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By TINKY WEISBLAT

Food connects Americans to each other and to our history. Those connections were highlighted in a recent book and a library talk. The book is “Smithsonian American Table: The Foods, People and Innovations That Feed Us,” (Harvest) by Lisa Kingsley in...

By CARLA CHARTER

When the work on the Quabbin Reservoir began, photographers began documenting the project — from real estate, to cemeteries, to the construction of the reservoir itself. Their photos, snapshots in time, can be seen at Digital Commonwealth thanks to an...

By CARLA CHARTER

Wendell town records — including more than 30 pages of loose documents dating from 1816 to the 1840s and a 500-page volume of town clerk notes dating from 1953 to 1969 — were returned to the town by the Wendell Historical Society on April 1, in...

By CARLA CHARTER

On April 1, Cynthia Butler, owner of the Revival Wheeler Mansion, is hoping to recreate a photo taken on the building’s front lawn on October 1925, when it reopened as the Eastern Star Rest Home. Butler hopes the new photo will serve as a marker of...

By BELLA LEVAVI

With the first anniversary of the Wendell Historical Society approaching on April 1, the Society's President, Edward Hines, went searching for the history of the building that the society calls its home.Last July, the society purchased the former...

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...