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THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDAL OF LIBERTYAnne E. Bentley writes: I didn't even know the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had a Medal of Liberty!
Anne included a link to an application page from the Massachusetts National Guard site (linked below). There are many articles out there on the awarding of the medal to individuals, but I couldn't find much else on the medal itself. The best I've found (other than the National Guard page) is this summary from Wikipedia. The image was conveniently extracted from the .pdf file by Google. -Editor
The medal is heart-shaped to symbolize the Purple Heart and is attached to a 1 3/8 inch wide ribbon with a black border representing mourning. The centre of the medal bears a Gold Star symbolizing Gold Star Mothers Club. At the top centre of the medal is the coat of arms of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and on the rear side is the service member's branch of service with a blank space to have the honored service member's name engraved by recipient and the words "In Honored Memory" engraved above and "Service and Sacrifice" below. Here's some more from the National Guard page. -Editor
Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 33, Section 67A "There shall be a medal of liberty which shall be awarded to the next of kin of service men and women from the commonwealth killed in action or who died in service while in a designated combat area in the line of duty or who died as a result of wounds received in action." Description: Heart shaped medal symbolic of the purple heart with a gold border, 1 3/8 inches wide. The center of the medal bears the Gold Star. The top center of the medal is the coat-of-arms of the Commonwealth. The reverse of the medal top depicts the branch of service of the member. The Reverse consists of the words, "In Honored Memory" above the name engraving surface and "Service and Sacrifice" below. The ribbon is 1 3/8 inches wide and consists of the following stripes: 1/8 inch black; 1 1/8 inch purple; 1/8 inch black. To read the complete page, see:
To read the complete Wikipedia article, see:
Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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