National Park Service Awards Grant for New National Historic District

Last week, PPH’s Executive Director Susan J. Lisk received a call from Senator Ed Markey's office—not an ordinary occurrence! The call was to let her know that the Massachusetts Historical Commission had received a grant to fund a new National Register historic district to encompass the PPH museum property and Phelps Farm across the road. The award is an Underrepresented Communities grant from the National Park Service, and this one to PPH is one of only eighteen awarded nationwide this year.

This grant program works to diversifying the nominations submitted to the National Register of Historic Places. In the case of the PPH–Phelps Farm award, the funded work will include updating and expanding existing National Register documentation for the museum property to include information on the enslaved people, indentured servants, and prisoners of war, who worked at the site in the 18 th century, in order to provide a broader and more inclusive history of the site. The grant will be administered by the MHC in coordination with PPH.

As a small museum closed for the season due to the pandemic and relying upon donations and small grants to keep afloat this year, this announcement has come at a critical moment and is a wonderful morale booster. "We are thrilled about the award and honored to be selected as one of only eighteen projects nationwide," said Susan Lisk. "This new historic district will tell the stories of traditionally underrepresented people who lived, worked, and died here more than 200 years ago, as well as subsequent generations whose varied careers and interests reflect broader social and historical trends in the country up to and including the 20th century. The existing National Register documentation for the PPH museum house, now nearly 50 years old, omits these incredibly important stories, so we're excited by the opportunity to ensure this history is documented for posterity and archived here, at the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and at the Library of Congress. We're also excited that the new historic district will encompass the early 19th-century Phelps Farm across the street, which has its own rich history that has never been thoroughly researched or documented. We have a wealth of archival material to help tell this story and are looking forward to working with the MHC on the project, which is important for the history of the Connecticut River Valley as a whole."

This year, the National Park Service allocated $750,000 in Underrepresented Communities grant funds. The NPS states that the program "focuses on documenting the homes, lives, landscapes, and experiences of underrepresented peoples who played a significant role in national history.” Grants from this cycle “will help fund eighteen projects to eight states, six tribes, two local governments, the District of Columbia, and the Federated States of Micronesia." The Underrepresented Communities grant program is funded by the Historic Preservation Fund and administered by the National Park Service, Department of Interior. 

Check out our website for more about Phelps Farm and the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House.

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