Cummington Historical Commission

05/25/2026

Thank you Adele Bardwell for this Christmas card from Mr and Mrs Milton Howes

05/16/2026

04/28/2026

Save the date! May 9, 2026. Our Old House: Uncovering the Past is a project that explores the histories of thirteen historic homes located within Plainfield’s Historic District. Together, these houses offer a glimpse into everyday life in Plainfield from the late eighteenth century to the present day. By examining the buildings themselves, along with deeds, maps, photographs, and other historical records, the project reveals how architecture, ownership, and community history intertwine to tell the larger story of the town. The Plainfield Historical Society will present this project in a special museum-like exhibition at the Shaw Memorial Library. The exhibition will feature posters, photographs, slideshows, historic artifacts, and a virtual tour highlighting the homes and the stories uncovered through research. The exhibit will run from Saturday, May 9 until Saturday, June 27. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, May 9 from 10:00 til 11:30. At 10:30 Lori Austin will introduce the project and discuss how to research the history of an old house, sharing the methods and sources she used to uncover the stories of the homes featured in the exhibition. In early June, the Historical Society will host a gathering bringing together many of the homeowners featured in this project to share and discuss the stories of their historic houses. In addition, Lori will lead a Saturday morning demonstration offering practical guidance for those
interested in beginning research on their own old homes.
This project is partially funded by the Plainfield Cultural Council and the Plainfield Historical Society. A big thanks to the students at the Smith Vocational Graphics Design Department for
the printing and design layout for this project.

04/12/2026

December 11, 1943 newspaper article written by Robert Groetsch, who was a World War II refugee in Cummington. The paper was published in German in New York City and widely distributed.

Translated:
In the Hills

The town where we were guests for a few weeks lies in Massachusetts at an elevation of 400 meters; it has a population of 450 and consists of a Main Street and a few houses “in the hills.” When we arrived, the American autumn was in as full bloom as a bouquet. The hillsides all around were ablaze with red, yellow, and green. Cows grazed in the meadows, producing milk nonstop. The war was far, far away; you could almost cease to believe it was real.

Two weeks later, the leaves fell more abundantly from the trees. When a gust of wind blew, the colorful foliage snowed down. We waded through Main Street, up to our calves in red and yellow. What had been up above was suddenly down below, and through the branches of the trees shone the late-autumn sky.

The refugee hostel, where we had found a warm welcome, looked like a house in a fairy tale: red with white windows, set beneath mighty old trees, with a lawn all around and the river further back. On sunny days, the river water shimmered clear and bright as glass. I know only one kind of liquid that is more transparent: Saxon coffee.

The hostel had been made available by the local reverend three years earlier; he oversaw it, and it was maintained by the “Congregational Christian Committee.” German and Austrian refugees had renovated it. A workshop was set up for them where they could learn woodworking, and a studio where poor painters, disheveled emigrants, could indulge their passion: namely, painting. Some were “settled” from here. One man, formerly an editor at the Frankfurter Zeitung, learned woodturning and polishing. A former Social Democratic student worker became a mason and carpenter; today he drives around in his own car in Springfield. A Viennese couple, formerly well-to-do and bourgeois, pulled themselves out of a deep depression here; today they run a small workshop in town, where all sorts of cardboard items are manufactured and painted and finished in an antique style. Today they're both bursting with energy, can’t keep up with orders, and employ several local women at their trade. In a reputable small printing shop in the Hills, Professor Wolf, formerly a teacher at the Karlsruhe Academy of Art, is producing woodcuts illustrating a biblical legend.

The hostel has seen some dramatic history. The refugees were, so to speak, the first foreigners in town. The locals took a while to get used to them. When they saw that they were actually decent people, they displayed that well-known American hospitality. Pearl Harbor threw an sudden wrench in the works. Spy hysteria swept through the country, and the town seemed to be in broad agreement with the general sentiment: the foreigners must go. They might be part of a “Fifth Column.” Conspiracy theories multiplied: “Spies have landed again on Long Island Sound.” – The pastor bravely and tirelessly used all his authority to protect the refugees, calming people down at a different meeting every evening. Agitated locals threatened that “If the foreigners show themselves on the street, they’ll be shot.” But the pastor played his strongest card: “If spies were ever to come here, they wouldn’t even know what to spy on in your secluded valley. And if any do appear, they certainly won’t stammer such broken English as these refugees; they'll speak the local language flawlessly and have all the proper documents, plenty of cash, and first-class citizenship papers.”

