Amherst Historical Society and Museum

History Begins at Home

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    • Events Calendar
    • History Bites- Lunchtime Lecture Series
    • Upcoming Events
      • The History of Teddy Bears – Lunchtime Lecture
      • Mabel Loomis Todd’s Amherst – A Motorbus Excursion
      • From smallest tap and die to largest machine: The Museum of Industrial History- Lunchtime Lecture
      • Amherst, 1839- Amherst Arts Night Plus
      • Grand Concert! An Evening of the Music of Jenny Lind
      • The Bran-Bread Philosopher: Sylvester Graham and the Science of Human Life – Lunchtime Lecture
      • Peace, Love, and Groove Party- An Evening of 1960s Fun
    • Past History Bites Video Archive
    • Past Events
      • Monuments as History Lunchtime Lecture
      • South Amherst UCC – Lunchtime Lecture
      • The Protein War: Dorothy Wrinch and the Scientific Controversy of the 1930s – Lunchtime Lecture
      • Founder’s Day Celebration 2018
      • Amherst Historical Society Annual Ski and Winter Gear Sale
      • Ski and Winter Gear Consignment
      • Amherst Arts Night Plus Holiday AHS Holiday Celebration
      • 2017 House Tour
      • “I Expect Great Pleasure” – The Music of Jane Austen
      • 2017 Garden Tour
      • Music Selected by Jane Austen
      • Flax: from Plant to Thread
      • Lunchtime Lecture Series
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Janis Gray
        • ‘History Bites’- Lunchtime Lecture Series- Karen Sánchez-Eppler
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Carlton Brose
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Henry Lyman
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Dr George Greenstein
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Jade Mace
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – ‘Chick’ Chickering
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Susan Ashman
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – George Naughton
        • ‘History Bites’ Lunchtime Lecture Series – Richard Cairn
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Susan Snively
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Kitty Florey
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Tom Weiner
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Peter Thomas
        • “History Bites” – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Robert Cox
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series – The Little Red Schoolhouse
        • “History Bites” – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Steve Strimer
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Gregory Wilson
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Bonnie Isman
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Ken Samonds
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series- Rebecca Fricke, Sally Dillon & Flo Rosenstock
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series- Tim Barker
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series- Ann Tweedy
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series – Rachel Mustin
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series – Steve Strimer
        • “History Bites” – Lunchtime Lecture Series – William Flynt
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series- Ann Lanning
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series- Cheryl Harned
        • “History Bites” Lunctime Lecture Series- Patricia Holland and Elaine Barker
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series- Rob Cox
        • Ronald Story – “Jonathan Edwards and the Gospel of Love” Lunchtime Lecture
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series – Barbara Krauthamer
        • “History Bites” Lunctime Lecture Series- Cliff McCarthy
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series- Elizabeth Peirce
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series- Jackie Tuthill
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series- Bob Romer
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series – Bill Gillen
        • “History Bites” Lunchtime Lecture Series–Else Hambleton
        • Rob Cox: Cranberry Culture
        • Looking Backward: A Visual History of Immigration to the United States
        • ‘History Bites’ – Lunchtime Lecture Series – Bob Tuthill
      • Founders Day Celebration 2016
    • Founders Day
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Founders Day

Since 2007, the Amherst Historical Society has celebrated Amherst’s founding through an annual lecture and presenting awards to deserving citizens. In 2008 Dr. Elizabeth Sharpe, then Board of Trustees president, presented a history of the town and explained the significance conch shell. Her remarks, reposted with permission here, provide the best explanation of our Founders Day Celebration and Annual Conch Shell Award.

“Tonight we celebrate the founding of Amherst — 249 years ago on February 13, 1759. Prior to that date, the place we call Amherst was a patchwork of farms owned by families like the Dickinsons, the Cowles, the Boltwoods and the Kelloggs who were considered the “east inhabitants” of the town of Hadley. Folks in the parent town of Hadley called this place various names–East Hadley, Hadley Farms, East Farms, the East Precinct, the Third Precinct and later the Second Precinct. (We moved up a notch from third to second precinct when South Hadley spun off of Hadley’s orbit.) You can see that we were in need of our own name and identity, and in need of our own government. As more farms sprang up here in the 1750s, our population topped Hadley’s but our inhabitants were still required to travel to Hadley to conduct town business and to pay taxes for which they received little in return. So, in 1758, a group of local men petitioned the government of Massachusetts Bay to incorporate Hadley’s Second Precinct as a district, not a town, but a district. A district enjoyed the same powers as a town, it just couldn’t send a representative to the General Court. But a district could hold town meetings and otherwise govern itself. The petition was delivered to Boston in June of 1758 and three quarters of a year later on February 13, the bill was passed. Hadley returned to its eastern inhabitants their proportional share of the town stockpile of gunpowder, lead, and flints and the tie was, more or less, severed.

