Enfield Town Council Defunds Historical Society

It’s a shame when politics and egos result in the defunding of an apolitical nonprofit organization like the Enfield Historical Society, which is what has occurred this year, as the Enfield Town Council has reduced the annual grant to our all-volunteer nonprofit society from $26,000 to $6000 – without any explanation as to why this was done.

The defunding does not reflect the good works that have occurred in the three years since this author, and Thompsonville resident, assumed the presidency of the Historical Society. These actions include:

• Developing a Strategic Plan to formalize our mission
• Building a Digitizing Department to facilitate archiving and sharing
• Building 3D ‘digital twins’ tours of the Parsons and Old Town Hall Museums
• Partnering with a Springfield College intern to reimagine museum exhibits
• Creating 14 banners at the Old Town Hall Museum detailing historical figures, stories, and events, even local heroes like pitcher Bill Spanswick, dancer Don Crichton, and actor John Ashton
• Creating half-hour documentaries for COX Cable called “Spirited Interviews”
• Shifting our liquid assets into managed funds to maximize ROI
• Adding three female board members to seek balance and invite new ideas
• Developing a Young Historians’ Society to educate youth on local history
• Managing a holistic review of our archives to create Finding Aids to better identify and archive items of historic value
• Hiring an Archivist to pore over the contents in Martha Parsons’ Museum to identify which items are related to Parsons, which are not associated with Parsons but may be valuable to other regional societies, and which have no historical value at all
• Terminating the Parsons’ caretaker arrangement
• Mothballing the Parsons’ apartment to lower maintenance costs
• Instituting a Regional Historical Committee where members from surrounding town historical societies gather to discuss common challenges and solutions
• Working with the Ujima African American Alliance to add their Enfield African American history exhibition to the Old Town Hall Museum
• And continuing to host third-grade class visits at both the Wallop One Room Schoolhouse and the Old Enfield Town Hall to introduce students to our rich local history

These are the good works we have provided with our 100% volunteer staff.

Unfortunately, the Town Council has not rewarded the Society for these good works. Instead, they have elected to financially punish our nonprofit for decisions we have yet to make – namely, what to do with the Martha Parsons House Museum.

The Society reconsidered its earlier decision to sell the house and property, which Martha Parsons left to the Historical Society, and opted to wait until January 2026 to revisit the issue. The hope was that someone would come forward with a fully funded plan to make the property self-sustaining. We are still hopeful that it may occur.

This year, the insurance for the Parsons Museum has increased to over $7,000, and we have reached a financial crossroads, exacerbated by the Enfield Town Council's decision to defund our efforts. Their decision to withhold $20,000 incentivizes us to do just the opposite of what they publicly say they want, which would be to divest ourselves of the Parsons House to maintain funding to continue our good works.

The logic of the Town Council is stupefying, as if gifting coal encourages compliance.

For our part, we hope to move past this act of financial retribution and continue to positively impact the greater community we serve.

Peter Sorenson is President of the Enfield Historical Society and Historian for the Enfield Society for the Detection of Thieves and Robbers. He has written two history books about Enfield and is currently working on his next book, the History of Thompsonville.