“A Mi’Kmaw Woman’s Award Winning Legacy” is one of the displays in the Historical Society of Watertown’s new exhibit.
A new exhibit presented by the Historical Society of Watertown will debut this weekend at the Edmund Fowle House.
Last spring the Historical Society received a grant from the Watertown Community Foundation. The grant allowed us to purchase a free-standing, re-useable display screen and exhibit materials so that we may create rotating exhibits at the Edmund Fowle House. The inaugural exhibits will be unveiled on March 7 and are free and open to the public.
On display in the North Parlor will be “Watertown and the Civil War” featuring a newly acquired collection, donated by one of our long-time members, Florence Jones, of transcriptions and reproductions of Civil War letters written by her great-uncle Thomas Folsom Norris, who joined the Union Army as a 15-year-old drummer boy in 1862. Visitors can also read newspaper interviews from 1911 with Civil War veterans living in Watertown at the time. In our new glass case we will display information on other people and sites connected to Watertown and the Civil War.
This case features items from the Civil War exhibit at the Historical Society of Watertown.
In the South Parlor, we will host “A Mi’Kmaw Woman’s Award Winning Legacy”, an exhibit featuring the arts and crafts of Madeline (Joe) Knockwood, a Native American artisan from the Mi’Kmaq Nation, on loan to us from Terrie Drew (great-granddaughter) and her family of Nova Scotia, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Items on display will include Mrs. Knockwood’s formal regalia, some of her award-winning wooden roses, the hand-made tools of her trade, historical artifacts, photos and information about Mi’Kmaq culture and traditions.
There is a strong connection between Watertown and the Mi’Kmaq. The Treaty of Watertown, a treaty of alliance and friendship, was signed on July 18, 1776 in the Edmund Fowle House between the governors of the Massachusetts Bay and the Mi’Kmaq and St. Johns (Maliceet) tribes of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. This was the first treaty signed by the newly formed United States of America with a foreign power.
The Grand Opening is scheduled for Saturday, March 7, 2015 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Edmund Fowle House at 28 Marshall Street in Watertown. The opening will be postponed to Sunday, March 8 if we have a snow storm. Light refreshments will be served.
The exhibits will also be open on Saturday, March 14 and April 11 as well as Sunday, March 22 and April 26 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. See the Historical Society’s website, the Society’s Facebook page, Watertown News and the Watertown TAB for other dates.
For more information please contact Joyce at 781-899-7239 or joycekel@aol.com