Now about that new name. It was a perk of the governor of Massachusetts Bay to name new districts. And so, Governor Pownall did. He was a close friend of General Jeffery Amherst whose recent successful military expedition against the French at Louisburg in Canada made him a hero in the colonies and in England. For the governor, it would be a living monument to his famous friend to name this new district Amherst. Who could object? Certainly no one in the new district of Amherst. Not then, anyway.

There is no record regarding when the district of Amherst became the Town of Amherst; it seems Amherst conferred town status on itself. In 1774, some 15 years after becoming a district, Amherst began acting like a town by sending a delegate to the Provincial Congress and soon began using the designation “Town of Amherst,” although, as far as anyone can tell, it held no legal title. The title was granted, after the fact, in 1786, when Massachusetts passed a law stating that all districts incorporated prior to 1777 were to be towns. Thus, we celebrate as Founders Day the date the district of Amherst was established.

It is the conch shell that symbolizes Founders Day. In the 17th and 18th centuries, blowing the conk shell was a common method to call or warn inhabitants, and New England towns typically paid someone to blow it.  Records show that an East Hadley man (that’s us) in 1743, was paid 3 dollars a year to “blow the kunk” and sweep the floor of the meeting house. Montague, Old Hadley, South Hadley, Williamsburg, and Stockbridge also paid someone to blow a conch shell.  We know that Whately had a conch because in 1785 they voted NOT to pay someone to blow it.

By the early 19th century, conks went out of use when towns could afford large bells to hang in the bell towers attached to their new, larger meetinghouses. A bell sounded more pleasant than a conk; it was more refined, more urban, more like Boston or Philadelphia, or London. Across New England, conch shells were laid aside.

But, in Amherst, as in many towns, someone recognized what the conk had meant– that it had been a way of calling farmers together, a way of gathering the community, so that individuals could deliberate and then to act as one body. The conk represented democracy, and fittingly it was a democratic instrument. It was hand-held, easily obtained, and most anyone could blow it. Unlike a bell, it didn’t require a lot of money, a foundry to cast it, or oxen to haul it.  It didn’t require a tower. When Amherst no longer blew its conk, I’d like to think that someone noted the passing of an era and saved it because of what it symbolized. Just as likely, the last person to use it placed in on a shelf in a back room and a descendant found it and preserved it because it represented the history of East Hadley, the district of Amherst, and later the town of Amherst. The Historical Society possesses that conch. We gather tonight to honor the spirit of the conch and to honor those who have worked to tell us our community’s history. After the presentations, we invite you to join us for a reception at the History Museum where you may see the original conch shell. You may not blow it. Nor would you want to since it sports 200 years of dirt and grime. Otherwise known as patina.”

Strong House

The museum is CLOSED for the winter season.  We reopen in May. Call 413.256.0678 for more information or email info@amhersthistory.org.  You can check out our events calendar for upcoming programs.

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Thanks!

The Amherst Historical Society would like to thank our Sponsors

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Amherst A to Z

Want to know where Amherst’s Cold War bunker is located? Or where the “curragh” district of Amherst was? Or learn about a local factory that made “collapsing skirts!”

Amherst A to ZThese are all entries under the letter “C” in the book Amherst A to Z, written by Elizabeth Sharpe. The book is illustrated with pictures of artifacts from the Amherst History Museum, historic images from the Jones Library’s Special Collections, as well as photographs of our town and the folks who live here. Read more and buy the book!

Support Us

The Amherst History Museum accepts donations of any size at any time of the year. We hold our Annual Appeal in late November and renew all memberships in the Spring. A gift to the Amherst History Museum, whether in memory of a loved one or in honor of a special accomplishment, is always a unique way to help the Amherst Community and recognize an extraordinary individual.

Become a member today! Read more. . .
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