Sadly, this is just the latest example of the lies and distortions that the small group of opponents of a well-planned project that will benefit every single taxpayer in Stockbridge will go to with their opposition.
Moreover, the 13 Colonies wanted to be free and independent from the Crown but also from one another. Each looked upon itself as sovereign -- that is, independent.
At least a few residents of Great Barrington were aware of Laura Secord by the early 1900s. When the Ingersoll home was first moved and then torn down during the construction of the Mason Library, structural artifacts were removed and sent to Canada for a Laura Secord exhibit.
It is interesting to contemplate that weather is blamed for the demise of the Vikings, the French Revolution and the bubonic plague. It is also interesting that the founding of this country, the creation of our Constitution, the Civil War, American industrialization and our Gilded Age all happened against a backdrop of extreme cold and global climate change.
Benedict Arnold is a name synonymous with treason. The facts seem clear; the motivation eludes us. Why did Arnold do it? Were his actions motivated by love, greed, hubris, or a rich mix of all three?
Exactly why such a small, out-of-the-way business in Dalton, Massachusetts, won a competition to become the single manufacturer of all the paper for the nation’s money is not known, but that doesn’t stop speculation.
It was, in fact, the perfect introduction to the story of a woman who asked a simple question: Did the Sheffield Resolves, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts include her?
In August 1786, Daniel Shays, a Massachusetts farmer, ceased the search for “representatives who can find means to redress the grievances of the people” and took up arms.
Why are we honoring a massacre? On the other hand, how many monuments are there to Native American maltreatment? It’s a rare admission of how fiercely we wrestled New England from its indigenous people.
"Mumbet" is the inspirational true story of a woman who could neither read nor write, but whose simple eloquence poses the question of America’s purpose better than anyone. Mumbet was the first enslaved African-American to file and win a freedom suit in Massachusetts
Some historians dismiss the Sheffield Resolves; others call them the first American Declaration of Independence. In either case, in just seven days, who wrote this impressive document?
It is odd, is it not, that something that became the basis of our 20th- and 21st-century values was not even a part of daily life in the first years of our country.
