MONTAGUE — The Battlefield Grant Advisory Committee voted Wednesday to recommend that the Selectboard accept a proposal for principal investigator services to further study the Great Falls Massacre.

The proposal, submitted by Heritage Consultants of Berlin, Connecticut, was the only response to a Request for Proposals (RFP) period that concluded on April 25. It would delegate consulting services across Montague, Greenfield, Northfield, Deerfield and Gill to continue a near decade-long effort to study “how and why this particular battle precipitated a shift in the military strategy and war efforts of Indigenous and Colonial groups and how those changes contributed to the foundation of this country,” according to the project narrative. A long-term goal is to have the involved land entered into the National Register of Historic Places, the proposal explains.

According to the Indigenous history and culture preservation nonprofit the Nolumbeka Project, the Great Falls Massacre is considered the major turning point of King Philip’s War, when 300 women, children and elders were killed during a surprise pre-dawn attack led by Capt. William Turner. Ten years after the reconciliation ceremony of 2004, during which the town of Montague and members of the Narragansett Tribe formally recognized the conflict of May 19, 1676, four Indigenous tribes and Historical Commission members from five municipalities began doing pre-inventory research and documentation relative to the massacre.

Over the next nine years, the Battlefield Grant Advisory Committee completed two grant-funded phases of land surveying and artifact recovery. This third phase serves to “document battlefield actions and investigate areas of the battlefield that were not surveyed or examined during previous battlefield surveys,” according to the Heritage Consultants proposal.

“I think the goal of this year is finishing up the retreat route and the attack route heading into Deerfield,” explained Battlefield Grant Advisory Committee member and Northfield Historical Commission Vice Chair Joe Graveline.

According to the project narrative, 3.5 square miles of the 6.5 square-mile battlefield remains to be surveyed following the project’s first two phases. More than 600 artifacts were recovered over the 350 acres already surveyed.

“While fieldwork has proven highly successful, the battlefield has proved to be very complex and could not be completed in two phases of fieldwork,” the narrative continues. “Current fieldwork has identified additional combat actions as well as ancillary sites (Native villages) that provided men for the battle that require further investigation in order to tell the whole story.”

Battlefield Grant Advisory Committee member and Montague Historical Commission Chair David Brule announced the $82,000 Preservation Planning Grant during Wednesday’s meeting. Such grants, given as part of the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program, “support education, interpretation, preservation planning and research projects that contribute to the protection of historic battlefields and sites associated with armed conflicts on American soil,” explained Philip Bailey, the program’s grants management specialist. The Battlefield Grant Advisory Committee aims to have funding support research conducted by Heritage Consultants, as well as the design of educational signs and kiosks the committee hopes to install near where the conflict occurred. Montague must communicate its project plans and submit any comments on the grant program to the National Park Service by late May, according to the “Invitation to Consult” that the National Park Service sent in association with the grant award.

While Montague is the municipality that will be administering the grant funding and facilitating the project, most of the educational materials would be installed in Greenfield. Costs for fabricating these materials will not be covered by the grant, Brule noted, adding that the committee will likely pursue additional opportunities to fund fabrication.

Graveline expressed a desire to conduct underwater archaeological research beyond the scope of work outlined in the third-phase proposal. Brule echoed this interest, but said it would need to be funded separately due to the grant and proposal having already been finalized.

“We don’t have a ballpark figure at this point,” he said of how much this work might cost. “We just have a real desire to do it.”

Reach Julian Mendoza at 413-930-4231 or jmendoza@recorder.com.

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