PPH Receives a Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON FOUNDATION

Receives a Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant from the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission securing stabilization efforts at Phelps Farm

HADLEY-The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation (PPH) announced today that it has been awarded a Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant from the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC). The grant, in the amount of $100,000, is one of seven awarded to National Register-listed buildings in rural towns in Hampshire, Hampden, and Worcester counties. 

The Bruhn grant program, administered by the National Park Service, is awarded to certified local governments, state or tribal historic preservation offices, or nonprofit entities to create a subgrant program to support the rehabilitation of rural historic properties and to foster economic development of rural communities. PVPC was awarded a Bruhn grant in 2023 and allocated $650,000 for preservation projects through the newly created subgrant program.

The award to the PPH Foundation will fund the stabilization of the ell of the Phelps Farmhouse, an early 19th-century building acquired by the Foundation in 2022 in a heavily deteriorated state.  Many 19th century features remain in the house overall, with the ell retaining its original pantry, early storage spaces, and later 19th- and early 20th-century modifications that speak to its evolution as a working space attached to a farm that operated until 1978. 

As explained by PPH Board of Directors President Karen Sánchez-Eppler, “The back kitchen ell is almost always the first thing people modernize or remove. That the Phelps Farm ell retains so many of its early features is truly remarkable. All the original shelving is still in the pantry, original hinges and lock boxes on the doors. An upper loft used well into the 20th century as a carpentry tool shed is similarly intact. The ell is, of course, the part of the house that reveals the most  about daily labor on the farm. It is also the part of the building now in the most precarious state. Having support to stabilize it is an enormous boon.”

The National Park Service previously awarded an “Underrepresented Communities” grant to list the Forty Acres and Its Skirts Historic District, a National Register nomination that includes Phelps Farm. As the Foundation’s Executive Director Susan Lisk explains, “Through the process of researching and writing the nomination, we learned a lot about the history of this building. So there is a special confluence in having the National Park Service also be the ultimate source of the Paul Bruhn grant that will help to stabilize this building.”

The Bruhn grant comes just over two months after the Town of Hadley allocated $150,000 of Community Preservation Act funding for stabilization and repair work on the main portion of the Phelps Farmhouse. These two awards will assist the Foundation in its effort to rehabilitate the building for future public use.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation acknowledges that it occupies the unceded lands of the Nonotuck people. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington House was built in 1752 by Moses and Elizabeth Porter and was central to the 600-acre farmstead known as “Forty Acres.” Today, the 114 acre property is “Forty Acres and Its Skirts”, a National Register historic district that includes the PPH museum and homestead, and neighboring Phelps farm, surrounded by protected farmland, forest, and river frontage. The Museum contains a collection of the belongings of seven generations of one extended Hadley family, and portrays the activities of family members, enslaved people, artisans, household servants, and farm laborers who made "Forty Acres" an important social and commercial link in local, regional and national cultural and economic networks.   The Museum is open for tours from 1pm-4pm Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until October 13, 2024. Outdoor folk music concerts are held Sundays at 3pm. For more information visit www.pphmuseum.org  or call (413) 584-4699.  

PPH receives grants from the NEH, IMLS, and MOTT

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON MUSEUM

Receives grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities, Institute of Museum and Library Services, and Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism for the reinterpretation and commemoration of the American Revolution at “Forty Acres”

HADLEY- The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation (PPH) has received three grants totalling $80,950 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. PPH has received a Historic Places Planning Grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH), an Inspire! Grants for Small Museums award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and a MA250 award from the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism (MOTT).  These awards will fund research, a new exhibit and programming titled “Forty Acres and the American Revolution: Stories of Independence and Servitude,” and the renovation of the Museum’s historic North Garden, all planned for 2025. 

The Historic Places Planning Grant award, in the amount of $40,000, is part of the NEH initiative: “American Tapestry: Weaving Together Past, Present, and Future.” The 2024 Inspire! Grant, in the amount of $23,450, furthers the goals of the IMLS250 “All Stories, All People, All Places” initiative. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum’s project will combine funding from these two national awards to cover discrete aspects of the  new historical research, exhibit planning, and program development that will share the experiences of individuals in rural Western Massachusetts who are rarely considered in accounts of the American Revolution. With this funding, PPH will present the life stories of Cesar Phelps, Peg Bowen, George and Mary Andries, and John Morison, 18th-century enslaved and indentured laborers at the Forty Acres farmstead, whose experiences embody the complex relations between American Independence and servitude. The exhibit “Forty Acres and the American Revolution: Stories of Independence and Servitude” and accompanying programming will contribute to a nationwide collaborative network of semiquincentennial commemorations - Massachusetts project “Rev250.”-  which commemorates America’s 250th anniversary. 

Funds from these two federal grants will also support the restoration and the reinterpretation of the North Garden, an ornamental English style garden created by John Morison, a Scottish Highlander, ornamental gardener, and prisoner of war indentured at Forty Acres in 1778 and who remained as a gardener on the property for the rest of his life.

The MA250 grant, in the amount of $17,500, awarded from the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, supports programing and marketing related to the American Revolution’s 250th anniversary.  This highly competitive grant disbursed 1.5 million to 37 recipients, of which only three are located in Western MA. For this grant PPH will collaborate with the Hadley Historical Society in producing MA250 programming including a concert, a speaker series, and cemetery tours.

The National Endowment for the Humanities is the only federal agency in the United States dedicated to funding the humanities. Since its founding in 1965, NEH has awarded nearly $6 billion in grants to museums, historic sites, colleges, universities, K–12 teaching, libraries, public television and radio stations, research institutions, independent scholars, and to its humanities council affiliates in each of the nation’s 56 states and jurisdictions. The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums, and advances, supports, and empowers America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. IMLS envisions a nation where individuals and communities have access to museums and libraries to learn from and be inspired by the trusted information, ideas, and stories they contain about our diverse natural and cultural heritage. The Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism promotes Massachusetts as a leisure-travel destination.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation acknowledges that it occupies the unceded lands of the Nonotuck people. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington House was built in 1752 by Moses and Elizabeth Porter and was central to the 600-acre farmstead known as “Forty Acres.” Today, the 114 acre property is “Forty Acres and Its Skirts”, a National Register historic district that includes the PPH museum and homestead, and neighboring Phelps farm, surrounded by protected farmland, forest, and river frontage. The Museum contains a collection of the belongings of seven generations of one extended Hadley family, and portrays the activities of family members, enslaved people, artisans, household servants, and farm laborers who made "Forty Acres" an important social and commercial link in local, regional and national cultural and economic networks.   The Museum is open for tours from 1pm-4pm Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until October 13, 2024. Outdoor folk music concerts will resume in June of 2025. For more information visit www.pphmuseum.org  or call (413) 584-4699. 

Wednesday Folk Traditions Presents Talamana Trio

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON FOUNDATION, INC.

130 RIVER DRIVE HADLEY MA 01035

For Immediate Release

Contact: Susan Lisk (413) 584-4699

www.pphmuseum.org 

WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS at the

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON MUSEUM CONTINUES ITS 43rd SEASON WITH

TALAMANA TRIO

June 26, 2024

HADLEY—The 43rd season of Wednesday Folk Traditions concert series continues at The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum on Wednesday, June 26th with Talamana Trio. Blending Indian and Middle Eastern music with American jazz and folk music, and lyrics from visionary poets, the Talamana Trio performs a powerful and original rhythmic musical experience. Concerts are held Wednesday evenings at 6:30 pm, outside in the Sunken Garden at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, 130 River Drive, Route 47, Hadley MA 01035. Admission is $12, $2 for children 16 and under. Picnickers are welcome on the museum’s grounds starting at 5:00 pm. The museum and its grounds are a smoke-free site. For further information please call (413) 584-4699 or view www.pphmuseum.org.  

Talamana Trio consists of Laila Salins on vocals and shruti; Jim Matus on laoutar (a lute/guitar hybrid) and back-up vocals; and Robert Markey on sitar. Their debut recording, Cloud Call, was released in August of 2023. The word “Talamana” is a Sanskrit word denoting cosmic order and rhythm.

Robert Markey began playing sitar in 1974, studying the North Indian  (Hindustani) music tradition in India with Peter Row and Gokul Nag. In addition to the traditional ragas, he has studied the music of many of the surrounding cultures, recognizing that historically they all influenced each other, and, as musicians traveled, they taught and learned from each other. Robert Markey is a longtime supporter of Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum. For many years he performed at the  A Perfect Spot of Tea series, and has been a featured artist for the Wednesday Folk Traditions concert series many times. Robert Markey is also an accomplished visual artist. "Beautiful People in the World," Portraits From My Travels by Robert Markey was on display in the Corn Barn in 2017, and can be viewed on the Museum’s website.

Jim Matus is a composer, guitarist, and laoutar player, specializing in ​progressive world fusion, jazz, rock and improvisatory music. From this musical tradition, he designed a new instrument, the electric  laoutar - a lute and mandocello hybrid - with a uniquely rich sound. A founding member of Talamana Trio, Jim Matus plays with many local bands and teaches at Deerfield Academy. 

Laila Salins is a Latvian singer, composer, and actress who specializes in story-telling. Her music focuses on redemption and transformation narratives of history and myth inspired by a diverse career in musical genres and cultures. She has performed in chamber music, opera, music theater, art-rock, folk music, jazz, and tango.  A founding member of the Talamana Duo, she has performed and recorded her work for an international audience. 

On July 3rd a special program, Stories of Slavery and Independence, begins at 6:30 in the Sunken Garden. A Stopping Stones remembrance of two enslaved African Americans, Caesar Phelps and Margaret (Peg) Bowen, is followed by a performance of freedom songs with Amherst Area Gospel Choir leader Jacqueline Wallace, and a reading of Frederick Douglass's speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?". 

