Colrain Archives

 Today Belden, Prentice, Dave Sarah, and Gail did more cleanup work, and sorted books, picture frames and textiles. Dave met Levin Hardison, a builder, to discuss the office floor foundation. Gail and Sarah continued packing the Pitt family china in the small living room cabinet for storage upstairs in the Booth Room. Boxes are labeled with their contents. Dave pulled apart several of the old framed pictures, as many are Pitt personal photos and no longer need to be displayed.  Several paper prints and photos were found to be quite brittle, probably due to the old wooden boards used for backing plates. Before "de-framing" every picture was photographed front and back. Prentice sorted and packed away a large stack of William Pitt's personal library books into two storage boxes.  Contents of each box were labelled. Prentice also agreed to take home a drawer of Pitt's small paper and objects for cataloging as he has time.  Last week Gail had listed the contents - about 4

 **** New Items Reviewed /Cataloged March 22, 2024  - since last week*****   "New items" means old CHS items whose numbers have been written on them, or newly scanned old items.  These are not new accessions. the complete list is on Airtable here   ******* PRELIMINARY ******** Some highlights: #1230   Records of Memorial Hall Association , a hardbound ledger of their meetings 1896-1945 . Includes a 1945 vote the Hall be given to the American Legion.     #2469  the Thompson's Store 1910 receipts  ... A treasure trove of some 800 paper slips showing what was purchased by Colrain's village store in one year.    Volunteer Diana Braman has sorted these slips into groups by vendor. At least 180 slips for the Colrain Street Railway. What a lot of activity on that busy rail line.  The slip below indicates flour and matches coming from North Adams (by mainline) and then from Shelburne Falls to the store. In January! #2493   "When we went West" -  a large diary of a t

 ***  Work Bee # 5  March 21  ***** Today Dave, Sarah, Belden,  Guy, Gail, Ellen Smith & Sasha Roja worke d at the Pitt House 1-4:30.   Belden gave Ellen and Sasha a tour of the premises .  Dave and Guy did a quick house inspection with Clint Dodge who came by to look over foundation issues. We found that the foundation south wall beneath office (where bathroom will begin) is just 2 layers of boards between two posts - no foundation. Also noted that the major sag in floors might be quite old. Ellen & Sasha sorted Barnhart material into 4 boxes.    Gail and Sarah removed chairs etc  from Breakfast Room and Library and cleaned the floors. Gail made a quick list of contents of Pitt small drawer in living room table LV-14.                               

 This past week we numbered 12 "new" items found on the Library Shelves.  These are not published books, so we are re-filing them in Document Boxes , so each has a small "home" for easy retrieval.  "Library Shelves" with 100s of items, is too large a home. Here is the Airtable link to the 12: Highlights: # 1146 Meat Grocer Ross Purrington's ca 1903 Cash Ledger , a hardbound book listing his sales and customers. #1144  Guest Book for Colrain Historical Society  1972-1991. Shows that the society was quite active in early years.  Belden Merims hosted in  1987 # 3639-1 & 2 ...  Library ledgers from 1894 and 1900.  These were for the old library, which was in librarian Katherine Cram's house (Joan McQuade 2024) .  The ledgers record which books were borrowed and by whom.     # 1300  is the first ledger for the Griswold Memorial Library, and starts with its Opening Day, December 12 1908. Katherine Cram was still the librarian. The library kept separ

We recently acquired 2 copies of  "The Arms Student" yearbook from David Finck,  1927 & 1932  Since we already had a 1932, we decided to cut apart and scan the entire 1932 book given by David.  All 78 pages are available here as a pdf file: Individual graduate photos - some nicknames "Stubby": Photos for 1933-1935, Freshman to Juniors:     There are also may business advertisements from the area, including F.J. Call,  Colrain Businessman:  

A first hand account of the 1938 Hurricane in Colrain  CHS #2443   Martha Donelson Katz recently donated a letter written by her mother, Winnifred Lincoln ,  vividly describing her harrowing experience during the Hurricane of 1938. She lived in a house on River Road in Colrain and was all alone at the time of the storm.                                                                              Winnifred E. Lincoln        "This is incredible & vivid writing and should be read, appreciated and SAVED"     "Colrain not only suffered, but it is practically ruined."                                                                           Foster Streeters        "I was racing thro' the house, holding my flashlight all                the  time, and just as I came  from the kitchen to the dining         room the last time I saw water on the floor, and instantly  heard it begin to thunder into the cellar,- just like cannonading!!" "We could see the

 After recent discussion about some furniture belonging to Amos Bardwell, Sarah decided to scan the 29 documents... Amos Bardwell Collection  CHS # 656 An interesting archive of original deeds, poems, copies of 18th century state petitions and ephemera. The 29 documents we have show activities of Amos, his father Elias, and others. Elias, Daniel Workman & Samuel Browning were on a committee that purchased land in 1815 “for the purpose of burying the dead”, a lot “South of the Brick Schoolhouse”.   In 1811, as a 19-year-old, Amos Bardwell (1792-1875) penned a book “The Scholars Arithmetic”  (xx page booklet) . (Based on internet research, I believe he may have copied some (or all) of the text from a publication of the same name published in Keene, NH in 1807.)   Amos was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Franklin County in 1843, 1850 and 1857.   -----   He was granted permission in 1860 from Lorenzo Langstroth to build his own movable bee hives based on Langstroth’s paten