Enfield (Mass.) Collection

The Woman's Auxiliary was formed November 22, 1904 "to aid the Church by whatever methods shall seem expedient to the Auxiliary." Records Include Constitution, By-laws, membership lists, minutes of meetings, financial accounts.

In 1885, the women of the Enfield Congregational Church formed a woman's missionary society to disseminate information on, increase interest in, and raise funds for missionary work. The Society sponsored lectures with missionary workers and distributed funds to women's missions associations and smaller, local charities. In 1927, the Society merged with similar groups in Hatfield and Northampton, Mass., forming the Hampshire County Branch of the Women's Board of Missions. The records of the Woman's Missionary Society of the Enfield Congregational Church consist principally of minutes of meetings and one account book.

Records include a minutebook kept by the Secretary irregularly between 1911 and 1938, recording details such as the purchase and use of rubber clothing; the care and refurbishing of the engine house; fires extinguished; the preparation of warrant articles for Town Meeting requesting, for example, funds for an addition to the engine house for ladder storage; the submission of names for membership and the vote taken on them; and very frequently over the years, the decision to hold the annual Firemen's Ball. The tradition of these balls culminated in a Farewell Ball held April 27, 1938, "commemorating the passing of the Town of Enfield and Swift River Valley." Also includes is a 1902 booklet of Rules and Regulations; the 1916 financial records for the Firemen's Ball; correspondence between the Chief, Dr. Willard B. Segur, and the members regarding his 1915 illness; and a list of names, mostly regional, date and purpose unknown.

Records of the Enfield Library Association, including minutes, lists of members and officers, financial records, and a constitution

Includes financial records and letters written and received concerning persons who required financial support

The records of the schools in Enfield include three items: the Selectmen's school appropriations account book, 1816-1856, documenting funds raised annually by the town to support the schools, and noting allotments to each of the five districts as well as how, when, and to whom the money was disbursed. In 1816, the total amount raised was $300, which by 1828 was already noted as insufficient. After increasing to $400 in 1829, the appropriation dipped to $300 two years later before rising to $500 in 1832. State aid to the schools began in 1837 when the town's $800 was matched by $65 from the state. In 1856, the last year of these records, the town supplied $800, the state $43.72. By 1854, there were 8 school districts, with student numbers as follows:

Secondly, the collection includes an account book from School District no. 5 for 1854-1868, recording the annual allotment from the town as the district's proportion of the total school appropriation, as well as disbursements for teaching, boarding the teacher, supplying cord wood and making fires, or repairing the school building. The records were kept by the town's Prudential Committee, which sometimes appears as receiving payments for board, cord wood, or teaching. School terms ran from 10 to 14 weeks and teachers seldom taught for longer than one term, although a few returned. Sixteen of the 22 teachers listed were women, with only one (Mrs. E.S. Wheeler) who appears to have been married. Teachers were generally paid between $2 and $4 per week, although Henry Brown (the Prudential Committee for 1854) received $1 per day and another, Esther Morton, received payment for boarding herself. In most cases, the town paid for boarding the teacher, usually at a rate of $1.50 to $2.50 per week. Other teachers included Augustus Tuttle, Lucy M. Brackett, Pamelia B. Warner, Mary Sears, Sarah D. Blodgett, Lyman Morton, Jane Howe, Rebecca and Ellen Davis, and Lysander Thurston.

The Prudential Committee included H. Brown, Henry Fobes, Augustus Tuttle, David Blodgett, Joseph Collis, Charles H. Dow, H.C.M. Howe, James Foster, H.M. and S.D. Potter, Charles Scott, William W. Hanks, and Daniel Fisk. In 1854 District 5 had 32 students; in 1855 it served 44.

Finally, the collection includes a set of programs from graduation exercises for the grammar school held at the Enfield Town Hall in 1902, 1906, 1913, and 1914. Includes list of graduates, as well as speakers and performers.