Wednesday Folk Traditions continues on July 10th with Zikina, featuring Gideon Ampeire, Mike Cardozo, Roston Kirk and Kade Parkin. Rooted in Ugandan musical tradition and East African instruments, their music infuses Ugandan folk music with contemporary influences. Gideon Ampeire’s East African vocals are ensconced within the sonic landscape of the enanga, adungu, and kalimba- creating a powerful musical journey which flows seamlessly from intense grooves to joyous dance beats to dreamy textures.  

Wednesday Folk Traditions is funded, in part, by grants from The Adams Foundation, the Amherst and Hadley Cultural Councils, local agencies funded by Massachusetts Cultural Council; Robinson and Cole; Easthampton Savings Bank; Gage-Wiley and Company,  The Walmart Foundation, and with generous support from many local businesses.  

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive, Hadley MA on Route 47 just two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47 North in Hadley.  For information concerning tours or special events, phone (413) 584-4699 or check the museum website: www.pphmuseum.org

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation acknowledges that it occupies the unceded lands of the Nonotuck people. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington House was built in 1752 by Moses and Elizabeth Porter and was central to the 600-acre farmstead known as “Forty Acres.” Today, the property is surrounded by over 350 acres of protected farmland, forest, and river frontage. The Museum portrays the activities of a wealthy and productive 18th-century household including numerous artisans, servants, and enslaved people who made "Forty Acres" an important social and commercial link in local, regional and national cultural and economic networks.  Since 1799 there have been no structural changes to the house. In the 19th century the house evolved into a rural retreat for family and in the mid 20th century became an early example of historic preservation.  The museum is listed on the National Historic Register and contains a collection of the belongings of seven generations of one extended Hadley family. Open May 18th through October 15th, Saturday through Wednesday. For more information check out our website at: www.pphmuseum.org  or call the museum at (413) 584-4699.  

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Wednesday Folk Traditions Presents The Amherst Area Gospel Choir

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON FOUNDATION, INC.

130 RIVER DRIVE HADLEY MA 01035

For Immediate Release

Contact: Susan Lisk (413) 584-4699

www.pphmuseum.org 

WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS at the

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON MUSEUM CONTINUES ITS 43rd SEASON WITH

The Amherst Area Gospel Choir

presenting the 12th annual Horace Clarence Boyer Memorial Gospel Concert

JUNE 19, 2024

HADLEY—The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum continues the 43rd season of Wednesday Folk Traditions concert series on Wednesday, June 19th with The Amherst Area Gospel Choir presenting the 12th annual Horace Clarence Boyer Memorial Gospel Concert with a compilation of songs deriving from slave spirituals, African Diaspora, Boyer’s music, and contemporary pieces in celebration of Juneteenth, which recognises the Emancipation Proclamation. This and all other performances are held Wednesday evenings at 6:30 pm in the Sunken Garden at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, 130 River Drive, Route 47, Hadley MA 01035. Admission is $12, $2 for children 16 and under. Picnickers are welcome on the museum’s grounds starting at 5:00 pm. The museum and its grounds are a smoke-free site. For further information please call (413) 584-4699 or view www.pphmuseum.org.  

The Amherst Area Gospel Choir was created to promote a gospel singing community that preserves and advances Black gospel music in its spiritual and artistic form. The choir was featured in our Stirring the Ashes program in 2023, commemorating the lives of the six enslaved people who lived and labored on the property.

This annual memorial performance commemorates the life and work of the late Horace Clarence Boyer, a beloved and internationally acclaimed musician and scholar of gospel music. Dr. Boyer, who for 25 years presented an annual gospel performance at the museum, was a pivotal member of the Pioneer Valley musical community, a long-time professor at UMass, and minister of music at the Goodwin Memorial African Methodist Episcopalian Church. Boyer often performed with the groups he introduced, and he cited as part of his mission nurturing Gospel here in the Valley and throughout the world. The museum aims to further that goal with this memorial series, continuing the tradition he supported and preserving his legacy

Juneteenth is a federal holiday held in remembrance of the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation and the official end of slavery after the American Civil War. June 19th is commemorated as a day to uplift African American voices and remember America’s sordid past and present with the struggle for African American civil rights, and to seek greater equity and inclusion.

Wednesday Folk Traditions continues on June 26th with Talamana Trio, who create cosmic rhythm and order in a world fusion ensemble performing original songs, incorporating elements of Indian and Middle Eastern music with jazz and folk music, based on the lyrics of visionary poets.

Wednesday Folk Traditions is funded, in part, by grants from The Adams Foundation, the Amherst and Hadley Cultural Councils, local agencies funded by Massachusetts Cultural Council; Robinson and Cole; Easthampton Savings Bank; Gage-Wiley and Company,  and with generous support from many local businesses.  

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive, Hadley MA on Route 47 just two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47 North in Hadley.  For information concerning tours or special events, phone (413) 584-4699 or check the museum website: www.pphmuseum.org

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation acknowledges that it occupies the unceded lands of the Nonotuck people. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington House was built in 1752 by Moses and Elizabeth Porter and was central to the 600-acre farmstead known as “Forty Acres.” Today, the property is surrounded by over 350 acres of protected farmland, forest, and river frontage. The Museum portrays the activities of a wealthy and productive 18th-century household including numerous artisans, servants, and enslaved people who made "Forty Acres" an important social and commercial link in local, regional and national cultural and economic networks.  Since 1799 there have been no structural changes to the house. In the 19th century the house evolved into a rural retreat for family and in the mid 20th century became an early example of historic preservation.  The museum is listed on the National Historic Register and contains a collection of the belongings of seven generations of one extended Hadley family. Open May 18th through October 15th, Saturday through Wednesday. For more information check out our website at: www.pphmuseum.org  or call the museum at (413) 584-4699.  

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON MUSEUM

WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS 2024

June 12th Tim Eriksen,  leader in the “shape-note” tradition, experimentalist and ethnomusicologist, performs traditional ballads from the Appalachians to the Pioneer Valley and original pieces that have been described as “magical realism in song.”

“…a storyteller at heart, with a distinctive, unvarnished voice.” -Washington Post

June 19th Our 12th annual Horace Clarence Boyer Memorial Gospel Concert features The Amherst Area Gospel Choir who continue Boyer’s tradition of bringing gospel to all with a compilation of songs deriving from slave spirituals, African diaspora, Tommy Dorsey’s Big Band hits, Boyer’s original music, and contemporary pieces to celebrate Juneteenth.

June 26th The Talamana Trio create cosmic rhythm and order in a world fusion ensemble performing original songs, incorporating elements of Indian and Middle Eastern music with jazz and folk music, based on the lyrics of visionary poets. Musicians include Laila Salins on shruti, Jim Matus on laouta and Robert Markey on sitar.

July 23rd Stories of Slavery and Independence: Stopping Stones remembrances of Caesar Phelps and Margaret (Peg) Bowen, freedom songs, and a reading of Frederick Douglass's speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" A free program offered in partnership with Ancestral Bridges & funded with a grant from MassHumanities.

July 10th Zikina - featuring Uganda native Gideon Ampeire, play an exciting fusion of Ugandan folk music with contemporary influences of traditional East African vocals and instruments including enanga, adungu, and kalimba. Mike Cardozo, Roston Kirk and Kade Parkin ensconce Gideon’s vocals within a sonic landscape that flows seamlessly from intense grooves to joyous dance beats to dreamy textures with Gideon’s vocals cutting powerfully through the fabric or floating lightly above

July 17th StompBoxTrio features Evelyn Harris, the powerhouse vocalist, former member of Sweet Honey In The Rock, and Grammy nominated composer performing with John Cabán on dobro and stompbox and Paul Kochanski on upright & electric bass and foot-percussion. The group explores the multicultural depths of 20th-century American blues, rock, and soul with some 21st-century mojo.

July 24th Jose Gonzales and Criollo Clasico-  contemporary rhythms of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic led by one of today’s foremost exponents of Caribbean music, acclaimed for his original compositions featuring the cuatro. “Full of rhythms, flowing melodies and masterly guitar playing.” – Union News

July 31 Thea Hopkins, acclaimed singer songwriter and member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe of Martha's Vineyard, performs modern “Red Roots Americana,” the scope and reach of Indigenous music in the 21st century along with a sprinkling of traditional, timeless tribal artistry. Grand Prize Winner of the 22nd Great American Song Contest for her song, "The Ghost of Emmett Till"- “a stand out writer” The Washington Post

Wednesday Folk Traditions is funded, in part, by grants from The Adams Foundation; the Amherst and Hadley Cultural Councils, local agencies funded by Massachusetts Cultural Council;  Robinson and Cole; Easthampton Savings Bank; Gage-Wiley and Company,  and with generous support from many local businesses.  

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TIM ERIKSEN WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS JUNE 12, 2024

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON FOUNDATION, INC.

130 RIVER DRIVE HADLEY MA 01035

For Immediate Release

Contact: Susan Lisk (413) 584-4699

www.pphmuseum.org 

WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS at the

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON MUSEUM KICKS OFF ITS 43rd SEASON WITH

TIM ERIKSEN

JUNE 12, 2024

HADLEY—The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum kicks off the 43rd season of Wednesday Folk Traditions concert series on Wednesday, June 12th with the return of Grammy nominated ethnomusicologist, experimentalist, and legend in folk music, Tim Eriksen. His music ranges from the heartbreaking to the rollicking, weaving a tapestry of shape note hymns, ballads, traditional fiddle and banjo, Balkan love songs and striking originals. This and all other performances are held Wednesday evenings at 6:30 pm in the Sunken Garden at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, 130 River Drive, Route 47, Hadley MA 01035. Admission is $12, $2 for children 16 and under. Picnickers are welcome on the museum’s grounds starting at 5:00 pm. The museum and its grounds are a smoke-free site. For further information please call (413) 584-4699 or view www.pphmuseum.org.  

