Celebrating Historic Deerfield

I think if you're going to search for truly American furniture there's no better place than the Connecticut River Valley and historic Deerfield. Clearly it's the beauty in the snow time of the year that the street is not beautiful. In all honesty I think that we have something very unusual happening in Deerfield and it isn't just amusing. It isn't just an educational institution.

It isn't just pretty to look at. Maybe all these things. There is a long continuum in Deerfield of the history of an extraordinary community. And in understanding the past we understand ourselves better. Historic airfield has 13 houses along the street that are open to the public. In fact along this village street which is less than a mile in length there are 24 houses that were here at the time of the American Revolution and another twenty four buildings that were constructed before 1850. So more than two thirds of the buildings along the street in Deerfield

have been here for more than 150 years. I don't think there's another place that has quite this collection of 18th century structures. Again with treasures inside as well. So you have these incredible incredible examples of material culture not just the furniture but the silver the Delphic the pottery the brass textiles you know inside of these these incredible period homes from the 18th century. And this provides children in particular as well as adults as an opportunity to explore. How did early settlers in the United States meet these challenges and manipulate the environment so they could prosper. Although Native Americans have lived in this place for more than 10000 years Deerfield became Deerfield when it was set off as a separate town by the General Court of Massachusetts the colonial legislature in 16 73. That was a daring

move because this really was the frontier the westernmost and northernmost settlement in the Connecticut Valley subject to frequent interaction with the Indians. And as the settlers would learn attacks by the Indians the Deerfield Meadows have about the best land in New England. The quality of the soil is very high. The natives had found productive in the English certainly did too and they were prospering. When the second great attack came in 17 0 4 and that raid by a large group of French and Indians on a February night in 17:4 was really the defining moment in the history of Deerfield. The settlement was destroyed. Forty eight people were killed.

Hundred twelve were taken to Canada in captivity. But after that everyone thought of the 17 0 4 raid as the beginning of Deerfield history and everyone was determined to come back to Deerfield and to resettle Ezra Stiles who was president of Yale College came to visit Deerfield because he knew about the French an Indian attack. The old Indian house so called the Ensign John Shelden house was seen as a landmark. It was painted it appeared in print. It was even photographed before it was demolished in 1848 and that was the occasion of the first organized historic preservation movement in the United States 10 years before Mount Vernon. People in Deerfield organize to save that early house. They failed at that but they never failed again. They

preserved old houses in Deerfield. They saved the relics of the early days. They kept books and manuscripts and by 1870 they organized and historical society called the become dot Valley Memorial Association in order to preserve those things and to show them to the public. George Sheldon was really the leading force in the preservation of Deerfield and in the recording of its history. Born to an old airfield farming family in fact their ancestor had built the old Indian house the Ensign John Sheldon House and George Sheldon's own family lived at the north end of the street in what is now a museum the Sheldon Hawkes house. George was born there in eighteen eighteen and one reason that he became an historical figure was that he lived longer than anyone else. He died in 1916 at the age of 98 and he

saved everything possible from the Native American materials that you found in the area right up to the period of his grandparents perhaps of the early nineteenth century. He was really the guiding light in the founding of the Polk Valley Memorial Association which operates the museum called Memorial Hall. Which took over the building of Deerfield Academy and installed in that building period rooms and as we can and as far as we can understand there the very earliest period rooms anywhere in the United States and possibly in the world by the early 20th century. The place was well known as a tourist attraction and also was the center of Arts and Crafts activity where people did embroidery rug making basket weaving photography blacksmithing in the early 20th century Deerfield Academy which had been founded in 1797 had a revival under the leadership of

headmaster Frank Boyd and when he came in one thousand two. There were only 14 students and it was really. Almost on his last legs and the great legacy of the Borden's is just unbelievable really when you consider that for his 66 years as head master he built up that school to what it is today. He began to attract students from all over the United States. Among those students was a boy from Greenwich Connecticut named Henry and Flint Jr. whose parents brought him to Deerfield in 1936. In those days there was no so-called historically really are a few old houses. The French horn chanted by Mr. Boyd. He really was a charismatic figure. Very small man he was five foot two maybe and a delightful man very shrewd with a real mission to create a great school and to educate. Boys he really was was enormously devoted to that and

this impressed the flints not only as parents but as philanthropists. And they began to aid Deerfield Academy because they were so impressed by Mr. Boyd and also by Mrs. Boyd who taught at the academy. She was a science teacher and that was very influential on generations of students. The Boykins recognized the great potential of the flints they saw their enthusiasm. They saw their devotion and they also recognized that the flints had financial resources that could be a real help to the academy. And the first major thing that the flints did at the urging of Mr. Mrs. warden was to buy the Deerfield in which at that time was a rather shabby summer have talent had been built in 1884. Mr. Boyd thought it would be very nice if there were a place right in Deerfield where people bring their students to interview where people coming to visit their

