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

Collecting area: Massachusetts (Central)

Quabbin Reservoir

Quabbin Clipping Collection

1888-1983
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 040

To meet the growing needs for potable water in the Boston metropolitan region, the Massachusetts state legislature ordered the evacuation of the relatively sparsely populated towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott, as well as portions of other adjoining towns such as New Salem, to make way for the construction of a massive reservoir. Over the course of almost two decades, the population of the towns was systematically relocated, the houses moved or razed, and bed of the future reservoir was stripped of trees and brush. The last remaining residents of the region were removed in 1938 and the four primary towns were officially disincorporated as the dam was completed and the waters began to rise.

A collection of newspaper clippings documenting the Swift River Valley towns that were evacuated to make way for the Quabbin Reservoir, including Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, Millington (New Salem), and Prescott. The clippings are concentrated on the towns’ final days and include an incomplete run of The Springfield Union series, “Letters from Quabbin,” series, which recorded the history of the Quabbin Reservoir from site selection to the relocation of houses and people and the disbanding of local organizations and communities.

Gift of Donald Howe, 1960

Subjects

Dana (Mass.)--HistoryEnfield (Mass.)--HistoryGreenwich (Mass.)--HistoryNew Salem (Mass.)--HistoryPrescott (Mass.)--HistoryQuabbin Reservoir Region (Mass.)--History

Types of material

Clippings (Information artifacts)
Quabbin Towns

Quabbin Towns Local History Collection

1927-1986
5 boxes 8 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1244

To meet the growing needs for potable water in the Boston metropolitan region, the Massachusetts state legislature ordered the evacuation of the relatively sparsely populated towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott, as well as portions of other adjoining towns such as New Salem, to make way for the construction of a massive reservoir. Over the course of almost two decades, the population of the towns was systematically relocated, the houses moved or razed, and bed of the future reservoir was stripped of trees and brush. The last remaining residents of the region were removed in 1938 and the four primary towns were officially disincorporated as the dam was completed and the waters began to rise.

The Quabbin Towns Local History Collection contains an assortment of materials that document the history of the Swift River Valley towns that were evacuated to make way for the Quabbin Reservoir, including Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, Millington (New Salem), and Prescott. The collection includes newspaper scrapbooks and photographs.

Gift of Friends of the Quabbin, Inc., 2024.

Subjects

Dana (Mass.)--History

Types of material

Newspaper clippings
Quabbin Towns

Quabbin Towns Annual Reports Collection

1864-1937
4 boxes 2 linear feet
Call no.: MS 368

During the 1920s and 1930s, the populations of four towns in the Swift River Valley, Mass., were relocated to make way for completion of the Quabbin Reservoir. Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott were formally disincorporated in 1938, marking an end to nearly a century of small town government in the region.

The annual reports of the four towns of the Quabbin region provide important documentation of the activities of the local officials and the lives of residents in Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott. Issued under various titles and with variable content, these reports include information on the activities of town officials, including the Selectmen, Overseers of the Poor, School Committee, and Library. In most years, the reports also include town expenditures and a list of residents with a valuation of property and taxes paid. Although substantial, this collection is not complete, particularly prior to 1880.

Subjects

Dana (Mass.)--HistoryEnfield (Mass.)--HistoryGreenwich (Mass.)--HistoryPrescott (Mass.)--HistoryQuabbin Reservoir Region (Mass.)--History
Ray Family

Ray Family Papers

1898-1953 Bulk: 1911-1944
2 boxes 1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 432

Herman Edgar Ray, son of Fred Jackson Ray and Mabel Cosella Merriam Ray, was born in Westminster, Massachusetts on May 28, 1911. Herman Edgar married Anita Crabtree on May 4, 1934 in Gardner, Massachusetts. The family remained in the area throughout the 1950s as indicated by their correspondence.