Tim Eriksen’s music springs from fierce curiosity and radical exploration, is best known as a pioneer of postpunk American folksong. He received a PhD in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University in 2015 and has published related work on early New England music in connection to 19th century Abolitionism, apocalyptic religion, technology and the birth of science fiction. He is currently serving as musician in residence at Historic Deerfield. He has crafted his own distinctive, hardcore Americana sound that combines thrilling vocals, banjo, fiddle, guitar, and bajo sexto–a Mexican acoustic bass. 

Using this sound, Eriksen has transformed the American folk tradition with his unmatched interpretations of love songs, ballads, shape-note gospel, and dance tunes from both New England and Southern Appalachia. His own compositions, dubbed “strange and original works” by NetRythems UK, have been featured in numerous films, including the 2004 Oscar-winning film Cold Mountain, directed by Anthony Mingella. Eriksen has worked with legendary producers such as T-Bone Burnett, Joe Boyd, and Steve Albini, and several of his songs have been covered by folk innovators such as Alison Krauss and Joan Baez. He is the only musician to have performed with both Kurt Cobain and Doc Watson. 

Along with his extensive performance career, Eriksen is a prolific educator: he has taught multiple courses on songwriting and music history at Dartmouth College, Amherst College, Smith College, and others. He also regularly appears at festivals, museums, art centers, and universities all over America and across Europe to teach workshops on American music history, shape-note harmony and ballad singing, and instrumental accompaniment. Nicole Kidman, Elvis Costello, and Sting are among his previous students. Eriksen is also the founder of the world’s largest Sacred Harp singing convention in Northampton, MA: the Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp Convention. Above all, Eriksen’s work, in both performance and education, is an investigation into the human experience and an unapologetic expression of its truths. 

Wednesday Folk Traditions continues on June 19th with The Amherst Area Gospel Choir with a compilation of songs deriving from slave spirituals, African Diaspora, Boyer’s music, and contemporary pieces to celebrate Juneteenth.

Wednesday Folk Traditions is funded, in part, by grants from: the Marion I. And Otto C. Kohler Memorial Fund at the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts; Robinson and Cole; Gage-Wiley and Company; Easthampton Savings Bank; the Amherst and Hadley Cultural Councils; New England Foundation for the Arts; local agencies; and with generous support from many local businesses.  

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive, Hadley MA on Route 47 just two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47 North in Hadley.  For information concerning tours or special events, phone (413) 584-4699 or check the museum website: www.pphmuseum.org

 The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation acknowledges that it occupies the unceded lands of the Nonotuck people. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington House was built in 1752 by Moses and Elizabeth Porter and was central to the 600-acre farmstead known as “Forty Acres.” Today, the property is surrounded by over 350 acres of protected farmland, forest, and river frontage. The Museum portrays the activities of a wealthy and productive 18th-century household including numerous artisans, servants, and enslaved people who made "Forty Acres" an important social and commercial link in local, regional and national cultural and economic networks.  Since 1799 there have been no structural changes to the house. In the 19th century the house evolved into a rural retreat for family and in the mid 20th century became an early example of historic preservation.  The museum is listed on the National Historic Register and contains a collection of the belongings of seven generations of one extended Hadley family. Open May 18th through October 15th, Saturday through Wednesday. For more information check out our website at: www.pphmuseum.org  or call the museum at (413) 584-4699.  

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON MUSEUM

WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS 2024

 June 12th Tim Eriksen,  leader in the “shape-note” tradition, experimentalist and ethnomusicologist, performs traditional ballads from the Appalachians to the Pioneer Valley and original pieces that have been described as “magical realism in song.”

“…a storyteller at heart, with a distinctive, unvarnished voice.” -Washington Post

June 19th Our 12th annual Horace Clarence Boyer Memorial Gospel Concert features The Amherst Area Gospel Choir who continue Boyer’s tradition of bringing gospel to all with a compilation of songs deriving from slave spirituals, African diaspora, Boyer’s original music, and contemporary pieces to celebrate Juneteenth.

June 26th The Talamana Trio create cosmic rhythm and order in a world fusion ensemble performing original songs, incorporating elements of Indian and Middle Eastern music with jazz and folk music, based on the lyrics of visionary poets. Musicians include Laila Salins on shruti, Jim Matus on laouta and Robert Markey on sitar.

July 23rd Stories of Slavery and Independence: Stopping Stones remembrances of Caesar Phelps and Margaret (Peg) Bowen, freedom songs, and a reading of Frederick Douglass's speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" A free program offered in partnership with Ancestral Bridges & funded with a grant from MassHumanities.

July 10th Zikina - featuring Uganda native Gideon Ampeire, play an exciting fusion of Ugandan folk music with contemporary influences of traditional East African vocals and instruments including enanga, adungu, and kalimba. Mike Cardozo, Roston Kirk and Kade Parkin ensconce Gideon’s vocals within a sonic landscape that flows seamlessly from intense grooves to joyous dance beats to dreamy textures with Gideon’s vocals cutting powerfully through the fabric or floating lightly above

July 17th StompBoxTrio features Evelyn Harris, the powerhouse vocalist, former member of Sweet Honey In The Rock, and Grammy nominated composer performing with John Cabán on dobro and stompbox and Paul Kochanski on upright & electric bass and foot-percussion. The group explores the multicultural depths of 20th-century American blues, rock, and soul with some 21st-century mojo.

July 24th Jose Gonzales and Criollo Clasico-  contemporary rhythms of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic led by one of today’s foremost exponents of Caribbean music, acclaimed for his original compositions featuring the cuatro. “Full of rhythms, flowing melodies and masterly guitar playing.” – Union News

July 31 Thea Hopkins, acclaimed singer songwriter and member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe of Martha's Vineyard, performs modern “Red Roots Americana,” the scope and reach of Indigenous music in the 21st century along with a sprinkling of traditional, timeless tribal artistry. Grand Prize Winner of the 22nd Great American Song Contest for her song, "The Ghost of Emmett Till"- “a stand out writer” The Washington Post

Wednesday Folk Traditions is funded, in part, by grants from The Adams Foundation; the Amherst and Hadley Cultural Councils, local agencies funded by Massachusetts Cultural Council;  Robinson and Cole; Easthampton Savings Bank; Gage-Wiley and Company,  and with generous support from many local businesses. 

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2024 Opening Press Release for 75th Season

Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation, Inc.

130 River Drive Hadley MA  01035

For further information

For Immediate Release

Susan J. Lisk  413-584-4699

www.pphmuseum.org

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON MUSEUM OPENS FOR ITS

75th  SEASON 

HADLEY – The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, a historic house dating to 1752 in Hadley Massachusetts, re-opens to the public on Saturday, May 18th, 2024 for its 75th season. First opened for tours in 1949 by Dr. James Lincoln Huntington the Museum has transformed its presentation from the story of the six generations of his family to a new tour that includes the contributions of the laborers including enslaved, indentured and day workers  Guided tours will be available Saturday through Wednesday from 1:00 to 4:00 P.M. The Museum is closed on Thursdays and Fridays. Admission is $5 for adults and $1 for children. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a part of the new “Forty Acres and Its Skirts” National Historic District.  

The land the Porter-Phelps Huntington Museum now occupies was cultivated by the Nonotock and other Indigenous people for millennia. It was claimed as common acreage by householders in the stockaded town of Hadley when the town was laid out in 1659. In 1752, Moses and Elizabeth Pitkin Porter erected a farmstead known as “Forty Acres” on the banks of the Connecticut River. Today, the Museum uncovers life in rural New England over three centuries. The new guided tour introduces visitors to the people who lived and worked at the homestead, both free and enslaved. Through their words, spaces, and possessions, the museum portrays their activities and diverse histories.  In the eighteenth century, “Forty Acres” was an important social and commercial link in local, regional, and national cultural and economic networks. During the nineteenth century, the property became a rural retreat for descendants of the original owners. In the twentieth century, family members preserved the site as an historic house museum. The  Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers, one of the largest collections of family papers in the country, are now housed at Special Collections & University Archives at University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

Programs this summer include the 43rd season of WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS featuring some of New England's finest global folk music performers and ensembles. Concerts are held outdoors in the sunken garden at 6:30, and picnics are welcome starting at 5. The season kicks off on June 12th with Tim Eriksen,  leader in the “shape-note” tradition, experimentalist and ethnomusicologist. The series continues weekly with the 12th annual Horace Clarence Boyer Memorial Gospel Concert featuring The Amherst Area Gospel Choir who continue Boyer’s tradition of bringing gospel to all with a compilation of songs deriving from slave spirituals, African diaspora, and Boyer’s original music; Talamana Trio create cosmic rhythm in a world fusion performing original songs, incorporating elements of Indian and Middle Eastern music with jazz and folk; Zikina featuring Uganda native Gideon Ampeire play an exciting fusion of Ugandan folk music with contemporary influences of traditional East African vocals and instruments; The StompBoxTrio, featuring Evelyn Harris, explore the multicultural depths of 20th-century American blues, rock, and soul; Jose Gonzales and Criollo Clasico perform contemporary rhythms of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic; and Thea Hopkins, acclaimed singer songwriter and member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe of Martha's Vineyard, performs modern “Red Roots Americana”.

