Parsons Family Association

If you have ever missed a reunion, an annual meeting or a business meeting, you can find out what you missed by visiting the "Annual Meeting Debrief" section of our family website at https://parsonsfamilyassn.org/category/debriefs/. There is even a video of this year's business meeting via zoom. Make sure you copy the password before clicking on the video link. Enjoy!

Debriefs Archives - The Parsons Family Association This page will summarize our past meetings with information on present members, completed business, and next steps.

What a great 101st Reunion of the Parsons Family Association at Salem, MA! So good to see cousins from all over the country and many new faces this year. I was impressed with our speaker-- in true Parsons form, she knew her topic cold and only once glanced down at her notes. The afternoon passed so quickly. A glitch in Facebook won't let me re-order these pictures tonight. Maybe it will let me tomorrow!

The PFA mourns the passing of a beloved family member and Girl Scout. Harriet Parsons passed away at her home in Saratoga surrounded by family on January 30, 2024 at the age of 91. Harriet is survived by three daughters (and their spouses), Carol Tousley (Dave), Cynthia Davis (Jim), and Pamela Blackwell (Chris); five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Harriet was born October 23, 1932 in Goodland, Kansas. At age five, she, her mother and grandmother moved to Denver Colorado where she attended North High School. In 1950 she graduated with honors from Colorado State College of Education in Greeley, Colorado where she was president of her sorority, Alpha Sigma Alpha. After college, she moved to Southern California where she taught grammar school in La Mesa.

Harriet married Stuart Parsons (1926-2011) in 1955. Their first home was in Van Nuys where Stu was employed by Lockheed and working on his PhD at USC. When he was transferred to Northern California, Stu and Harriet made their home in Saratoga where they lived together for 67 years. Harriet and Stu loved to travel and visited all 50 states and over 65 foreign countries. She made yearly excursions with her three daughters, traveling to Paris, New York, London, Quebec City, Santa Fe, San Francisco, and Hawaii among other memorable trips.

Harriet was a member of the Montalvo Service Group’s sewing circle where she taught all the ladies how to make baby quilts and clutch balls. Harriet always enjoyed sewing, quilting, crossword puzzles, golf and bridge but she especially loved her family, ice cream, and hugs! She was a wonderful person and was loved by all that knew her.

Girl Scouting was a big part of Harriet’s life. She joined a troop in the second grade and went away each summer to Flying ‘G’ Girl Scout Camp bordering the Pike National Forest in Colorado. As a junior in high school she was made president of the Denver Senior Scouts and represented them at their National Convention. Harriet later became a Girl Scout leader for each of her three daughters. On one of their yearly outings they visited Savannah, Georgia and the Juliette Gordon Low Museum, founder of the Girl Scouts. As a lifetime advocate for Girl Scouting, she would often say, “perhaps my blood has turned green!”

In lieu of flowers please make contributions to Girl Scouts of the USA in her honor. (source: The Mercury News)

As part of our recent 100th-anniversary reunion, we featured Mayval Farm milk at the luncheon and discussed some of the wonderful accomplishments of the Mayval family. It was brought to our attention that we had not acknowledged the passing of the wonderful Bertha Parsons in 2017. Her image and obituary appear below.

Obituary: Published in Daily Hampshire Gazette on Dec. 12, 2017

AMHERST - Bertha Parsons, 94, passed away Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017, at the Linda Manor Extended Care Facility in Leeds.

Bertha was born on Nov. 16, 1923, in Amherst, to the late Nicholas and Emilia (Smiarowska) Rock,
immigrants from Poland. She grew up on their farm in Amherst with her six siblings.

Bertha was predeceased by her husband of 63 years, Mahlon K. Parsons II, whom she married in 1945. The couple managed the Mayval Farm in Westhampton where they lived and raised their family of four sons.

