Abby Epplett, Historian

Several weeks ago, I took a three-day trip to the Mystic / Lyme area of Connecticut and visited many historical sites. The most remarkable hidden gem I found during this trip was Thomas Lee House & Little Boston School, properties in Niantic, CT belonging to  East Lyme Historical Society . Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1970 , Lee House was among the best examples of post-medieval houses in New England that I have visited. In the late 1660s, the original portion of the house was built for Ensign Thomas Lee III who used the lower chamber as a Judgement Hall for holding court cases. Additions in 1709 and 1765 brought the house to its current size. The Lee family lived in the house until some point in the 19 th century, when a neighbor bought the property and turned it into a barn. Today, the lower chamber on the left is a 17 th century design, while the lower chamber on the left is an 18 th century or Georgian style design, all...

I recently had an adventure in the Mystic / Lyme region of Connecticut and spent about a day and a half at Mystic Seaport Museum . This is the second post in a six-post miniseries about my visit. Yesterday, I covered Part 1 of “Seaport Village” , and today will cover Part 2, where I visited the meeting house, two residential homes, a one-room schoolhouse, a pair of shops, and a reading room for sailors. Upcoming posts include “Preservation Shipyard”, “Galleries”, “Boats, Signs, & Shows”, and “Bonus Houses”.

I am revisiting small towns in the Blackstone River Valley as I wait for museum season to begin. Today’s stop is Uxbridge, MA. These quick history stops is based on a class that I taught through Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Tufts University .

A tiny little town with a population under five hundred residents, Tyringham has several cute quick history stops. The sunflower painted silo of Little Way Farm, while not a true history stop, set the stage for the classic and whimsical buildings in the town, including Tyringham School House & Town Offices, Union Church in Tyringham, and Santarella: Tyringham’s Gingerbread House. As a bonus fun fact, the official town website states that the town was named after wealthy Jane Tyringham , who was a cousin of Sir Francis Bernard , the royal governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1762. This makes Tyringham the only town in Massachusetts named after a woman. Tyringham School House & Town Offices Like many small New England towns, Tyringham has its own one-room schoolhouse built in 1877 and now serving as a town-owned building for a wide range of purposes. A school has stood on the site since 1782. I had previously visited many similar schoolhouses, including...

Along with visiting Historic New England’s Dole Little House and the Museum of Old Newbury during my last trip to the Newbury & Newburyport region in June 2023, I visited the Lower Green Area of Newbury. Back in 2010, Preservation Massachusetts listed this area as one of the ten most threatened historic sites in the state. Stops include places maintained by the Sons and Daughters of the First Settlers of Newbury (SDFSN) ; a stewardship property protected by a Historic New England (HNE) Preservation Easement Program , and historic signage created by the Massachusetts Bay Colony Tercentenary Commission (MBCTC) .

A few weeks ago, I visited Moore State Park in Paxton, MA. This beautiful public park covers about 400 acres of woodlands, meadows, and waterfalls on Turkey Hill Brook . Locals know the site for its flowering bushes, including azaleas, mountain laurels, and rhododendrons, and the site has the remains of buildings from the 18 th through early 20 th centuries. The park is even listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Moore State Park Historic District . More recently, in 2003, the American Chestnut Foundation planted blight-resistant trees in the park.

On the third Monday of January is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, often abbreviated as MLK Day. This day commemorates the life of service led by civil rights activist Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. , whose birthday is on January 15. This is the only federally observed day of service in the United States , and the holiday is observed by many companies. I used this day to volunteer at Asa Waters Mansion and Grass Hill School, both historic buildings located in Millbury, MA.

On January 14, 2023, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., I took a guided walking-and-driving tour through the village of Primrose, Rhode Island, which was led by Rich Keene of the North Smithfield Heritage Association (NSHA) . Rich was the perfect guide, as he is a descendent of nearly all the people mentioned during the tour. After Rich gave a concise overview of early North Smithfield history, the tour stopped at the Othniel Matterson Homestead, the Follett Homestead, Grange Road, and Primrose Pond.

During my three-day trip of the Portsmouth, New Hampshire area, I visited Old York Historical Society in York, Maine. The society owns and maintains several buildings and historic properties that I saw on my trip, including their Museum Center, Jefferds Tavern, York Corner Schoolhouse, the Old Gaol, and Emerson-Wilcox House.

Do you like historic homes, woodland trails, traditional gardens, handmade furniture, and charismatic religious cults? Canterbury Shaker Village is the destination for you. The Village was by the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, also known as the Shakers. This religious organization was established by Mother Ann Lee , an English woman claiming to be the incarnation of Jesus Christ. In 1792, the Shakers constructed the Village in the rural town of Canterbury, New Hampshire, and it became one of the most successful communitarian centers on the 19 th and early 20 th century. Now a National Historic Landmark >, the Village is open for visiting from dawn to dusk and provides a unique look into a nearly vanished culture.

On the same day that I visited Frederick Law Olmsted NHS , I perused a pair of parks in Brookline, MA.

All across Conanicut Island are sites maintained by Jamestown Historical Society . The sites opened to the public for the first time that year on the day I visited Jamestown. I visited three of the society’s sites: Jamestown Windmill, Conanicut Friends Meetinghouse, and Jamestown Museum & Town Hall. Jamestown Windmill The gray cedar shingled Jamestown Windmill was built in 1787 by the Watson family, the same people who owned Watson Farm down the street. The windmill was used for grinding corn in cornmeal. The windmill was in operation until 1896 when modern industrial methods of grounding corn made the business unsustainable.