Chicopee in the Revolutionary War - Chicopee, Massachusetts

TONIGHT - CHICOPEE IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR!

I'll be giving a presentation for the Chicopee Historical Society on Chicopee’s experience during the Revolutionary War. The soldiers from Chicopee Street, the settlement of Skipmuck (future Chicopee Falls) and the area of what is now Chicopee Center were all the northernmost part of Springfield. Several men and boys marched to Boston when news of the Battle of Lexington and Concord was brought by a post rider the next day.

Their enlistments, their battles, and their stories will be discussed tonight, Wednesday, September 16, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. in the Bazan Community Room of the Chicopee Public Library, 449 Front Street, Chicopee. The event is free and open to the public.


Photo of Moses Bliss grave, and top photo, Old Burying Ground, Chicopee Street by JT Lynch

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of:

The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

States of Mind: New England, essays from New England Travels

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  

Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  

Most of her books can be purchased at Bookshop.org here, as well as most online shops.

Or follow the links on her website to many online shops - www.JacquelineTLynch.com.

TO JOIN HER MAILING LIST - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Boston Post Road marker - Springfield, Massachusetts

 

This postcard from about 1909 shows one of the mile markers on the Boston Post Road in Springfield, Mass.: "This Stone is Erected by Joseph Wait, Esq., of Brookfield For the Benefit of Travllers AD 1763."

The postcard was printed in Germany by the Robbins Bros. Company of Boston.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of:

The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

States of Mind: New England, essays from New England Travels

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  

Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  

Most of her books can be purchased at Bookshop.org here, as well as most online shops.

TO JOIN HER MAILING LIST - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Railroad Hobby Show - West Springfield, Massachusetts

 

photo by JT Lynch

All tracks lead to the Railroad Hobby Show this weekend on the grounds of the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield, Mass.  The nation's largest model train show is hosted by the Amherst Railway Society.  Learn more here at their website.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of:

The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

States of Mind: New England, essays from New England Travels

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  

Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  

Most of her books can be purchased at Bookshop.org here, as well as most online shops.

TO JOIN HER MAILING LIST - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Dickinson Library - Northfield, Mass.

Architecture of the nineteenth century, in public buildings--as well as in many of the private homes of the wealthier class, represented more than practical form and function.  There were monuments.  Most of them were quite beautiful and such structures that remain today grace their communities with a sense of history, heritage, and art.

Even in small towns they remain impressive, and were usually the gift of benefactors.  Above is a postcard published by A.R. Levering of East Northfield dating from about 1903 of the Dickinson Library in Northfield, Massachusetts.  It was gift of  Fitchburg shoe manufacturer Elijah Marsh Dickinson (1816-1902), who was born in West Northfield, left the farm as young man to make his way in the burgeoning Industrial Revolution of nineteenth-century Massachusetts, eventually found success with his E.M. Dickinson Shoe Co., and was able to support his old hometown with this excellent gift.

The Romanesque style was built of granite and limestone, and was dedicated in 1898.  It allowed space for museum rooms, and as with most libraries, became a focal point of the community and a source of pride.

It still serves the community of Northfield.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of:

The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

States of Mind: New England, essays from New England Travels

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  

Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  

Most of her books can be purchased at Bookshop.org here, as well as most online shops.

TO JOIN HER MAILING LIST - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Children's Wartime Adventure Novels now at Broadside Bookshop - Northampton, Mass.

My book, Children’s Wartime Adventure Novels, is now available in paperback at the Broadside Bookshop in Northampton.  A non-fiction study of teen and pre-teen novels published during World War II, includes two stories with settings local to western Massachusetts.

During World War II, Smith College in Northampton was a training camp for WAVES.  The story of female midshipmen is recounted by one of its graduates, Lieutenant (J.G.) Helen Hull Jacobs in By Your Leave, Sir – The Story of a Wave.  A troubled young woman seeks a place in the war effort, and we follow her and her classmates through locations throughout  Northampton.  They attend classes at Faunce Hall, are billeted at Capen House and the Hotel Northampton, and Wiggins Tavern is frequented in their off hours.  The novel is an interesting look at the life of women in Navy training at this time, and also for a glimpse at Northampton as it served this unique position in America’s war effort.

