The following items are offered for sale by our members. PVHN is providing this service as a convenience for our readers and our members. However, PVHN is NOT the seller of these products and any fulfillment issues should be addressed to the seller directly.
Pioneer Valley
DINOSAURS, DUNES, AND DRIFTING CONTINENTS: The Geology of the Connecticut Valley (3rd edition)
by Richard D. Little, 2003, 180 pages, 8.5 X 11 inches, color cover (Will Sillin’s “In the Late Triassic”)
Abundantly illustrated with maps, diagrams, and photos; plus a bit of humor, too. From plate tectonics to dinosaur discoveries to Lake Hitchcock’s deltas and dunes, plus geologic resources and hazards; this book has it all. And it includes a “Where To See It” appendix to guide you to field sites from the Valley’s head to mouth; plus a glossary and index.
Reviewers comment “marvelous” – L. Margulis, UMass; “excellent” J. Skehan, BC. ISBN: 9616520-7-1
Price — $25
Belchertown
Cat’s Meow Figure of the B.H.A. Stagecoach
Belchertown Historical Association
Cat’s Meow Stagecoack
Great memento of Belchertown’s 250th Anniversary!
Cat’s Meow figure of the Belchertown Historical Association’s stage coach are now available for a limited time! Typical of stage coaches that ran through Belchertown in the 19th Century, this coach was built in Concord, New Hampshire in 1869, and purchased by the Belchertown Historical Association in 1929. The coach is now housed at the Ford Annex on the grounds of the Stone House Museum.
Price — $15.00
Note Cards of Historic Belchertown
Belchertown Historical Association
Share Belchertown’s History with Family and Friends!
Historic Views of Belchertown
Note cards are now available for your personal correspondence. The design shown is of the town common circa 1839. Each set of 6 blank note cards contains one black and white woodcut design of a historical view of Belchertown past.
All proceeds will go towards the ongoing expenses of supporting the Stone House Museum. If you are unable to visit the Stone House to purchase a packet of note cards, they can be purchased by email at: gaamprimo@aol.com.
Price — $3 per set of 6 cards, plus mailing costs.
Belchertown: Bits of History
The Collected Writings of Doris & Harvey Dickinson
Belchertown Historical Association
Belchertown: Bits of History
The fifty stories in this charming collection mark the events, places and people that have made Belchertown special. Drawn from the writings of beloved local fixtures Doris and Harvey Dickinson, these tales show how Belchertown holds firm to its New England Yankee traditions in the heart of the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.
History Press, 2007, 128 pages, ISBN 978.1.59629.264.2
Price — $19.99
Mysteries of Belchertown’s History
by Cliff McCarthy
Belchertown Historical Association
This book is for the curious. Indeed, it’s like an old-time curiosity cabinet filled with interesting objects, photographs and documents each with a tale to tell about the people who have populated Belchertown over two centuries and a half. From the Red Bridge to the Desilets’ farm, from Luther Holland’s Fire Tub to Bardwell’s Votometer, you will encounter tinkerers and tradesmen, merchants and murderers, soldiers and celebrities, who will help you to see with new eyes the town around you — to know the place where you live. Price — $20.00
Greenfield
Gold Head Cane Cloisonne Pin
Historical Society of Greenfield
Boston Post Cane Pin
These beautiful pins are small enameled pins that can be presented to Post Cane recipients (the oldest resident in each town), without risking the cane itself.
Price — $6.00, plus $3.50 shipping & handling
Pins can be ordered by e-mail. Use the Order Form below and email to:
tblagg@recorder.com
(be sure to use “Boston Post Gold Cane Pin” in the subject line)
or Order Form
Westhampton
Local Color SOLD OUT!
Local Color, first published in 2003 in celebration of Westhampton’s 225th anniversary, is again available in limited numbers. This book was truly a collaborative effort and contains town history, family histories and personal anecdotes of many current and former residents. It is fully indexed and contains over 100 historic images of individuals and homes.