The collection consists primarily of family photographs spanning three identifiable generations of the Ray family, and contains photograph albums, formal portraits, and miscellaneous photographs. Additional material includes postcards, correspondence, and hand-made greeting cards. The materials document the childhood of Herman Edgar Ray. His extended family includes: Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Ray, Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Ray, Ray Fenno, Mary Emergene Fenno, Mr.and Mrs. Charles A. Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Davis, Helen Gates, Mary Russell, and Eleanor Howe.

Acquired from Peter Masi, Apr. 2005

Subjects

Camping--MassachusettsFamily--MassachusettsMassachusetts--Description and travelPortraits--History--20th centuryWestwinster (Mass.)--History

Contributors

Ray, Herman Edgar

Types of material

Photograph albumsPhotographs
Richardson, Mary Ann Moore

Mary Ann Moore Richardson Collection

1842-1854
1 folder 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1072 bd
Depiction of Program of the student exhibition, Quaboag Seminary, 1847
Program of the student exhibition, Quaboag Seminary, 1847

The Quaboag Seminary was founded in Warren, Mass., in 1842 by two of Amherst College’s early graduates, and was incorporated eight years later. During its relatively brief period of operation, its best-known student may have bene the abolitionist and feminist Lucy Stone, who enrolled in 1841 to prepare for entrance examinations at Oberlin College. In 1856, the school was purchased by the town to serve as the local high school.

This small collection consists primarily of printed materials associated with the short-lived Quaboag Seminary of Warren, Mass. In addition to a school catalogue for 1847, the collection includes two issues — apparently all that were printed — of the student literary periodical, the Quaboag Quarterly Offering (1845); eight programs for school exhibitions (1842-1854); a flier announcing the spring term 1848; and two writing exercise books kept by Mary Ann Moore (later Richardson) while a student at the Seminary.

Gift of I. Eliot Wentworth, Mar. 2019

Subjects

Boarding schools--Massachusetts--WarrenSchools--Massachusetts--WarrenWarren (Mass.)--History--19th century

Contributors

Quaboag Seminary

Types of material

Broadsides (Notices)Catalogues (Documents)PeriodicalsPrograms (Documents)
Sagendorph Woolen Co.

Sagendorph Woolen Company Daybook

1885-1887
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 430

The Sagendorph Woolen Company of East Brookfield, located about sixty miles southwest of Boston in Worcester County, Massachusetts, maintained sixteen looms and specialized in the carding of shoddy and the manufacture of cashmeres, repellents, and suitings. There is some evidence that Sagendorph also spun raw materials for other companies and sold some textile goods on commission.

This daybook records the daily transactions between the Sagendorph Woolen Company and other businesses, local residents, and the company’s labor force. These detailed entries present a dynamic picture of the company’s manufacturing operations ranging from the purchase of raw materials to the sales of finished products.

Subjects

Carding (textiles)East Brookfield (Mass.)--HistoryTextile construction processes and techniquesTextile industry--Massachusetts--HistoryTextile manufacturers--MassachusettsTextile materialsYarn-making processes and techniques

Contributors

Sagendorph Woolen Company

Types of material

Daybooks
Skinner, Kenneth G.

Kenneth G. Skinner Collection

ca.1908-1928
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1027
Depiction of Spiritualist Church and Lucy Parker's house, ca.1908
Spiritualist Church and Lucy Parker's house, ca.1908

Granted in 1737 and incorporated in 1754, Greenwich, Mass., was the first town in the Swift River Valley settled by Europeans. Sitting astride the East and Middle branches of the Swift River and forming the eastern boundary of Hampshire County, Greenwich was primarily an agricultural town with light manufacturing and, beginning in the later nineteenth century, an active tourist trade. The town’s population peaked at over 1,100 early in the nineteenth century, declining slowly thereafter.

The photographic postcards in this collection all relate to the Quabbin town of Greenwich and were originally housed in an album of uncertain provenance. Primarily “real photo” postcards and dating between approximately 1908 and 1928, they were labeled by a knowledgeable, but unknown person at a later date to identify the houses, roads, stores, and views. Unlike many of the commercial postcards of the day, they present a very down-to-earth view of the town, its rocky fields, mills, houses and stores, and its summer hotels.

