Past Events

July 26 -- August 3 Herman Melville’s great-great-great granddaughter, Austin playwright Elizabeth Doss, uses the author as a subject to speculate on the line between utter genius and epic failure in us all. Poor Herman unearths the life of Herman Melville, who arguably wrote America’s best and worst novels back-to-back in 1850 and 1851.  The production considers what compelled Melville, struggling to salvage his declining reputation while trying to feed a growing family, to write a virtually unreadable book, Pierre or the Ambiguities, in…

July 26 -- August 3 Herman Melville’s great-great-great granddaughter, Austin playwright Elizabeth Doss, uses the author as a subject to speculate on the line between utter genius and epic failure in us all. Poor Herman unearths the life of Herman Melville, who arguably wrote America’s best and worst novels back-to-back in 1850 and 1851.  The production considers what compelled Melville, struggling to salvage his declining reputation while trying to feed a growing family, to write a virtually unreadable book, Pierre or the Ambiguities, in…

Hikers are invited to celebrate the day (August 5, 1850) Melville met Nathaniel Hawthorne on a walk up Monument Mountain by joining BCHS for a similar hike and reading of local poet William Cullen Bryant’s Monument Mountain. The guided hike takes approximately 2 ½ hours and is appropriate for families. Hikers should meet at the Monument Mountain Reservation Parking lot on Route 7 and should be prepared with their own water, proper footwear, hiking gear and bug repellent. This event…

Take a leisurely stroll over uneven terrain to retrace the excursion Herman Melville took with Sarah Morewood and other friends in the summer of 1851 to Balance Rock in Balance Rock State Park within Pittsfield State Forest. Explore the history of the site and how it made its way into Melville’s prose. Finally, we will wander through the woods and along the streams that feed into the headwaters of the Housatonic River.  1.5 hours – 1 mile Driving north on…

Join BCHS and collaborators Berkshire Opera Festival and Tanglewood Learning Institute at the Linde Center for Music and Learning for an evening of selections from the opera Billy Budd, Sailor paired with readings by Ryan Winkles from the classic novella.  This 1951 opera is scored by Benjamin Britten with a libretto by authors E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier. The evening begins at 7 pm with a celebratory toast and "taste of history" provided by Berkshire Cider Project. Our friends…

Enjoy the fall season at Arrowhead with a food truck, music, hands-on activities, local history and preservation exhibits, Revolutionary War reenactors, ice cream from SoCo creamery, cider tastings, and more. FREE (Tickets for house tours required)

Tyringham resident John Hanson will give a walking tour of interesting gravestones in the Becket Center Cemetery. Hanson has been studying early New England gravestones and epitaphs for years and has published and lectured extensively. On this tour, he will discuss the iconography of the stones, share some noteworthy verses, and discuss what they tell us about early New Englanders’ attitudes towards life and death. Meet at 55 YMCA Road, right on Route 8. $15 Members, $20 Non-Members Tickets can…

In celebration of our exhibition on Berkshire photographer Arthur Palme, join Berkshire native photographer Bella Vendetta of Bella Luna Rosa Photo Studio on a guided group photo tour. Amateur, professional, hobbyist, and all folks who are curious about nature photography are invited to join us for this free event.  We'll walk from the side lawn of the Arrowhead up to the wooded area a bit and back down again. Plenty of opportunity to take beautiful fall photos of a historic and…