Category: Local history

Contributing writers will sally into archives and recover stories and voices from the past, from many communities in this independent stretch of hills between wide rivers and the Taconic and Hoosic ranges and the Green mountains.

  • Issue:

    A governor’s career spanned engineering and music

    It was not unusual for prominent politicians in the 19th century to visit Lake George.But when the politician also was an executive at a piano company, that was big news, particularly when the company was a regular advertiser in the Lake George Mirror. Vermont Gov. Levi K. Fuller, an executive with the Estey Piano Co.,… read more

    A governor’s career spanned engineering and music
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    Changing pace as roads shifted from horses to cars

    The diversification of J.E. Sawyer & Co. in 1918 was a sign of changing times.The Glens Falls company, which supplied retailers throughout New York, Vermont and Massachusetts, became a distributor of the Marathon brand of “hand-made” automotive tires, The Post-Star reported on April 6, 1918. The tires came with a 5,000-mile warranty. At the time,… read more

    Changing pace as roads shifted from horses to cars
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    Saving a shantytown?

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    In old fishing shacks, links to Hudson’s past and an unclear future State officials have concluded that a group of 17 fishing shacks along the Hudson River are historically significant, but city officials in Hudson, N.Y., have yet to decide whether to preserve any of the structures as part of a proposal for a new… read more

    Saving a shantytown?
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    Unearthing a long-lost community

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    Teacher traces history of Vermont settlement built by Mass. rebels By EVAN LAWRENCEContributing writer SANDGATE, Vt.   High-school students in a summer archaeological field school sift through the soil at a remote property in Sandgate, Vt., where leaders of the Shays Rebellion built an extensive community beginning in 1787. The rebels fled Massachusetts for Vermont,… read more

    Unearthing a long-lost community
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    Hoosac tunnel, local history inspire artist at Mass MoCA

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    Railroad tunnel, local history inspire Mass MoCA installation for children By JOHN SEVENContributing writer NORTH ADAMS, Mass.   Colorado artist Wes Sam-Bruce works on his new installation, “Cavernous: The Inner Life of Courage,” at Mass MoCA. The exhibit, opens June 17 at the museum’s KidSpace gallery, draws inspiration from the Hoosac Tunnel and other threads… read more

    Hoosac tunnel, local history inspire artist at Mass MoCA
  • Issue:

    Rediscovering the ‘Sage of Saratoga’

    Events celebrate life, work of writer Frank Sullivan By THOMAS DIMOPOULOSContributing writer SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.   Frank Sullivan, who became best known for his articles and Christmas poems in The New Yorker, lived most of his life in Saratoga Springs. Forty years after his death, Frank Sullivan’s career as a writer is being rediscovered and… read more

    Rediscovering the ‘Sage of Saratoga’
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    Looking racism in the eye

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    In new book, Williams professor confronts his roots in the Jim Crow era By JOHN SEVENContributing writer WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.   Charles Dew, an American history professor at Williams College, is known for his expertise on the Civil War and the era of Reconstruction. His new memoir details his experiences growing up in the segregated South… read more

    Looking racism in the eye
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    Historic house for lease; bring own tools

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    Live-in curator sought for childhood home of Susan B. Anthony By EVAN LAWRENCEContributing writer GREENWICH, N.Y.   New York state acquired the former Susan B. Anthony home in Battenville in 2006 for preservation as a historic site, but the property has stood empty and deteriorating for the past decade. Now, under a recent legal change,… read more

    Historic house for lease; bring own tools
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    Edith Wharton moves from high society to trench warfare

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    Book puts new light on Edith Wharton’s World War I dispatches By KATE ABBOTTContributing writer LENOX, Mass.   Edith Wharton, seen right at The Mount in 1905, had left the Berkshires to live full-time in Paris by the time World War I broke out. Her accounts from the war’s front lines are collected in a… read more

    Edith Wharton moves from high society to trench warfare
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    X-Files of the Berkshires

    Writer documents local tales of the macabre and mysterious By JOHN SEVENContributing writer PITTSFIELD, Mass.   Among the sites writer Joe Durwin investigated in “These Mysterious Hills” is the former main house at Camp Windigo, a former summer camp in the Berkshires hill town of Windsor. Courtesy Joe Durwin Berkshire County may not have an… read more

    X-Files of the Berkshires