The University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Collections: N

North Easton Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends)

North Easton Monthly Meeting of Friends Records

1980-1994
3 boxes 1.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 N437

Responding to a concern expressed in the New England Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends in 1971, Quakers in eastern Massachusetts set out to create an intentional Quakerly community for the care of elder Friends. The first meeting for worship took place in 1977, with the first residents moving in to Friends Crossing in 1979, leading to recognition of North Easton as a monthly meeting under Rhode Island-Smithfield Quarter in 1980. In the following years, however, the reduction in numbers of older members and decline in attenders, led to the decision in 1994 to lay down the meeting.

The records of North Easton Monthly Meeting document the short career of a meeting built around a planned Quaker intentional community. The relatively complete set of minutes is accompanied by a mixed, but useful body of financial records documenting the meeting’s dissolution.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

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

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)
North Fairfield Monthly Meeting of Friends

North Fairfield Monthly Meeting of Friends Records

1979-1994
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 N435

Quaker worship began in Fairfield, Maine, in 1784, under the care of Falmouth Quarterly Meeting, resulting in creation of a preparative meeting in 1803 under aegis of Sidney Monthly. Fairfield Monthly Meeting was set off in 1911, changing its name to North Fairfield in about 1935.

Documentation of North Fairfield Monthly Meeting is quite scant, consisting only of an incomplete set of newsletters and meeting calendars, 1979-1994, and some extracts from meeting minutes, including two referring to acceptance of same sex marriage. The early minutes of the meeting are apparently lost.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

North Fairfield (Me.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MaineSociety of Friends--Maine

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Newsletters
North Hadley Farmers Club

North Hadley Farmers Club Records

1856-1863
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 616 bd

At a December 1856 meeting, the farmers of North Hadley, Mass., approved the proposal that “the interest of Agriculture would be materially promoted by the formation of a farmers club.” Drafting a constitution, they elected Lewis Fish President, Joseph H. Shattuck Vice President, and Levi Stockbridge (a key figure in the early history of the Massachusetts Agricultural College) Secretary, and for several years thereafter, they met regularly to pursue their mission of elevating farming through education and the application of scientific principals to agriculture. The club appears to have folded during the later years of the Civil War.

The minute book contains a relatively detailed record of the meetings of a typical late-antebellum farmers’ society in New England. Typically held during the slower seasons, the meetings centered around discussions of new methods for improving the profitability of farming, from proper plowing to manuring, breeding, marketing, and the various “experiments they have tried” on their farms, but some discussions ran into debates over the morality of tobacco farming or general ideas for improving the social image and status of farming. The minute book includes relatively detailed synopses of each meeting, with the entries prior to 1861 tending to be a bit more extensive.

Subjects

Farming--Massachusetts--North HadleyNorth Hadley (Mass.)--HistoryTobacco

Contributors

North Hadley Farmers ClubStockbridge, Levi, 1820-1904

Types of material

Minute books
North Sandwich Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends)

North Sandwich Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends) Records

1931-2003
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 N736

Quaker worship began in Sandwich, New Hampshire, in 1783 when a group of Friends settled there to avoid signing the pledge to support the American Revolution. Under the care of Dover Monthly Meeting, the settlement grew sufficiently that it was set off in 1802 as the Sandwich Monthly Meeting. With the shift of membership during the nineteenth century, the meeting in North Sandwich survived, evolving into and away from pastoral care.

The records of North Sandwich Monthly Meeting include minutes of meetings and newsletters beginning in the late 1980s. The bulk of the older records for the meeting are housed in the Sandwich Historical Society.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2016

Subjects

New Hampshire--Religious life and customsQuakers--New HampshireSociety of Friends--New Hampshire

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
North Shore Friends Meeting

North Shore Friends Meeting Records

1989-2010
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 N6785

The North Shore Friends Meeting first took shape in 1979-1980 as a Preparative Meeting, meeting in Wenham, Massachusetts. In 1981, it was set off from the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Monthly Meeting, establishing itself as a Monthly Meeting in nearby Beverly Farms, Massachusetts. It is part of the Salem (MA) Quarterly Meeting.