Gradually, the hysteria subsided. Various rumors were debunked as false. People came to recognize the refugees' hostility toward the N***s. When the Viennese couple settled in town, they were showered with donated furniture from near and far, including a decent piano. The Americans’ helpfulness and good nature broke over them so strongly that even today they become emotional when speaking of it.

The Reverend gave the refugees English lessons with endless perseverance, patience, and humor. To help me master the “th” and the "w" sounds better, he handed me a mirror. “An excellent method,” he smiled, “you need to be able to see your breath on the mirror...” I began the exercise but saw no breath on the mirror – only my stubbly, unshaven chin. Stunned, I fell silent and completely lost my train of thought. Indeed, an excellent method for teaching someone to shave daily!

The doors in these towns are probably never locked. On the road in front of every house stands a post with a round, open container on it, into which the mail and the newspaper are delivered. Some farms in the hills are situated far from the road, but the newspaper still has to be retrieved from there. On my rounds through the mountains, I used to read three different newspapers every day as I wandered from one box to the next; I knew where to find the Times and where to find the Springfield Gazette. So I read my way up the hill, sometimes to an altitude of 600 meters.

Every other house along Main Street has a piano. There is a lot of quiet, beautiful music played at home. No noise from radios blaring through open windows but rather a quiet rural culture, rooted in the land, just like these little white-and-green country houses. You don’t sense any hatred of Germans here, but rather a great deal of astonishment that this barbaric Hitlerism, with all its atrocities, could have emerged from an ancient cultural region and from such an intelligent people.

When we said goodbye in mid-November, there was fresh snow on the ground. Hoarfrost hung glistening in the trees on the mountains, and the hostel was topped with white. When the three dogs that used to wait for me every afternoon on Main Street to accompany me on my walk—a medium-sized hunting dog, a terrier, and a small yellow one with short legs—when these dogs have long since passed away and new generations fill the houses, then the older folks will probably tell stories about the foreigners who once painted the hostel like a house out of “Hansel and Gretel.” “Well,” they’ll say, “those foreigners also laid out the flower beds behind the house. They were nice people—especially that one who came here with his wife when there wasn’t much work left to do. He was a writer and a tinsmith. Today he’s a well-known automobile manufacturer in Detroit...” And with this, they’ll be referring to me...

04/12/2026

I always enjoy spending my time in the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts, and one of my favorite towns is Cummington, the hometown of 19th century poet and newspaper editor William Cullen Bryant.

These two photos show Bryant’s childhood home around the early 1890s, and the same scene in 2026. The house was built in 1783, and Bryant started living here in 1799, when he was four. The house’s setting, on a hill overlooking the Westfield River valley, helped to inspire some of Bryant’s earliest works of poetry, and he lived here until 1816, when he moved to Great Barrington.

Bryant would eventually end up in New York, where he became the editor-in-chief of the New York Daily Post in 1829, a position that he held until his death in 1878. Throughout this time, the Post was one of the nation’s leading newspapers, and he used the paper to advocate for liberal causes such as abolitionism, organized labor, and immigrant rights. In 1860, he played an important role in Abraham Lincoln’s nomination, using his influence to generate support in the eastern states for the relatively obscure former congressman from Illinois.

In the meantime, the Bryant family sold the house in 1835, but William later repurchased it in 1865, and it became his summer home. After his death, his daughter Julia inherited the house, and she owned it when the top photo was taken around 1890, although she spent most of her later years in Paris where she lived with her cousin and presumed romantic partner, Anna Fairchild.

Julia died in 1907 and left this house to Anna Fairchild, who owned it until 1917, when she sold it to Julia’s niece Minna Godwin Goddard, who was the daughter of Bryant’s older daughter Frances. Minna then owned it until her own death in 1927, and in her will she left the property to the Trustees of Reservations. The Trustees continues to own the house and the surrounding land, and the property includes several walking trails through the landscape that Bryant grew up in. Not much has changed about the exterior of the house since the top photo was taken, and even a few of the sugar maples are still standing here.

