Abby Epplett, Historian

Back in late June 2026, I visited the Sutton Center Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places , part of the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor (BHC) in Massachusetts. So many historic buildings, monuments, and stories were packed into this highly walkable area that I am dividing my adventure into three parts. The first part will focus on a church, town common, municipal building, and several houses. Aiding in my trip were easy-to-follow walking tours created by BHC  over a decade ago and by  Sutton Historical Society  as part of America250.

This week, I look at the rarely discussed relationship between Wood-elves and Woodmen, two peoples of Middle-earth who lived in Mirkwood. While the short-lived mortal Men had vastly different lifestyles than the immortal Elves, the two groups shared the forest peacefully, united against the Dark Powers of Mordor. During this essay, I will review the background of these two fictional groups and compare them to other forest-dwellers in the real world, including a pair of cultures in Cameroon that once shared the forest and prehistoric collaboration between early humans.

Back in June, after my visit to the Danforth Museum and quick history stops throughout Framingham , I visited The Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA. I saw so much history at this site, now on the National Register of Historic Places as The Wayside Inn Historic District , that I am dividing the experience into two parts. In Part 1 , I told the early history of Wayside Inn, the Old Barn, Longfellow Memorial Gardens, the Ice House, and Josephine’s Pond. In Part 2, I will describe Old Boston Post Road, the Redstone Schoolhouse, Mary-Martha Chapel, The Wayside Inn Grist Mill, and the Gatehouse.

Back in June, after my visit to the Danforth Museum and quick history stops throughout Framingham , I visited The Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA. I saw so much history at this site, now on the National Register of Historic Places as The Wayside Inn Historic District , that I am dividing the experience into two parts. In Part 1, I tell the early history of Wayside Inn, the Old Barn, Longfellow Memorial Gardens, the Ice House, and Josephine’s Pond. In Part 2, I will describe Old Boston Post Road, the Redstone Schoolhouse, Mary-Martha Chapel, The Wayside Inn Grist Mill, and the Gate House.

After this instrumental, I will take a short break from composing music to research topics in folklore and Real World history related to The Lord of the Rings . Out of the seventeen scenes to appear in this chapter, this instrumental is for the twelfth scene. In this piece, I include a new theme to represent Gandalf interrogating Sméagol/Gollum, a new motif to represent the moon, and the return of multiple recurring themes and instruments.

Back in June, I visited Framingham and Sudbury in Massachusetts for a day away. During that time, I visited the Danforth Museum and took quick history stops in Framingham, including a state park, historic buildings around the original center of town, and a cemetery.

Back in June 2026, I visited the Danforth Museum , part of Framingham State University (FSU) in Framingham, MA. During my visit, I admired the Danforth Annual Juried Exhibition featuring multimedia works by local artists, viewed staff favorites from the permanent collection, and learned more about sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller , whose life I have researched as the Historian-in-Residence at the National Museum of Mental Health Project (NMMHP) . While walking through the galleries, I enjoyed listening to artist statements on the free Danforth Art Museum Mobile Guide app , a feature I would love to see at other museums.

Last Saturday, July 25, I spent the day at Historic Deerfield (details coming in a few weeks!) and watched the play A Stake in the Ground: 1774 . Part of Plays in Place , a New England-based organization founded in 2018, the play was set on site in Deerfield, MA, allowing the audience to see events where they “really happened” over 250 years ago and remember the events leading up to the American Revolution.

While describing the history of the Ring to Frodo, Gandalf explained that Sméagol/Gollum and Bilbo had many similarities, as they were both of hobbit-kind. While this bothers Frodo, he would later realize Gandalf wisely spoke the truth, if in a long-winded way. Because of their shared background, hobbit-kind quickly understood each other, more so than “a dwarf, an orc, or even an elf”. Tolkien viewed this connection as being of the same cynn , an Old English word meaning “family”; it’s also the ancestor of the word “kin” . It’s important to note that Tolkien did not see genetics or “blood” as an indicator of personality, although plenty of people in his day did, and used the concept to suppress others. He believed instead that language was what brought people together. Accordingly, I will take a brief look at linguistic factors that make the speech of hobbit-kind unique, along with how Sméagol’s mental decline changed his speech. After that, I will give an overview of the music theo...

Back in June, I took a day trip to nearby Milford, MA to walk on the Upper Charles Trail and explore the downtown area on foot. I was born in Milford and have spent my entire life visiting the town but never did quick history stops there! This is the third of three parts about Milford. The first part covered the trail, a memorial, two churches, and a pair of repurposed buildings. The second part included an armory turned youth center, two town halls, and several churches. In the third part, I will discuss a funeral home, a library and its dog statue, an opera building, two war memorials, a church, and a post office turned police station.