Bertha not only took care of the records and bookkeeping of the dairy farm, she also worked in the barns. She kept a garden and canned the produce for the family. She enjoyed baking and trying new recipes. As a consistent contributor to the Westhampton Church Suppers, her cooking was enjoyed by the community. Every year, Bertha made maple sugar candy using maple syrup from the farm's sugarhouse.

Bertha took pride in her attention to detail which could be seen not only in the careful mending of work
clothes, but in the meticulous hand stitches of baby clothing, dolls, and her embroidery work. She shared her knowledge and skill of sewing with children in 4-H clubs.

She was proud to be part of the long heritage of the Parsons of Westhampton. She belonged to the
Joseph Coronet Parsons' Family Association, tracing family history from the 1600's.

Bertha is predeceased by her siblings: Elizabeth Cole, Mary Czerwonka, Peter Rock, twin sister-
Catherine Whittaker, Frank Rock, Steven Rock, and five siblings under age five; John, Joseph, Stella,
John, and Andrew.

She is survived by her sons: Henry and wife Margaret (Sterni), Mahlon and wife Candice (Leining), Dale and wife Mary (Underwood), and Edward and wife Trina (Stratton). She is also survived by nine
grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and several nieces and nephews.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, Dec. 16, 2017, at the Cornerstone Chapel, 580 Bridge Road,
in Northampton. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to The Shriners Hospital for
Children, 516 Carew Street, Springfield, MA.

SAVE THE DATE - What happens when you blow the doors off your 100th PFA reunion? You save the date for the 101st! Get your pencils (no, pens) out and mark your calendars for Saturday, July 27th in Salem, Massachusetts! The Executive Committee has spent the last six months planning the location and date of our next reunion. It has been many years since we have had a reunion in Salem but this location has unique ties to our family history. Salem is well known as the location of certain witch trials between the years 1692-1693. The witch trials of our relative, Mary Bliss Parsons, in 1674 and 1675 predate Salem. Coincidentally ( or is it?), The Peabody Essex Museum will be mounting a new exhibition just in time for our reunion entitled "The Salem Witch Trials 1692". Here is a link to a video created by the Smithsonian with a summary of the Salem Witch Trials, as a teaser-- https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/rMe5mOWE.

DETAILS - Our luncheon will be held in the ballroom at the Hawthorne Hotel, 18 Washington Square W, Salem, MA 01970. The hotel is holding a block of rooms for the occasion, so please feel free to reach out and book one, just indicate that you're with the Parsons Family Association event. Room rates range from $189 to $229 nightly. More details on the day's proceedings, including a detailed timeline and local attractions, will follow in subsequent correspondence. The reunion will cost only $30 per member (children 12yo and under are free) to help support the next reunion and contribute to the continued maintenance of family archival materials.

You can register here https://bit.ly/3wWLLVJ.

See this great post from Historic Northampton about a plush Parsons hat!

For those who have not seen this article yet-- here is the newspaper coverage of our reunion.

The Parsons come home: 80 descendents of Cornet Joseph Parsons, one of Northampton’s original settlers, reunite for a 100th family reunion NORTHAMPTON — “There’s wickedness in this place!” “I am innocent and God knows it! “Goody Parsons, I am not the source of your despair — you have been entertaining Satan in Northampton!”The shrieks pierced the air inside the ballroom of Hotel...

And finally, our fearless leaders!

Here is Saturday...I have included all versions of every shot in case you prefer one over another. I am not able to name everyone in the photos ( my mom can, but I am hopeless)-- if you could put names you know in the comments for the picture, I'll go back and put the names in the picture captions.

Just getting home and looking at all the wonderful pictures from this past weekend. I was there Friday evening and stayed until late Saturday afternoon so I have no photos for the festivities at Wiggins Tavern nor any from Sunday. I will do three posts. One for Friday evening, one for Saturday, and one with headshots of our board of directors. So here is Friday evening....

Saturday's program has started and it will be epic! Many more pictures to follow later this week!

The weekend festivities have begun, a little tango music on the grounds of the Parsons House at Historic Northampton!

