DEDHAM, a township and the county seat of Norfolk county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., with an area of 23 sq. m. of comparatively level country. Pop. (1890) 7123; (1900) 7457, of whom 2186 were foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) 9284. The township is traversed by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by interurban electric lines. It contains three villages, Dedham, East Dedham and Oakdale. Dedham has a public library (1854; incorporated 1871). The Dedham historical society was organized in 1859 and was incorporated in 1862. The Fairbanks house was erected in part as early as 1654. Carpets, handkerchiefs and woollen goods are manufactured, and a pottery here is reputed to make the only true crackleware outside the East. Dedham was "planted" in 1635 and was incorporated in 1636. It was one of the first two inland settlements of the colony, being coeval with Concord. The original plantation, about 20 m. long and 10 m. wide, extended from Roxbury and Dorchester to the present state line of Rhode Island: from this territory several townships were created, including Westwood (pop. in 1910, 1266), in 1897. A free public school, one of the first in America to be supported by direct taxation, was established in Dedham in 1645. In the Woodward tavern, the birthplace of Fisher Ames, a convention met in September 1774 and adjourned to Milton (q.v.), where it passed the Suffolk Resolves.
DEDICATION (Lat. _dedicatio_, from _dedicare_, to proclaim, to announce), properly the setting apart of anything by solemn proclamation. It is thus in Latin the term particularly applied to the consecration of altars, temples and other sacred buildings, and also to the inscription prefixed to a book, &c., and addressed to some particular person. This latter practice, which formerly had the purpose of gaining the patronage and support of the person so addressed, is now only a mark of affection or regard. In law, the word is used of the setting apart by a private owner of a road to public use. (See HIGHWAY.)
_The Feast of Dedication_ ([Hebrew: hanuka]; [Greek: ta egkainia]) was a Jewish festival observed for eight days from the 25th of Kislev (i.e. about December 12) in commemoration of the reconsecration (165 B.C.) of the temple and especially of the altar of burnt offering, after they had been desecrated in the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes (168 B.C.). The distinguishing features of the festival were the illumination of houses and synagogues, a custom probably taken over from the feast of tabernacles, and the recitation of Psalm xxx. The biblical references are 1 Macc. i. 41-64, iv. 36-39; 2 Macc. vi. 1-11; John x. 22. See also 2 Macc. i. 9, 18; ii. 16; and Josephus, _Antiq._ xii. v. 4. J. Wellhausen suggests that the feast was originally connected with the winter solstice, and only afterwards with the events narrated in Maccabees.