On July 3rd The Museum presents Stories of Slavery and Independence, a Stopping Stones remembrance ceremony for Caesar Phelps and Margaret (Peg) Bowen, who were enslaved on the site during the 18th century. The program features freedom songs and a reading of Frederick Douglass's speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” This is a free program offered in partnership with Ancestral Bridges & funded with a grant from MassHumanities.

The Museum will also be hosting its annual series of Community Days for our neighboring towns in May and June with free tours and refreshments.  

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is the designated Way-Point Center for the National Connecticut River Scenic Byway. The Museum hosts a panel exhibit on the natural history of the Valley, the Museum’s history, and sites travelers will find along the by-way. A trail system begins at the Museum, traverses the farm fields along the river, and continues up the old buggy path to the top of Mount Warner where the farm’s cattle grazed in the 18th century. 

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive, Hadley, MA on Route 47 just two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47 North in Hadley.  For information concerning tours or special events, phone (413) 584-4699 or visit  www.pphmuseum.org .

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is funded in part by grants from the National Endowment for Humanities: MassHumanities; and the Amherst and Hadley Cultural Councils, local agencies funded by Massachusetts Cultural Council; Robinson and Cole; The Adams Foundation; Easthampton Savings Bank; Gage-Wiley and Company,  and with generous support from many local businesses.  The Foundation welcomes contributions from friends and visitors. 

LISTING: 

Porter-Phelps-Huntington House Museum, Hadley

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington House was built in 1752 by Moses and Elizabeth Porter and was central to the 600-acre farmstead known as “Forty Acres.” Today, the property is surrounded by over 350 acres of protected farmland, forest, and river frontage. The Museum portrays the activities of a productive 18th-century household including numerous artisans, servants, and enslaved people who made "Forty Acres" an important social and commercial link in local, regional and national cultural and economic networks.  Since 1799 there have been no structural changes to the house. In the 19th century the house evolved into a rural retreat for family and in the mid 20th century became an early example of historic preservation.  The museum is listed on the National Historic Register and contains a collection of the belongings of seven generations of one extended Hadley family and artifacts associated with many of the people who worked at the farmstead. Open May 18 through October 15, Saturday through Wednesday. The Museum hosts the outdoor concert series: Wednesday Folk Traditions. For more information: www.pphmuseum.org ▪ 130 River Drive (Route 47) ▪ (413) 584-4699

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON MUSEUM

WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS 2024

June 12th Tim Eriksen,  leader in the “shape-note” tradition, experimentalist and ethnomusicologist, performs traditional ballads from the Appalachians to the Pioneer Valley and original pieces that have been described as “magical realism in song.”

“…a storyteller at heart, with a distinctive, unvarnished voice.” -Washington Post

June 19th Our 12th annual Horace Clarence Boyer Memorial Gospel Concert features The Amherst Area Gospel Choir who continue Boyer’s tradition of bringing gospel to all with a compilation of songs deriving from slave spirituals, African diaspora, Tommy Dorsey’s Big Band hits, Boyer’s original music, and contemporary pieces to celebrate Juneteenth.

June 26th The Talamana Trio create cosmic rhythm and order in a world fusion ensemble performing original songs, incorporating elements of Indian and Middle Eastern music with jazz and folk music, based on the lyrics of visionary poets. Musicians include Laila Salins on shruti, Jim Matus on laouta and Robert Markey on sitar.

July 23rd Stories of Slavery and Independence: Stopping Stones remembrances of Caesar Phelps and Margaret (Peg) Bowen, freedom songs, and a reading of Frederick Douglass's speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" A free program offered in partnership with Ancestral Bridges & funded with a grant from MassHumanities.

July 10th Zikina - featuring Uganda native Gideon Ampeire, play an exciting fusion of Ugandan folk music with contemporary influences of traditional East African vocals and instruments including enanga, adungu, and kalimba. Mike Cardozo, Roston Kirk and Kade Parkin ensconce Gideon’s vocals within a sonic landscape that flows seamlessly from intense grooves to joyous dance beats to dreamy textures with Gideon’s vocals cutting powerfully through the fabric or floating lightly above

July 17th StompBoxTrio features Evelyn Harris, the powerhouse vocalist, former member of Sweet Honey In The Rock, and Grammy nominated composer performing with John Cabán on dobro and stompbox and Paul Kochanski on upright & electric bass and foot-percussion. The group explores the multicultural depths of 20th-century American blues, rock, and soul with some 21st-century mojo.

July 24th Jose Gonzales and Criollo Clasico-  contemporary rhythms of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic led by one of today’s foremost exponents of Caribbean music, acclaimed for his original compositions featuring the cuatro. “Full of rhythms, flowing melodies and masterly guitar playing.” – Union News

July 31 Thea Hopkins, acclaimed singer songwriter and member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe of Martha's Vineyard, performs modern “Red Roots Americana,” the scope and reach of Indigenous music in the 21st century along with a sprinkling of traditional, timeless tribal artistry. Grand Prize Winner of the 22nd Great American Song Contest for her song, "The Ghost of Emmett Till"- “a stand out writer” The Washington Post

Wednesday Folk Traditions is funded, in part, by grants from The Adams Foundation; the Amherst and Hadley Cultural Councils, local agencies funded by Massachusetts Cultural Council;  Robinson and Cole; Easthampton Savings Bank; Gage-Wiley and Company,  and with generous support from many local businesses.  

-END-

Stirring the Ashes: A Remembrance September 23, 2023 2:00pm

THE PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON MUSEUM

Hosts

Stirring the Ashes 

A memorial event in partnership with Stopping Stones Project and Ancestral Bridges

Zebulon Prutt (1731-1802), Margaret (Peg) Bowen (1742-1992), Cesar Phelps (1752-date unknown), Rose (1761-1781), Phillis (1765-1775), Phillis (1775-1783)

September 23, 2023 2:00pm at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum

Hadley MA —

On Saturday, September 23, in partnership with Ancestral Bridges, the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum will host a commemorative Stopping Stones memorial markers ceremony. Join us as we stir the ashes in remembrance of six people who were enslaved during the eighteenth century at the Porter-Phelps farmstead in Hadley, Massachusetts. Acknowledging and learning about this difficult past is necessary to live responsibly in the present and strengthens our collective responsibility to create a better future. With soulful expression through music and renowned storytellers, Onawumi Jean Moss and Dr. Shirley Jackson Whitaker, we invite all members of the community to honor the lives and share the histories of Zebulon Prutt, Cesar Phelps, Margaret (Peg) Bowen, her daughters Rosanna and Phillis, and granddaughter Phillis who were enslaved at this farmstead. This program includes Reading Frederick Douglas Together, a reading of an abridged version of Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech, “The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro,” and an opportunity to visit portions of the house that recall those who were enslaved. This event is free and open to the public and supported by grants from Mass Humanities, Mass Cultural Council,  and Stopping Stones, a national project of the Engagement Arts Fund. 

MY business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. Now is the time, the important time.

-Frederick Douglass

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation acknowledges that it occupies the unceded lands of the Nonotuck people. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum contains a collection of the belongings of several generations of one extended Hadley family, dating back to the house’s establishment in 1752 by Moses and Elizabeth Porter. The farmstead, known as “Forty Acres and its Skirts,” was a year-round home for generations before becoming a rural retreat for the family in the 19th century. The house and its activities include the labor and livelihood of many artisans, servants, and enslaved people. Their lived experiences are being brought to the forefront at the museum in the form of a new tour and reinterpretation initiative funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. A new tour foregrounds the lives of six enslaved men and women at the house: Zebulon Prutt, Cesar Phelps, Peg Bowen, Phillis, Rose, and Phillis. Additionally, the tour highlights the role of “pastkeeping” by exploring the home’s transition into a museum in the twentieth century. Recently, the museum was designated the “Forty Acres and its Skirts National Historic District” by the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and now encompasses protected farmland, forest, river frontage, nature trails, built landscape features and outbuildings.

The Museum is located at 130 River Drive, Route 47, Hadley MA 01035, and open for tours Friday to Monday 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm through October 15. For more information visit www.pphmuseum.org  or call (413) 584-4699.

– END –

New "Forty Acres and Its Skirts" National Register Historic District Annoucned

Boundary of the Forty Acres and Its Skirts historic district.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation is pleased to announce that a new National Register historic district, “Forty Acres And Its Skirts,” has been designated encompassing the museum property, the associated Phelps Farm complex across River Drive, and other historic resources and agricultural land in the vicinity. The project was supported through a National Park Service Underrepresented Communities Grant to the Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) in partnership with the Porter-Phelps-Huntington (PPH) Foundation. The goal of the district nomination was to update and expand the existing National Register documentation for the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Historic House, listed individually in 1973, incorporating the associated historic resources and focusing discussion on the importance of groups and individuals underrepresented in the historical record. This includes enslaved and Native people, indentured servants, free Blacks, and Polish agricultural workers. The new district encompasses about 114 acres on both sides of River Drive and extends the period of significance to 1978. The National Register of Historic Places is the nation’s official list of buildings, structures, sites, and objects that retain integrity and are worthy of preservation. The Underrepresented Communities Grant awarded for this project was one of only eighteen awarded nationwide by the National Park Service in 2020.

Karen Sánchez-Eppler, President of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Board of Directors, describes the research undertaken for this National Register nomination by Professor Marla Miller and Brian Whetstone, both of the UMass Amherst Department of History, as “detailed and far-ranging, providing an extraordinary amount of information about the land, the buildings themselves, and the daily lives of the many very different people who lived and labored on these properties over more than two centuries. The histories we care about change over time, and the new nomination works to answer questions about environmental impact, immigration, the economics of these properties, and their labor histories that simply were not being asked before. Now we know that the 1816 buildings at Phelps Farm were paid for in significant part by profits Charles Phelps made trading in sugar and other products of enslaved labor. The museum has always known and talked about the six people enslaved at the museum property, but now we also know about the many free Black men and women who provided hired labor at both properties, some of whom also managed to buy Hadley land of their own. Until just two years ago there were no people of color who owned farms in Hadley, but there were Black owned farms here 120 years ago. This is local history that matters for our present.” The tour of the Museum has been rewritten to incorporate this wider history.