Greetings Family! The Parsons Family Association is all about knowing and exploring our family tree. For 300 hundred years we have had a living family tree on the property of the Parsons Homestead at Historic Northampton. The tree was a sugar maple that had been planted near the Parsons House in 1719. After a century of growth, it suffered many years of decline. After a large limb fell on the Parsons House in 2018, Historic Northampton made the difficult decision to cut it down. The 88-foot tree was cut in 2019 by arborist Calvin Rankin, milled in place by Jay Clarke, and kiln-dried by Larry Lashway and crew at Lashway Lumber. It has since been transformed into many pieces of beautiful furniture, each one with a story to tell. These stories are best told with pictures -- some will show the tree being taken down and others will show the furniture made with the maple wood from the tree-- make sure you read the picture captions to get the details. There is also a video about the making of the Parsons Table that you may enjoy https://youtu.be/4oTGLoVq0p0. If you are short on time start at minute 4.18.

Taking down an old tree is like losing an old friend but fear not, those attending the 100th reunion will be receiving a memento of the tree as a keepsake and remembrance. Plans are in the works to replace this tree on the site in the future--of course, it will be a much smaller tree to start out but hopefully, it will grow and be there for our descendants in 300 years.

We have had a great response so far from folks who have indicated that they will be attending the reunion. Please let us know your plans by no later than July 1, 2023. We are midway through the month of May and the reunion is just around the corner! Start the countdown clock at 77 days!

What's in a name? You would think that with the name "Parsons" we would be a family steeped in clergy but Parsons have also been adventurers, gold prospectors, educators, school principals and supervisors, legislators, public officials, inventors, doctors, medical professionals, lawyers, organizers of colleges and insurance companies, Peace Corp workers, fighters for our country, pilots, writers, genealogists, and farmers, the Parsons are farmers.

For most of my life, my understanding was that Parsons were hop farmers, then dairy farmers. I was delighted to meet Earle P. Parsons (former President of PFA, died Oct 2002, 78 years old) and found he was a pig farmer. I love pigs! Earle was a great man and reminded me of my Great Uncle Leland. The Parsons pig farm was started by Earle's father in Northampton, then was run by Earle and his brother Kenneth J. Parsons (died November 2022, 94 years old) and relocated to Hadley, MA in the 1950s. 12 generations of this line of the Parsons family have operated a farm in this corner of Massachusetts selling 2500 pigs per year (fun fact: a pig is a pig until it reaches 120 pounds, then it is a hog). Following Earle's passing, the pig farm continues under the guidance of Earle's son, Chip and Ken's son, Matt. In 2017, Matt won the national corn grower's award for the highest yield of bushels per acre (260 bushels/acre, despite drought conditions), https://bit.ly/3nVEj92. Matt's brother Thomas is not at the farm but is a veterinary scientist and professor who studies all things pig and sustainable farming practices, https://bit.ly/3Kcrb6U. Earle also had 2 daughters, Martha (Ethier) and Heather. As you may recall from a prior Cornet's Chronicle, Chip's son Timothy died in 2018, 33 years old and gave one of his kidneys to Martha's husband Jerry. An amazing farming family!

For our reunion we are featuring another Parsons farm in Massachusetts, this one is in Westhampton and is called the Mayval Farm (https://www.mayvalfarm.com). Our current PFA president, Deanna, is a milk scientist over at Cornell University and wanted to feature the perfect milk to go with our celebratory reunion cake. If you look closely on Saturday, you will find Mayval Farm's milk on our tables. Gary Parsons, our family historian, did some research on Mayval farm and found the following:

"Valley Bounty: Westhampton dairy’s creamery expansion sweetens
Published for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, March 10, 2023

Original Article by Jacob Nels (edited and updated by Gary Parsons)

The Parsons family have stewarded their land for over 7 generations, currently known as the Mayval Farm located at 137 Easthampton Road in Westhampton, MA. The Westhampton farm was acquired by Noah Parsons, Jr., sometime between 1755 and his death in 1814. According to Mr. Gerald James Parsons' reference book, THE PARSONS FAMILY, Volume One, published in 2002, Noah Parsons, Jr.'s will, probated on 1 Mar. 1814, bequeathed the Westhampton farm to his son, Noah Parsons, III.

