NEW SALEM — “Everybody welcome,” read the sign at New Salem’s Old Home Day this year, which brought musicians, vendors and residents to the forest clearing known as the town’s center.
“It’s a beautiful day for it, a perfect day,” said local Sue Dunbar, while, behind her, local band Tequila Amigos blasted their brass horns.
Vendors offered everything from sand art to strawberry shortcake — and from photography to candles to woodcarvings of planes and trains, which carpenter Mark Abbott brought from South Hadley to “give people a chance to have it in their homes, and to enjoy.”
There was truly an air of happiness at the event, but also of nostalgia.
The event this year was officially dedicated to the New Salem Academy, which — though no longer an operating school — was founded in 1795 and is still maintained as a historic property by the town.
A New Salem Academy reunion, with students from the 1960s and ’70s, and a walk to the old New Salem village of Millington — led by Academy graduates Phyllis Hamilton Frechette and Don Flye — honored the town’s history.
Also, the Swift River Valley Historical Society spoke about the area’s history.
The society, which honors the four towns that were disincorporated and flooded in order to create the Quabbin Reservoir — Dana, Prescott, Greenwich and Enfield — made it clear that a chunk of New Salem’s area today was actually absorbed from the “lost towns.”
“This is a great event,” said the society’s Shelley Small. “It’s good for us, but it’s also good for people to contact us, and get to know what we do and about this important part of our history.”
A crosscut saw competition, pony rides, a massive book sale, a parade — including a vintage New Salem fire engine — were more fun for the day, which wrapped up with a concert by the Green Sisters at the 1794 Meetinghouse.
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.