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

Collecting area: Massachusetts (West)

Montague, Holland

Holland Montague Diary

1857-1877
1 vol. 0.15 linear feet
Call no.: MS 257 bd

A lifelong diarist, Granby farmer Holland Montague wrote chiefly about life on the farm where he made a comfortable living supplying produce to surrounding towns. While most of his entries are bland accounts of the weather and agricultural duties, Montague occasionally offers a glimpse into his personal life, especially on the diary’s endpapers, where he records medicinal remedies for humans and livestock, purchases made and payments received, as well as a valuation of his property in 1872. Very few references are made to political events of the day, including the Civil War, although he does note on April 16, 1865 that President Lincoln is dead.

Laid into the volume is a manuscript copy of the 1826 document listing depositions to be taken from individuals in the petition of the town of Granby against the town of South Hadley relating to a dispute over the boundary line between the two towns.

Transferred from Dartmouth College Special Collections, July 1989

Subjects

Farmers--Massachusetts--GranbyGranby (Mass.)--History

Types of material

Diaries
Morley, Cathrin

Cathrin Morley Poetry Album

1832-1837
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 136 bd

Possibly a worker who boarded in Van Duesenville, a growing industrial area of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Notebook consists of poems, most of which concern religious faith and local events that were written in Cathrin Morley’s hand but may not have been created by her. Also includes a list of significant family dates.

Subjects

Christian poetry, American--Massachusetts--Great BarringtonDeath--PoetryGreat Barrington (Mass.)--HistoryMorley familySex role--Massachusetts--Great Barrington--PoetrySpiritual life--PoetryVan Duesenville (Great Barrington, Mass.)Women--Poetry

Contributors

Morley, Cathrin

Types of material

NotebooksPoems
Mosakowski, Ken

Ken Mosakowski Papers

1970s-2006
80 boxes 120 linear feet
Call no.: MS 560

Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA to request materials from this collection.

As a student at the University of Massachusetts in the late 1960s, Ken Mosakowski first became a political activist when he protested the Vietnam War. Seeking an outlet to spread his message of peace and justice, he reached out to the student radio station WMUA, and started a weekly talk show Focus. For 38 years Mosakowski hosted the radio program every Sunday afternoon discussing topics of both local and national significance. Deeply involved in Amherst politics, he ran for the Amherst Select Board and lost; the loss, however, did not diminish his passion for serving the town and community he loved. Vocal on many issues, Mosakowski was known for being an activist in electoral politics and more recently an advocate for the homeless in Amherst, urging the creation of the Emergency Homelessness Task Force created in April 2006.

The Ken Mosakowski Papers document more than thirty years of his political activism. Saving everything from flyers and newspaper clippings to campaign buttons and posters, the collection documents a wide array of local and national issues. More importanly, it sheds light on issues of personal importance to Mosakowski, and as such chronicles his contributions as a lifelong activist.

Subjects

Activists--MassachusettsAmherst (Mass.)--HistoryAmherst (Mass.)--Politics and governmentPolitical activists--MassachusettsSocial action--Massachusetts--History

Contributors

Mosakowski, Ken
Restrictions: The Mosakowski collection has temporarily been moved offsite; it is closed to research. Contact SCUA for more information.
Mount Toby Meeting of Friends

Mount Toby Meeting of Friends Collection

1977-1991
1 box 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 694

The Northampton Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends (later the Middle Connecticut Valley Monthly Meeting) was formally established in 1939, bringing together the small community of Friends in Western Massachusetts. In 1959, the small preparative meetings in Amherst, Greenfield, Northampton, and South Hadley agreed to consolidate to create a more vital gathering. After five years without a fixed location, a Friend was moved to donate three acres of land on Long Plain Road in Leverett on which to build a proper meetinghouse. When that building opened in 1964, the meeting was renamed the Mt Toby Meeting.

