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NEW SALEM — Megan O’Loughlin, an independent archivist retained by the Swift River Valley Historical Society, has been busy at the museum since Aug. 1, inventorying and cataloging items at the Whitaker-Clarey House on the museum grounds. Among the hundreds of items to be inventoried and catalogued during the project are all paper-based and printed items such as books, scrapbooks, pictures and brochures, as well as paintings. Megan is a graduate of Simmons College (now University) with a Master’s Degree in Library Science and Information Services.
“There is no heat, no air conditioning, no dehumidification in the house, a combination of factors increasing the chances for deterioration of the materials. The archives room is climate controlled and built specifically for housing our sensitive resources,” said Dot Frye of the Swift River Historical Society. The $1,500 inventorying project was partially funded by the New Salem Cultural Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council as well as funds donated by members of the Swift River Historical Society, said Frye.
Some of the inventoried and catalogued items were on display in the house while other items were in storage in bureau drawers, desk drawers and closets, Frye said. Among the items discovered during the inventorying and cataloging project were a collection of World War I letters written by Clarence Almquist of Dana, to his mother and sister Anna. The letters were stored in a Patterson Tobacco Co. box.
The Whitaker-Clary House was built for William Whitaker in 1816. The maple tree in the front yard was a sapling when the home was built. The curbstones which separate the lawn from the road were floated down the Millers River, probably on rafts and hauled to the site by oxen, according to Frye.
The second owners of this house, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Clary, purchased it for $2,600. The Whitakers and the Clarys were the only owners and residents of this house. It was considered an elegant home for the times, heated by seven fireplaces built into two enormous chimneys and illuminated by lamps and candles. Water for household use had to be hand-carried from a nearby well.
The house still has its original wallpaper and stenciling but the entire contents of this house were sold at auction before the historical society purchased it. Everything now in the collection has been donated to the museum and came from the Swift River Valley, the lost Quabbin towns of Dana, Prescott, Enfield and Greenwich as well as New Salem but is not original to the house. The artifacts date from 1750, when the towns were being established, to 1938, the year they ceased to exist by an act of the Massachusetts legislature. “The house has been the focal point of the museum since 1961 and will remain so,” Frye said.
The museum’s next step will be to transfer all of the inventoried and cataloged items to the archive room, located in the Prescott Church Museum building, also located at the museum site. “It will be a very time-consuming effort and labor intensive. We need to hire an archivist to oversee the work and hopefully will be able to enlist some of our members to volunteer to help with the project. Every book and other paper-based item must be checked for mold, bugs or other foreign matter before it can go into the archives room. This will require training the volunteers and oversight of the process. Each individual item will be added to the archival database, labeled and placed on shelving in the archives room. There it will be available to researchers and guests of the museum by appointment,” Frye said.
Other future projects planned by the historical society include a scheduled new roofing installation and repair of the cupola at the Prescott Church Museum building. A diorama of the Rabbit Run Railroad through the Quabbin Valley is currently being constructed by Ken Levine of Petersham and will include a functioning HO-scale train running through the diorama. The diorama will be ready for viewing in the coming 2021 season.
Fundraising efforts will begin this winter to install electrical wiring and lighting in the Whitaker-Clary House. “There is very little electrical service in the house currently. We plan to install overhead lights or wall sconces in every room and some additional outlets. This work will present a “challenge” to an electrical contractor due to the beam construction, the horse-hair plaster walls and the need to take care around invaluable wall-coverings and wooden interior trim boards,” Frye said.
Those wishing to donate to the museum to help to relocate the inventoried and catalogued items to the archive room may send donations to The Swift River Valley Historical Society, P.O. Box 22, New Salem, MA 01355.
Carla Charter is a freelance writer from Phillipston, Ma. Her writing focuses on history with a particular interest in the history of the North Quabbin area.