Community on Camera, an exhibition of photographs celebrating Westport Past, Present, Future
You are invited to the opening reception!
Thursday, November 30th 5:30 – 7 PM at the Helen E. Ellis Exhibit Space, Lees Market, 796 Main Road, Westport
Please join us to view the many photographic perspectives of Westport submitted for our photo contest. Historical photographs from the collection of the Westport Historical Society will also be on display. Winners of the contest will be announced and prizes awarded!
Light refreshments will be served.
Please use Town Hall parking lot.
All photographs will be on view at Lees Market,
Friday, December 1st and Saturday, December 2nd
11AM – 5PM
Supported by the Westport Arts Council through a grant from the Helen E. Ellis Charitable Trust administered by Bank of America. Please contact Westport Historical Society for more information at 508 636 6011.
Westport Historical Society Annual Report 2005-2006
President’s Report
My report this year can be cheerful and brief because we have a Director who will report on the Society’s activities. Our main news is, in fact, that we have a Director, unfortunately part-time only, Jenny O’Neill, whom I hope most of you have already met. We are very lucky to have Jenny. We knew of her qualifications and her experience, but we did not know how effective and efficient she would prove to be. Not only has she herself introduced order into our activities, she has also attracted a dedicated group of volunteers to help her in her work. The most notable result of their activities has been the marvelous exhibit on Whaling in Westport. We are grateful to our volunteers, and delighted to have Jenny as Director.
I want as well to thank the members of our Board for having served so well and faithfully this past year. I particularly want to thank Roger Griswold, who has been doing a superb job as Treasurer for some years now. Bette DeVeuve will be leaving the Board after some ten years, and we will miss her active and creative involvement. Also leaving are the LaMontagnes, Elliott and Fran, and we will miss them as well. Fran has done a magnificent job in introducing order to our perennially troubled membership list. I hope they'll all want to continue their interest in Westport history.
During this past year we acquired several whaling journals kept by Albert Augustus Gifford, both of great value, but also at considerable expense. We also have replaced the heating system in the Bell School, and have installed air conditioning. The heating system was highly inefficient, and the building was altogether too hot during the summer for anyone to work there efficiently. Our volunteers appreciate the cooler environment. I mention these matters here because our finances have suffered, and we must replenish our resources if we are to continue to move ahead. We shall be asking our friends for contributions in our annual appeal, and we hope that you all will respond generously. If any of you have suggestions of ways to raise funds, I hope you will share them with Jenny or me.
William Wyatt
Director’s Report
My first year as Director has flown by in a whirlwind of activity. It has been immensely satisfying to see the positive changes that have been brought about during the year. The momentum that we have gained is a tribute to the many individuals who have contributed time and energy towards fulfilling goals articulated at last year’s meeting. We set out to gain intellectual and physical control over our collection and to begin to set the standard for preservation, documentation and access to Westport’s history. In reality this consisted of introducing improved storage furniture for the collection, creating a welcoming and workable space for volunteers, opening our doors to as many volunteers as possible, and providing training and focused projects to satisfy their energies. Our collections database remains the key to managing our collection and making it accessible. It is equivalent to a searchable, illustrated encyclopedia of local history and continues to grow at a tremendous rate. Our thanks particularly to those who have loaned material that can be scanned and included in the database. I hope at some point in the future to make this database fully accessible via the internet and also in the more traditional form of a printed finding aid.
Concern for the collection also prompted our decision to introduce air conditioning and update the heating system. We now have a stable, controlled environment vital for the long term preservation of all items in our collection and most welcome by staff, volunteers and visitors to the building. The benefits of this system will in the long-term far outweigh the financial burden created by this move.
This is also my opportunity to thank our exceptional team of volunteers who have devoted so much time and energy to the Society. They have contributed just over 1000 recorded hours of their time and many more unrecorded hours researching, cataloging, scanning and helping with mailings. I am inspired by their dedication and excitement and grateful for the unique set of local knowledge that they bring. It has really been a pleasure to work with them.
Other major events this past year included the annual visit by the third grade to the Bell School. With the help of Nancy Burkholder, Bob LaFrance and Carol Coutinho we were able to offer a whirlwind tour of the Head of Westport and a taste of 19th century schooldays.
With funding from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities we were able to complete a survey of items in our collection relating to schools in Westport. This inventory included over 274 items and should prove invaluable to local researchers and to the interpretation of our own Bell school building.
I would also like to thank Ed Jackson and Tom Kendig for representing the Westport Historical Society at the annual 4th of July parade. Their assembly of flags and antique cars was brilliantly recorded on camera and made the front page of the Chronicle newspaper.
