Past Events
A Book Talk and Conversation with Carl I Hammer
“As an Heathen Man and a Publican” The Ordeal of Betsey Huntington at Forty Acres
Sunday, August 4, 2024, 2:00 PM
The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum will host a book talk with historian Carl I Hammer, titled “As an Heathen Man and a Publican” The Ordeal of Betsey Huntington at Forty Acres on on Sunday, August 4th at 2:00 PM in the Museum’s Corn Barn. His presentation traces the religious life of early 19th-century Hadley through the experiences of Elizabeth (Betsey) and Dan Huntington as they navigated the evolution of their personal faith, the local church community’s response, and the resulting ex-communications and conversion to Unitarianism. Following the book talk, Carl I Hammer, will facilitate a public conversation about the legacy of these historical spiritual shifts in Connecticut River Valley. Admission for this event is free. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive, Route 47, Hadley MA 01035. For further information please call (413) 584-4699.
When the Rev. Dan Huntington and his wife, Betsey, removed in 1816 from Middletown, CT, to her childhood home at Forty Acres in Hadley, Betsey returned to the church of her youth where she had professed her faith and been admitted to membership. That church was now under a new minister, John Woodbridge, whose ordination in 1810 the Huntingtons had attended. In Middletown, Dan’s ministry had been orthodox, yet he did not join the church in Hadley. Instead, he joined the local Ministerial Association and engaged as an “evangelist while overseeing Hopkins Academy. In the subsequent years, as the family established themselves in society in Hadley Dan’s theological views evidently changed, possibly influenced by his brother-in-law, Charles Porter Phelps, who had likewise removed with his family in 1817 to Hadley where he built a house opposite Forty Acres. A few tumultuous years would pass before her connection with the church was finally severed, as her beliefs were deemed Unitarian. In December 1828 Betsey, with two of her adult children was admitted to the new Unitarian church in Northampton where she remained a member until her death in 1847. Her husband’s prominent defiance and demonstrative independence of orthodox authority had forced her to take a new religious direction. Still, she was adamant in her loyalty to her new church home which she called her “refuge” and her “mother’s bosom”. In his Memories Dan regretfully acknowledged the ordeal to which he had subjected his wife, “although we were both equally vulnerable as heretics, [we] were not both equally at the disposal of the Church in Hadley. She was a member; I was not.”
Carl I Hammer holds degrees from Amherst College and the University of Toronto. Following his retirement from a career in international business, he turned his attention to the archives of medieval and early-modern history and has published multiple articles in journals dedicated to North American and European history. He has written two books on the politics and society of 17th and 18th-century Western Massachusetts, published by Lexington in 2018 and 2021. His book on the first century of the Quabbin towns of Greenwich and Enfield was published by Levellers Press, Amherst, in 2023. He is now completing a study of liberal religion in early western Massachusetts, of which the subject of his talk is a chapter in Hammer’s forthcoming book A Greater Noise: Liberal Religion in Early Western Massachusetts.
To read a transcript of Carl I Hammer’s talk click here
Introducing the “Forty Acres and Its Skirts” National Register Historic District
A public talk and walking tour
August 6, 2023 at 1:30 pm
The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum will host a celebration to introduce the “Forty Acres and Its Skirts” National Register Historic District, Hadley's newest historic district, with a talk by Brian Whetstone, PhD, on Sunday, August 6, 2023 at 1:30pm in the Museum’s Corn Barn. The public presentation invites all to learn about the process and research that went into this successful National Register nomination and designation, and will include a tour of the historic landscape.
This new “Forty Acres and Its Skirts” national historic district designation includes 114 acres and 20 historic buildings and structures on both sides of River Drive was completed as part of a National Park Service “Underrepresented Communities Grant” awarded to the Massachusetts Historical Commission in 2020. Marla R. Miller, PhD and Brian Whetstone, PhD, were hired by MHC to update the existing National Register documentation for the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Historic House, which was listed individually in 1973, and to develop a district to include Phelps Farm and Kestrel’s Elizabeth Huntington Dyer Field and Forest Conservation Area and the associated agricultural land owned by the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation. Their work focuses discussion on the importance of groups and individuals underrepresented in the historical record and includes enslaved and Native people, indentured servants, free Blacks, day laborers and Polish agricultural workers.
Brian Whetsone will present these stories and more that emerged during the two years of researching and developing the nomination, and will provide background on the nomination process. Following his talk, Whetstone will lead a walking tour of the PPH Museum grounds to illustrate the new landscape features and historic buildings significant in telling the stories of "pastkeeping," labor, and social history at the museum.
Brian Whetstone is a public historian and historian of late-twentieth century U.S. urban history. He holds a Ph.D. in History and certificate in Public History from the University of Massachusetts Amherst where his research and teaching focus on the intersection between the post-1966 historic preservation movement and twentieth-century urban political economy. As a public historian, his work engages historic preservation’s capacity to promote meaningful social change and inclusion by identifying, researching, and documenting historic sites associated with communities underrepresented or marginalized in traditional preservation documentation. His work has appeared in the National Council on Public History’s blog, the blog of the Urban History Association, and the Columbia Journal of History, in addition to several successful National Register of Historic Places nominations designated in Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Iowa. In September he will begin a Post Doc year at Princeton University.
More information about the Forty Acres and Its Skirts National Register Historic District can be found at https://www.pphmuseum.org/forty-acres-and-its-skirts-historic-district.
View Brian’s presentation here.
Historic Places & Open Spaces:
A Book Talk and Signing With Alain Munkittrick
Sunday, July 30th at 2pm
The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is delighted to host architect, scholar, and author Alain Munkittrick for a presentation and signing of his new book Historic Houses of the Connecticut River Valley (Arcadia Publishing, 2023) on Sunday, July 30th at 2:00 pm in the Museum’s Corn Barn. The author’s presentation, entitled “Historic Places and Open Spaces”, details the contributions made by Hadley’s 18th and 19th century family farmsteads to the evolution of the Connecticut River Valley’s historical and geographical landscape, and features previously unpublished photos of Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum taken by Clifton Johnson between 1920-1940. Following the presentation, guests will be able to purchase a signed copy of Mr. Munkittrick’s newly published book.
Alain Munkittrick lives in Portland, Connecticut, on the Connecticut River. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the Boston Architectural College. He and his wife, Rosemary Munkittrick, have practiced architecture, space planning and interior design for 40 years in the Boston area and in Connecticut. Adaptive reuse and historic preservation are particularly important aspects of their practice. This work is informed by research and studies of architectural history, building technology and local history. Alain was a founding member of the Wesleyan University Landmarks Advisory Board, past president of the Greater Middletown Preservation Trust, and is currently Vice-President of the Board of the Middlesex County Historical Society in Middletown, Connecticut, where he leads historic preservation efforts in that community.
His latest book, and the subject of this presentation, Historic Houses of the Connecticut River Valley, includes over 300 period photographs — many of which have never been published — illustrating a curated selection of 160 historic houses, arranged thematically to tell the story of the river valley's development.