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Weathervane Newsletter Winter 2000
 Historic Northampton Opens New Museum Complex Historic Northampton officially opened its major new museum complex on Columbus Day weekend, October 9th & 10th. Positioned at the gateway to downtown Northampton at 46 Bridge Street, the new facility includes a first rate historical museum and four historic buildings set in a newly landscaped campus. The Grand Opening celebration, from 10 AM to 4 PM Saturday and Sunday, featured Revolutionary War re-enactments, folk dancers, storytellers, artisans and more. A Place Called Paradise: the Making of Northampton, Massachusetts is the theme exhibit for the new museum. It chronicles Northampton history from the pre-contact era to the present. The exhibit includes objects and artifacts, fine art, photographs, costumes, textiles and manuscripts from the entire range of Historic Northampton's collection of over 50,000 objects. Also showing is Northampton 1900: Looking Backward to the Turn of the Century. Photographer Stan Sherer's unique prints of late 19th-early 20th century photographs provides haunting glimpses of everyday life in Northampton as it emerges into the 20th century. Historic Northampton's four historic buildings painstakingly restored to their original condition, house period collections and displays. These buildings, all located on their original sites, comprise a collection of architectural history from the early Colonial era to the Federal period. The Shepherd barn provides additional exhibit areas and retail space. It will house working blacksmiths and artisans, a display of antique signage, farm implements and tools as well as provide a site for a museum gift shop and visitors information center. Historic Northampton's new facilities are ready to usher in the new millennium. In this way we will ensure that 350 years of Northampton's history will be preserved for the 21st century. |
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Contents Historic Northampton. |