The Westport appetite for local history is insatiable. This year we were able to satisfy the truly curious with our bus tour of Westport. Our thanks to the Council on Aging for use of their bus, and to Carmen Maiocco for providing a fascinating commentary. We hope to repeat the tours next year and to explore other areas of Westport.
The year culminated with our exhibit of Westport Whaling. Our exhibit team assembled a unique collection of photographs, documents and objects relating to whaling activities out of Westport. We are indebted to the staff at the New Bedford Whaling Museum library for providing access to their collection and to residents of Westport, particularly Ken Simon, Phoebe Chardon, Richard Kugler, Howard Gifford, Carolyn Cody and the Westport Fishermen’s Association, for so generously loaning items for the exhibit. The response to the exhibit was tremendous, both the program and exhibit reached an audience of over 350 people.
For the coming year I look forward to our exhibit “Community on Camera” funded by the Helen Ellis Trust, and encourage those of you who have not submitted a photo to do so before the deadline of November 5th. We are looking for photos representative of present day Westport. These photographs will become a unique record of Westport today and an important archive for the future.
In our museum world, the search for ever higher standards in collections care and in all activities never ends and the Society will continue over the next year to develop policies that are fundamental to professional museum management. This year the Society adopted a brand new mission statement to reflect its current role within Westport: “To collect, preserve and document the material culture of Westport; and to educate and connect the residents of the area to their heritage through public programs, exhibits, publications and research.” I also hope to explore creative ways to provide access to our collections, to connect with new sectors of the community and to interpret Westport’s history through our website, exhibits and publications. Suggestions and alternative perspectives from members of the Society are always welcomed and participation in our organization at all levels very much encouraged.
Jenny O’Neill
Collections Committee
The Historical Society’s collections have seen many changes and much activity. Jenny sent out a call for volunteers and we now have over half a dozen people working at various tasks involving our collections. Although I had worked at the computer for six years on the collection and had most of the objects and documents accessioned and cataloged to some extent, with the newer PastPerfect system and the scanner much more could be done. For the most part I had to leave the postcards and photographs untouched because I had no means of handling them efficiently until we got the scanner.
Our database allows us to identify and pull together all relevant materials that we have in our collections on any particular subject. For example Jennifer has pulled together much material regarding the Bell Schoolhouse and Westport’s schools. The recent Westport Whaling Exhibit was another example of how we can retrieve materials on a particular subject. We were able to locate and display all pertinent objects from our own collections. Additionally we then displayed intriguing and informative materials loaned by many people in the area.
Our volunteers have worked many long hours. Carol Coutinho has worked industriously cataloging information on deeds, the Mary Hicks Brown papers, and hundreds of postcards. She is a Jill of all trades and willingly takes on any job asked of her. Eileen Flaherty has scanned and catalogued innumerable postcards. The same can be said for Ginny Sexton, who also works on photos, family histories, and helps with administrative tasks. Vivian Coutinho works on newspaper clippings, and scrapbooks. Ingrid Davidge catalogs objects. Sally Sapienza is our paintings authority while Martha Farrar works on newspaper clippings and enters biographical information into the computer. Betty Spray sorts and catalogs photographs of buildings and other Westport topics. The database now contains 972 images and a total of 3304 individual records.
Essentially I take care of new acquisitions to the collection and also work with Suzanne Palmer every Tuesday morning on various tasks. We have done much work on clothing, schoolbooks and the other books in our collection. Recently we have just completed the onerous task of entering an archives box number for every document (four centuries worth) in our collection. This allows us to locate any document on the shelves very quickly.
I will close by mentioning just some of the more than 75 new acquisitions, picked at random, that have been added to our collection this year:
Historically very important, in my opinion, is Gaile Fletcher’s donation of the records of the Westport Public Library Association. This association donated Alumni Hall to the historical society.
Recently Pete Baker gave us photographs of the whaleboats restored by Bob Baker. Also in keeping with this year’s whaling theme William H. Potter Jr. gave us Whaling Letters, a book published by the Descendants of Whaling Masters.
Kenneth Simon gave us photocopies of the letters of Henry T. Pettey, a Westporter who made several whaling voyages and also a 1701 map of Gooseberry Neck
Henry A. L. Brown gave us a lantern from the old Life Saving Station.
George Dean donated a copy of the log of the bark R. L. Barstow for our collections and a wonderful collection of 19th century school text books.
Of course the most exciting news was the purchase at an auction of the logbooks for the bark President and later the brig Mexico with its watercolors of the Azores.