Currently, the Mayval Farm raises dairy and beef cattle, makes maple syrup, and turns some of their milk into a variety of specialty dairy products in their on-site creamery. These are sold year-round at local markets and at their self-serve farm store.

As economic conditions have shifted, a lot has changed for dairy farmers in the last 10 years, let alone since Revolutionary War times. By investing in a creamery to make and sell value-added dairy products themselves, the Parsons have gained more control over their financial future.

Most things at Mayval Farm start with the cows. This year they’re raising about 30 beef cattle. Another 85 cows make up their dairy herd. Most of their dairy cows are Holsteins, but there are also a handful of brown Swiss and Jersey breeds. “The Jerseys started as my daughter Kate’s 4H project when she was 8 years old,” Parsons says. “And the brown Swiss were my nephew’s 4H project.”

Mrs. Margie Parsons stated that her husband, Henry, and his brother Edward, are the primary owner-operators of the farm. “Henry and Ed feed, milk, and take care of the cows, with some hired help,” she explains. “Ed also does the haying and maple sugaring. He’s actually boiling right now; I can see the steam coming from the chimney.”

Margie Parsons balances the farm’s books, manages the farm store, and is queen of the creamery. Among the next generation, her now-adult daughter Kate, along with her son Ethan and his wife, have helped write grants and guide the farm’s future. Kate is most involved, working around her full-time job with the Natural Resource Conservation Service to help with cow care and creamery work.

The reason many New England dairy farmers are in a financial bind has little to do with producing enough milk to sell. Even with a modest herd of 85, “our cows produced almost 2 million pounds of milk last year,” Parsons says. That’s 650 gallons each day.

The issue is receiving enough money for that milk to cover expenses and pay a decent wage. Most dairy farms are set up to sell milk wholesale to regional co-ops rather than straight to consumers. That is simpler, not requiring farms to build and operate their own inspected processing facilities. It also means they are beholden to sell their milk at whatever commodity price is set by the federal government, according to complex and opaque calculations.

Mayval Farm still sells most of its wholesale milk to the Agri-Mark dairy co-op. But with the help of a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture Farm Viability Program, in 2015 they opened their on-site creamery to create and sell their own value-added dairy products. This offered the farm more sustainable margins, and customers a host of new items to try.

First there’s plain old milk and chocolate milk, too. These are pasteurized but not homogenized, meaning the cream still rises to the top of the bottle. They also make several kinds of cheese, including a salty feta, spreadable fromage-blanc, small camembert-style wheels, and different flavored cheese curds.

Then there’s plain and strawberry kefir, a probiotic drink similar to thin yogurt. And the star of the show: skyr. “People love our skyr,” Parsons says. “That’s our biggest seller.” Hailing originally from Iceland and Scandinavia, skyr is technically a young cheese made with culture and rennet, but it’s eaten like a rich yogurt.

“Maple skyr is my favorite,” she offers. They flavor it with their own dark amber syrup, or with syrup from another local sugarhouse. Other varieties are plain and strawberry, flavored with homemade low-sugar strawberry jam.

Mayval Farm skyr can be found at several stores around western Massachusetts, including Cooper’s Corner in Florence, State Street Fruit Store in Northampton, Atlas Farm store in South Deerfield, and River Valley Co-Op in Northampton and Easthampton. It’s also sold through Mass Food Delivery and the Hilltown Mobile Market, and as an add-on for members with CSA farm shares at Intervale Farm in Westhampton.

Mayval Farm will also be at the Easthampton Farmers Market this summer, selling skyr, cheeses, beef, and more.

