NORTH CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS

RESEARCH PROJECTS FOR REGIONAL HISTORY

Prepared by Professor Thomas Malloy, Mt. Wachusett Community College

  • Research the establishment of your town/city: why it was granted, who the original settlers were, the date of the charter, its first town meeting, and the origin of the name.
  • Look into the aboriginal history of the area. This could be reflected in present day place names.
  • Research a local place name such as a park, playground, a memorial building, square or street.
  • Find out how transportation systems influenced the development of a community; i.e., post roads, county roads, turnpikes, canals and the railroad.
  • Look into a town’s early educational system. For instance, were there any early academies or what was the extent of the district system?
  • Research a historic site in town; i.e., a militia field, town pound, mill site, monument or even a cellar hole.
  • Inventory a building of architectural distinction. When was it built, its style, why that style at that time, who were the original and subsequent owners, how was it used, its connection to the town’s or region’s history.
  • Inventory a local cemetery. Look for various demographic trends. See if a particular carver made a major contribution, and what was his art form and favorite inscriptions.
  • Connect your community to national events. Every community contributed troops and support to every war from the Revolution to Vietnam. Also, every community participated in national elections. Find out your town’s input to the state’s constitutional ratification convention or a national election. Or, connect your town to a social movement such as temperence and abolitionism.
  • Write a biography of someone of note from the community. Just about every community has an individual who won some kind of national distinction or who was involved in a national movement on the regional level. An example of the latter could be a local captain of industry who contributed to a community industrial development.
  • Conduct an oral history interview. This could be with an individual who has experienced a national event such as the Great Depression; or it could be with someone who experienced a regional event such as the Hurricane of ’38 or the Worcester Tornado.
  • Research an ethnic enclave in your community and relate that group to present day institutions, ie.e., a church, club, or festival.

Lesson Plan: Using the Old Burying Ground as an Educational Tool in American History

Objectives:

  • To use an example within the community of a "laboratory for learning"
  • To provide students with a primary source in American history
  • To give students an awareness of their historical environment
  • To allow students to use the physical presence to understand the past
  • To provide students with a means of making associations and connections of the past with the present

This is an interdisciplinary topic that can involve most subjects in the K-12 curriculum (add specific standards)

  • the arts (design of tombs: death head, cherub, urn, willow, etc. and inscriptions morbid to serene; gravestone rubbings where allowed);
  • health (infant mortality, plagues, causes of death); math (statistics re life spans, longevity for males v. females, other data);
  • history (relate tomb dates to events in community, Massachusetts and US history; names connected to community history – personalities and distinctions; e.g. size and appearance of tomb of minister and other town luminaries);
  • geography (physical setting, mapping);
  • government (how burial grounds have been established and supervised by local govt. state standards, etc.) science: geology of stones, earth science of burial ground)l

Possible Projects

  • Go on a cemetery scavenger hunt. This could be to find directed information, or simply to find their own information.
  • Determine average life span during a certain period of time as represented in a particular cemetery. Also, comparisons can be made between male and female expectancy.
  • Record evidence of an epidemic.
  • Compare names on stone with placenames in the communty.Determine frequency of remarriage or length of life span after the death of a spouse.
  • Find the contributions of a local carver.

Assessment

Nominate a site or resource to be highlighted on this page by sending e-mail to the Massachusetts Studies Project