The Bidwell House Museum is a New England heritage landmark that uses the history of its land, house and collections to reimagine, re-create, restore and research colonial and early American life in Western Massachusetts.
The Bidwell House Museum in MontereyMONTEREY—There really are 48 chairs at the two-story post-and-beam Georgian saltbox once home to a minister and now The Bidwell House Museum.
Actually, there might be one or two more chairs in the collection assembled from the 1784 death inventory of the Rev. Adonijah Bidwell.
Why so many chairs? A. Barbara Palmer, executive director of The Bidwell House Museum, speculates that the minister had “an unusual number of chairs for one family” because Sunday services sometimes took place in his home.
The Bidwell House Museum is a New England heritage landmark that uses the history of its land, house and collections to reimagine, re-create, restore and research colonial and early American life in Western Massachusetts.
It features 18th- and 19th-century furnishings, an heirloom vegetable garden, an early farm and garden tools exhibit, fields and forests, hiking trails and picnic tables.
Palmer especially likes the three miles of stonewalls that crisscross the 192-acre property.
Built in about 1750 for Bidwell, the first minister of Township No. 1, The Bidwell House was situated in a frontier region that became the towns of Monterey and Tyringham. The imposing residence has six large paneled rooms, four fireplaces, two beehive ovens and three closets.
“It’s one of the few houses from that era on its original site,” Palmer said. Visiting there is “an experience of traveling back to another century.”
The house has been restored authentically and filled with antiques. The museum was formed in 1990 at the bequests of Jack Hargis and David Brush who purchased the un-restored house in 1960 and spent 25 years returning it to its original appearance and filling it with museum-quality 18th-century furnishings that matched Bidwell’s death inventory.
Inside the Bidwell House.To commemorate his 1752 marriage to his college sweetheart, first wife Theodosia Colton, Bidwell carved two hearts in the parlor door, a local tradition found in a number of 18th-century houses in Monterey.
Bidwell farmed the property from 1750 to 1784. His eldest son, Adonijah Bidwell Jr., developed the farm into a large and prosperous dairy farm, expanding the land holdings and building a compound of barns and outbuildings. Grandson John Devotion Bidwell continued to farm and added a tanning yard.
In 1853 the house and property were sold out of the family. It was used as a farm and later as a summer arts school.
During the May-October season, The Bidwell House Museum hosts programs such as concerts, lectures, workshops and demonstrations.
“It’s a very inviting property,” Palmer said, “a great get-away.”