Annual letter from Karen Sánchez-Eppler, President, Board of Directors
December 2023
Dear Friends of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation,
This summer and fall have been a time of harvest at Forty Acres and Its Skirts.
In May 2023, the National Park Service approved the expanded "Forty Acres and Its Skirts" National Register Historic District-a district that encompasses not only the 1752 house but also 114 surrounding acres including the land and structures of the neighboring Phelps Farm and the forests and fields of the Elizabeth Huntington Dyer conservation area. The nomination that resulted in this new district was produced by Prof. Marla Miller and Brian Whetstone PhD, and emphasizes research into groups and individuals previously underrepresented in the historical record including enslaved and Native people, indentured servants, free Blacks, day laborers and Polish agricultural workers. In August Brian Whetstone led a program and walking tour of the new district that shared some of the stories their research had recovered. Details about that event, an overview of the new historic district, and a link to the full report are all available on the Museum's website (Museum Online).
This was the second summer of the Museum's new tour design that combines stories of the house and family with new insights into the lives of the many other people who lived and worked at this farmstead. The more we weave these stories together the deeper our understanding grows and it was wonderful to feel the new tour really taking root. In the spirit of association Liz Wheeler describes, this summer's work with interns also included exchange visits with the guide staff at the Emily Dickinson Museum, Historic Northampton, and the Harriet Beecher Stowe center, building connections and thinking together about how to tell difficult histories. A generous gift from Nancy Locke Meyer that enabled us to hire UMass history graduate students to train guides and oversee the summer educational programs made this growth possible.
This summer held many familiar pleasures too, especially the festivity and joy of Wednesday Folk Traditions concerts in the sunken garden for a 42nd season. The stone walls of the sunken garden were once the foundation of the "Great Barn" at Forty Acres, a barn built in 1782 during the last years of enslaved labor at the farmstead. In September the Museum set into the garden walls six "Stopping Stones" that honor the lives of the six people enslaved at this site: Zebulon Prutt, Cesar Phelps, Peg Bowen, and her daughters Rose and Phillis and granddaughter Phillis. Placed amidst the old stones and the trailing ivy these brass plaques are surprising and beautiful, and they make this place of labor, music, and festivity into a powerful place of remembrance. The program and video of the "Stirring the Ashes" installation ceremony are also available on the Museum's website (Events).
The new historic district encompassing Phelps Farm, the new tour, the material honoring of the six people enslaved at this place, were only aspirations a few years ago. Now they are real. The Foundation has begun to implement a pollinator plan for the property and to stabilize the 1816 farmhouse at Phelps Farm; we have received grant support for these initiatives, but they are very expensive and we need your help to make them too come to fruition. Support to continue the part- time staff positions in historic preservation and humanities programing presently funded by a grant from Mass Humanities would also be an enormous boon. Transformation is possible, but it takes many hands, help us bring in this harvest.
Gratefully,
Karen Sánchez-Eppler, President of the Board of Directors