Subjects

Dwellings--Massachusetts--Greenwich--PhotographsGeneral stores--Massachusetts--Greenwich--PhotographsGreenwich (Mass.)--PhotographsQuabbin Reservoir Region (Mass.)--PhotographsSwift River Valley (Mass.)--Photographs

Types of material

Photographic postcardsPhotographs
Smith, Hollis A.

Hollis A. Smith Papers

1910-1940 Bulk: 1929-1931
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 965

A native of Haverhill, Mass., and graduate of the University of Maine (BF, 1925) and Harvard (MF, 1927), Hollis A. Smith attempted to establish a career in forestry in the late 1920s. Working as superintendent of the new Martha’s Vineyard State Forest and as a consulting forester associated with the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Smith worked with clients to develop planting and harvesting plans and to care for the trees. With his practice languishing, Smith settled in Martha’s Vineyard and worked as a surveyor and other positions.

This collection contains correspondence, job reports, and ephemera from Hollis Smith’s relatively brief career as a consulting forester in Massachusetts, nearly all concentrated in the years 1929-1931. Nearly half of the collection consists of correspondence with clients (or potential clients), with a few interesting reports on properties.

Acquired from the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Archives, Sept. 2016

Subjects

Forestry--Massachusetts
Solander, Arvo A.

Arvo A. Solander Papers

1930-1958
8 boxes 4 linear feet
Call no.: MS 587

Graduating from Harvard in the thick of the Great Depression, Arvo A. Solander worked as a civil and sanitary engineer for a variety of state and federal agencies, including the Civil Works Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps. During the 1930s, as opportunity arose, he filled positions as a road engineer, in the design and construction of water and sewage plants, in pollution control, as a safety engineer in the shellfish industry, and in mosquito control, taking jobs throughout Massachusetts and as far away as Tennessee. After using his talents as an officer in the Sanitary Corps during the Second World War, based primarily in Arkansas, Solander returned home to Massachusetts and opened a private engineering office in South Hadley. He worked as a civil engineer and surveyor until his death in January 1976.
The Arvo Solander Papers consists of twenty-four bound volumes documenting thirty years of varied work as an engineer, including his contributions to the construction of the Quabbin Reservoir. Within the bound volumes are a wide range of reports, typescripts, sketches and diagrams, graphs, contracts and design specifications, photographs, and postcards.

Subjects

Civil engineersCivilian Conservation Corps (U.S.)Depressions--1929Fisheries--MassachusettsMosquitoes--ControlQuabbin Reservoir (Mass.)Roads--Design and constructionSanitary engineersSewage disposal plants--Design and constructionUnited States. Federal Civil Works AdministrationWater--Pollution--TennesseeWater-supply--MassachusettsWestfield State SanatoriumWorld War, 1939-1945Wrentham State School

Contributors

Solander, Arvo A

Types of material

PhotographsScrapbooks
Storrsville (Mass.) Lyceum Debating Society

Storrsville Lyceum Debating Society Minutebook

1842-1846
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 016 bd

Club that met weekly or bi-weekly in Storrsville, Massachusetts, to debate questions of local, national, and international interest including religion, abolition and slavery, human nature, penal reform, the lure of the West, intemperance, and war and peace. Single minutebook includes two versions of the constitution, proposed and debated questions, the teams, the outcome, and notations of any additional activities that took place during the formal meetings.

Subjects

Ciceronean Debating Club (Dana, Mass.)Dana (Mass. : Town)--Intellectual life--19th centuryDebates and debating--Massachusetts--Dana (Town)--HistoryStorrsville (Dana, Mass. : Town)--Intellectual life--19th centuryStorrsville Lyceum Debating Society (Dana, Mass.)--Archives

Types of material

Minute books