Welcome to the Colrain Archives Blog

 Welcome to the Colrain Archives Blog, with facts and pics about artifacts at the Colrain Historical Society.  In 2023 -24 Sarah Hollister and Dave Allen began scanning of the CHS collections, and maintaining a database with descriptions of the various documents and artifacts.

Here we will post updates of cataloging and scanning progress, and some "cool things" we find.


Blog started Feb 18, 2024

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Colrain in the Revolution April 1775

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rev April 12  4 additions (see also Franklin County Blog) "A Muster Roll for a Company of Minute Men under the Command of Capt. Hugh McClellan in Col. Samuel Willliams Reg.t which marched from Colrain & Shelburne April 20 1775"  On April 20 1775, one day after the famous battles of Lexington and Concord, 43 men from Colrain and  Shelburne marched to Boston to join the resistance to British rule. With the 250th anniversary of that march fast approaching, it would be a good time to remind us of who these men were and of what they did to help forge the USA. The Massachusetts Archives has a one-page "muster roll" which records the names, length of service, and how much each man was owed for the service. We will add it to Colrain Archives. The names are familiar, McClellan (sp incorrect). Stewart, Pennel, etc.  (partial only above). For the full document, go to the bottom of this page. But which men were from which town?    30 from Colrain After some ...
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Airtable Database Basics for CHS

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Simple Airtable  Dec 2024: Airtable Database Basics    for Colrain Historical Society. There are over 2700 items (aka "records")  in the CHS database, using "Airtable", an online database program. 1500 of the items have pictures You can access it at home .  BELOW is what you should see: =========CHAPTER  1  ============ == ====FILTERS are best way to Search ============= 1)   Click on Filter  2) to find all photos of Shattuckville , try this: The result: Note that Filters are only available when using a computer ... unavailable on IPhones etc. 3) to EXPAND the record. To see the full screen of item 1083 above (for example) click on the two diagonal arrows in the left-most cell of the line as in: The result: This (above) is just the top 1/2 of the full screen (expanded).  On a PC, to see the rest, use the slider on the right side of your screen. 4) to ENLARGE the picture. To enlarge the picture, click on it and it will fill your scr...
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1838 Colrain Center drawing by JW Barber ms for CHS #586

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 Rev Feb 15, 2025  --- added maps.  This "picture" of Colrain was printed in the 1839 book "Historical Collections ..." by John Warner Barber. This is scanned item #586 , CHS Archives. It  is believed to be taken from that 1839 book (or one of the later editions) Last week (Jan, 2024) Sarah Hollister discovered that Mass Historical Society has the original worksheet for the 1839 view. I have marked up that image:  (see bottom of page for clean copy)   MHS dates this manuscript at 1838, meaning that Mr. Barber stood here on Route 112 facing east to the village center.  This may be the oldest drawing of any scene in Colrain (?), decades before any photographs were made of the village. What are these buildings??   The words in quotation marks in the list are verbatim from the drawing. Italics are current opinions. 1) Site of 5 Main Road?   - a large 2-story building with 7 windows on 2nd floor... 2) "Cong. Church" "brick" "white" (top...
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