[MassHistPres] Fwd: Celebrate Hadley's newest historic district!

[Porter Phelps Huntington]

Dear friends and colleagues,

Join us this *Sunday, August 6, at 1:30* for a special program with Dr.
Brian Whetstone, co-investigator with Dr. Marla Miller on the *National
Parks Service Underrepresented Communities Grant*
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=ef8e0ec0ed&e=08100ff83f>,
"The Forty Acres and Its Skirts National Register historic district," to
celebrate the expansion of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum's historic
designation from a singular building to a 114-acre historic district. The
program will begin in the museum's corn barn and refreshments will be
served.


Brian will kick things off with a presentation on the stories that surfaced
during their two years conducting research for the historic district
designation and the significance of the National Register of Historic
Places to preservation work at the museum and in western Massachusetts. He
will then lead a walking tour of the grounds to introduce the public to the
historic landscape features and architectural elements that make up the
newly enlarged district. Brian's tours balance rigorous scholarship with
lively audience engagement*–*you won't want to miss this exclusive chance
to go "behind the scenes" of the museum's new historic district with him
before he embarks on a fellowship at Princeton in the fall.


A public historian and historian of late-twentieth century U.S. urban
history, Brian is a 2023-2024 Princeton-Mellon Fellow and holds a Ph.D. in
History and certificate in Public History from the UMass Amherst. Learn
more about his scholarship and publications *here*
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=ad9fc4ae53&e=08100ff83f>
.


*We're looking forward to seeing you this Sunday, August 6th at 1:30pm!*
Left top: Brian and Marla uncovered this photo of Phelps Farm from circa
1890 in the attic of the historic 1816 farmhouse. Image credit: Unprocessed
collections of (Moses) Charles Porter Phelps, Special Collections and
University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Bottom right: In
this photo from 1945, Dr. James L. Huntington poses with his wife and
sister in the Long Room, dressed for an event with The Amherst Historical
Society. Image credit: Journal and scrapbook at the house at "Forty Acres"
in Hadley, Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers Collection, Special
Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Coming up

*Introducing the “Forty Acres and Its Skirts” National Register Historic
District*
A public talk and walking tour
August 6, 2023  1:30 pm
The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum *will host a celebration*
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=5e2fb082b2&e=08100ff83f>
to introduce the “Forty Acres and Its Skirts” National Register Historic
District, Hadley's newest historic district, with a talk by Brian
Whetstone, PhD,  on Sunday, August 6, 2023 at 1:30pm in the Museum’s Corn
Barn. The public presentation invites all to learn about the process and
research that went into this successful National Register nomination and
designation, and will include a tour of the historic landscape features and
contributing structures that make up this new district.

This new “Forty Acres and Its Skirts” National Register historic district
designation includes 114 acres and 20 historic buildings and structures on
both sides of River Drive was completed as part of a National Park Service
“Underrepresented Communities Grant” awarded to the Massachusetts
Historical Commission in 2020.  Marla R. Miller, PhD and Brian Whetstone,
PhD, were hired by the Massachusetts Historical Commission to update the
existing National Register documentation for the Porter-Phelps-Huntington
Historic House, which was listed individually in 1973, and to develop a
district to include Phelps Farm and Kestrel Trust's Elizabeth Huntington
Dyer Field and Forest Conservation Area and the associated agricultural
land owned by the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation. Their work focuses
on the importance of groups and individuals underrepresented in the
historical record and includes enslaved and Native people, indentured
servants, free Blacks, day laborers and Polish agricultural workers.

Brian Whetstone will present these stories and more that emerged during the
two years of researching and developing the nomination, and will provide
background on the nomination process. Following his talk, Whetstone will
lead a walking tour of the PPH Museum grounds to illustrate the new
landscape features and historic buildings significant in telling the
stories of "pastkeeping," labor, and social history at the museum.
*Reading Frederick Douglass Together & Stopping Stones Opening Ceremony*
September 23, 2023

*Reading Frederick Douglass Together*
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=d9b3747670&e=08100ff83f>
will present a reading of Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech, “The Meaning of
the Fourth of July for the Negro”
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=4946596a4f&e=08100ff83f>.
This public presentation will coincide with the installation of
commemorative Stopping Stones, a national project of the Engagement Arts
Fund that memorializes sites of enslavement through brass plaques. In
partnership with the BIPOC descendants’ organization, Ancestral Bridges
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=2088e25a3e&e=08100ff83f>,
the Stopping Stones Project
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=0bbee94f50&e=08100ff83f>
will install plaques in the sunken garden in a ritual honoring the lives
and histories of six people who were enslaved at this farmstead. This event
is free  and made possible by a grant from Mass Humanities.
The recent rains have been devastating for local farmers. The CSA Stone
Soup and the Somali Bantu Farmers who grow crops on
Porter-Phelps-Huntington fields have seen all they planted—so close to
being ready for harvest—drowned and contaminated by flood waters from the
Connecticut River. If you can, please help these farmers recover from these
terrible losses.
Stone Soup Gofundme
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=ddaeade766&e=08100ff83f>
Somali Bantu Farmers Gofundme
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=8509638a36&e=08100ff83f>
Visit The Museum
The Porter Phelps Huntington Museum is open for tours
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=1aa88ea577&e=08100ff83f>
June through October, from 1:00pm-4:00pm, or by appointment. Admission is
$5 for adults, $2 under 16, and free for participants in the Card to Culture
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=59b11c952b&e=08100ff83f>
program. Many local libraries sponsor free passes to PPH, ask your
librarian if you can check one out! Picnickers are welcome, the site is
smoke-free and carry in/carry out.

Visitors can walk a portion of the original 1752 farm land on a  trail
system
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=b446f10a1a&e=08100ff83f>
that includes 350 acres of preserved land. Built by Conservation Works, the
trails were created with a grant to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission
from the Mass Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of
Transportation in cooperation with the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum,
Kestrel Land Trust, the Trustees of Reservations, the Mass Department of
Conservation & Recreation, and Private Landowners.
*Copyright © 2023 Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation, All rights reserved.*

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation preserves over 300 years of history
in Hadley, MA. 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. 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. The new
tour foregrounds the lives of six enslaved men and women at the house:
Zebulon Prutt, Cesar, Peg, 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.

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum acknowledges that it occupies the
unceded land of the Nonotuck people.

*Visit our website:*
pphmuseum.org
<https://pphmuseum.us16.list-manage.com/track/click?u=926311a4894f35c14aa9861bc&id=20bf66d339&e=08100ff83f>

*Our mailing address is:*
130 River Drive
Hadley, MA 01035

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Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum · 130 River Drive · Hadley, MA 01035 · USA

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-- 
—
*Museum Assistant*
Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum
130 River Drive (Rte. 47)
Hadley, MA 01035
(413) 584 - 4699
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