Most of what they make is also available year-round at their Westhampton farm store, open every day from 8 am. to 6 pm. at 137 Easthampton Road. They also carry seasonal produce from local farms, along with ice cream from two local producers, Mo’s Fudge from Shelburne, and Life-Booch Kombucha and Crooked Stick Pops just-fruit popsicles, both made in Easthampton.

Encouraged by an early COVID surge of farm store patronage, they purchased more freezers to offer take-and-bake dinner options too. Parsons explains that they work with a distributor who buys principally from New England to get products including frozen pizzas, falafel, and dumplings.

In the coming years, they hope to expand their farm store and creamery even further while reducing the number of cows they keep. That would reduce workload, support the health of their business, and offer more local food directly to their customers.

A first expansion of the creamery is already underway, thanks to a state Food Security Infrastructure Grant for new equipment that will allow them to process even more of their own milk. These grants, first offered during early COVID, enable local businesses to build the infrastructure needed to ensure a resilient food supply for local communities."

Research also found another report on Mayval Farm -- information which you may remember from the Fall 2015 edition of the Cornet Chronicle which reported that Ed and Trina Parsons lost their home on Mayval Farm to fire in the middle of the night - it only took 15 minutes for the home to burn to the ground. As an enduring example of Parsons' perseverance, Ed and Trina rebuilt their home from the ground up (https://bit.ly/3KJYT5k) while continuing to work the farm.

We have so much to be proud of as a family and the farmers among us lead the way.

Dear Family - Spring has arrived and that means we are ever closer to the Reunion Weekend. Today will be the final post regarding ideas for Sunday adventures. As promised, there is an adventure that is a bit farther afield and may appeal to those heading west on Route 90 at the end of the day towards Lenox, MA and that is the Parsons Marsh Reserve located at 170 Under Mountain Road, Lenox, MA 01240 ( love the name of the road-- sounds like a road where Hobbits may live). This is a great fully accessible trail that is only 1/3 of a mile long in one direction. You can find the trail map here, https://www.bnrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Parsons-Marsh-Trail-Map.pdf.

The Berkshire Natural Resources Council reports that "Parsons Marsh takes its name from John E. Parsons, a New York City attorney who purchased land in 1875 on the west side of Under Mountain Road and built a Gilded Age house and outbuildings. The original house was razed but the barn still stands as part of Stonover Farm. After Parsons’ death, his daughter Mary Parsons donated a large parcel north of Reservoir Road to Mass Audubon, which became the heart of the Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary. Parsons’ daughter Elsie married John Drummond Kennedy who, after her death, in 1974 donated 84 acres at the southern end of the marsh to Lenox in her memory and in honor of her father. Kennedy also advocated having Lenox buy the land formerly owned by the Aspinwall Hotel after it had burned down. Lenox named the park created by this acquisition Kennedy Park in his honor."

Here is an aptly named video of the walk to the marsh https://youtu.be/gSuOQc3np10. It is, indeed, relaxing.

Another idea involves exploring the Connecticut River where the town of Northampton is situated. The Connecticut River is the largest river in New England and critical to the success of the development of Northampton. A curved section known as the "Oxbow" or the "Hockanum Bend" comes into Northampton and was used as a holding spot for logs being sent downriver in the 1900s when the river was heavily used for logging operations. If you have your own canoe or kayak, there is a public access boat ramp at Elwell State Park at 400 Damon Road, part of the Connecticut River Greenway State Park. If you would rather rent a canoe, kayak (or stand-up paddleboard) you can travel 27 minutes north to Bartons Cove marina. Here are the details: Barton Cove has 50 watercraft including canoes, kayaks, and stand-up paddleboards that can be rented for 2 hours or for the day. Each rental comes complete with personal flotation devices and paddles. Call (413) 863-9300 for more information.
Click here for Paddlesport Rental Waiver Form https://bit.ly/3Ka0lgU.