Reflecting a strong history of promoting peace social justice, the Mt. Toby collection documents Friends’ involvement in a wide variety of issues ranging from war tax resistance (Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner), the “Colrain action” when the Kehler/Corner house was seized by the IRS), peace education and civil disobedience, refugee resettlement, the Sanctuary movement, and support for LGBT issues and racial equality. The collection consists largely of fliers and newsletters, ephemera, and newspaper clippings.

Subjects

Corner, BetsyKehler, RandyMount Toby Meeting of Friends (Quakers)PacifistsPeace movements--MassachusettsSanctuary movementSociety of Friends--MassachusettsWar tax resistance--Massachusetts
Mount Toby Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends)

Mount Toby Monthly Meeting (Society of Friends) Records

1937-2018
5 vols., 11 boxes 4.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 M686

Mount Toby Monthly Meeting of Friends (formerly Middle Connecticut Valley Monthly) was formed in the 1930s in Northampton, Mass., during a time of growth for Quakers in western New England. Now located in Leverett, Mass., the meeting has had two monthly meetings set off and has supported a number of small worship groups and preparative meetings in the region.

The records of Mount Toby Monthly Meetings include nearly complete minutes from its founding as an independent Monthly Meeting in 1939 to the present, with an extensive, but not complete set of newsletters. Covering nearly eighty years of Friends centered in the academic communities of the central Connecticut River Valley, the collection also includes some documentation of the Greenfield Preparative Meeting and a guest book from the Springfield Worship Group.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Greenfield (Mass.)--Religious life and customsLeverett (Mass.)--Religious life and customsNorthampton (Mass.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--MassachusettsSociety of Friends--MassachusettsSpringfield (Mass.)--Religious life and customs

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)Newsletters
Mountain House (South Deerfield, Mass.)

Mountain House Photograph Collection

ca.1865
3 photographs 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: PH 042
Depiction of Mountain House, ca.1865
Mountain House, ca.1865

A popular tourist destination during the post-Civil War years, the Mountain House hotel was built on the summit of Sugar Loaf Mountain, in South Deerfield, Mass., by Granville Wardwell in 1864 on property owned by his father-in-law Dwight Jewett. Positioned near the southern end of the mountain, the hotel provided tourists with a stunning panoramic vista of the Connecticut River Valley.

This small collection consists of three scenic cartes de visite from a larger series featuring views from the Mountain House. The images include No. 6, a view of five persons perched on the southeast promontory of Sugar Loaf with a view to the northeast across the Connecticut River to Mt. Toby; No. 10, Mountain House with a group of nine men and women posed on the lawn with telescope and tripod; No. 18, view of barns at the southern base of Sugar Loaf Mountain.

Subjects

Mountain House (South Deerfield, Mass.)--PhotographsSouth Deerfield (Mass.) -- Pictorial worksSugar Loaf Mountain (Mass.)--Photographs

Contributors

Wardwell, Granville

Types of material

Photographs
Mungo, Raymond, 1946-

Raymond Mungo Papers

1966-2008
6 boxes 3 linear feet
Call no.: MS 659
Depiction of Raymond Mungo, 1967
Raymond Mungo, 1967

Born in a “howling blizzard” in February 1946, Raymond Mungo became one of the most evocative writers of the 1960s counterculture. Through more than fifteen books and hundreds of articles, Mungo has brought a wry sense of humor and radical sensibility to explorations of the minds and experiences of the generation that came of age against a backdrop of the struggles for civil rights and economic justice, of student revolts, Black Power, resistance to war, and experimentation in communal living.

Consisting of the original typescripts and manuscripts of ten of Raymond Mungo’s books, along with corrected and uncorrected galleys and a small number of letters from publishers. Among the other materials in the collection are thirteen photographs of Mungo taken by Clif Garboden and Peter Simon during and immediately after his undergraduate years at Boston University; a DVD containing motion pictures of life at Packer Corners in 1969 and 1977; and an irate letter from a writer regarding the status of poems he had submitted to Liberation News Service.

