Abby Epplett, Historian

Last night — Thursday, April 4, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. — was the fifth installment of the 2024 season of Parked at Home hosted by Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (BRVNHP) . This webinar featured curator Beth Miller of Edison National Historical Park as a guest speaking about the work of Mina Edison, “Home Executive of Glenmont”. Park Ranger Allison Horrocks began by describing the life of Betsey Fletcher Whitin , born April 1777 in Northbridge, MA. Her father, Colonel James Fletcher , built the community’s first iron forge along the Mumford River. He married Margaret Wood , the daughter of Colonel Ezra Wood , and inherited a “prime piece of real estate”. In 1793, when Betsey was sixteen years old, she married local blacksmith Paul Whitin , a partner at Fletcher’s Forge forger. Historians call this match “The smartest thing… Paul Whitin, Sr. could have ever done”. As “Cotton Mill Fever” hit the waterways of New England, Whitin and Fletcher established Northbridge Co...

Last night — April 11, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. — was the sixth and final installment of the webinar series Parked at Home hosted by the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (BRVNHP) . Park ranger Allison Horrocks led the session with guest speaker Andrew Donovan, supervisory park ranger at Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site and Salem Maritime National Historic Site , which I most recently visited in October 2022 . Sherrolyn K. provided American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation. I had last visited Saugus Iron Works about eight years ago and appreciated the opportunity to refresh my knowledge about post-medieval mills leading up to the Industrial Revolution. Horrocks explained that Saugus, MA and Pawtucket, RI — one of six sites within BRVNHP — shared a business connection. The founder of Pawtucket in 1671, Joseph Jenks Jr. , originally settled in Saugus with his father, iron worker Joseph Jenks Sr. Years earlier while in England, the Jenks Sr. had worked for ...

Yesterday — Thursday, March 21 at 7:00 p.m. — I watched the third installment of the 2024 season of Parked at Home featuring Amistad National Recreation Area in Texas with park archaeologist Jack Johnson. Park ranger Allison Horrocks of Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park started the webinar by explaining the migration of butterflies between New England and Texas, which takes four generations to complete. She compared this migration to “The Butterfly Effect”, a theory that small events can affect people around the world. In this way, the dam and mill in Pawtucket, RI built in 1793 started social changes and industrialization across the young United States.

Last night — March 29, 2024 — I watched the latest installment of the 2024 season of Parked at Home hosted by the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (BRVNHP) . During this webinar, chief of interpretation Todd Smith joined us from Fairbanks, AK to discuss Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve (GAAR) . Park Ranger Mark Mello began by remarking how people tend to look down at phones and tablets instead of up at nature even when visiting a national park. Mello grew up in a relatively rural part of southeastern Massachusetts where he saw many stars at night. He first experienced severe light pollution as a teenager when he visited Boston and realized he could not see the stars. In contrast, while working at Arches National Park , he saw significantly more stars than at home and understood why the area was dedicated an International Dark Sky Place . The first people to inhabit the Blackstone River Valley had a close connection to the sky. The name Wampano...

The 2024 season of Parked at Home hosted by Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (BRVNHP) returned last night — March 8, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. — with guest speaker and park ranger Samantha Baranski of First State National Historical Park (FSNHP) in Delaware.

On Thursday, March 30 at 7:00 p.m., I attended the fifth installment of the 2023 Parked at Home series hosted via Zoom by Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (BRVNHP) and Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor . During this Parked at Home talk, park rangers Mark Mello and Andrew Schnetzer of BRVNHP were joined by Claire Casey of Ste. Geneviève National Historical Park in Ste. Geneviève, MO , one of the newest parks in the National Park Service. The talk began with a brief presentation by Schnetzer as he described commonalities between the Blackstone Valley area and Ste. Geneviève. He recalled the beginning of English colonization in New England, including the first settlements at Jamestown , the Pilgrims in Plymouth Colony during the 1620s, and the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay Colony from the 1630s onward. At the same time, French colonists arrived in Nouvelle France , hoping to become rich from fur trapping and fishing in areas like Acadia...

On Thursday, March 23 at 7:00 p.m., I attended the fourth installment of the 2023 Parked at Home series hosted via Zoom by Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (BRVNHP) and Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor . During this Parked at Home talk, park rangers Allison Horrocks and Mark Mello of BRVNHP were joined by Richard Cordon of Reconstruction Era National Historical Park (RENHP) in the Sea Islands, including the city of Beaufort, South Carolina on Port Royal Island . Horrocks began the presentation by noting the commonalities between BRVNHP and RENHP. Both parks are comprised of multiple historic sites connected by themes, with evolution of industry as the theme of BRVNHP. Horrocks reminded the audience about the different definitions of reconstruction. Lowercase r  reconstruction refers to rebuilding, repairing, or restoring a physical structure, just as people in the Blackstone Valley have worked on historic mill buildings, while the...

On Thursday, March 2 at 7:00 p.m., Dr. Megan Kate Nelson kicked off the 2023 season of Parked at Home , a series of Zoom webinars hosted by Blackstone River Valley National Historic Park . Dr. Nelson gave a talk on her new book, Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America , published by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster , in 2022. Park ranger Mark Mello acted as the moderator for the session, reviewing the history of BRVNHP and the motivation behind the parked at home series before sharing a clip from Ken Burns’ documentary National Parks: America’s Best Idea . Dr. Nelson’s new perspective about the creation of Yellowstone was inspired by her previous book, The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West , which received numerous accolades for its explanations on the effects of the American Civil War and Reconstruction period. She shared a map demonstrating the size of Yellowstone ,...

Yesterday, on Thursday, April 13, at 7:00 p.m., I watched the final installment of the 2023 season of Parked at Home by the Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park (BRVNHP) . Park rangers Mark Mello and Allison Horrocks spoke about the connection between music, factory work, and protests during the Industrial Revolution. Horrocks began the presentation by reviewing the themes of Parked at Home 2023, which focused on labor and work in company towns or on the frontier. She reminded the audience of the parks they had virtually visited over the seven weeks: Yellowstone National Park Ellis Island & Statue of Liberty in New York City Eisenhower National Historic Site in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Reconstruction Era National Park in South Carolina Ste. Geneviève National Historical Park in Missouri Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Site in Skagway, Alaska The soundscape of each site is unique and inescapable. Horrocks explained that while we ...

Last night — Thursday, March 14 at 7:00 p.m. — was the second installment of the 2024 season of Parked at Home, a webinar series hosted by the National Park Service . In this talk, park ranger Mark Mello of Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park was joined by park ranger Rebecca Schroeder of the Ten Thousand Islands District of Everglades National Park to talk about the history of these sites as related to water.

On Thursday, March 16 at 7:00 p.m., I attended the third installment of the 2023 Parked at Home series hosted via Zoom by Blackstone River Valley National Historic Park (BRVNHP) . Park rangers Mark Mello of BRVNHP and Joshua Bell at Eisenhower National Historic Site discussed the role of the Blackstone River Valley in military productions from the Civil War to the present, along with the career of five-star general and 34 th United States President Dwight “Ike” David Eisenhower . Mello began the presentation with an overview of the United States presidents, forty-five men serving forty-six terms in office with the obligatory reminder that Grover Cleveland served as 22 nd and 24 th . He reminded the audience that twenty-one NPS sites preserve birthplaces, homes, and other important monuments to the presidents . The Blackstone River Valley has strong connections to 27 th president William Howard Taft , whose family lived in the area and whose ancestor, Lydia Chapin Taft ,...