Beginning at the time of the town's incorporation in 1816, this account book documents the public expenses of a small rural town in central Massachusetts over a thirty year period. Most accounts are for orders drawn, covering routine expenses such as ringing the bell; sweeping or repairing the meeting house; supporting a widow or a pauper and family; supplying materials or labor for roads or bridges; providing services as an assessor or overseer of the poor; building coffins and digging graves; providing a yard to serve as a pound; building or repairing the gates and fence to burying ground; teaching singing school.

The accounts include a great many names representing a cross-section of Enfield society from the well-off who lent money for town purposes to paupers on town support, individuals paid for services rendered, and tradespeople who supplied goods. Among the names mentioned are Henry Fobes, Asa Shaw, Thomas Cary, Polly Pettingill, Abner Eddy, Rufus Powers, Thomas Jones, Elnathan Jones, Alvin Smith, Ichabod Woods, members of the Howe family, Elisha Hunting, Widow Bump, Hosea Hooker, and Freeman Pope.

Includes town meeting minutes, elections, perambulations, financial records, dogs, etc

Organized in 1825, the Bethel Masonic Lodge was the oldest recorded social or fraternal group in the Swift River Valley. Although it flourished initially, the Lodge suspended its operations in late 1829 and surrendered its charter in response to the rise of anti-Masonic sentiments. The charter was restored in 1858 to petitioners Aaron Woods, Henry Fobes, Nathan Weeks, J.B. Woods, John Crosby, Ichabod Pope, and Daniel Ford. Erected in 1926, the Masonic Building was located in the central business district of Enfield. When the town was evacuated to make way for the Quabbin Reservoir in 1938, the Bethel Lodge folded and most of its members merged into Eden Lodge in nearby Ware, Mass.

The Bethel Lodge collection consists of material dating strictly from the period following reinstatement of the Lodge's charter in 1858. Records include a membership list (1861), financial records (1858-1898), by-laws (1882, 1937), a burial service manual (1909), directories (1898, 1929-1938), insurance policies (1873-1898), meeting cards (1880-1926), and a one-hundredth anniversary booklet (1925).

In volume titled "Complete record of the names of all the soldiers and officers in the military service, : and of all the seamen and officers in the naval service of the United States, from Enfield, during the rebellion begun in 1861: together with the authentic facts relating to the military or naval career of each soldier, seaman and officer."

The records of the Captain Joseph Hooker Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, of Enfield, Massachusetts, consist of a single book (first six pages missing) with five entries, 1916 and 1922. Two entries are obituaries of members Frances (Fanny) Woods Kimball and Prudence Goodsell Sibley; the longest entry records the Chapter's services rendered in World War I; and two concern prizes given or received during the Enfield Centennial celebration, 1916.

The town of Enfield, Massachusetts sent invitations across the country to former residents and natives to celebrate its centennial between July 2-4, 1916. Private contributions supplemented the $1000 appropriated by the town for festivities, which included a parade of "floats, automobiles, horribles, etc."; religious services; sports events; band concert; and fireworks. Members of the Executive Committee included Dr. Willard B. Segur, R.W. Hewitt, J.W. Flint, D.W. Howe, and Charles W. Felton. Records consist of minutes of some of the public and committee meetings held to plan the celebration; letters received by committee members, chiefly from vendors of services for such celebrations; historical sketches prepared for distribution at the event; programs of the entire celebration and sports events; the official invitation; a committee member's badge; and news clippings.

The Enfield Mothers' Club, open to all mothers in Enfield, Mass., was formed in 1916 "to promote the spiritual, intellectual and social life of mothers". It ceased to exist in 1937.

In honor of the fifty-one men from Enfield who served in the First World War, the town held a dance celebrating their return was held Monday evening, October 13, 1919. Two dance program cards from that event comprise the collection. Both are filled out, chiefly with initials. The back cover identifies W.H. Young as Floor Director, along with five aides.