Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers, 1698-1968

The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Family Papers, 1698-1968, document the history of one extended family over 270 years or eight complete generations. The collection is the property of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation, which operates the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House Museum in Hadley, Massachusetts. The papers were deposited on extended loan in the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Frost Library, Amherst College, Amherst MA in 1980. They are available for use at Frost Library by researchers and scholars.

The Finding Aid to the collection is available on line at:

http://www.amherst.edu/library/archives/findingaids/pph/index.html

or

http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/amherst/ma30_main.html

There are links to the history and significance of the papers, the methods of organization, and a list of individuals with brief biographies that are included in the collection of papers.

A rich source for scholarly research on life in America from the early eighteenth century down to the present is stored in the Archives and Special Collections of the Frost Library at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts. Over one hundred linear feet of documents, among them letters, diaries, deeds, and account books were all generated by one extended family. Together these papers provide rare and extraordinary access to the personal and civic lives of this family: the Porters, Phelpses, Huntingtons and their descendants.

The papers are further enhanced by the existence of the family home, Forty Acres, in Hadley, Massachusetts, now the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum. Built in 1752, eight generations of the family lived in this house until the last owner, Dr. James Lincoln Huntington, incorporated the house as a museum in 1955. The museum, with its contents and the papers are the property of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation. The house and the Foundation take their name from the first three generations of Elizabeths who occupied the house.

Letters and diaries reveal the significant impact of major events in American history, beginning with the French and Indian War, on generations of family members. These writings provide historians with personal perspectives on the wars, political and economic upheavals, religious revivals, social developments, family relationships, divisions of labor between men and women, as well as the day-by-day domestic life of the family, their servants and, for a time, their slaves.

Forty Acres was a working farm, its name not a true description of the land under cultivation, which consisted of six hundred acres acquired by its first owner, Moses Porter, and a significant growth in acreage under his son-in-law, Charles Phelps. Subsequent generations produced a number of clergy, lawyers, a sea captain, merchants, factory owners, army officers and doctors. There were artists, writers, publishers, an actress, and numerous housewives, of necessity, multi-skilled. The personal papers from these family members contribute valuable specific information to our understanding of the evolution of American society during the last 250 years.

This rich store of documents provides both scholars and history buffs with numerous possibilities for research. A finding aid serves as an efficient guide to the papers. Writing related to individual members of the family are filed in separate folders, their contents placed in chronological order. The finder directs would-be researchers to the file and the box in which particular files are contained. With the exception of some fragile original documents, the papers are available directly to all researchers.