Professor Miller noted that "bringing historical understanding of the site more firmly into the 20th century has been fascinating. Particularly rewarding for us as researchers has been exploring the history of dairy industry in 20th-century Hampshire County, and narrating more thoroughly the story of the creation of the museum in the second quarter of the 20th century, and learning more about the many ways local families contributed to that effort."

Phelps Farm was donated to the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation in 2022. Sánchez-Eppler notes that “the farmhouse preserves many original features—including, which is very rare—a kitchen ell that experienced very little modernizing renovation and still contains original shelving and hardware. But the house has been unoccupied for over 30 years and will take lots of resources to stabilize and restore.” The inclusion of Phelps Farm in the new historic district makes the property eligible for a variety of state and national grants. A significant portion of the acreage in the new district, on the east side of River Drive, is under the stewardship of Kestrel Trust, which has partnered with the PPH Foundation on efforts to increase visitorship and appreciation for the preserved cultural landscape.

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON MUSEUM OPENS FOR 2023 SEASON

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, an historic house dating to 1752 in Hadley Massachusetts, re-opens to the public on Saturday, June 3rd, 2023, for its 74th season. The new Museum tour tells a more complete story of the many different lives lived in this place, drawn from extensive research made possible by grant support from MassHumanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2022. Guided tours will be available Saturday through Wednesday from 1:00 to 4:00 P.M. Tours will last for approximately 45 minutes. The museum is closed on Thursdays and Fridays. Admission is $5 for adults and $1 for children. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The land the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum now occupies was cultivated by Nonotock and other Indigenous people for millennia. It was claimed as common acreage by householders in the stockaded town of Hadley when the town was laid out in 1659. In 1752, Moses and Elizabeth Pitkin Porter erected a farmstead known as “Forty Acres” on the banks of the Connecticut River. Today, the Museum at “Forty Acres” uncovers life in rural New England over three centuries. The new guided tours, developed in 2022, introduce visitors to a wide range of individuals, from Quanquan, one of the Native leaders whose name is on the earliest Hadley deeds, to James Lincoln Huntington, who founded the museum in the 1940s. Some are members of the family who owned this property; others are people enslaved by them. The tour provides insight into the lives of domestic servants who lived in the house and raised their own families here, craftspeople who plied their trades here, and finally the family’s generation of “past keepers” who recreated this site as a museum. Through their words, spaces, and possessions, the Museum portrays the activities and diverse histories of the many people who lived and worked on this farmstead. In the eighteenth century, “Forty Acres” was an important social and commercial link in local, regional and national cultural and economic networks. During the nineteenth century, the property became a rural retreat for descendants of the original owners. In the twentieth century, family members preserved the site as an historic house museum. So many very different lives have unfolded on this ground; now in the twenty-first century the Museum strives to tell all their stories and to use those stories as a lens in examining larger questions in regional and national history.

Programs this summer include the 42nd season of WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS, featuring some of New England's finest ethnic folk music performers and ensembles. The season kicks off on June 14th with our 11th Annual Horace Clarence Boyer Memorial Gospel Concert featuring Grammy-nominated composer Evelyn Harris with Giving Voice performing traditional African-American song canon; Rebelle’s inspirational and meditative Roots reggae; the seven-member world music ensemble The Pangeans; The Wholesale Klezmer Band and their program of Jewish Life in Song; World/Afro–Andean/Latin/Jazz Fusion Viva Quetzal; the mix of jazz, Ju-Ju, samba, hip-hop, and blues of Tony Vacca with World Rhythms; and Afro-Semitic Experience, dedicated to preserving, promoting, and expanding the cultural and musical heritage of the Jewish and African diaspora. The 42nd season of WEDNESDAY FOLK TRADITIONS begins on June 14th and occurs every Wednesday at 6:30pm in the museum’s sunken garden through July.         

Bridging the Past and Present, a series of virtual conversations with scholars and public history practitioners on new research into the history of this site will be announced. Discussions will shed light on the documentation and preservation of Phelps Farm, observing the museum’s updated listing in the National Register of Historic Places, the 18th-19th century Slave Trade, and more. All of these talks are free and open to the public.

Reading Frederick Douglass Together at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, A Site of Enslavement in Western Massachusetts, will present an abridged version of Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech, “The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro” on September 23rd. This public presentation will coincide with the installation of commemorative Stopping Stones, a national project of the Engagement Arts Fund that commemorates and memorializes sites of enslavement through brass plaques. In partnership with the BIPOC descendants’ organization, Ancestral Bridges, the Stopping Stones Project will install plaques in the sunken garden in a ritual honoring the lives and sharing the histories of Zebulon Prutt, Caesar Phelps, Margaret “Peg” Bowen, her daughters Rose and Phillis, and granddaughter Phillis, six people who were enslaved at this farmstead. This event is free and open to the public and made possible by a grant from Mass Humanities.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is the designated Way-Point Center for the National Connecticut River Scenic Byway. The Museum hosts a panel exhibit on the natural history of the Valley, the Museum’s history, and sites travelers will find along the by-way. A trail system begins at the Museum, traverses the farm fields along the river, and continues up the old buggy path to the top of Mount Warner where the farm’s cattle grazed in the 18th century. 

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive, Hadley MA on Route 47 just two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47 North in Hadley.  For information concerning tours or special events, phone (413) 584-4699 or check the museum web site: www.pphmuseum.org .
The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is funded by grants from the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency, through its 2022/2023 Cultural Sector Recovery for Organizations, and its Festivals and Programs grants; the National Endowment for Humanities: MassHumanities; and the Amherst and Hadley Cultural Councils, local agencies funded by Massachusetts Cultural Council; Robinson and Cole; Easthampton Savings Bank; Gage-Wiley and Company,  and with generous support from many local businesses.  The Foundation welcomes contributions from friends and visitors.

Community Engagement Meeting: A Public Program with Marla Miller and Brian Whetstone

In summer 2020, the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation received a grant from the National Park Services’ Underrepresented Communities Program (one of only eighteen awarded nationwide) to revise its 1970s nomination to the National Register of Historic Places to include narratives that have been uncovered in the half-century since. Two consultants from UMass Amherst—Marla Miller and Brian Whetstone—are working to update and enlarge the documentation for Forty Acres to include the history that unfolded across the street at Phelps Farm. Once complete, the site’s National Register documentation will cover a wide range of new subjects, including histories of women and work from the eighteenth century to the twentieth; histories of enslavement and freedom; Native American laborers in Hadley; immigration; the history of “pastkeeping” in Hadley, and changing ideas about historical significance itself.

We invite the community to participate in this process, by helping consider which stories are especially important to the town today, and also by offering recollections, information and advice as we document the more recent past. Please join us for a short presentation by the project team about the National Register, and some of the research to date. This presentation will be followed by a general conversation in which we invite participants to share their knowledge. What, for instance, has the history of the dairy industry looked like in twentieth-century Hadley? What recollections might residents have of farming at Phelps Farm or of the early years of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum? We hope you will join us for this event, and we're looking forward to hearing your stories and insight about Hadley and the two properties.

Topic: NRHP public meeting with PPH Museum
Time: Nov 18, 2021 5:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) ****** Join Zoom Meeting
https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/99652936723?pwd=Qnd0U0FJa2hwS2hCMDdUeDFHcG9mUT09

Meeting ID: 996 5293 6723
Enter the Passcode: 085838

The Province of Affliction: Illness and the Making of Early New England

 The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum presents The Province of Affliction: Illness and the Making of Early New England with Ben Mutschler in conversation with Robert Gross on Wednesday, August 18, 2021 at 5pm. Long before Covid, Americans wrestled with the severe disruptions that illness presented in daily life.  This session turns our attention to the social and political implications of sickness in early America, featuring Ben Mutschler in conversation with Robert Gross about Mutschler’s new book, The Province of Affliction: Illness and the Making of Early New England (Chicago, 2020). Their discussion will explore the ways in which the routine presence of illness in everyday life shaped and strained the most basic institutions of eighteenth-century New England, from families and households, to neighborhoods and towns, all the way to the highest reaches of government.  The early modern world suggests ready comparisons with our own -- enduring problems that were accommodated in ways both strange and familiar.

Ben Mutschler is Associate Professor of History at Oregon State University, where he teaches courses on early America. He earned his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and has received long-term fellowships from the Omohundro Institute and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.  He is currently undertaking a new book project that explores the ways in which discussions of citizenship in the era of the American Revolution engaged questions of ability and disability. This work asks what qualities of body, mind, and temperament separated the monarchical subject from the new republican citizen?

A social and cultural historian focusing on New England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Robert A. Gross is the James L. and Shirley A. Draper Professor of Early American History Emeritus at the University of Connecticut. His first book, The Minutemen and Their World (1976) received the Bancroft Prize for 1977; it was reissued in a 25th anniversary edition in 2001 and will appear in a new, revised edition in 2022 to mark the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. His latest book, The Transcendentalists and Their World, continues his exploration of Concord, Massachusetts into the era of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. It will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in November 2021.

All of the Bridging the Past and Present talks are free and open to the public. This series is made possible by a grant from the Bridge Street Fund, a special initiative of Mass Humanities to enable open access to local history. To view past talks, click here or visit the museum’s website at https://www.pphmuseum.org/bridging. 

