Will Garrison will give an illustrated talk on Herman Melville at Arrowhead to the Stephentown Historical Society on Monday, April 7, at 7:30 p.m. The meeting will be at the Stephentown Heritage Center on Garfield Road (County Route 26), Stephentown, New York. The program is free and open to the public. The building is handicapped accessible. For directions or information, phone 518-733-0010.
In 1850 writer Herman Melville purchased the Pittsfield farm that he named Arrowhead. He was familiar with the land because he had visited his uncle’s adjacent property since his boyhood. There on rural Holmes Road, with the splendid view of distant and ‘whale-like’ Mount Greylock, Melville completed Moby Dick, as well as several other novels and short works, amid the tumult of his growing family, farming and a multitude of visiting relatives. Herman Melville and his family returned to New York City in 1863, but Arrowhead remained in the Melville family until the 1920s.
The Melville home was a rambling farmhouse built in 1783. It now is a National Historic Landmark, the home of the Berkshire Historical Society, and a house museum.
Will Garrison is Curator for the Berkshire Historical Society at Arrowhead. In addition to telling of the Melvilles’ thirteen years at Arrowhead, he will tell of the house and barn, the restoration projects, and the historical society and their programs and resources. Garrison has a Masters degree in history museum studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program and previous long experience with the Massachusetts Trustees of Reservation.