The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Collecting area: Massachusetts (East)

Parker, Amos, b. 1792

Amos Parker Account Book

1827-1863
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 211

The son of Stephen and Abigail (Bailey) Parker, Amos Parker was born in Bradford, Mass., on Jan. 2, 1792, but lived most of his adult like in neighboring Groveland. Although his father died when he was young, Parker came from a family that had been settled in the region for at least a century, and enjoyed some success as a trader and proprietor of a general store.

Parker’s accounts include goods for sale (such as lumber and hardware) and the methods and form of payment (principally cash but also in exchange for labor or commodities like butter or eggs). The volume also documents Parker’s role in the burgeoning shoe industry exchanging and receiving shipments of shoes, and supplying local shoemakers with tools..

Acquired from Charles Apfelbaum, 1987

Subjects

Aaron P. Emerson Co. (Orland, Me.)Barter--Massachusetts--Essex County--History--19th centuryGeneral stores--Massachusetts--GrovelandHardware--Massachusetts--Essex County--History--19th centuryLumber trade--Massachusetts--Essex County--History--19th centuryMerchants--Massachusetts--Essex County--Economic conditions--19th centuryShoe industry--Massachusetts--Essex County--History--19th century

Contributors

Parker, Amos, b. 1792

Types of material

Account books
Peabody, Edwin N.

McLean Asylum for the Insane Stereographs

ca. 1870
11 stereographs 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: PH 095
Depiction of Front of the
Front of the "Ladies Appleton" house.

The McLean Asylum for the Insane was founded in 1811 though a charter granted by the Massachusetts Legislature. The original campus was built around a Charles Bullfinch-designed mansion in what’s now Somerville, Mass. and was fully completed by 1818, when it was officially opened. It became the first hospital in New England dedicated to the treatment of the mentally ill. The Asylum outgrew its original campus in the 1890s and moved to Belmont, Massachusetts in 1895, where it was renamed McLean Hospital. The Hospital is still active today as a division of Massachusetts General Hospital and is a teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School.

The eleven stereographs of what was then known as the McLean Asylum for the Insane were taken by Edwin N. Peabody of Salem, Mass. as part of a larger series called “American Views.” They depict the original Somerville campus of McLean Hospital, including the buildings and grounds and the “Ladies’ Park and Billiard Room,” with women patients on the grounds outside.

Purchased from DeWolfe and Wood, 2019

Subjects

McLean Hospital--PhotographsPsychiatric hospital patients--Massachusetts--Somerville--PhotographsPsychiatric hospitals--Massachusetts--Somerville--Photographs

Types of material

Stereographs
Peasley, Alonzo A.

Alonzo A. Peasley Diaries

1861-1863
2 vols. 0.2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 608 bd
Depiction of Fragments of the 1st Massachusetts Infantry flag
Fragments of the 1st Massachusetts Infantry flag

Born in Dorchester, Mass., Alonzo A. Peasley enlisted in the 1st Massachusetts Infantry in May 1861, only weeks after the outbreak of the Civil War. Sent almost immediately southward, Peasley’s regiment was deployed in the Battles of Glendale and First Bull Run in July, and served with the Army of the Potomac throughout the Peninsular Campaign, Frederickbsurg, and Chancellorsville. As part of the 2nd Division, 3rd Army Corps on July 2, 1863, the 1st Massachusetts suffered a 40% casualty rate during fierce fighting along the Emmitsburg Road in Gettysburg, with Peasley sustaining serious wounds. Hospitalized for several months, he was transferred to the Veterans Reserve Corps to serve out his enlistment. In later life, Peasley worked as a letter carrier in Boston.

Exceptionally well-written, observant, and above all active, Peasley’s diaries offer a fine account of a private’s life in the Civil War. The two volumes include detailed descriptions of life in the 1st Massachusetts Infantry covering the entire period from the day the regiment left the state in June 1861 until the time of Peasley’s wounding at Gettysburg in July 1863. Among the highlights are a minutely detailed, thoroughly extended account of Peasley’s first major engagements (Blackburn’s Ford and First Bull Run), excellent account for the Peninsular Campaign, and a stunning account of the Second Battle of Bull Run.

