About the Easthampton Historical Society
The Easthampton Historical Society was formed in 1972 by Natalie Strong and Rebecca Whitney to collect and preserve the history of this Hampshire County mill town on the Manhan River. Its museum is a house, not a gallery: the home at 7 Holyoke Street dates to the 1830s and was given to the Society in 1976 by the family of Joseph Rapalus, whose name it still carries locally as the Rapalus residence. The Fred A. Worm Memorial Room was added in 1992. These details come from the Society's own listing with the Commonwealth Historical Collaborative at UMass Amherst, which is the most complete public description of the organization.
Inside, the rooms are furnished in Victorian style and each takes a theme from the town's past. There is a medical room, a co-founders' room, a school room and an industrial room reflecting the mills that made Easthampton (Samuel Williston's company here is credited as the first button manufacturer in the United States), a display on the military and others who served the community, a reconstructed dry goods store, a Williston room, a main parlor with changing exhibits, a lady's boudoir, a gentlemen's room and a children's room. The arrangement lets a visitor walk through the domestic, commercial and civic life of a nineteenth-century New England manufacturing town in a single house.
The Society's companion website, historiceasthampton.com, is a town-history resource in its own right. It carries a written history of Easthampton, galleries of historic photographs of the town center, Williston Academy and Mount Tom, a 1938 film reel showing Easthampton and Northampton, and a short list of fast facts: Native Americans fished the Manhan and Connecticut rivers before 1650, English settlers arrived in 1654, and a meetinghouse for "The District of Easthampton" was built in 1785.
Collections and Research Services
The Society is volunteer-run and does not keep a staffed reading room. Research requests are handled by mail: a research form can be obtained by sending a check for $25 to P.O. Box 992, Easthampton, MA 01027, and volunteers then search the Society's holdings on Easthampton families, houses and organizations. For a house in Easthampton, pair that request with the town's assessor and deed records as described in our guide to finding out when your house was built, and use the photograph galleries on the Society's website alongside the tips in how to find old photos of your house and neighborhood.
Planning Your Visit
The house at 7 Holyoke Street is open on Mondays from 1 to 3:30 p.m., or by appointment for groups of ten or more, and it is closed from January 1 through March 31. Because the hours depend on volunteers, call (413) 527-3108 before making a trip. Admission is not published. The Society's website, historiceasthampton.com, is the place to check for updates; the webmaster can be reached at the email address listed there.
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