Barbara E. Moss
Programs Committee
The Program Committee researched and arranged nine programs from March through October, 2006. July had two programs. Depending upon the size of the anticipated audience, the programs were held in the Bell Schoolhouse or the Council on Aging and, in the case of Richard Kugler’s program with an audience of over 100, at the Westport Point Methodist Church. This year’s speakers included June Brownell Roche, Tony Vieira, Marie De Gloria Mulcahy, Richie Earle, Russ Hart, Jean Parsons, Nick Niles, Richard C. Kugler, Dick Hawes and John McNiff.
The Society would like to acknowledge the contribution of wonderful refreshments provided by Sue Smith of Noquochoke Orchards for many of our programs.
Jim Panos
Nancy Burkholder
Oral History Committee
The oral histories for 2005-2006 followed the programs scheduled from March until October in part. The following oral histories were recorded this year:
• Final histories for the Portuguese Pioneers included programs for Charlie Costa and Joe Perry.
• Heidi Eastman's history students on projects of the history of Westport and other towns.
• The Westport Art Group 50th Anniversary honoring Dorothy Curtis, the last surviving founder, took place in February despite a snowstorm.
• We filmed the study of Westport history by the Third Grade.
• The Firemen's Fourth of July parade.
• A beginning history of Westport Fire Department with “old timers” such as Cukie Macomber, Bill Tripp, Charlie Costa, Duke Duquette and Charlene Wood's father.
• An interview with Duke Duquette of the EMS service in Westport.
• The Arts and Crafts Scene in Westport: a visit with Suse Craig, basket maker, Ruth Bourns, quilter, Elaine Stevens, potter, and Barri Throop, Botanicals Designer.
Some of the previously recorded programs such as Cukie and Alice Macomber and the Westport Point Methodist Church Clam Bake, the children's program of square dancing at the Point Methodist Church are currently shown on the local cable channel.
Nancy Burkholder
The Harbinger
The Harbinger continued to report to our membership the happenings within the Westport Historical Society as well as those important historical events that occurred in the town. The Harbinger has become a mainstay of our public relations programs. The purpose of the Harbinger is four-fold:
1. Create an awareness of the WHS throughout our community
2. Present WHS positions on important historical events in town
3. Report on WHS events and happenings
4. Recruit new members
We continued in 2006 to market our organization by way of The Harbinger to prospective members from within our town as well as our out of town summer visitors. Free point-of-purchase distribution of The Harbinger throughout several businesses and organizations in town has increased an awareness of our Society and has resulted in new memberships. Throughout 2007 we will continue to enrich The Harbinger’s content, make it more interesting to our general readership, encourage new people to contribute articles to broaden its appeal and work hard to share all Society’s workings with our townspeople. There are a lot of exciting activities taking place within our Society, and we are proud to share them with everyone through The Harbinger.
Jon Alden
Membership Committee
464 members in total. 36 new memberships.
Charter: 6
Life: 6
Sustaining: 24
Contributing: 72
Family: 176
Individual: 180
Frances LaMontagne
Historian
This year has brought about changes to the traditional role of Historian as our new Director has been able to respond to research requests and to provide guidance, a most positive move.
The goal for this year was to locate all the Society’s minutes from 1965 (origination of the Society), organize and extract from them a list of all the non financial donations and their donors in order to fill in some of the gaps in our collections records. This has been accomplished. It was a most interesting search, the results of which will provide important supporting information, particularly relating to the early years of the Society.
Carolyn Cody
Treasurer’s Report
2006 was an exciting year for the Society. Early in the year, Jenny O’Neill joined us as Director. Under her expert direction, a group of volunteers have undertaken an exhaustive program of identifying and cataloguing our many artifacts and documents, something way overdue, as well as organizing our exhibitions over the year. These activities created some one time expenses which caused our operating expenses to exceed budget by about $3,000, but should be less this year.
We also made major additions to the collections. Two interesting and historical whaling logbooks were purchased for $27,000, of which $13,000 was raised by subscription. We also bought and installed a new heating and air conditioning system which will help preserve the newly organized collections. Funds for this came from the society’s capital funds. We are not expecting any major capital expenditures in this coming year.
As noted elsewhere, we gained 36 new members, and, as a result, our dues received increased by $1875. Sales of books and other items declined, but income from investments increased by almost $2000. We received $18,000 in grants, of which $10,000 came as an addition to capital as an endowment from the Van Sloun family. The Howard Bayne and Nichols Foundation again gave us grants for general purposes, and we received a research inventory grant from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. The Society is also grateful to Normand Oullette and the St George Council 441 for organizing the New York bus trip fundraiser in December of 2005. They have been thanked by letter, but we wish to thank them again.
Roger P. Griswold