Gift of William A. Carroll, June 2009

Subjects

Bull Run, 1st Battle of, Va., 1861Bull Run, 2nd Battle of, Va., 1862Peninsular Campaign, 1862United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865United States. Army--Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, 1st (1861-1864)

Contributors

Peasley, Alonzo A

Types of material

Diaries
Pembroke Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends)

Pembroke Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends) Records

1674-1988 Bulk: 1702-1876
7 vols., 1 folder 1.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 P463

The town of Pembroke, Mass., was home to one of the oldest monthly meetings in the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends. Established as the Scituate Monthly Meeting in 1672 and settled in Pembroke after 1706, the meeting operated until it was formally laid down in 1876. Worship groups met in Pembroke sporadically from 1964 to 1992.

The records of Pembroke Monthly Meeting contain an extensive series of both the men’s and women’s meetings from the early eighteenth century to 1876, when the meeting was laid down.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2016

Subjects

Pembroke (Mass.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--Massachusetts

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Vital records (Document genre)
Pierrefeu, Yann de

Yann de Pierrefeu Diaries

1927-1938
3 boxes 1.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 815
Depiction of Yann de Pierrefeu, ca.1935
Yann de Pierrefeu, ca.1935

Marie Alphonse Leopold Jehan Tudor Dedons “Yann” de Pierrefeu was born in 1905, the eldest of four children born into a distinguished family and heir to a French marquisate. After attending the Groton School and Harvard, Pierrefeu settled in Cape Ann, marrying Ellen Hemenway Taintor in 1930.

A dedicated, if idiosyncratic diarist, Pierrefeu left a large number of dense and often impenetrable volumes that can be part dream book, part imagination, and part quixotic engagement with the turbulent events of the 1930s. Laden with references to the Oz novels and replete with nicknames and apparently coded language, the diaries offer glimpses into Pierrefeu’s social life and marriage, and his reactions to the Great Depression, national politics, history, and the growing crises in Europe and Asia.

Acquired from Ben Katz, Mar. 2014

Subjects

Depressions--1929DreamsPierrefeu, Ellen Taintor

Types of material

DiariesPhotographs
Planning Services Group (Cambridge, Mass.)

Planning Services Group Records

1956-1986
10 boxes 4.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 335

An urban planning firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that assisted New England cities and towns with initiating and managing urban development projects. The firm had two main types of contracts, urban renewal and comprehensive community planning, and many of their projects were supported with funds designated by the Federal Housing Act of 1949.
Includes organizational histories, memoranda, correspondence, proposal guidelines, materials for citizen participation, job inventories and reports, brochures that document urban growth management and the problems of suburbanization in New England, background studies, planning reports, growth management policies, zoning bylaws and amendments, and the files of Katharine Kumala.

Subjects

Carlisle (Mass.)--HistoryCity planning--New EnglandDurham (N.H.)--HistoryLancaster (Mass.)--HistoryPortsmouth (N.H.)--HistorySanford (Me.)--HistoryUrban renewal--New England

Contributors

Kulmala, Katherine
Port of Dennis (Mass.)

Port of Dennis Enrollment Bonds Collection

1889-1894
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 290 bd

Bonds entered in application for a Certificate of Enrollment for commerce vessels at the port of Dennis in Barnstable, Massachusetts. Volume contains 200 bonds (80 of which are completed), that provide names of the managing owner(s), the name and weight of the vessel, the sum of the bond, and the master of the vessel, and document the commercial activities of some residents in the towns of Dennis, Yarmouth, and Harwich.