RENTAL FEES:
Canoes / Kayaks
0 to 2 hours $25
Up to 4 hours $40
4 to 8 hours $50

Here is a link to the website in case we missed anything: https://www.firstlightpower.com/recreation/?location_id=396.

Now, if you would like to explore things not related to the Parsons (unlikely, but understandable), here are 2 local options in Northampton, both at Smith College: (1) the Botanic Gardenhttps://garden.smith.edu/sites/garden/files/visitor-guide.pdf and https://garden.smith.edu/visit/brochures-maps and (2) the Art Museum
https://scma.smith.edu/visit.

Hopefully, we have found some interesting ways to learn more about the land where the Parsons home is located and other natural locations related to the family and presented them in such a way that you can find and enjoy them. Happy Adventuring!

Dear Family- it is time again to take a deeper dive into opportunities available over Reunion Weekend but first, just want to make sure that folks have sent in (or will send in) their Reunion registration forms. The form is easy to fill out online and can be submitted with a push of a button. Just scroll down on this page to the post on December 10 and the form is there. The cost for the Reunion is $30 but you don't need to send it in today-- please bring it with you on the day of the Reunion along with any item you may want to include in the family auction (more on that event later). When you register, we can give the hotel an accurate headcount for meals, etc. Now for the fun stuff.

Two of our suggestions for Sunday adventures include hiking/strolling locations connected to the Parsons Family. One is the Parsons Brook Greenway and the other is a Wildlife Refuge located off Parsons Swamp Road, both in Northampton. We will lead you to another Parsons nature area next week which is a bit farther afield (see what I did there?)

I searched all over the internet for trail maps for these two locations but had little luck. One name kept popping up in the written materials available for these locations and it was Laurie Sanders, the Co-Director of Historic Northampton (where the Parsons Home is located). Laurie knows a thing or two about natural habitats (a photo of her at the barn-raising is attached). I printed off the one hand-drawn map I could find of the Parsons Brook Greenway and put it in my car when I went out to the barn-raising last month and who did I meet but Laurie Sanders and Dave Litterer, the person who drew the map! Laurie got out a green highlighter and showed me where to park and where to walk. That map is attached. Laurie also wrote a report in 2014 on the Parsons Brook Conservation Area which provides the history of the land (including a fascinating discussion about candlewood). The report on the brook is part of a huge report done by Laurie in 2005 and then 2015 which is hundreds of pages long (https://northamptonma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/3642). I had hoped to be able to save your eyes and just provide you with segments of it to read but Facebook doesn't allow for pdf files - so...in the big document there are sub-files-- the 10th subfile is entitled "the Parsons Brook Conservation Area".

In order to find the Parsons Brook Greenway, put 294-100 Cardinal Way, Northampton in your GPS, and with luck and the use of your handy highlighted map, you should be able to find it.

Laurie also suggested visiting the historically significant Meadows area located off Hockanum Road. She wrote a great report on the Meadows and the Connecticut River; read the first 4 pages of the 5th subfile of the big report. I was able to find something labeled as the Meadows on a google map but not much else. Instead, I found an area nearby where you could drive down Parsons Swamp Road to visit the Mill River Division of the Silvio O. Conte National Fish And Wildlife Refuge. The Refuge contains 249 acres of floodplain forest (aka swamp) and is key stopover habitat for migratory land birds and waterfowl during the spring and fall. There are two ponds on the division, Magnolia and Triangle, created during the construction of Interstate 91 that afford resting and feeding habitats for waterfowl. There are no developed trails, but several native surface two-track roads no longer open to vehicles are open to hikers. The Wildlife Refuge is adjacent to the Meadows. The refuge is 1.7 miles south of Historic Northampton. This link should give you the directions and a map https://bit.ly/3YDfLy7.