The Porter-Phelps Huntington Museum’s summer 2021 programs are funded, in part, by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state Agency; the Amherst Cultural Councils, local agencies, supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council; Mass Humanities Bridge Street Fund; Easthampton Savings Bank, Gage-Wiley & Co. and with the generous support of many local businesses and the public.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum will remain closed for onsite public programming for its 2021 season to protect the health and safety of the community and its employees. However, the museum grounds and scenic byway trail systems remain open for your use and enjoyment. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive (Route 47) in Hadley, two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47. The house, which remains unchanged since the family’s occupancy, tells the story of six generations of prominent Hadley residents. The family, prosperous traders turned farmers and prominent members of the local government and social scene, embodied a consistently progressive social consciousness. For further information about tours or other programs, please call the Museum at (413) 584-4699 or visit our website at http://www.pphmuseum.org.

A Wind that Rose: Susan Phelps and Emily Dickinson

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum presents A Wind That Rose: Susan Phelps and Emily Dickinson with Anna Plummer on Thursday, August 5, 2021 at 5pm. ​​During this presentation, Anna Plummer will discuss findings from her historic and creative research paper which delves into the life of Emily Dickinson’s friend and member of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington family, Susan Davis Phelps (1827-1865). Phelps allegedly died “of a broken heart”, but her legacy in the PPH collections and local archives reveals a more nuanced story framed by the lively social scene at Amherst College and a rural 19th-century family’s struggle with loss and mental illness. Most notably, the friendship between Phelps and Dickinson brings new depth to some of the poet’s writing known around the world today.

Anna Plummer earned her B.A. in English and Theater & Dance from Amherst College in 2020 and is an emerging public history professional and creative. She is a tour guide at the Emily Dickinson Museum, most recently assisting in the development of museum virtual programming. She interned at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum during the summer of 2019, where her curiosity about Susan Phelps first sparked. Her early work on this topic has been posted to PPH’s website at https://www.pphmuseum.org/susanphelps.

All of the Bridging the Past and Present talks are free and open to the public. This series is made possible by a grant from the Bridge Street Fund, a special initiative of Mass Humanities to enable open access to local history. Historians Ben Mutschler and Robert Gross will conclude the series on August 18 with a conversation about the world of illness in early New England, the subject of Mutschler’s latest book. To see more details about these events and to access the Zoom links, click here or visit the museum’s website at https://www.pphmuseum.org/bridging. Recordings of past talks are also available at this link.

The Porter-Phelps Huntington Museum’s summer 2021 programs are funded, in part, by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state Agency; the Amherst Cultural Councils, local agencies, supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council; Mass Humanities Bridge Street Fund; Easthampton Savings Bank, Gage-Wiley & Co. and with the generous support of many local businesses and the public.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum will remain closed for onsite public programming for its 2021 season to protect the health and safety of the community and its employees. However, the museum grounds and scenic byway trail systems remain open for your use and enjoyment. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive (Route 47) in Hadley, two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47. The house, which remains unchanged since the family’s occupancy, tells the story of six generations of prominent Hadley residents. The family, prosperous traders turned farmers and prominent members of the local government and social scene, embodied a consistently progressive social consciousness. For further information about tours or other programs, please call the Museum at (413) 584-4699 or visit our website at http://www.pphmuseum.org.

Clifton Johnson: A Search for the Heart of America

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum will present Clifton Johnson: A Search for the Heart of America: Picture Show and Lecture by William Hosley on Wednesday, July 28 at 5pm. “Author, Traveler, Historian, Editor and Illustrator, Farmer, Lover of Nature, Good and Generous Citizen” is how his gravestone describes Clifton Johnson (1865-1940), who was foremost one of the great documentary photographers of his generations, as well as a museum maker who founded the Hadley Farm Museum. This talk, the third in the Museum’s “Bridging the Past and Present” speaker series, is the story of this son of “old Hadley.”

William Hosley is a cultural resource development consultant, historian, writer, and photographer. He was formerly Director of the New Haven Museum and Connecticut Landmarks, curator and exhibition developer at Wadsworth Atheneum, and organized major exhibitions including The Great River: Art & Society of the Connecticut Valley (1985), The Japan Idea: Art and Life in Victorian America (1990), and Sam & Elizabeth: Legend and Legacy of Colt's Empire (1996). As an expert in heritage tourism, Hosley has studied, lectured and advised museums and heritage destinations around the country and has served as a content specialist for PBS, BBC and CPTV film documentaries.

All of the Bridging the Past and Present talks are free and open to the public. This series is made possible by a grant from the Bridge Street Fund, a special initiative of Mass Humanities to enable open access to local history. Later on in the summer, we will welcome scholars Anna Plummer and Ben Mutschler to speak on topics ranging from the deep friendships of local women to the world of illness in early New England. To see more details about these events and to access the Zoom links, click here or visit the museum’s website at https://www.pphmuseum.org/bridging.

The Porter-Phelps Huntington Museum’s summer 2021 programs are funded, in part, by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state Agency; the Amherst Cultural Councils, local agencies, supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council; Mass Humanities Bridge Street Fund; Easthampton Savings Bank, Gage-Wiley & Co. and with the generous support of many local businesses and the public.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum will remain closed for onsite public programming for its 2021 season to protect the health and safety of the community and its employees. However, the museum grounds and scenic byway trail systems remain open for your use and enjoyment. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive (Route 47) in Hadley, two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47. The house, which remains unchanged since the family’s occupancy, tells the story of six generations of prominent Hadley residents. The family, prosperous traders turned farmers and prominent members of the local government and social scene, embodied a consistently progressive social consciousness. For further information about tours or other programs, please call the Museum at (413) 584-4699 or visit our website at http://www.pphmuseum.org.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington House Presents: Bridging the Past and Present Speaker Series

 HADLEY— The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum will present Bridging the Past and Present, a series of virtual conversations with five scholars on the history of Hadley and the Porter-Phelps-Huntington family, starting Wednesday, June 16 at 5pm. All of these talks will be free and open to the public. This series is made possible by a grant from the Bridge Street Fund, a special initiative of Mass Humanities to enable open access to local history. Kicking off the program on June 16 will be Entangled Lives: A Conversation on Women and Work at the PPH House in the Past and the Present, a conversation with Marla R. Miller, author of Entangled Lives: Labor, Livelihood and Landscapes of Change in Rural Massachusetts (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019) and Karen Sánchez-Eppler.

Miller is a University of Massachusetts Professor of History and Director of the Public History Program. Tapping archival resources, material culture, and the built environment, in several books and more than a dozen articles Miller has surfaced and explored social relations of work among Black, Native American, and white women in rural New England. She has also recently come to study the role of “past keepers” such as authors, museum-makers, and archivists in preserving and interpreting history. Her book The Needle’s Eye: Women and Work in the Age of Revolution (University of Massachusetts Press, 2006) won the Costume Society of America’s Millia Davenport Publication Award for the best book in the field for that year. Following that, her book Betsy Ross and the Making of America (Holt, 2010)—a scholarly biography of that much-misunderstood early American craftswoman—was a finalist for the Cundill Prize in History at McGill University, the world’s largest non-fiction historical literature prize. It was also named to the Washington Post’s “Best of 2010” list, one of the many awards and accolades Professor Miller’s extensive work has received. A short biography of gownmaker Rebecca Dickinson appeared in the Westview Press series Lives of American Women in summer 2013. Miller also consults with a wide variety of museums and historic sites in New England and beyond; in 2012, a report, “Imperiled Promise”: The State of History in the National Park Service, produced with co-authors Anne Whisnant, Gary Nash & David Thelen, for the Organization of American Historians, won the National Council on Public History award for excellence in consulting. Karen Sánchez-Eppler, a Professor of American Studies and English, will talk with Professor Miller about her research and methods, drawing connections with how women’s lives continue to entangle today.

Professor Sánchez-Eppler will then present the second talk of the series, School Letters: Teaching with the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers on July 7. Throughout the summer, we will welcome scholars William Hosley, Anna Plummer, and Ben Mutschler to speak on topics ranging from the documentary photography of Clifton Johnson to the deep friendships of local women to the world of illness in early New England. To see more details about these events and to access the Zoom links, click here or visit the museum’s website at https://www.pphmuseum.org/bridging.

The Porter-Phelps Huntington Museum’s summer 2021 programs are funded, in part, by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state Agency; the Amherst Cultural Councils, local agencies, supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council; Mass Humanities Bridge Street Fund; Easthampton Savings Bank, Gage-Wiley & Co. and with the generous support of many local businesses and the public.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum will remain closed for onsite public programming for its 2021 season to protect the health and safety of the community and its employees. However, the museum grounds and scenic byway trail systems remain open for your use and enjoyment. The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is located at 130 River Drive (Route 47) in Hadley, two miles north of the junction of Routes 9 and 47. The house, which remains unchanged since the family’s occupancy, tells the story of six generations of prominent Hadley residents. The family, prosperous traders turned farmers and prominent members of the local government and social scene, embodied a consistently progressive social consciousness. For further information about tours or other programs, please call the Museum at (413) 584-4699 or visit our website at http://www.pphmuseum.org.

If you missed the talk, you can watch a recording of it here!

Closure of Onsite Programming at PPH for Summer 2021

PORTER-PHELPS-HUNTINGTON MUSEUM WILL BE CLOSED FOR ONSITE PUBLIC PROGRAMMING FOR ITS 2021 SEASON

HADLEY – The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum, a historic house museum dating to 1752 in Hadley, Massachusetts, will again be closed for in-person public programming for its 72nd season in order to protect the health and safety of the community, museum interns, and staff. However, we will be undertaking several projects during this time including new interpretive programming, updates for the website, and archival processing of new collections to reinvigorate and expand our 2022 season. We are excited to present several free virtual programs this summer that will share the culture and history of this site through a discussion of topics that speak to the present through the past.