A similar experience awaited another young woman in South Hadley, where Mount Holyoke College was the site of training for WAVES as well as for Women Marines. Lady Leatherneck, written by First Lieutenant Barbara A. White, MCWR is similar to By Your Leave, Sir, in that the author is herself a woman in the service, in this case, the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, and also is based on the author’s own real-life experiences.  Both stories show a surprising, for the era, feminist streak in the books for girls. 

From a BookLife review in Publishers Weekly: "Lynch illuminates a fascinating, little-studied chapter of publishing history…protagonists in their late teens and early 20s set aside the anxieties of youth to do their part to stomp out fascism. In title after title, pilots and soldiers (the men, mostly) and nurses, reporters, WACs, WASPS, WAVES, and more (the women) evince courage, endurance, dedication to the cause, and a savvy sense for identifying fifth columnists. Lynch celebrates the novels' sense of ‘spirited adventure’ and ethos of ‘patriotic self-sacrifice’ while digging into thorny questions of propaganda and indoctrination, including racial and ethnic stereotyping…”  

Children’s Wartime Adventure Novels is available in print and eBook online, and now in paperback at the Broadside Bookshop, 247 Main Street, Northampton.  

It is also available online from Bookshop.org (Children’s Wartime Adventure Novels – hardcover - https://bookshop.org/a/116354/9798330314133

Children’s Wartime Adventure Novels  – paperback - https://bookshop.org/a/116354/9798330314942)

It is also available from IngramSpark (hardcover), and in paperback.

And from Amazon in both paperback and hardcover.

It's also in eBook at Amazon, and from a variety of online shops.

Back to school in Springfield and Holyoke, Mass.

Here's two schools from the past to celebrate the opening of the new school year...Forest Park School in Springfield, Massachusetts, in a postcard image from 1909.  The school was built in the 1890s, with the original third floor removed in the 1930s.  It is now Forest Park Middle School.

The Highland Grammar School in Holyoke was built in 1900, closed in the 1980s, and the location is now a public park.  This postcard image also dates from around the turn of the twentieth century.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

 States of Mind: New England, 

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  

TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Independence Day - Countdown to the Semiquincentennial...

 

We New Englanders just marked in June the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.  This flag of New England was flown and carried on the battlefield in 1775.  At the end of the year 1775 the first Continental flag was adopted...

And it would be another couple of years before we put aside pine trees and the Union Jack in the corner and replace them with stars of varying designs.  But it was a start, and so we make a start to celebrate a most prestigious year ahead with our Semiquincentenial as a nation.  At this juncture, it would be appropriate to review several of the complaints made against King George III as written in our Declaration of Independence.  They are well worth noting:

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences…

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

 States of Mind: New England, 

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  

TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Graduation Day - Holyoke High School - Holyoke, Massachusetts

1906 postcard

With the season of high school graduations upon us, we have a look now at an era where the construction of a high school in town was something akin to the raising of a temple, a landmark, and a symbol of civic pride.  When fewer people went beyond eighth grade, the achievement of a high school diploma was the mark of an educated person and pointed to the rise of a new middle class.  The style of building reflected that prestige.

The first high school in Holyoke was established in 1852.  The first school on Elm Street, built in 1862, was a simple two-story brick schoolhouse design.  The postcard photos here are of the second high school building, built in 1898.   It was used until 1964, when the new and current building was constructed on Beech Street.  

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

 States of Mind: New England, 

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  

TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

 

Two aerial views of Springfield, Mass.

Here are two aerial views of Springfield, Massachusetts, from postcards.  Above, we have a view of the waterfront with the new Memorial Bridge in the foreground and the Municipal buildings around Court Square.  Photo by Lloyd White Bell, published by The Springfield News Company and printed by Springfield Tichnor Quality Views, Tichnor Bros Inc Boston, MA, from 1922.

Below is a black-and-white postcard of Springfield from 1919, of the North End - Memorial Church on Plainfield Street,  RM Preston  Photo-Type, George S. Graves Company Springfield, Washington D.C.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

 States of Mind: New England, 

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  

TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

 

NEW IN HARDCOVER - BESIDE THE STILL WATERS - a novel of the Quabbin Reservoir

This is to announce that my novel BESIDE THE STILL WATERS, is now available in hardcover from Amazon. It's the story of the towns dismantled in the 1930s for the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir in Central Massachusetts. It's a family saga played out over four decades of historical events. Here's what
one reviewer, "Rich in Viriginia" remarked:

"Beautiful period piece. Details are done sparely yet beautifully. This historical novel gorgeously captures the experience of the four Massachusetts towns sacrificed for the massive Quabbin Reservoir in the 1930s. Evocative! Perhaps one of my all time favorite regional pieces."