Subjects

Communal living--MassachusettsCommunal living--VermontLiberation News Service (Montague, Mass.)Montague Farm Community (Mass.)Nineteen SixtiesPacker Corners Community (Vt.)Porche, Verandah

Contributors

Garboden, ClifMungo, Raymond, 1946-Simon, Peter, 1947-

Types of material

Photographs
Murray, Samuel E., 1906-1989

Samuel E. Murray Papers

ca.1945-1989
14 boxes 7 linear feet
Call no.: MS 568
Depiction of Samuel Murray, 1966
Samuel Murray, 1966

One of the pioneers in the ephemera trade, Samuel E. Murray (1906-1989) was a long time antiquarian bookman, based at his home in Wilbraham, Mass. Born on Christmas Day, 1906, Murray interrupted his college studies to go to sea, but after the Depression left him unemployed, he landed a position as sales representative for McGraw-Hill and, later, G. & C. Merriam and other firms. Always an avid book collector, Murray left the publishing industry in 1970 to become a full time bookseller. Without ever advertising or issuing catalogs, he developed a wide reputation among dealers and collectors for his keen eye and perspicacity with rare and uncommon books. A generalist by trade, Murray had a particular fondness for colorplate books and travel literature, but was renowned both for his extensive reference library and for recognizing early on the value of ephemera. After a lengthy bout with myelofibrosis, Murray died at home on June 4, 1989.

The Murray Papers contain correspondence between Murray and a range of his fellow booksellers and clients, as well as his extensive card files on fellow book dealers and wants lists. The collection offers insight into the operations of a well known antiquarian bookman during the 1970s and 1980s.

Subjects

Antiquarian booksellers--MassachusettsBook collectingBooks--Want listsPrinted ephemera--Collectors and collecting--Massachusetts

Contributors

Antiquarian Booksellers Association of AmericaEphemera Society of AmericaMurray, Samuel E., 1906-1989
Nash-Scott Family

Nash-Scott Family Papers

ca.1830-1957
15 boxes 15 linear feet
Call no.: MS 581
Depiction of Nash family
Nash family

Long-time residents of Hadley, Massachusetts, the Nash and Scott families were united in 1881 when John Nash, a farmer, married Lizzie Scott. Of their seven children, Herman B. Nash, graduated from the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1917, and immediately enlisted in the army, serving in France at the close of World War I. His youngest sister, Helen, kept the family connected during these years by writing and distributing a family newsletter, the Plainville News.

The Nash-Scott Family Papers contain a number of photographs, including an album capturing a trip to the west coast in 1915 and a canoe trip to Labrador in 1920. Herman B. Nash’s scrapbook documents not only his time as a student at M.A.C., but also his service in France, featuring candid photographs taken by Nash during and after the war as well as identification cards, company rosters, and a German propaganda leaflet picked up near the front. Pamphlets, genealogical notes and postcards complete the collection.

Subjects

Hadley (Mass.)--HistoryHadley (Mass.)--Social life and customsMassachusetts Agricultural CollegeNash familyScott familyWorld War, 1914-1918--France

Contributors

Nash, Herman B

Types of material

Photograph albumsPhotographs
Nash, William A.

William A. Nash Papers

ca.1945-2006
13 boxes 19.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 125

Access restrictions: Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA in advance to request materials from this collection.

In 1944, William Nash graduated as valedictorian of Illinois Institute of Technology in civil and mechanical engineering and five years later he received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan. Pursuing a career in naval engineering, Nash worked as a research engineer at the Naval Ship Research and Development Center in Washington, D.C. (1949-1954) and as a structural researcher at Bethesda Naval Institute (1953-1957), where he participated in the deepest recorded naval dive and reverse engineering of recovered Soviet submarines off the coast of Norway, the details of which remain classified. After nine years teaching mechanical engineering at the University of Florida, Nash joined the Department of Civil Engineering at UMass in 1967, where he remained until his retirement in 1992. During his career, Nash also served as a consultant for the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, Lockheed International, General Electric and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The Nash Papers contain correspondence, publications, and research notes documenting William Nash’s varied academic work and teaching as an engineer, along with selected work of his students.

Subjects

Marine engineersUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Civil Engineering

Contributors

Nash, William A