Acquired from Charles Apfelbaum, 1987

Subjects

Barnstable County (Mass.)--Commerce--History--19th centuryBarnstable County (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryDennis (Mass. : Town)--Economic conditions--19th centuryDennis (Mass.)--Commerce--History--19th centuryEnrollmentsHarwich (Mass.)--Commerce--History--19th centuryHarwich (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryShip registers--Massachusetts--Barnstable County--HistoryShipping--Massachusetts--Barnstable County--History--19th centuryYarmouth (Mass.)--Commerce--History--19th centuryYarmouth (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century
Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (Washington, D.C.)

Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) Records

1972-1981
12 boxes 17 linear feet
Call no.: MS 479
Depiction of PATCO representatives
PATCO representatives

Established in 1968, PATCO was certified as the exclusive representative for all FAA air traffic controllers. A little more than a decade later, union members went on strike demanding better working conditions despite the fact that doing so was in violation of a law banning strikes by government unions. In response to the strike, the Reagan administration fired the strikers, more than 11,000, and decertified the union. Over time the union was eventually reformed, first in 1996 as an affiliate with the Federation of Physicians and Dentists union, and later as an independent, national union in 2004.

Correspondence, financial records, notes and memos documenting the activities of the Boston area branch of PATCO. Letters, announcements, and planning documents leading up to the 1981 strike shed light on the union’s position.

Subjects

Air traffic controlers--Labor unionsCollective bargaining--Aeronautics--United StatesLabor unions--Massachusetts

Contributors

Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (Washington, D.C.)
Ravett, Abraham

Abraham Ravett Collection

1977-1979
1 box 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 890

The independent filmmaker Abraham Ravett has taught film and video at Hampshire College since 1979. Born in Poland in 1947 and raised in Israel, Ravett emigrated to the United States with his family in 1955. Since earning his BFA and MFA in Filmmaking and Photography, he has won wide recognition for his work, receiving major grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation, among other organizations, and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. His films have been screened internationally and have earned Top Prize at the Viennale 2000, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and Onion City Film/Video Festival.

This small collection contains raw footage on open-reel videotape shot by Ravett and two dvds documenting local communities in eastern Massachusetts: the North End, Boston (1977-1978) and Haverhill High School (1978-1979), the latter taken while artist in residence.

Gift of Abraham Ravett, Mar. 2011

Subjects

Boston (Mass.)--Social life and customsHaverhill (Mass.)--Social life and customsNorth End (Boston, Mass.)--Social life and customs

Types of material

Videotapes
Richards family

Richards Family Collection

1692-1818
2 vols. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1030 bd

A prosperous farmer in the southern reaches of Massachusetts Bay Colony, James Richards was born on June 2, 1658, and never ventured far from his from his home in Weymouth or the adjoining town of Braintree. The son of William Richards and his wife Grace Shaw, and a member of the third generation of Richards in the new world, James was characteristically diverse in his economic activities, raising livestock (sheep and pigs), harvesting salt grass, making salt, and raising crops including rye, corn, and barley, which he malted, presumably for the production of beer. Although most of his transactions were local, he traded as far away as Charlestown and Barnstable.

The Richards family ledgers include a daybook from James Richards kept between 1692-1710 and an account book from his great grandson Jacob Richards kept a century later, along with loose receipts from generations of Richards in between. The volume associated with James Richards records sales of goods produced on his Weymouth farm, including barley, rye, “Indian corn,” salt, mutton and lamb, pork, and eggs, along with occasional records of the sale of goods such as shingles, “board nails,” clapboards, molasses and sugar, lamp oil, tobacco, and cloth. The sparser records from Jacob Richards include accounts that include the sale of cider; cord wood; pine, oak, and maple boards; and shoes.

Gift of Carolyn Taylor, June 2017, through the UMass Press.

Subjects

Agriculture--Massachusetts--WeymouthAgriculture--Massachusetts--WeymouthWeymouth (Mass.)--Economic conditions--17th centuryWeymouth (Mass.)--Economic conditions--18th century

Contributors

Richards, Jacob, 1778-Richards, James, 1658-1711

Types of material

Account booksDaybooks