The Holidays in Old New England

To fully put us in mind of sleighs dashing through seasonal snow and festive caroling on town greens, the Salisbury Association in Salisbury, Conn., has put together an exhibit of 19th-century Christmas ornaments, books and cards.

They are on display at the association’s headquarters in the Academy Building on Main Street, across the street from Town Hall. The items come from the Holley-Williams House Collection.

For those who don’t remember, the Holley Williams house is the former residence of the Salisbury iron master, in the historic district of Lakeville. The building was left to the town by Margaret Williams in 1971. A history of the house and the bequest can be found on the front page of The Lakeville Journal issue of March 4 of that year (find it in our online archive through the Scoville Memorial Library at https://scoville.advantage-preservation.com).

What was known for many years as the Holley-Williams House Museum has now reverted to private ownership. But in the years when it was still a museum of 19th-century life, it hosted a wonderful annual December tour that allowed visitors to see how the house would have been dressed up for the holiday season.

Some of those items, saved and stored, are in the show at the Academy Building.

And if you find that it’s enjoyable to travel back through time with old issues of The Lakeville Journal, the show will also include three Christmas supplement covers from our newspaper. They were donated to the Salisbury Association by Heather Kahler, who died last October. Heather was the daughter of Stewart and Ann Hoskins, long-time past publishers of the newspaper and the wife of Lakeville Journal poet-at-large Michael Kahler.

Among the covers is at least one of the really glorious drawings by the late Marianna van Rossen Hoogendyk, who lived in Sharon and whose art work we turned into a Lakeville Journal Co. fundraising puzzle last year.

To see the historic holiday show, visit the Academy Building on Main Street through the end of December, Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

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