At the back of the meeting room at Acton Memorial Library on May 14, while 70 people settled in for Brent Ranalli’s talk on Tahattawan’s World, a stack of flyers sat quietly on a table near the door. They were from the Acton Historical Alliance, and they described a calendar of events stretching through May and June that one Alliance member, surveying the lineup, summed up in three words: “This is revolutionary.”
That’s not a metaphor. It’s almost literally true. This spring, Acton’s historical organizations have assembled a season of talks, walks, open houses, and tastings that range from the pre-colonial world of Tahattawan’s band all the way to the summer of 1776, when Acton’s own Town Meeting voted its support for a proposed Declaration of Independence. The thread running through all of it is a single question that turns out to have a complicated, layered, and frequently surprising answer: What actually happened here?
A new organization rises
The Acton Historical Alliance is a coalition of five independent organizations — the Acton Historical Society, the Acton Memorial Library, the Acton Minutemen, Iron Work Farm, and the Friends of Pine Hawk – that came together to share resources, coordinate programming, and support one another’s independent missions. The Alliance grew out of the momentum of the Acton 250 effort, and its history subcommittee continues to collaborate with the town-appointed Acton 250 Committee on programming tied to the Revolution’s 250th anniversary.
The result, this spring, is a lineup dense enough that you’d have to choose carefully. Here’s what’s still ahead.
You can find details about all of the May and June historical events in the Acton Exchange calendar.
Coming up in May and June
- Sunday, May 24, Iron Work Farm holds its monthly “4th Sunday” open houses: the Jones Tavern from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. and the Jones-Faulkner Homestead from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.
- Memorial Day, Monday, May 25, Acton Minutemen will march and lay wreaths across town.
- Saturday, June 6, at 4:30 p.m., Iron Work Farm holds a Whiskey Tasting at Jones Tavern.
- Saturday, June 13, at 11:00 a.m., local historian Richard Hilton leads a West Acton Walking Tour.
- Sunday, June 14 at 2:00 p.m. Pick one.
- Acton Congregational Church hosts “Declaring Independence Then & Now,” a play produced by the Acton 250 Committee and Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area.
- Acton Historical Society opens the 1760 Jonathan Hosmer House for a free open house.
- Thursday, June 25, at 7:00 p.m., Emily Sneff, PhD, visits the Acton Memorial Library to discuss her research on the Declaration of Independence.
- Saturday, June 27, at 11:00 a.m., historian Amy Cole returns to the Acton Memorial Library for a talk on the History of East Acton.
- Sunday, June 28, Iron Work Farm holds its monthly “4th Sunday” open houses: the Jones Tavern from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. and the Jones-Faulkner Homestead from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.
History as a Living Thing
What strikes me about this lineup is how much of it happens outside – on the ground, in the villages, along the streets. Walking tours of South Acton, West Acton, and the hope of some in East Acton; ceremonial volleys at six cemeteries; an open house at a house built in 1707. These aren’t just lectures about history. They’re invitations to notice that Acton’s past is still physically present, embedded in the landscape most of us drive past every day without stopping to look.
Ranalli’s talk about Tahattawan’s band is part of that same impulse. The land under the Acton Memorial Library, under Town Hall, under the streets and yards of this town, belonged to a community of people for thousands of years before the English arrived. Getting that history right and getting it out to the people who live here now is exactly what the Acton Historical Alliance was built to do.
The flyers at the back of the room were a good reminder that the talk on May 14 was a beginning, not an ending.
Author’s note: The AI tool Claude was used in creating an earlier draft of this article.
Greg Jarboe is the Acton Exchange Senior Center beat reporter but writes on a variety of topics.