their sons were alumni returning to Deerfield that could stay. So you know I haven't ever had the experience by a building alone and in the long running and in the fix that up with it. Then the plants really got interested in the preservation of all buildings and collecting. They collected more than 10000 objects in about 20 years from 1945 to 1965 study in Mother House. We all know did this gradually anyway mostly because they didn't have the beginning any kind of concept of where they would end if I didn't have any deliberate ending that I ever knew about and I think that's true and their minds too. But one house led to another and one opportunity led to another. Mr. Mrs. Flint first obligation was just preserved here for you and they saved a lot of the houses that were in dire

straits. Well Mr. Borden and Mr. Flynt often work very closely together for practical purposes. They actually house was in terrible shape in 1969 the family wanted a new house and they pushed the old house out to the farm fields next to the barns but Boykins wanted that later how it was for dormitory faculty residence at the field cademy And so that was done and then the flints were able to drag the 18th century house. Forward to regional site on the street and restored and they opened at the public in 1988. I was the first professional employee year but you must remember that the flints opened their first house in 1948 when they bought the inn in 1945 and so there were a lot of ancillary glories. I started on September 29 in 159 and it was rather amusing because Mr. and Mrs. Flint said won't come any time on that day. I drove in from the north. They drove in from the south and it happened to be 3:30 in the afternoon and our cars pulled up together in front of the inn.

I thought that was a good omen. The Flint said hed had advisors but had had no one on the scene and in fact they did most of the cataloging about objects and Henry fines law office in Greenwich Connecticut. But now they had someone who was on the scene. The Flynns had a big discussion as to what my title should be because as they like to say one day Mr. Flint was the director an assistant was the curator and there they would be reversal of roles the next day. He kept them focused on deerfield And he also got to know Henry and Helen Flynn very well so that he has become the memory of the institution. Peter so much better on. How things evolved with people in town with collectors was the dealers. Because he was a company and he was that was his life and living that and something that I very much appreciated. It was a

great match. Working with Mr. and Mrs. Flint was I think quite incredible. I had some academic education but really working practically with Mr. and Mrs. Flynn right on the job. That was the fastest way that I learned. I should explain that that he and the Allen house were quite in 1045 and this became their Deerfield residence. We're sitting in the living room of the Allen House and this house was never open to the public. But they would fence with us people down for drinks. And this is where most of the conversations took place. Adjoining this room is the dining room and there's an octagonal table in that room with a set of pewter plates around it and drinks would be served there. And after a suitable interval the friends would say well now Peter will show you the upstairs. And that was a signal for me to go ahead very quickly ahead of the people and

and go up to the Hogarth room and turn on every light in the room there are candle lights and they had very small switches or else you turn the bulbs and then you reach into the closet and turn on the chandelier just as the guests were running the corner into the room. I would then tell them about them. We're proud to tell an Allen House that they Hogarth room is the scene of the founding of his dirty field on November 15th 1952. It's called the Hogarth room because there are Hogarth prints and. And there are many activities going on in the Prince and Mr. Flint in the system to arrange the room with many different centers of activity and it seems there like in the print there are so many centers of activity and then we would cross the hall and look at the room on the other side. And then they would come down the stairs and rejoin the flints. Curiously Mr. Flint would always say well did you tell him about the embroidery on the bed the flints were so pleased because they've been able to get a cover from Colonial Williamsburg

that had been done by the granddaughter of the Rev. John Williams captivity of Deerfield and Mrs. Flint said as you tell about the staircase in the attic. Well that's because the this house had to have a lot of restoration in the mid-forties as they put the chimney back they put. This is one suggested that they save money or time and trouble and build a brick staircase adjoining the chimney instead of having a wooden one. That's very unusual and rare and she always wanted to make sure I showed the guests that brick staircase. So this house reflects some personal aspects. It was never intended for them to have it as a museum but it was a decision made happily by the family and by historic to feel that it would be interesting to see what the home of the founders of a museum is really like. The formation of the historic airfield collection is really quite interesting in large part because the flint started out to be non

collectors. They didn't want to collect Henry flints father and uncle had been mad collectors who gathered in everything and would buy a whole house full of antiques just to get a clock. So when they were married and one thousand twenty they said we don't want to be collectors. And for a long time they kept to that. Mr. Flint had grown up knowing a little bit about antiques but he first like antiques because he'd been exposed overexposed to them but it was in the blood. When they began to furnish houses in Deerfield they were looking for local objects from Deerfield and from the Connecticut Valley and they might have stayed with that. But they became acquainted with other collectors who were a very competitive lot then and still are. They travelled abroad a good deal because their daughter. I was married to a native of France and my daughter and her husband lived in Paris and so the friends like going over abroad and visiting the daughter and they also were able to acquire

things that were could be added to the collections here. This is a very important collection of textiles and early clothing here. Much of that was acquired in France and England all over proud of the local pieces too that France and others since then have been able to aquire the silver collection is very important because it's such a large collection of early American Silver. But the flints were able to acquire a large part of that in one big collection in England. They also collected New England furniture not just your field in the Connecticut Valley but Boston and Newport and throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut. I think if you're going to search for truly American furniture there's no better place than the Connecticut River Valley and historic Deerfield. They could have been makers in the Connecticut River Valley use their own ingenuity their own creativity to come up with a very distinctive style. It's just absolutely unique. I mean today if you take the collector try to form a collection of that magnitude it I think it have to be next to impossible because

these pieces are unique and the flints bought very well. They had some great advisors they collected the very very best at a time when you could find these things. The other thing that is important about the museum is that it's not only a great collection of objects but it's an it's a museum which actually documents one of the great collectors that the flints as a couple I can remember by both hammering how unflat sang to me. We never had an overall plan. We just did things as they were needed. We we didn't have a vision for Deerfield and I don't think that they really knew where all this would take them. In 1952 they realized that their project was to be permanent and they therefore established the Heritage Foundation which later became historic Deerfield in order to carry on their work to give it permanence to give it legal status and also to give it the financial underpinning that would enable it to carry on.

