Thanksgiving Holiday Week Hours for the exhibit Slavery and Freedom in Northampton, 1654 to 1783
Holiday Week Hours
Slavery & Freedom
in Northampton, 1654 to 1783
Open
Friday, November 28, 2025
Saturday, November 29, 2025
11 am to 4 pm
About the Exhibit
Image: Receipt, Ephraim Breed of Middlesex County to Joseph Parsons, Jr. (1647-1729) of Northampton, for a "man Called Boston, of about ninteen [sic] years of age ..." from the collection of Forbes Library, Northampton, MA, with a silhouette of Boston by Design Division, Inc.
For at least 129 years, slavery was part of the fabric of everyday life in Northampton. At least 50 enslaved individuals lived here from the town’s English settlement in 1654 until 1783 when slavery was abolished in Massachusetts.
This exhibit features life-sized silhouettes of men, women, and children who were enslaved. On each silhouette are details about individual lives based upon information gleaned from historic documents.
Their histories reveal aspects of enslavement and examples of freedom, and resistance to oppression.
Historic Northampton will be closed Wednesday, November 26th, Thursday, November 27th, and Sunday, November 30th. Regular hours resume December 3rd through December 21st of 2025.