The museum will host Bridging the Past and Present, a series of virtual conversations with five scholars on the history of Hadley and the Porter-Phelps-Huntington family. All of these talks will be free and open to the public. This series is made possible by a generous grant from the Bridge Street Fund, a special initiative of Mass Humanities that strives to enable open access to local history.

With the temporary closure of the museum’s in-person programming, we hope to continue to encourage an historical understanding through new research into the PPH collections which we will be posting to our website and social media. We are fortunate to have eight new summer interns who will be cataloguing recent collections, organizing archival papers, and researching new and existing materials throughout the summer. They look forward to introducing themselves and their interests through the museum’s Facebook page. Without the museum’s in-person programs which bring community engagement and critical financial support for the operations of the PPH Museum, we hope all will visit our website to learn more about the museum’s collections and the important research our museum interns do each season.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum is also the Way-Point Center for the National Connecticut River Scenic Byway. The museum hosts a panel exhibit on the natural history of the Valley, the Museum’s history, and sites along the by-way for travelers. While this interpretive center is closed along with the museum, a trail system beginning at the Museum and traversing the farm fields along the river and to the old buggy path to the top of Mount Warner, where the family grazed their cattle in the 18th century, remains open. This trail system was created with the help of the PVPC and cooperation from several organizations and land owners including TTOR, the Nature Conservancy, Kestrel Trust, and the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation. Parking is best at the museum on the outer circle where there are Please Park Here signs.

We appreciate everyone’s support during this time, and while the house will be closed, supporters can donate to keep the museum going until next season through the museum’s website, www.pphmuseum.org.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum’s summer 2021 programs are funded, in part, by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state Agency; the Amherst Cultural Councils, local agencies, supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council; Mass Humanities Bridge Street Fund; Easthampton Savings Bank, Gage-Wiley & Co. and with the generous support of many local businesses and the public. 

Upcoming Event! A Wind that rose: Susan Phelps and Emily Dickinson

On October 12th Anna Plummer, recent graduate from Amherst College, poet, historic house enthusiast and 2019 PPH Intern will discuss her recent research paper: A Wind that rose: Susan Phelps and Emily Dickinson, which involves a broken engagement, a peculiar Hadley family, a poem or two and a significant friendship between Susan Phelps and renowned poet Emily Dickinson. The talk is available to all members of the AWC via Zoom and a video will be posted on their website for viewing by the general public afterwards here.

Want to learn more about Susan Phelps? Check out Anna's piece here

Remembering Dan Huntington Fenn

Dan Huntington Fenn introduces his granddaughter Kristina to the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House, 2015

Dan Huntington Fenn, Jr., Vice President of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation,
Inc., and long term Board member, passed away Friday, August 14th at the age of 97.
Dan was a descendant of Moses and Elizabeth Pitkin Porter and his family line goes
through Elizabeth Huntington Fisher, eldest daughter of Dan and Elizabeth Whiting
Phelps Huntington.

Dan’s career spanned eight decades. After graduating from Harvard in 1944, he became
Assistant Dean of Freshmen from 1946 to 1949. He was also an assistant editor of
the Harvard Business Review and editor of the Business School Bulletin. An educator and
government official, Dan was a faculty member of the Harvard Business School from
1955 to 1961. During 1961, he was also Special Assistant to Senator Benjamin Smith
of Massachusetts. He was the staff assistant to President John F. Kennedy from 1961 to
1963, and Tariff Commissioner from 1963 to 1967. Dan served as President of the Center
for Business-Government Relations from 1969 to 1971. He was also the first Director of
the John F. Kennedy Library serving until 1986, and served on the faculty of the Harvard
Graduate School of Business Administration from 1976 to 1980. Until his death, he was
an active adjunct lecturer with the Kennedy School’s executive programs.

Karen Sanchez-Eppler, member of the PPH Executive Committee, mourns Dan’s loss:  “I have so enjoyed working with him, a good hand on a rudder, bright curiosity, and palpable joy. I am holding Dan and the family in the light.”

Board member David Moskin, whose father was Dan’s Harvard roommate and lifelong friend wrote: “A really classy guy.  I always learned something every time he spoke – either from the content of what he said or how he said it. The last of the JFK White House team gone. One of my dad’s best friends. Sad news indeed.“

PPH Board President Tom Harris remarked that Dan “has been such a steady presence- so clear eyed, sensible and forward looking- and so warm and present in every interaction.“

In memory of Dan's forward looking spirit, an acer maple will be planted next to the one he and his cousin donated in their Grandmother’s name. This row of Acer maples, like Dan, are looking to the future. A new generation of flora is putting down roots, and giving us visions of a bright future to come. His full obituary, originally published in the Boston Globe by Bryan Marquard, is reprinted below.

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The following obituary was written by Bryan Marquard and published in the Boston Globe

Dan Fenn (right) served as a staff assistant to President John F. Kennedy

Before the first shovel struck the soil to build the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Dan H. Fenn Jr. knew what he wanted the institution to accomplish.

“The Kennedy Library will be an integral part of the education system of the entire Boston area,’’ he told the Globe in 1977, just before the building’s groundbreaking at Columbia Point.

Mr. Fenn, the library’s founding director and a force behind ensuring that an educational component would become a key part of libraries for presidents and politicians across the country, died Friday. He was 97 and had lived in Lexington for many years, participating in town government for decades.

A former staff assistant to President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Fenn helped launch what is now the Presidential Personnel Office.

In late summer 1963, Kennedy appointed Mr. Fenn to serve on the US Tariff Commission, and in October 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson designated Mr. Fenn as the commission’s vice chairman.

When Mr. Fenn became involved with the Kennedy Library a few years later, the idea of a presidential library being more than a repository for papers and a museum of a former president’s artifacts was unconventional.

“It seemed to me that if this institution was going to reflect John Kennedy and his interests and the tone of the Kennedy years, then it should be devoted to politics and government and public education in those fields and it should nurture people’s interest in politics and encourage people to play a role,’’ Mr. Fenn said in a 1986 Globe interview, when he stepped down as director.

That emphasis on education “was Dan’s huge, huge contribution to the Kennedy Library. He literally changed the focus of presidential libraries,’’ said John Stewart, a former acting director of the library who had been its longtime director of education.

Teaching others about the how to participate in government and make it work well for the people it served was a focus of Mr. Fenn’s political life, too.

He formerly served on Lexington’s School Committee and Select Board during the decades he devoted to town affairs.

And Mr. Fenn was a Town Meeting member “for nearly 60 years,’’ said his son Thomas, who lives in Lexington.

“He cared about making government work for everybody, and he felt like the best way to do that was at the local level,’’ Thomas added. “Even though he had held rather prestigious jobs at the federal level, his heart and soul were at the local level.’’

To welcome young citizens into the workings of government, even before they were old enough to vote, Mr. Fenn helped “set up a mock Town Meeting for kids so they could learn in junior high how to participate,’’ Thomas said.

Few invested as much time in local government as Mr. Fenn did. Along with his decades as a Town Meeting member, and his service on the School Committee and Select Board, “he’s been on pretty much every committee in town,’’ his son added.

Mr. Fenn even took part in a Town Meeting held via Zoom in June.

At 97, working with technology that was new to him, “he participated fully,’’ said Deborah Brown, Lexington’s town moderator.

That engagement was no surprise to anyone who had attended Town Meeting with Mr. Fenn over the years.

“Anytime Dan rose to speak at the microphone at Town Meeting you could hear a pin drop,’’ Brown said. “Everyone knew they were going to hear something profound, something different than anyone else had said, something lucid — and usually with some humor thrown in.’’

Dan Huntington Fenn Jr. was born in Boston on March 27, 1923, and while growing up he lived in various communities in Greater Boston and beyond as his family moved for his father’s work leading churches, ending in Wayland.

The Rev. Dan H. Fenn was a prominent Unitarian minister whose father had served as dean of Harvard Divinity School. Mr. Fenn’s mother, Anna Yens, was active in church affairs and raised the couple’s three children.

Mr. Fenn, the oldest, graduated from what was then Browne and Nichols School and attended Harvard College with the class of 1944.

He rose to lead The Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper, before interrupting his studies to serve in the Army Air Forces as a warrant officer during World War II, stationed in Italy.

In a Crimson article he published a year to the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked, Mr. Fenn recalled that on Dec. 7, 1941, “it seemed as though everyone at Harvard came to the Crimson building that night, and anxiously hung over the ticker tape machine to watch the little metal letters hammer out the words that told the story.’’

After the war ended, Mr. Fenn returned to finish his Harvard bachelor’s degree in 1946 and was appointed an assistant dean at the college.

He went on to serve as executive director of the World Affairs Council in Boston, teach at Harvard Business School, and edit the school’s publications.

In 1972, he received a master’s in international relations from Harvard.

In all, Mr. Fenn taught at Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School for 56 years, including holding a class via Zoom in June.

At commencement last year, he was awarded the Harvard Medal for his service to the university.

Mr. Fenn’s first marriage, to Nancy Ring, ended in divorce. They had four children – Thomas, Peter of Washington, D.C., Anne of Londonderry, N.H., and David of Evanston, Ill.

Mr. Fenn subsequently was married to Lenore Sheppard, who lives in Lexington and survives him. Their marriage ended in divorce, and Mr. Fenn remained close to his stepchildren, Greg Sheppard of Medford, Marie Sheppard of Dickerson, Md., and Chris Sheppard of Wilmington, N.C.

