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Thursday 11am - 4pm Friday 11am - 4pm Saturday 11am - 4pm Sunday 11am - 4pm

Historic Northampton

Name: Historic Northampton
Address: 46 Bridge Street, Northampton, MA, 01060, US
Telephone: (413) 584-6011
Price range: $

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Historic Northampton

As Northampton's primary history museum, our collections include more than 40,000 artifacts, 4 historic buildings and two acres of grounds open to the public.

Currently on display in our main gallery: Slavery and Freedom in Northampton, 1654-1783. Historic Northampton is a museum of local history in the heart of the Connecticut River Valley of western Massachusetts. Its collection of approximately 50,000 objects and three historic buildings is the repository of Northampton and Connecticut Valley history from the Pre-Contact era to the present. Historic

Northampton constitutes a campus of three contiguous historic houses, all on their original sites. The grounds themselves are part of an original Northampton homelot, laid out in 1654. Find us on Instagram .Northampton !

08/21/2026

Please note: The previously announced gallery tour for Saturday, August 22 has been cancelled.

We regret any inconvenience.

08/20/2026

Free Gallery Talk Today: Thursday, August 20 at 5 pm

Join Historic Northampton's museum educator Emma Bresnan for a 45-minute gallery talk about our current exhibit: Slavery and Freedom in Northampton, 1654-1783.

Beyond what you can read in the exhibit on your own, you'll learn more about:
* the lives of people who were enslaved in Northampton
* their choices about family and freedom
* the legal arrangements that kept slavery in place
* how enslaved labor fueled Northampton and the regional economy.

No pre-registration necessary.
Free, donations welcome.

08/08/2026

Thanks to Matt Bannister (right) of PeoplesBank, Betty Sharpe and I recently recorded a session for "Community Corner" on WWLP/Channel 22's program, Mass Appeal. It's a short segment--just 3-4 minutes--but we were able to talk about our current exhibit, Slavery and Freedom in Northampton, next month's new plays to mark the 250th (The Widow's Land and Hold These Truths), and even snuck in a mention of the two additional performances of Rhythm & Rails (October 6 & 20).

The program will air on August 20 and is underwritten by PeoplesBank, which is also longtime supporter of Historic Northampton.

And of interest to this audience: PeoplesBank was started in 1885 by William Skinner, eleven years after the disasterous Mill River Flood, which killed 139 people, left 704 homeless, wiped out Skinnerville, and caused William Skinner to relocate his silk operation to Holyoke. Skinner was one of the major developers of the failed dam, which you can read more about in Betty's book, In the Shadow of the Dam (Simon & Schuster).

Right to left: Matt Bannister, Head of Marketing and Corporate Responsibility at PeoplesBank; me, Betty Sharpe, and Channel 22 host, Meaghan Mamlock.

08/07/2026

In anticipation of our next exhibit (March 2027) about the incredible stories that our clothing collection reveals about Northampton's politics, economics, and social history, we've started a "textile" garden. In addition to a small patch of flax, this year we're growing about two dozen cotton plants --and here is the very first blossom!

Upland Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) is a member of the mallow family, which includes many other familiar plants (okra, hibiscus, rose-of-sharon, and perhaps unexpectedly, the native tree basswood).

Another member of the mallow family that is growing wild in our garden is velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti). A scourge to farmers, it is often found growing in cultivated fields (e.g. Northampton meadows). Velvetleaf is originally from China, where it is intentionally cultivated for its fibers that are used to make string, rope, rugs and other products. Its leaves, as the common name reveals, are marvelously soft and fuzzy.

07/31/2026

For an article on Hadley chests by local resident Sharon Mehrman, photographer Mike Myers focuses his lens on one of the battens for the lid of the Sarah Strong chest. It was made between 1680-1740 and is one of the gems in our collection. Battens are long strips of wood (think "batten down the hatches") and help reveal how this chest was made.

Mehrman is an expert woodworker and a leading voice on the complicated construction of Hadley chests. Her article will appear in the Chipstone Foundation's publication, American Furniture.

To learn more about Sharon Mehrman and her incredible craftsmanship: https://sharonmakesfurniture.com/
Also: Mehrman made an 85%-scale reproduction of the Sarah Strong chest for Historic Northampton. To learn more about it and the original chest, visit: https://www.historicnorthampton.org/the-sarah-strong-chest.html

07/26/2026

Back again to a favorite location--the decaying black cherry tree trunk in the 25-acre Barrett Street Marsh Conservation Area. Just a 12-minute walk from downtown Northampton, this former pasture/rejuvenated marsh is an oasis for local birds and mammals. This 1.5 minute clip of wildlife highlights from May and June includes a collared female bear that has been tracked for several years by the MassWildlife and a first for my cameras--a yellow warbler with nesting material. Enjoy.

(To learn more about the natural and human history of this place, please check out the narratives in previous videos---and you can also see how very different the trunk looked a few years ago. )

Recorded on a Browning Recon Force Elite HP5
Northampton, MA (USA)

07/18/2026

Goodbye, a BIG THANK YOU, and Sincere Congratulations to Elizabeth Sacktor!

This fall Elizabeth begins her master's at the University of Delaware's Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, one of the nation's most prestigious graduate programs in museum studies and the decorative arts.

We look forward to watching Elizabeth's career in the museum world and know she is going to excel. Her walking tours, gallery talks, presentations, and scholarship at Historic Northampton were superlative.

Best wishes, Elizabeth!

Address

46 Bridge Street
Northampton, MA
01060

Opening Hours

Thursday	11am - 4pm
Friday	11am - 4pm
Saturday	11am - 4pm
Sunday	11am - 4pm

Telephone

(413) 584-6011

Website

http://www.historicnorthampton.org/

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