03/19/2026

On this day, 1820, Dr. Peter Bryant died.
Peter Bryant was an amateur poet in his own right, though never as famous as his second born, William Cullen. He served as a representative of Hampshire County in the state legislature and was a country doctor, having learned at Harvard (briefly, for he could not afford the tuition) and Cambridge. He apprenticed with his physician father for a time, but his relationship with his stepmother was such that he left as soon as he could. He arrived in Cummington in 1792, to doctor in the newly settled town.
During the Napoleonic Wars, in 1795, Dr. Bryant served as ship’s doctor on a vessel to Mozambique. It was seized and he was imprisoned for two years on the French island of Mauritius, where he tended the infirmed in the hospital there. His skills as a physician, and as a conversationalist, were renown.
Peter and his wife, Sally, had seven children: Austin, William Cullen, Cyrus, Sarah Snell, Arthur (originally Peter Rush, but changes in 18312, Louisa Charity and John Howard.
Dr. Samuel Shaw of Plainfield was apprenticing Dr. Bryant at the timeof his death and was bequethed Dr. Bryant's medical library, which remains intact.

03/19/2026

This week marks the 90th anniversary of the largest recorded flood in the Connecticut River Valley. It occurred at the end of a winter that had seen cold temperatures and heavy snowfall, followed by warm temperatures in early March. This thaw was accompanied by heavy rainfall from two major storm systems that hit the northeast on March 9 and March 18, 1936.

The result was catastrophic flooding caused by a combination of the snowmelt, rainfall, and ice jams. It hit the Connecticut River Valley particularly hard, as shown in this aerial image of Chicopee, Massachusetts, taken on March 20, 1936. In the lower foreground is the Chicopee River, with Front Street on the left side and the Route 116 bridge going across the river. Farther in the distance on the right side is Chicopee Street and the Ferry Lane neighborhood, which was completely submerged by the floodwaters. The Connecticut River itself is beyond the row of trees in the distance, with Riverdale Street in West Springfield on the other side of the river.

Image courtesy of the National Archives.

01/02/2026

I love the goat team in these old holiday photos.

12/07/2025

Why Europeans Put Oranges in Christmas Stockings: The Forgotten Story Behind a Winter Treasure

There is a quiet moment on Christmas morning that connects millions of families across Europe. A simple orange tucked into the toe of a stocking. Today it feels like a small, sweet tradition, but its origins stretch back centuries to a time when an orange in winter was nothing short of a miracle. This tiny fruit once represented wealth, generosity, and the promise of brighter days when the world outside was dark and cold.

The story begins in the Middle Ages when citrus fruits were rare luxury items in Northern Europe. Oranges traveled from the Mediterranean through long trade routes, carefully packed and protected so they would not spoil. Only the wealthy tasted fresh citrus in winter, and the fruit was often displayed as a symbol of prosperity. As Christianity shaped holiday traditions, the orange became linked with the legendary generosity of Saint Nicholas. According to one of the oldest stories, the saint provided dowries for three impoverished daughters by tossing gold coins into their stockings as they dried by the fire. In later centuries the golden orange became a stand-in for that gift.

By the Victorian period, the orange had become one of the most meaningful Christmas gifts you could receive. Winters were harsh. Fresh fruit was limited. Families saved money to purchase a single bright orange for each child, often wrapped or polished with care. To a child in nineteenth century Europe, finding an orange on Christmas morning meant they were loved. It meant their parents had sacrificed and planned ahead. That orange carried the warmth of faraway places and the hope of spring returning after the long winter.

The tradition also grew through the rise of European Christmas markets. Citrus from Spain and Italy began reaching northern cities in December, filling the air with their sweet, unmistakable scent. Markets from Nuremberg to Vienna displayed crates of bright oranges like jewels. They were still special, still precious, but now they were within reach for ordinary families. Placing one in a stocking became a way of bringing color and light into the home during the darkest season of the year.

Immigrants carried this tradition to America, Canada, and Australia. Families who had experienced hardship or lived through difficult winters held on to the custom with pride. Oranges became symbols of gratitude. They were a reminder that even in lean times there was beauty to be shared. Many grandparents who grew up during the Depression recall the excitement of receiving a single orange on Christmas morning. For them it was a moment of pure abundance. A holiday treasure.

Today the world has changed. Oranges are everywhere. Yet the tradition remains because it still carries meaning. A stocking filled with small gifts and a bright orange at the bottom is a link to centuries of European storytelling. It is a piece of history wrapped in citrus peel. A reminder that generosity can be simple. That beauty can come from something as small as fruit shining in the cold light of winter.

The orange in the stocking is not just decoration. It is a symbol of hope, heritage, and the ancient belief that light always returns.

Check out my historical recipes at eatshistory.com