A service will be announced for Mr. Fenn, who also leaves a brother, John of Minneapolis; 14 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

“He knew everything about those kids,’’ Peter said of his father’s relationship with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. “He would bring you into his orbit, whether you were his child, grandchild, or great-grandchild, or if you were his student or if you worked for him. He had this extraordinary gift.’’

Mr. Fenn’s facility for working with others was useful as he helped guide the library through planning stages before officials settled on the site in Dorchester.

“Dan was an inspirational kind of guy,’’ Stewart recalled. “Dan was absolutely tremendous in dealing with people. I remember going to meetings with Dan when we started the library. He was determined to let people know — movers and shakers in Boston – what this institution was going to be and how it would contribute to the educational and cultural life of Boston.’’

Stewart added that Mr. Fenn “made the Kennedy Library into something that was a lot more than a museum or presidential library.’’

The legacy Mr. Fenn leaves, family and friends said, stretches from the White House to the library to Lexington’s institutions.

“He was very, very special. It’s hard to imagine Town Meeting without him,’’ Brown said.

Thomas recalled that his father “was asked one time, ‘Why are you so involved? Why do you do so much?’ He said, ‘I just want people to know I was here.’ “

Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum secures National Park Service Grant

HADLEY—The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation (PPH) is pleased to announce that the Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) has received a grant of $19,050 from the National Park Service (NPS) through the Historic Preservation Fund to support a new National Register historic district encompassing the Foundation’s museum property as well as the privately owned Phelps Farm across River Drive/Route 47, which was built by Charles Porter Phelps in 1816 on land once part of the larger farmstead. This NPS award, an Underrepresented Communities grant, will include updating and expanding existing National Register documentation for the museum property to include information on the enslaved people, indentured servants, and prisoners of war, who worked at the site in the 18th century, in order to provide a broader and more inclusive history of the site. The grant will be administered by the MHC in coordination with PPH.

"We're a small museum closed for the season due to the pandemic and have been relying upon donations and small grants to keep us afloat this year, so this announcement has come at a critical moment and is a wonderful morale booster. We are thrilled about the award and honored to be selected as one of only eighteen projects nationwide," said PPH Executive Director Susan J. Lisk. "This new historic district will tell the stories of traditionally underrepresented people who lived, worked, and died here more than 200 years ago, as well as subsequent generations whose varied careers and interests reflect broader social and historical trends in the country up to and including the 20th century. The existing National Register documentation for the PPH museum house, now nearly 50 years old, omits these incredibly important stories, so we're excited by the opportunity to ensure this history is documented for posterity and archived here, at the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and at the Library of Congress. We're also excited that the new historic district will encompass the early 19th-century Phelps Farm across the street, which has its own rich history that has never been thoroughly researched or documented. We have a wealth of archival material to help tell this story and are looking forward to working with the MHC on the project, which is important for the history of the Connecticut River Valley as a whole."

This year, the National Park Service allocated $750,000 in Underrepresented Communities grant funds. The NPS states that the program "focuses on documenting the homes, lives, landscapes, and experiences of underrepresented peoples who played a significant role in national history.” Grants from this cycle “will help fund eighteen projects to eight states, six tribes, two local governments, the District of Columbia, and the Federated States of Micronesia." The Underrepresented Communities grant program is funded by the Historic Preservation Fund and administered by the National Park Service, Department of Interior.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington House is an historic farmstead on the banks of the Connecticut River that today interprets life in rural New England over three centuries. Through the words, spaces, and possessions of the women and men who lived here, the museum portrays the activities of a prosperous and productive 18th-century farmstead. Members of this household along with numerous artisans, servants, and enslaved people made the property an important social and commercial link in local, regional, and national cultural and economic networks. In the 19th century the family transformed the estate into a rural retreat. In the 20th century the house was preserved as a museum by family members and now contains the possessions of six generations of this extended family.

National Park Service Awards Grant for New National Historic District

Last week, PPH’s Executive Director Susan J. Lisk received a call from Senator Ed Markey's office—not an ordinary occurrence! The call was to let her know that the Massachusetts Historical Commission had received a grant to fund a new National Register historic district to encompass the PPH museum property and Phelps Farm across the road. The award is an Underrepresented Communities grant from the National Park Service, and this one to PPH is one of only eighteen awarded nationwide this year.

This grant program works to diversifying the nominations submitted to the National Register of Historic Places. In the case of the PPH–Phelps Farm award, the funded work will include updating and expanding existing National Register documentation for the museum property to include information on the enslaved people, indentured servants, and prisoners of war, who worked at the site in the 18 th century, in order to provide a broader and more inclusive history of the site. The grant will be administered by the MHC in coordination with PPH.

As a small museum closed for the season due to the pandemic and relying upon donations and small grants to keep afloat this year, this announcement has come at a critical moment and is a wonderful morale booster. "We are thrilled about the award and honored to be selected as one of only eighteen projects nationwide," said Susan Lisk. "This new historic district will tell the stories of traditionally underrepresented people who lived, worked, and died here more than 200 years ago, as well as subsequent generations whose varied careers and interests reflect broader social and historical trends in the country up to and including the 20th century. The existing National Register documentation for the PPH museum house, now nearly 50 years old, omits these incredibly important stories, so we're excited by the opportunity to ensure this history is documented for posterity and archived here, at the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and at the Library of Congress. We're also excited that the new historic district will encompass the early 19th-century Phelps Farm across the street, which has its own rich history that has never been thoroughly researched or documented. We have a wealth of archival material to help tell this story and are looking forward to working with the MHC on the project, which is important for the history of the Connecticut River Valley as a whole."

This year, the National Park Service allocated $750,000 in Underrepresented Communities grant funds. The NPS states that the program "focuses on documenting the homes, lives, landscapes, and experiences of underrepresented peoples who played a significant role in national history.” Grants from this cycle “will help fund eighteen projects to eight states, six tribes, two local governments, the District of Columbia, and the Federated States of Micronesia." The Underrepresented Communities grant program is funded by the Historic Preservation Fund and administered by the National Park Service, Department of Interior. 

Check out our website for more about Phelps Farm and the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House.

We hope this message finds you safe and healthy. If you are able to support the museum at this time, when we are getting by without the income generated through tours and events, we would be more than grateful. You can donate by clicking the “Donate” box below.

"Entangled Lives" at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum

"Entangled Lives: Labor, Livelihood and Landscapes of Change in Rural Massachusetts"

by Marla R. Miller

What was women's work truly like in late eighteenth-century America, and what does it tell us about the gendered social relations of labor in the early republic? In "Entangled Lives", Marla R. Miller examines the lives of Anglo-, African, and Native American women in one rural New England community- Hadley, Massachusetts- during the town's slow transformation following the Revolutionary War. Peering into the homes, taverns, and farmyards of Hadley, Miller offers readers an intimate history of the working lives of these women and their vital role in the local economy.

Support our local bookstores and writer by purchasing "Entangled Lives: Labor, Livelihood and Landscapes of Change in Rural Massachusetts" by Marla R. Miller.

The Odyssey Bookshop- https://www.odysseybks.com/
Amherst Books- https://www.amherstbooks.com/

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Postcards from an Imagined Early America

By Marla R. Miller

1752 Kitchen- Forty Acres. Hadley Mass, Photograph by Samuel Chamberlain

It is easy to dismiss images like the one on this mid twentieth-century postcard as out of date and romantic--and therefore irrelevant imaginings of the past. But nothing could be further from the truth, as I argue in my recent book Entangled Lives: Labor, Livelihood, and Landscapes of Change in Rural Massachusetts.

Instead, images like this one help us to understand the lens through which we see the early American past; grappling with them is, then, essential to our ability to imagine and comprehend both the past and the present.

See the full post here!

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Summer Volunteer: Aurora

PPH has gained a wonderful volunteer this summer, Aurora. She has been a long-time tea server with our A Perfect Spot of Tea series, is a dedicated Girl Scout, and is in the ninth grade at Hopkins Academy. Aurora is a hard worker and is eager to assist us in any way possible. She’s a great help maintaining our historic grounds, as she is a passionate gardener, and even took on cleaning the attic! Aurora often arrives with freshly picked raspberries and black raspberries from her garden at home where she also raises laying hens. In her spare time, she is an avid history buff and whizzed through Earthbound and Heavenbent: Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Life at Forty Acres (1747-1817) by Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle in just a week!

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Tiny Treasures

Recently, a surprise item was found among donations from Wheeler descendants. Nestled in between various framed photographs and books was a small fabric drawstring bag. It has a quilted appearance, with a pink floral design, and a pale pink interior. Normally, these bags were used as a travelling jewelry box. The bag’s contents were carefully wrapped, concealing a special collection of objects. Loosening the drawstring and unfolding the paper revealed the priceless contents: a black clay dog, a small doll made out of embroidery thread with a tissue veil, two small walnut shells decorated with googly eyes and red felt, and a felt mouse wearing a white and red robe holding a book with a gold cross on the cover. These adorable objects appear handmade and sentimental. Oddities like these are common in most households, especially those with children. These objects were carefully preserved for a lifetime of childhood memories!

Click here to untie the drawstring and look inside!

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This Week : "Wednesday Folk Traditions"

This week for the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum's Wednesday Folk Traditions we highlight The Pangeans. Named for the Paleozoic/ Mesozoic era supercontinent, the Pangeans are a seven member world music ensemble performing original compositions based on traditional rhythms including Latin Jazz, Samba, Calypso, Soca, Reggae, Funk and Afro-Beat. "One of the Valley's favorite World Beat bands." - The Valley Advocate

Check out their promo video below, check out their website and consider purchasing their music here!

Performers for this year's Wednesday Folk Traditions can be found here, with links to their websites, and we will be posting performances on our website and facebook page throughout the summer!