The North Shore Meeting collections consists primarily of a run of monthly newsletter from May 1993 – Jan 2010, but also includes one folder of correspondence and one folder of several State-of-the-Society reports.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

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

Types of material

Annual reportsNewsletters
Northampton (Mass.) Area Mental Health Services

Northampton Area Mental Health Services Records

1973-1983
4 boxes 6 linear feet
Call no.: MS 027

In 1973 Hampshire Day House was established to provide day treatment to patients released from the Northampton State Hospital, which first opened as the Northampton Lunatic Asylum in 1858. As the Day House expanded its services it became known as the Northampton Area Mental Health Services (NAMHS). Valley Programs assumed responsibility for the operation of residential programs for deinstitutionalized individuals in Hampshire and Franklin counties in 1983, and seven years later the NAMHS and Valley Programs merged.

The collection consists of reports, financial records, board minutes, and correspondence for the Hampshire Day House.

Subjects

Community mental health servicesMental health facilities

Contributors

Northampton (Mass.) Area Mental Health Services
Northampton Committee to Stop the War in Iraq

Northampton Committee to Stop the War in Iraq Records

2000-2006
4 boxes 6 linear feet
Call no.: MS 551

Protesting the war since before it began, the Northampton Committee to Stop the War in Iraq continues not only to speak out against the war, but to educate the community about the effects of the war on Iraqi civilians, especially children. Advocates for lifting the sanctions against Iraq in the years leading up to the war, members of the Committee have since called for an end to the war, supporting a Northampton City Council resolution to renounce the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and a subsequent proclamation to honor the dead and wounded on all sides in 2005.

Flyers, signs, and banners document the Committee’s weekly peace vigils protesting the war, and subject files provide background on the group as well as on related issues, such as financing the war, fasting for peace, and the children of Iraq.

Subjects

Activists--MassachusettsIraq War, 2003- --Protest movements--United StatesPacifists--MassachusettsPeace movements--Massachusetts
Northampton Community Chest

Northampton Community Chest Records

1922-1969
6 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 052

Community Chest of Northampton, Massachusetts, that sought the federation of non-sectarian social service agencies for the raising of funds necessary to carry on the work of several agencies doing welfare work in town. Records include constitution and by-laws, Board of Directors membership lists, minutes, annual reports, campaign reports, ledgers, annual meeting planning documents, scrapbooks, and newsclippings.

Subjects

Charities--Massachusetts--Easthampton--History--SourcesFederations, Financial (Social service)--History--SourcesHuman services--Massachusetts--Northampton--History--SourcesNorthampton (Mass.)--Social conditions

Contributors

Northampton Community Chest Association (Northampton, Mass.)

Types of material

Account booksScrapbooks
Northampton Cutlery Company

Northampton Cutlery Company Records

1869-1987
113 boxes 55.75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 058

The Northampton Cutlery Company was among the major firms in a region known for high quality cutlery manufacture. Incorporated in 1871 with Judge Samuel L. Hinckley, its largest stockholder, as its first President, the company was located along the Mill River in Northampton, Massachusetts, where operations continued until its closing in 1987.

Records document company operations and technology used in the cutlery manufacturing process, as well as details about employment of immigrant and working class families in the region. Includes administrative, legal, and financial records; correspondence; personnel and labor relations files; and production schedules and specifications.

Subjects

Cutlery trade--MassachusettsNorthampton (Mass.)--History

Contributors

Northampton Cutlery Company
Northampton Domestic Partnership Coalition

Northampton Domestic Partnership Coalition Collection

1993-1995.
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 512

Established in 1995 to gain city-wide support for a domestic partnership ordinance, the Northampton Domestic Partnership Coalition’s campaign included fund raising and neighborhood canvassing. Their early efforts succeeded, and in May 1995, the Northampton City Council passed an ordinance recognizing domestic partnerships in the city allowing people of either gender to register as a couple and entitling them to visitation and child care rights in schools, jails, and health care facilities. After a summer of campaigning on both sides, the measure failed by fewer than one hundred votes.

Consisting chiefly of newspaper clippings covering both sides of the debate over Northampton’s domestic partnership ordinance, this collection includes perspectives extending from Northampton and Boston to Washington D.C. Among the publications represented are The Catholic Monitor, The Washington Blade, and Boston Magazine.

Subjects

Domestic partner benefits--Law and legislation--MassachusettsGay couples--Legal status, laws, etc.--MassachusettsLesbian couples--Legal status, laws, etc.--MassachusettsNorthampton (Mass.)--Politics and governmentNorthampton (Mass.)--Social life and customs

Contributors

Northampton Domestic Partnership Coalition

Types of material

Clippings (Information artifacts)