The Adams Armory, at 89 Park Street in Adams, was built in 1914. Modeled after a Norman castle, its architects were H. S. Libbey and Company and McFarland and Colby. The Armory was one of nine throughout Massachusetts that were closed by the state National Guard in 2003. Vacant since that time, it was recently leased to Ideal Event Management, of Bennington, Vermont, which plans to host events the building.
The First Congregational Church of Adams, at 42 Park Street in Adams, is a wood-frame church built in 1868. At some point, the church lost its original tall steeple, which was replaced with the current shortened one. Just to the south are the parish house and parsonage, built in 1895.
In the 1760s, Quakers, mostly from the area of Smithfield, Rhode Island, began to settle in the area that would be incorporated as the Town of Adams in 1778. In 1781, the East Hoosuck Meeting of the Society of Friends was established. The following year the Society began construction of the Quaker (Friends) Meeting House at the corner of Friend and Maple Streets in Adams. The building, which took four years to build, is located in Maple Street Cemetery, where many Quakers are buried. The building‘s plainness reflected the religious ideas of the Quakers, who shunned ostentatious display and followed a code of strict simplicity. In 1827 the Society was split between the orthodox believers and the followers of Edward Hicks. Many Quakers began to move west in search of better economic opportunities. The Society of Friends held their last official meeting in the old Meeting House in 1842. A number of images of the building can be found here. Continue reading “Friends Meeting House, Adams (1782)”
[Note–This is a non-partisan post, but some of the links lead to pages reflecting representing strong opinions on both sides of the abortion issue.] The famous women’s suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony was born in 1820 in a house in Adams. The house had been built by her father, Daniel Anthony, in 1817. He was a cotton manufacturer and abolitionist who raised Susan in the family’s Quaker religion. The family left the house in 1827 and moved to New York State. Their former home, located at 67 East Road in Adams, passed through several owners. From 1926 to 1949, The Society of Friends Descendents owned the house and operated a museum about Susan B. Anthony. After a few unsuccessful attempts by later owners to again make the house a museum, it was purchased at auction in 2006 by Carol Crossed, of the pro-life group Feminists for Life. The restored house opened to the public in 2010 as the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum. It did not open without controversy, however, as there were objections to the museum’s presentation of Anthony’s position on abortion.
