EVENTS
Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA
1630: FROM SHAWMUT TO BOSTON
WALKING TOUR, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2025, 2:30-4pm ET
ROXANNE REDDINGTON-WILDE
Stroll through history with our newly revised walking tour of early Boston. We start with Shawmut, the land of the Massachusett people, and move to the first days of colonial Boston with the arrival of the Puritans. Who were the movers and shakers of the 1630s? What was society like? Did they really wear black hats? Join us for a fascinating hour and a half as we make our way through the landmarks of the area of original settlement and discover what life was like in the first, hard days.
BOOK CLUB: THIS LAND IS THEIR LAND
ONLINE, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2025, 11am-12:30pm ET
EVANA ROSE TAMAYO
Our first book club discussions were fascinating, enlightening and fun! This one will be too. Join us in exploring the founding myth of American history - Thanksgiving. From primary school we’re taught that Thanksgiving was a moment of harmony between Indigenous people and colonists. From David Silverman’s acclaimed This Land is Their Land we’ll discover something very different - the Thanksgiving story told from the Wampanoag point of view. “A gripping, Native-centred narrative of the English invasion of New England,” wrote a reviewer. Just right for the pre-Thanksgiving season!
radicalism and resistance in the english civil wars
ONLINE, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2025, 5:30-7pm ET
RACHEL FOXLEY
We think of revolutionary ideas originating in 1775/1776 but more than a century before, English political thinkers were proposing representation, elements of democracy and an end to monarchy. Historian Rachel Foxley, University of Reading, explores the unexpected, even startling, radicalism of English civil war thinkers, including Levellers such as pamphleteer John Lilburne. Fascinating, little known, and arrestingly radical, these thinkers sound revolutionary even today. Third in our Revolution before the Revolution series.
hugh peter and the orphans
ONLINE, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2026, 7-8:30pm ET
SAMUEL FULLERTON
Was it fake news? Royalists saw only the devil whispering “You are mine” in former Salem minister Hugh Peter’s ear, a sign of his malevolent intent in sending homeless London orphans to New England in the civil war years. Join historian Samuel Fullerton in exploring this 17th century conspiracy theory as Royalists marshalled the power of print media to tar Peter’s arguably benevolent project with accusations of subjecting young people to the evils of Puritanism.
“You knocked it out of the park with this lecture. Have signed up for them all.”
—attendee, Enslavement & Resistance series