Hidden Walls, Hidden Mills

Hidden Walls, Hidden Mills is a series of five self-guided walking tours that explore the history and landscape of Plainfield -- one of the hilltowns in Western Massachusetts. The brochures invite the reader to get out and have an adventure, learning to see and understand, “read” as it were, the activities of earlier generations written in stone in the rural and re-forested landscape, dotted with old and discontinued roads, cellar holes, and mill foundations, the forest a mix of the native beech-dominated forest and plants and trees brought by earlier generations. The tours are meant to be trajectories of discovery and learning. These are for people who don’t mind stepping off the road or occasionally get their feet wet. You will have to read the brochures closely, using them as a guide to poking around cellar holes and mill foundations; examining the map and tracing the old lines of settlement in stone walls in the forest; looking at what plants and trees tell us about what happened before; having a closer look at how land was measured and described two hundred years go and then used; or following the trajectory of the pipeline of the first Plainfield utility company. [ More information below the images]

Clicking each individual brochure cover will take you to its page on the website of the Plainfield Historical Society

The project combines historical maps and research in the archives of the Plainfield Historical Society with newly developing methods of reading the landscape through forestry/ecological/geologic mapping. It was put together by an incredible team of professionals who put in large amounts of their own time, and who were supported by intrepid volunteers of the Plainfield Historical Society. The tours or adventures were developed by a cultural historian, a forester, a surveyor, and a stone mason, with the indispensable collaboration of a graphic designer.

I conceived of the project, recruited the professionals and volunteers, wrote the grant application, and then managed the project as it was implemented. I also did the historical research, designed the brochures, and wrote the text. Occasionally, I give talks and lead tours featuring the walks. Hidden Walls, Hidden Mills was funded in part by a Cultural and Economic Development Grant from Mass Humanities.