Author: Moira Jones

Biennial Historical House Tour

<style=”text-align: center;”>Sunday, May 17^th, 12:30-4:30 pm
The saying goes, “If walls could talk what stories they could tell.” Every other year, the Williamstown Historical Museum arranges for these stories to be told on the Historical House Tour. Tickets for this year’s tour are available until Saturday afternoon at the locations listed below. There is also link to the online form to buy tickets at the bottom of this page, and please thank the following businesses who have been graciously helping us to distribute tickets:

Where tickets will be sold:

• The Library Antiques

• Where’d You Get That?!

• Milne Public Library Circulation Desk

• Wild Oats

• Williams Inn

Tickets are also available online here!

Please say “Thank You!” to our sponsor for this year’s Historic House Tour:

Here are some of the special houses on the tour:

The 1753 House

in the Rotary

Ide/Phillips house (102 Ide Road)

Reverend Seth Swift House (630 Water Street)

Cluett Estate/Pine Cobble School (163 Gale Road)

Pat Leach ~ 1765

Saturday, April 18^th, 11:00 am, Milne Library

1765 is the year the settlement of West Hoosac became Williamstown!  In 2015, we celebrate the 250th anniversary of Williamstown’s incorporation. Although, in 1765 our town had yet to produce any major writers, painters, musicians, ballet dancers, or soccer stars, there is still a lot of history to talk about!  

Williamstown residents of 1765 may not have left us a literary or artistic legacy, but they did leaves us a valuable and informative Proprietors Book, which miraculously did not burn in the Meeting House Fire of 1866.  The Proprietor’s Book will be our point of departure for an illustrated fly-over of the year 1765 in Williamstown, Berkshire County, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as well as Boston, London, and Paris.

The History of Weston Field  

Saturday, March 28th, 11:00 am, at Weston Field –

Weston Field, one of the college’s two outdoor sports facilities, embodies much of the history of athletics at Williams. Come hear about the facts and the lore associated with Weston, from its 1884 acquisition to its 2014 renovation and expansion.  There will be time for a tour of the facility with this talk.

Jim Kolesar, Williams class of 1972, has served as the college’s chief public affairs officer since 1984, following a career in journalism.  Since then he has chaired the college’s Communications Advisory Group and served as a member of the Advisory Group on Admissions and Financial Aid, the Strategic Planning Coordinating Committee, the Diversity Initiatives Steering Committee, and as chair and member of several search committees. He has also taught several Winter Study courses on journalism and on college communications.