The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum
The Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum in Hadley offers guided tours that highlight the lives of those who lived and worked at Forty Acres, from the Porter, Phelps, and Huntington families to the enslaved individuals, farm laborers, and servants whose efforts sustained the property. Built in 1752 on ancestral Nonotuck land, the house stands at the center of a farmstead shaped by both privilege and labor. Tours connect local histories of agriculture, trade, and resistance to the broader story of the Connecticut River Valley. Visitors can also explore trails leading through fields and up Mount Warner, once used as summer pasture for cattle.
What can household items, textiles, or letters tell us about the roles women played in shaping this home, both visibly and behind the scenes?
How do the museum’s records and objects help us understand the lives of the enslaved people who lived and labored here—and what questions remain unanswered?
Where do we see this household connecting to larger networks of movement and exchange, and what does that reveal about the flow of people, goods, and ideas in the Connecticut River Valley?
