months of combing through databases and becoming familiar with each veteran from Lynnfield.
With his passion for history, particularly war history, he said his favorite part is learning about the lesser-known people — the hometown heroes.
“Without the people who stood there and the common soldiers who fought, you can’t have an army. You can’t have battles,” Squadrito said. “I find the individual stories much more interesting.”
He said his dream job after high school and college graduation is working in the field of war and military archeology to study the common soldiers on the battlefields.
“Without the people who stood there and the common soldiers who fought, you can’t have an army. You can’t have battles. So I find the individual stories much more interesting,” he said.
Squadrito said his research for the memorial brought him closer to the more than 850 stories represented by the names on the wall.
He said he felt a deeper connection to the veterans and learned interesting stories about the town’s unique history. He gave an example about a regiment of sharpshooters specifically recruited from Lynnfield during the Civil War.
“It’s all the little things you find out,” Squadrito said. “It’s learning what makes this town unique.”
