HADLEY — A $224,855 semiquincentennial federal grant will provide support for the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation’s ongoing rehabilitation of a 1752 house known as Forty Acres.
The museum, at 130 River Drive, announced Wednesday that it was one of 26 grant recipients nationwide. The $11.9 million in grants coincide with the 250th anniversary of the United States and come from the Historic Preservation Fund, which is administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior.
The money will be put toward roof and cellar work at the home that is part of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum.
Forty Acres is considered a unique historic resource, with a high level of integrity and authenticity. Without the work on the building, it is at risk of collapse.
“If the building fails, the power and immediacy of many of the stories told by this place would be enormously diminished,” Karen Sánchez-Eppler, president of the foundation’s board of directors, said in a statement. “The stories held by this site are not centered on famous individuals. They are stories of everyday life, full of layers and contradictions; they are stories of America.”
The museum, physically open May through October, interprets the varied lives of people who lived and worked at Forty Acres through a collection of belongings of seven generations of an extended Hadley family. In addition to portraying activities of family members, the museum also explores the lives of enslaved people, artisans, household servants and farm laborers.
Much recent programming has focused on the Revolutionary War era. The exhibits and programs the foundation created for the semiquincentennial, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, represent experiences, individuals and a rural location that are not often considered in accounts of the American Revolution.
The Forty Acres farmstead was included in the National Register in 1973 with the listing criteria of “architecture” and “early settlement,” and it anchors the expanded “Forty Acres and its Skirts” National Register District, totaling 114 acres, that was nominated in 2023.
That district includes the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum in the house built by Moses and Elizabeth Pitkin Porter in 1752, and the neighboring Phelps Farm built in 1816.
The semiquincentennial grants go to physical preservation of National Register-listed properties by states, tribes, local governments and nonprofit organizations, with funding coming from Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas lease revenue.
“Preserving our nation’s history is about honoring the people, events and cultures that shaped who we are,” Jessica Bowron, the comptroller for the National Park Service, exercising the delegated authority of the director, said in a statement. “These grants empower communities to tell their stories, celebrate their heritage and ensure that future generations can connect with the past in meaningful ways.”