Price — $22.00 Sold Out
Contact Barbara Pelissier at bpelissier@gmail.com
Williamsburgh
COLONIAL ASHERIES: The History of an 18th Century Industry, and the Exploitation of the Virgin Hardwood Forests of North America.
The Author with a Goshen Ashery Pot – photo by Eric Weber
A Monograph by Ralmon Jon Black, Researched & Edited for Presentation to the Williamsburgh Historical Society in Massachusetts, 2008, 50 pages, 8.5 X 5.5 inches or a PDF, illustrated with a dozen images of relics of the potash harvest, found by the author, and his perceptions and conclusions are supported with many citations.
The eighteenth-century settling of the upland woodlands was to penetrate a dense virgin stand of forest; cutting travel ways, opening up the best spots for homes and clear-cutting suitable lands for crops and pasture. That, a matter of necessity, all makes sense, but records and early photographs reveal a landscape completely devoid of trees; steep hillsides and rocky tracts, not suited to agriculture, all completely cleared. This monograph tells the unrecorded story, faded from memory, of why and how those first yeomen on the land were able to harvest the forest, the first cash crop when there was none other, and then, in the 19th century, take their industry westward as far as Michigan.
Proceeds to benefit the Williamsburg Historical Society.
Price:
Booklet – $12.00, shipping included;
Illustrated PDF – $5.00 transmitted by email.
Order by phone: [413] 268-7767 or by email: RalmonBlack@gmail.com
American Phoenix, The Remarkable Story of William Skinner, A Man Who Turned Disaster Into Destiny
The remarkable story of nineteenth-century millionaire William Skinner, a leading founder of the American silk industry, who lost everything in a devastating flood—and his improbable, inspiring comeback to the pinnacle of the business world.
In 1845, William Skinner sailed in steerage class from the slums of London to the docks of New York. The only resources he carried with him were his good looks, charisma, good sense and most importantly his brain was full of the secret chemistry of dyeing silk known not in America. In the fledgling silk works on the Northampton Mill River in Massachusetts, he rose quickly rising to prominence nationally in the new luxury industry in the United States. He married into the Warner family and soon opened his own factory in Williamsburg, producing the finest, silk twist as sewing machine thread, best-selling in the country. Lauded a pioneer in the textile industry, he grew to sustain a bustling community—men, women, and children, living and working in the Unquomonk Mill in the village soon called “Skinnerville” in Williamsburg.
Then, in 1874, the Williamsburg Reservoir, five miles above of Skinnerville, failed. Unleashing a tsunami—an inland tidal wave down through the Mill Valley, destroying everything in its path, including Skinner’s Village. In a span of fifteen minutes, his entire life’s work had been swept away, and he found himself one of the central figures in the worst industrial disaster the nation had yet known.
This gripping narrative, a bundle of historic reality collected by Skinner’s great, great granddaughter, Sarah Skinner Kilborne, is an inspiring, unforgettable American story—of a town devastated by unimaginable disaster; an industry succeeding only by the perseverance of a few intrepid entrepreneurs; and a man who had nothing—and everything—to lose as he struggled to rebuild his life a second time, with the one asset to his name: the knowledge in his head, he was the Phoenix of the Flood.
Sarah S. Kilborne, Free Press, 16 October 2012
Hardcover, 432 pages, with period images, 6.5 X 9.5 inches.
ISBN-10: 1451671792
Sarah Skinner Kilborne, great-great-granddaughter of the subject of American Phoenix, is a writer with a special passion for history, living in Germantown, New York.
Proceeds to benefit the Williamsburg Historical Society.
Hardcover Price:$28.00
Order by phone: [413] 268-7767 or by email: RalmonBlack@gmail.com
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The Amherst Historical Society and the Emily Dickinson Museum have some beautiful books for sale. My favorite is Harvesting History: Amherst Massachusetts Farms 1700 – 2010.