Category: Past Talks

David Simonds ~ Cherry Cottage: the Story of an American House
Sunday, January 18, 4:00 pm, @ First Congregational Church
Sponsored by the Williamstown Historical Museum

Built in 1782 by Judith Williams Thayer, the sister of Col. Ephraim Williams, Cherry Cottage, has housed a remarkable array of people of historical interest, most notably Mark Hopkins, president of Williams College from 1836 to 1872, and who defined our ideas about small liberal arts education in America.  Other notable residents or owners include a chief of the Stockbridge Indians, Speaker of the House, Theodore Sedgwick, the attorney David Dudley Field, Jr., the surgeon Charles McBurney, the writers Alan Wheelis and Louis Begley, and the astronaut Story Musgrave, who led the effort to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Please stay for the reception after the end of the film.  Donations to benefit the Williamstown Historical Museum of any amount accepted at the door.

Filmmaker Dave Simonds (director) lives in his hometown of Williamstown, Massachusetts after a 28 year hiatus in NYC, where he worked in film, TV and stage.  He is a graduate of Bard College.

Hans Morris (executive producer/writer) is chairman of the board of overseers at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth, chairman of the board of trustees of MASS MoCA, and he is a trustee of Jacob’s Pillow.  He served as President of Visa, Inc. Cherry Cottage is his first feature.

For more here’s the trailer:

 

The 1746 Attack on Fort Massachusetts

by Dusty Griffin

Saturday, November 8^th, 11:00 am

Many local residents have heard about the colonial fort, once located in the current parking lot of Price Chopper on Rt. 2 in North Adams. They may even have heard about the attack by French and Indian soldiers in August 1746. But the episode has received little sustained attention from historians, and a number of questions remain without clear answers: Why was the fort built there? Why was it attacked? Why was it quickly overwhelmed? Who was responsible?

Dusty Griffin taught English literature at Berkeley and NYU for 40 years before retiring in 2009. A 1965 graduate of Williams College, he has published a number of scholarly books on 17th- & 18th-century English poetry. Williams College history, the local history of Williamstown are topics he has treated in writing and in lectures. He is a frequent contributor to the Williamstown Historical Museum lecture series.

To view a video of Dusty’s lecture click here:  “The 1746 Attack on Fort Massachusetts”

 

 

Living History Day with the Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation

 

Saturday, November 1^st, 11:00 am

Do you enjoy working with hand tools?  Are you interested in preserving our cultural history?  If so, we invite you to join the WRLF and the Williamstown Historical Museum on Saturday November 1^st at Sheep Hill in this hands-on project to restore an antique horse-drawn work sled donated to the WRLF by Henry Flynt.  These sleds were used to bring logs and firewood and sap collection barrels out of the woods in the winter and are an important part of our local heritage. We hope Mr. Flynt will be on hand to give us a brief history of the sled.

Art Evans will lead the restoration of this local artifact.

All are invited to share in a light lunch, and to watch a film called Ben’s Mill, about the construction of a similar sled in Vermont in the 1970s.

To register, call 458-2494 or email lre@wrlf.org.