American Centuries

Pocumtuck Valley
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American Centuries > Essays

Essays

This collection of essays, written by PVMA staff, explore themes and topics relevant to the history of New England generally and Deerfield, Massachusetts in particular. They vary in length and reading level – some appropriate for students and others written for an adult or even scholarly reader.

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  • A Glimpse at Deerfield in the Connecticut River Valley
    The Civil War had a tremendous effect on the Deerfield, Massachusetts, community. Everything was changing- farming, transportation, communication, and population. How did Deerfield propose to cope with change and yet stay the same?

  • About Account Books
    Mutual indebtedness was the rule in early America. Because there was little hard cash available, each transaction for goods and services was carefully recorded in account books with a monetary value assigned to it.

  • African American Historic Sites in Deerfield, Massachusetts
    Servitude took many forms in the 18th century. Indentured servants, whose contracts could be bought and sold, apprentices bound to labor for their masters for a set term, and the enslaved (often referred to as “servants for life”) were common sights in fields, shops and houses throughout the colonies. By the mid-18th century, 38% of households on Deerfield, Massachusetts’ mile-long main street included the enslaved.

  • African-American Presence in Deerfield, Massachusetts
    In New England, enslaved and free African Americans left few historical materials for scholars to study. No diaries have been discovered; few inventories exist; correspondence is lacking; only scattered evidence in merchants’ account books, church and legal records documents their presence.

  • Agreeable to His Genius
    This is the story of a man named John Partridge Bull, an 18th-century blacksmith and gunsmith in Deerfield, Massachusetts.

  • American Revolution in the Connecticut River Valley
    What was life like in a village in the Connecticut River Valley on the eve of the American Revolution?

  • American Revolution in the Connecticut River Valley, 1775-1783
    The American Revolution was one of the longest and bloodiest wars in Amerian history.

  • Captivity Literature
    Native peoples began taking captives before the arrival of Euro-Americans and captive-taking among Native and European cultures persisted well into the 19th century across the continent. The fascination with captivity experiences has lasted to today, as has the literature about them.

  • Children’s Amusements in the Early Nineteenth Century
    Toys from the early nineteenth century were usually homemade by the child or someone they knew, and some required skill to accomplish.

  • Creating a Genealogy – The Stebbins Family
    This essay presents the life story of one colonial family through the genealogy of John Stebbins.

  • Death and Community
    Death rituals in the home and subsequent burial and mourning practices reveal much about community values and social classes.

  • Death and Dying in the 18th and 19th Centuries
    This essay provides detailed information about 18th and 19th century burying grounds (graveyards).

  • Dedham Grant (Pecumtuck)
    In response to the pleas of the people of Dedham, on May 27, 1663, the General Court of Massachusetts: “Judgeth it meet to grant Dedham 8000 acres Of land in any convenient place, or places not Exceeding two, where it can bee found free from former Grants.”

  • Deerfield as a Frontier Settlement in 17th Century New England
    Deerfield is a model for the study of America’s early frontier. When New England’s lines of settlement, both west from Boston and north up the Connecticut River, reached Deerfield in 1670, they stopped and did not move for 40 years. Deerfield sat on the edge of English settlement for a long time and while it did the frontier dominated its life.

  • Deerfield at the Third Turn, 1880-1920
    Rapid change typified the years between 1880 and 1920, and the people in Deerfield, Massachusetts, as well as those in other towns and cities across America, experienced shifts in their lives.

  • Deerfield Matures
    During the American Revolution the demand for beef, grain, clothing, arms, and ammunition spurred the economics of many Massachusetts farm towns. Deerfield farmers experienced a dramatic and unprecedented period of prosperity during the war years.

  • Details of Change in Deerfield, Massachusetts
    Deerfield, Massachusetts, changed markedly because of national influences: the economy, immigration, migration to the West, the Civil War, and industrialization.

  • Development of the Meeting House
    The Puritans developed an early government that did not distinguish between civil and ecclesiastical law. The philosophy of the English settlers was manifested in the design of the early meetinghouses.

  • Dwellings – The Messages of Houses and Their Contents
    Buildings convey messages, and at different time periods, the messages are different. In seventeenth and eighteenth-century Deerfield, Massachusetts, and throughout New England, a man’s house was his proudest and his most important possession, a tangible asset to pass on to the next generation.

  • Early Nineteenth Century Fashion
    Over the course of this time period, clothing styles changed to reflect the ideals of the emerging republic.