The Local History section of the Sunderland Public Library contains a treasure trove of materials pertaining to the history of the region and of Sunderland in particular.
Our Local History collection contains Sunderland’s Annual Town Reports dating from 1868 to the present, as well as binders of news clippings from the Greenfield Recorder pertaining to Sunderland. We also have original, large-format specimens of the sesquicentennial and bicentennial editions of the Recorder for your perusal.
If genealogical or historical research is your forte, our Local History collection houses histories of New England generally, of the Pioneer Valley, and of select towns in our region (Amherst, Chesterfield, Conway, Cummington, Deerfield, Hadley, Leyden, Montague, Northampton, Springfield, South Hadley, Sunderland, Westfield, and Whately). We also have genealogies of several prominent families in the region (e.g., the Graves family, the Field family, the Root family, the Chapin family, and others). For more general information, the collection holds the Encyclopedia of Biography.
We also recently acquired nineteen historic maps of Sunderland and Swampfield, dating from 1714 to the present, thanks to a grant from the Sunderland Cultural Council and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Additionally, we have books in the collection devoted to trees in our region, area wildlife, and a soil survey.
Our collection also houses A Book of Remembrance, a volume listing Sunderland’s war veterans and descriptions of their military service. It also describes the process that led to the creation of Sunderland’s Veterans’ Memorial, next door to the Library.
Finally, the collection also contains yearbooks from Frontier Regional School and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
For more information about Sunderland’s Local History, please contact the Swampfield Historical Society at (413) 665 – 2191.