I’m the kind of guy who can bury himself in a history book without complaint. But for many people, the mere mention of the word “history” produces the sleepy-eyed look that they mastered back in elementary school, when they had to memorize a string of dates. That isn’t studying history. It's rote learning to pass an exam. History, when well-taught, brings the past to life in all its marvelous, messy and magnificent glory. And that’s where a trip to a living-history museum or historic site comes into play.
Here’s a case in point.
One of my ancestors, Thankful Stebbins, was still a child when she was kidnapped with the rest of her Puritan family in a pre-dawn French and Indian raid on the small English settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts, on February 29, 1704. The Stebbins clan was forcibly marched to Canada. Some family members eventually returned home. Thankful, who married a French Canadian, did not.
During the raid, Indians allied with New France, as French Canada was then known, used hatchets to attack the Deerfield home of John Sheldon Jr., Thankful’s half cousin. John and his eldest son were not harmed, but his wife, Hannah (Stebbins) Sheldon, and their daughter, Mercy, were killed. Other family members were captured and taken to Canada, from which they were later "redeemed."
The "Old Indian House," as Sheldon's home became known, is long gone. But its large wooden door - pocked, gouged, holed and fortified with nails - survives to this day. As far as I know, it remains on display at the Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield.
I saw that door many years ago, during a visit to the museum. It may sound like a cliché, but standing only inches away from such a remarkable artifact literally gave me goose bumps. It was almost as if those clearly visible hatchet marks transported me back to 1704, and to the raid itself. The mere thought of that door, and of what it signifies for my family, has a similar effect on me to this day.
That’s what history is, or should be. Not some meaningless date grudgingly dredged up from the mists of memory, but a tangible and resonant reminder of who once lived, what once was and what still is. If we try hard enough to remember. As James Baldwin wrote: "People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them."
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| The "Old Indian House" door, Deerfield, Mass. |