The flints named the foundation the Heritage Foundation originally because the motto of Deerfield Academy is be worthy of your heritage. That was changed in 1981 to historic if you just had to become a professional organization after God as large as it did large in terms of holdings. The financial side of things and be on the family's capability of historic default had to be set up in a proper manner as a foundation that was very professional. Fortunately Don Friary came as director of education he had been a tutor for the summer fellowship program and so Don was made the director in 1975 so this was a huge accomplishment. One of the things that concerned me when I became director of historic Deerfield and 975 was establishing an advantage he for this organization. We had been called the Heritage Foundation for 19 years

from 1952 to 1971 and then we had just adopted this new name historic Deerfield and I wanted to be sure that it was a den of five with a place with the organization. And now I think people think of historic Deerfield as the place as a destination. They really know that historic Deerfield is a complex of historic houses with collections and programs. That teach American history. I remember when Leslie you called me from from Deerfield to set up in this incredible place. This is a delicate fellowship program. I was doing another project that summer and he was excited about the experience he was having and so excited that that I ended up applying and is if is that they needed another Keno for a second season in a row in a summer in a row but they thought that

I went there in 1979 and then graduated at which it was just incredible the historic you feel summer fellowship program and early American history and material culture is really our flagship educational program that the stork Deerfield Summers fellowship program is a program that I don't think has any equal in the decorative arts field. And thanks to Don fryers commitment to the students into building a team of educators thanks thanks to him and thanks to the group of people that he actually organized and the staff there at least and I were both able to really. Get a I think a really solid education in American material culture. I remember actually one one part of our course was to go into this barn with each of us were given an object we could pick one and they were very unusual objects sort of what you'd see in kind of a what set column what is this thing. And each of us was given one and we had to spend about an hour with it just from and from looking at it from feeling the texture from

noticing the wear patterns we had to figure out these all of us new students in our in our early 20s. What it was and that to me sounds like a very simple process but it was a really an interesting and a complicated one and an exciting one because you only had the object was almost within a vacuum. And what what is this object tell us about what it was used for. And I love that because that's what we that's really what we do every day today. So education is a really important part that Don has built up but also the management of the collections which were stored in basements and attics because things kept being added or requests came. That was one of mother's thoughts way back when she was an invalid would talk more about the need for a curatorial building of Deerfield. She didn't really have the wherewithal That's on to say look go build it but do something about talking about it and so we did. It evolved into something more than a curatorial billing.

Mostly by necessity really the Flint Center grew out of a need created by the excesses of Henry and Helen Flint. They collected too much and the museum houses in Deerfield were just crammed with objects. Then as we talked more about planning the flood Sater we thought there should be exhibition galleries in order to show the collections in new ways. We clearly needed work rooms for photography for textile conservation for the management of the collections. And once that opened in 1998 we had such an increased capability for showing the collections for interpret in these collections to the public. It's made a great difference in the way we operate and in what we have to offer the public. I came on the boy just after the completion of the flints. And. That changed the the the not necessarily the focus of his story. Do you

feel but it expanded the mission. My area of specialty is education. Early childhood in elementary in particular. And one of their dreams was this the creation of a focal point or a center for children. When we built our new flat center of early New England life which open to the public in 1998 we moved the HELEN GARNER Flint Textile Museum to the new facility that freed up the 1871 barn. And we decided to use that as they core of a children's Discovery Center. The exhibitions will be interactive and hands on. They will be opportunities that kids don't have in the historic houses. When you go in and think all of rope at how interesting how funded through the children's Discovery Center children will enter the the whole Deerfield experience and a great variety of experiences

at historic Deerfield. I've been very concerned throughout my career at historic Deerfield. To making certain that historic Deerfield is based on sound scholarship we know that everything that we do has to be based on serious scholarship of serious understanding of the people who lived here through town time of the objects that they created the objects that they used and the objects that they kept. One statement that their film makes I think is that great objects in social history go together at that that you can't really you could certainly have social history without the objects you can have objects without it. But it doesn't it doesn't work as well when they're together. When you have objects they're telling a story. And when you're telling a story using objects to help tell that story about what's happened in our past that's the ideal situation. We have to preserve our heritage of the United States.

This is a very important aspect of our past and we're fortunate here in Deerfield that so much has been preserved. I keep thinking you know this is one of these what if things a daughter maybe mother but mostly they were to come back today and looked around. What will her reactions be. Well that's all conjecture but I think unbalanced Syria very happy.