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February 23, 2005
  Articles on this page: • Creating a new museum
Creating a new museum PITTSFIELD A house on Third Street in Pittsfield, abandoned and left to decay and crumble for 20 years, is about to achieve a renaissance of sorts. Built in 1850, the house was first the home to the Reverend Samuel Harrison, a former slave who fought for the Union in the Civil War and won the right for equal pay for black and white soldiers serving in the Union Army. Harrison, who also served as chaplain for the famous Massachusetts 54th Regiment whose exploits are recounted in the film "Glory," became the pastor for Pittsfield's Second Congregational Church and moved into the house built for him and his family, mostly by Pittsfield’s white community. Reverend Harrison died in 1900, but the house remained in his family and four more generations lived on in the unremarkable place until the mid-1980s. Decrepit and in need of renovation, the final family members moved away and left the place to crumble. It was the result of a film crew making a documentary on the Reverend Harrison filming outside the building that brought new attention to the house. Now The Samuel Harrison Society, a 15-member committee headed by CEO Heather Eagen and President Linda Tyer is making the house and its future their priority. "The house is remarkable in its simplicity," Eagen reported. "Its vertical plank construction is at the core of its strength and, considering how long much of the interior has been exposed to the forces of nature, the house is really in very good condition. I do have to wear a hard hat, though, when I go inside.” The plan, currently, is to complete a preliminary study for a complete historical structural report, using funds from the Community Development Block Grant, and the replacement in the summer of 2005 of a temporary roof that was put on the structure last year to protect the house from weather and animals. The next phase, aimed for partial completion in 2006, would be for the interior and exterior to be returned to some semblance of its 19th-century appearance and the opening of the facility as a museum.
More than a memorial This museum would be more than just a Harrison memorial. It would also be a historical site for the Berkshire County African-American community. "There's only one other like it, in the Commonwealth," Eagen said, "and that one is in Boston. We anticipate establishing a full archive and research center, but our first plan in order to open the house at all is to rebuild the barn.” The barn was an attached building at the rear of the house. This addition would house the museum's offices, a lobby and bathrooms, something that must be done in order to provide reasonable occupancy to the house itself. "We have a matching grant for the work to be done," Eagen commented. "It's a rehabilitation, structural grant and it’s for about $100,000. Right now we have commitments for about half the match.”
The Harrison Society has been collecting artifacts and photographs and memorabilia for their new museum and that activity will intensify as the time for opening grows closer. Right now they are trying to raise the money they need and keep the project on track. Where they see themselves situated for the future is right in the middle of regional history. "You can't try to understand the history of Pittsfield," Eagen said, "without examining the history of all of us. There was a large black community in this city in the 19th century. We were a stop along the Underground Railroad and the county had been the home to both free and slave blacks before the Civil War. What we think of now as the black neighborhood wasn’t that in Harrison’s day. People need to understand the way a community shifts and alters. Berkshire Medical Center, for example, was the second medical school in the country to admit blacks, and Harrison’s granddaughter Florence Edmonds was one of the earliest graduates.” The Samuel Harrison Society is off to a good start. But there's a lot of work to be done, a lot of historical debris to filter. With the aid of several Pittsfield agencies and the Massachusetts Historical Commission, which declared the house "a historic and archaeological asset of the Commonwealth" they should be adding a whole new layer of marvels to Pittsfield’s future.  RETURN TO TOP |
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