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By SCOTT MERZBACH

AMHERST — In film, literature, paintings and other forms of art, palm trees and warm climates are almost always the settings depicted for slavery in North America, from the plantations of the American South to the transatlantic ships transporting...

By CARLA CHARTER

In the 1930s, Wendell ushered in events that later became known as the town’s “Stovepipe Politics Era.” This time period involved a 1931 race for selectman between challenger Ozro D. Baker and longtime Selectman Charles Ballou, a Town Meeting location...

By AALIANNA MARIETTA

One hundred and fifty years ago in Lake Pleasant, horse-drawn wagons shuffled along dirt roads lined in tents, cottages and boathouses. Steamboats raced along the lake while swimmers played water games, hot air balloons flying over their heads....

By CARLA CHARTER

At Harvard Forest in Petersham, visitors can learn about the forest and its history through dioramas dating back to the 1930s. The dioramas and the museum that was built for them was the idea of Richard T. Fisher, who was named director and primary...

By BELLA LEVAVI

BUCKLAND — Renowned women’s education advocate Mary Lyon likely never would have expected that her hometown would continue to celebrate her legacy 227 years after her birth.On Wednesday, a group of Mount Holyoke College alumnae and fellow admirers of...

By VIRGINIA RAY

BUCKLAND — When Shelburne glass artist Josh Simpson made his first visit to the Buckland Historical Society’s Wilder Homestead restoration project last year, the mention of hand-blown glass in the windows above the door to the barn caught his...

By JAMES PENTLAND

Forgotten and gathering dust in the attic of a North Adams apartment building for more than a century, a mural that’s a part of eastern European Jewish immigrant history may soon see the light of day again.If it does, it will be thanks largely to the...

By AALIANNA MARIETTA

ERVING — A pair of Erving residents are helping curious minds dive into their family histories through a regular program at the Erving Public Library.Philip Johnson runs the program with Sara Campbell, offering drop-in genealogy assistance at the...

By CARLA CHARTER

It was not a bird, a plane or a UFO that Orange residents spied in the skies on Nov. 20, 1923.Instead, the Orange Enterprise and Journal on Nov. 23, 1923, reported that the U.S. Navy dirigible, the Shenandoah, which was out on a 13-and ½-hour flight...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

SHUTESBURY — An historic guideboard on the town common since 1837, helping travelers to navigate to Massachusetts communities both near and far, is temporarily absent from the green as a restoration project begins.Last Tuesday morning, the wooden...

By WID PERRY

Montague began as a struggling enterprise, isolated and ignored despite its prime location on the banks of the vast Connecticut River. The town, named for English sea captain William Montague, was established in 1754 with its five villages: Turners...

By DOMENIC POLI

WENDELL — A reception set for Friday afternoon will mark the beginning of a Wendell Meetinghouse exhibit featuring 40 enlarged front pages of the Wendell Post, a volunteer-driven newspaper published from 1977 and 2001.The event, which is scheduled for...

By CARLA CHARTER

Many of us who are involved in the newspaper industry came to it at different times and in different ways. None, though, may have begun their career at such an early age as Willie Strong — editor, publisher and printer of the Erving Gazette, who...

By CARLA CHARTER

When the Wendell Historical Society’s museum opens to the public, among the items on display will be a bear costume. The outfit signifies one small part of a much larger story of how community resistance saved Bear Mountain in Wendell.The story began...

By MARY BYRNE

Twelve sites around Greenfield have been identified as historically significant to the abolitionist movement, from the home sites of those involved in the anti-slavery push to rumored areas of Underground Railroad activity.One of those locations was...

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — A Virginia man has made it his mission to preserve in perpetuity a modest monument dedicated in his town to Lt. Col. Russell Hastings, a Greenfield native who was severely wounded in 1864 during the Third Battle of Winchester in the...

By CARLA CHARTER

In 1795, Samuel Adams, governor of Massachusetts at the time, signed the charter that created New Salem Academy, making it the ninth academy in the country, according to Daniel Hammock, a member of New Salem Academy’s Class of 1968 and an academy...

By CARLA CHARTER

Inspired by an interest in crime and investigative journalism, Liesel Nygard, secretary and volunteer at the Warwick Historical Society, has begun a project researching the Warwick Prison Camp. The Warwick Prison Camp, located at what is now Warwick...

By MARY BYRNE

GREENFIELD — As part of her research for an upcoming exhibit at the California State Railroad Museum that will highlight the contributions of women to the history of railroading, Christine Pifer-Foote of Sacramento found herself at the Historical...