Expanding perspective: Porter-Phelps property in Hadley wins designation as larger National Historic District
8/04/2023
by Steve Pfarrer, Amherst Bulletin
HADLEY - In 1973, the Porter-Phelps-Huntington house in Hadley, which dates to 1752, won designation on the National Register of Historic Places, the federal program that supports and coordinates efforts to protect the nation’s historic and archeological resources.
Now, half a century later, the historic house has become part of a much larger property that’s also been named a National Historic District under the purview of the National Park Service, a designation that in turn recognizes a broader history of the area.
“For a long time, the focus here was on the house and this kind of romanticized version of Colonial history,” said Brian Whetstone, a public historian who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
“But there’s a much broader story to tell,” said Whetstone, who was a key part of the research team that did the legwork to win designation for the new historical district.
Disclaimer: This article misreports the name of the grant project that funded the expansion of the new historic district; the correct grant title is a NPS Underrepresented Communities Grant, a specific initiative of the NPS to expand diverse representation in the National Register of Historic Places. Additionally, the article misreports the research of Alison Russell; Russell has studied Charles Porter Phelps, the son of Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Charles Phelps, Jr., who built Phelps Farm in 1816. The article misreports the administrative history of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum; Doheny Sessions served as curator of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum from 1968-1976; Susan Lisk became curator in 1978.