The new hardcover can be purchased here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DTTVC9VD

I'm hoping to put more of my books out in hardcover this year, and in paperback that your local booksellers can order from Ingram's, and begin to produce more of my books in audio as well. It's shaping up to be a busy year.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

 States of Mind: New England, 

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  

TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

Springfield's Wandering Statue of William McKinley

This statue in tribute to President William McKinley made a curious exodus through Springfield, Massachusetts, several times.  Tributes were quick to follow in the wake of the assassination of McKinley in 1901, and this statue was commissioned and monies raised by subscription drive by the citizens of Springfield.  It was slated to be placed in a spot of honor in downtown's historic Court Square.

By the time it was finished in 1905, enthusiasm had waned, and it fell to noted wealthy citizen Everett Barney to offer to give the statue a home on his estate.  It was dedicated in October 1905.  Mr. Barney's estate, of course, is now the expansive Forest Park.

At the time, Springfield's citizens were less than impressed with the statue, which featured a bust of McKinley perched on a short obelisk, at the foot of which was a life-size figure of a woman in the act of paying tribute to the fallen president with the offer of what appears to be a large olive branch.  Or palm frond.  It was ridiculed.

When Mr. Barney passed away and his estate donated to the city, there was again a debate as to what to do with the statue.  In 1928 it was moved back to Court Square and placed behind City Hall, and neglected and forgotten about, until the early 1960s when it was suggested to move it back to Forest Park where it might at least be seen.  By that time, a chunk of Barney's lovely estate, including his villa on Pecousic Hill, was destroyed by the construction of I-91.   

In 2015, the statue was on the move again, this time back to Court Square at a spot on the Extension behind the Old First Church.  Traffic passes by, but McKinley and the mysterious lady at his feet are a bit more visible to cars and pedestrians alike.

Interestingly, the back of this postcard mailed in 1908 makes a reference to some convention of women in town.  On June 1, 1908, Mrs. Freeman of Westerly, Rhode Island, writes:  "Arrived in Springfield at 12:45.  Had a nice trip.  There is a delegation of 110 women here of course there is lots of noise."

Have a look here at a previous post on the William McKinley monument in Adams, Massachusetts.

Source:  Springfield Union-News, October 13, 1997, article by Carol Malley.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of The Ames Manufacturing Company of Chicopee, Massachusetts - A Northern Factory Town's Perspective on the Civil War;   

Comedy and Tragedy on the Mountain: 70 Years of Summer Theatre on Mt. Tom, Holyoke, Massachusetts;

 States of Mind: New England, 

A Tragic Toast to Christmas -- The Infamous Wood Alcohol Deaths of 1919 in Chicopee, Mass.; as well as books on classic films and several novels.  Her Double V Mysteries series is set in New England in the early 1950s.  

TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

It Happened in Springfield - The Springfield (Mass.) Plan

It Happened in Springfield (1945) is a short subject produced by Warner Bros. starring Andrea King as a teacher in Springfield, Massachusetts, where a new approach and emphasis on citizenship in a multicultural society was taught during World War II, which came to be called The Springfield Plan.  This included teaching students to identify racist propaganda and to foster democracy.

Also in the cast were Warren Douglas, John Qualen, Charles Drake, William Forrest, and Arthur Hohl.

The differences between the shameless lies about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, by Traitor Trump and the radical right MAGA fascists -- and the nobler intentions of the wartime Springfield Plan of Springfield, Massachusetts, are stark and rather jolting, but it further illustrates our choice in November.

Vote accordingly.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

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My new non-fiction book, CHILDREN'S WARTIME ADVENTURE NOVELS - The Silent Generation's Vicarious Experience of World War II -- is now available in eBook here at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a wide variety of other online shops.

And it is here in eBook, paperback print, and soon, hardcover, from Amazon.

From Cherry Ames, to Meet the Malones, from Dave Dawson to Kitty Carter - Canteen Girl, the Silent Generation spent their childhood immersed in geopolitical events through the prism of their middle grade and young adult books.  From the home front to the battlefield, these books are a window on their world, and influenced their hard-working, conformity-loving generation.

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN - SEE MUGS, SHIRTS, AND MUCH MORE HERE!!!