Dear Family - reunion weekend will take place over 3 days. On Friday evening there will be a musical program at Historic Northampton with an independent dinner to follow. The musical program has not been finalized yet but in the past, they had such great performers as the Fiddle Orchestra of Western Massachusetts (https://fiddlewesternmass.com/about/), the Pioneer Valley Symphony (https://www.pvsoc.org/), and the Les Boulevardiers (https://www.lesboulevardiers.net/). We will update you when this becomes finalized. For dinner we are suggesting that folks gather at Northampton Brewery Bar and Grill - directions, menu, and what's on tap can be found here (https://northamptonbrewery.com/). Saturday will be the main day of programming and we will provide more details in a coming post.

For those staying on until Sunday, we have many suggestions for creating your own day of adventure which brings us to the topic of today's post. Do you want to do a bit of your own research? How about taking a self-guided tour of the Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton? Here you can meet members of the Parsons family without the strain of coming up with small talk - perfect for the introverted among us. The Cemetery contains 233 gravestones for members of the Parsons family. The cemetery was once located next to the meeting house on Meeting House Hill. All the official burial records for this cemetery were lost to fire but it has been reported that "in 1680 the graves around the meetinghouse were moved to the new cemetery and within a few years, Cornet Joseph Parsons who lived nearby on Bridge Street and owned much of the land in this section of town, donated a few additional acres to the town for the cemetery."

If you can access the Find A Grave website (https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/90814/bridge-street-cemetery) and do a search using the Parsons surname, 233 entries will pop up. Each entry has photographs of the gravestone and a "card" with the history of the person buried there. For example, here is one for Joseph Parsons, Jr. (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31046944/joseph-parsons). To get a sense of the entire cemetery, here is a handy map created in 1885 for reference (http://www.historic-northampton.org/members_only/maps/bridgestcemeterymap.pdf.) If you want to learn more about the cemetery and efforts to preserve it, here is a link to the master plan developed in 2006 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nNWhS9lZts0-JVfyDHSdsW0AKBJdXeit/view) -- the plan is 56 pages long so you might want to skim it but pages 3-4 have a nice summary of the history. It is an active cemetery so be mindful if there is a burial ceremony going on. We have contacted the cemetery and have been informed that the cemetery is open 24 hours a day/ 7 days per week but they prefer that we not visit at night. The main entrance gate for cars is always open and it is located on Parsons Street at approximately 82 Parsons Street (for your GPS). They suggest we stick to the paved roads within the cemetery as the gravel roads are a little rough. You can also walk into the cemetery from Bridge Street (right down the way from the Parsons Homestead at Historic Northampton -- when you see the stone anvil take a left onto Parsons Street and you will see a black wrought iron gate-- there is no parking in this area so this is a walking option only.) We are so fortunate to have such a huge collection of family gravestones in one location.

In preparation for your visit, you may want to look through the Find A Grave website and make a list of a few stones you want to make sure that you see -- not sure how long it would take to find and view all 233 stones. When you look at each stone try to gather as much information as you can:
Name(s) and spelling variations

Dates

Relationships

Maiden names

Titles/ Associations

Inscriptions

Iconography

Who shares the stone?

Was anything inscribed on the back of the stone?

Military connections

Religion

How large is the marker and what is it made of? (Could be an indication of family wealth)

What monuments, markers, or features surround the gravestone?

If you find information that is not already included in the entry on Find A Grave or if you want to update the photo of the gravestone (for example, there is a request for photos of the stones for Elizabeth Parsons, Joshua Parsons, Nathaniel Parsons, Sarah Parsons, Josiah Parsons, Abigail Parsons, Experience Parsons (https://www.findagrave.com/photo-request/search/cemetery/90814?sortBy=newest&page=1 -12904348)), you can add that information to the website. Each stone represents one or more family members so you make want to take a moment to honor their memory.

If self-guided tours are not your thing, we are in the process of coordinating an early morning tour of the cemetery with Laurie Sanders, the co-executive director of Historic Northampton. We will let you know the details when they are finalized.

More adventure options will be described in the weeks to come.