 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you Hello and welcome to the Amherst Weekly Report from Amherst Media, March 5th, 2021 I'm Claire Healy and as we kick off March, these are the stories from Amherst, Massachusetts for this past week Beginning on Monday, March 1st, Massachusetts re-entered phase 3, step 2 of its reopening for the first time since last fall This was due to lower daily coronavirus case numbers and increased vaccinations as we quickly approach one full year into the pandemic The new easing of restrictions includes in allowing indoor performance spaces such as theaters and concert halls to reopen at up to 50% capacity or a 500-person maximum In general, capacity limits will increase for businesses in all sectors to 50% Not including employees The Baker-Polito administration still reiterated the importance of mask wearing and limited contact with others as well as restrictions for out-of-state travel Restaurants will no longer face percentage capacity limits But are still required to abide by a six-foot minimum separation between tables as well as a six-person per table limit and 90-minute seating limit However, cities and towns still have the discretion to enforce their own restrictions that go further than what the state is outlining If COVID-19 numbers remain low, this day will move into phase 4, step 1 of its reopening beginning March 22 Looking to enjoy the outdoors will stay in close to home Amherst Weekly Reports field correspondent Rebecca Duffy highlighted three outdoors places you can explore this spring Thanks, Claire. March is finally here Which means we are one month closer to the end of winter and I'm so excited about that The temperature is finally rising and a lot of Amherst residents have taken to outdoor activities If you're looking to do the same here are some fun outdoor activities you can do in the Amherst area If you're looking to go biking, rollerblading or simply enjoy a long walk check out the Norwituck Rail Trail This 11-mile long paved trail connects Northampton, Hadley and Amherst together The trail features multiple bridges that cross over the Connecticut River and it also passes through Connecticut River Greenway State Park Free parking is available as well Our next stop is Maple Valley Creamery, which is located at 102 Mill Valley Road in Hadley They're on-site farm store sells Maple Valley ice cream, raw milk cheddar and cheese curds made from their brown Swiss cows milk You can say hi to their cows while they bask in the sunlight this time of the year Don't feel like getting out of your car. You can see them from the road. Our last stop is in Amherst Located at four Boltwood Drive in North Amherst is Puffer's Pond, the largest open body of water in Amherst According to the Amherst town website Puffer's Pond is 11 acres in size with an average depth of 5 feet and a maximum depth of more than 20 feet During warm months. It is a prominent area for activities like fishing, canoeing and swimming Until the pond starts to unfreeze and the weather becomes warm enough for swimming You can take a stroll around it and enjoy the Amherst scenery No matter where you go this spring remember to Mask up and socially distance reporting for the Amherst weekly report. I'm Rebecca Duffy North Ampton and Amherst are collaborating to provide 5,000 vaccinations per week to eligible Massachusetts residents The Amherst vaccination site is at the Bangs Community Center and the North Hampton site is at the North Hampton Senior Center The sites became operational on March 1st Appointments are available for individuals who qualify under phase one guidelines People in phase two groups one and two are also eligible at this time The Amherst town council held a public forum regarding the Jones library options on Wednesday, March 3rd The Jones library is planning a thirty six point three million dollar expansion and renovation The town of Amherst would pay fifteen point eight million dollars according to the Daily Hampshire Gazette a Second public forum will be held on Saturday, March 6th at 2 p.m. A link to the meeting is available in the town's website Following Black History Month We dug into the story of Angeline Palmer's heroic escape from a plot to sell her into slavery in Amherst in 1840 Angeline Palmer was a young orphan black girl who became a ward of the town of Amherst after the death of her mother The town hired her out as a servant for a white couple in Belcher town Mason and Susanna Shaw who plotted to sell her into slavery in Georgia for six hundred dollars when Palmer was ten years old Servants overheard the plot and raised the alarm among the wider African-American community in Amherst Including Palmer's half-brother Louis Frazier and two of his friends Henry Jackson and William Jennings The three men appealed to the town of Amherst select men to take action as Palmer was under the town's protection But the select men refused Ultimately in a heroic rescue Frazier Jackson and Jennings pushed themselves into the Shaw's house and took Palmer to the house of a nearby abolitionist Spencer Church She was then secretly moved to Colrain, Massachusetts to live with a black resident there named Charles Green The three men all faced jail time for their action and refused an offer to acquit them if they divulged Palmer's location They were free on bail until their trial and then spent three months in the county jail Their lawyer was Emily Dickinson's father Edward Dickinson We spoke with Cliff McCarthy Archivist at Springfield Museums and a volunteer archivist at the Stonehouse Museum in Belcher town who has followed Researched and written about the Angeline Palmer story He described extensive efforts throughout Amherst to uncover this story and the various details within it He noted that her rescuers were widely hailed as heroes and a lot of news sources including the Daily Hampshire Gazette Criticized the town for not taking action to protect her I first came across the story in the publication by Dan Lombardo called the Hedgeway Published there in Amherst Dan used to write for a local newspaper and It's a collection of his stories in the newspaper And that was the first time I had come across that story and it mentioned the Shaw's in Belcher town Which was of interest to us and so we started looking at it from the Belcher town perspective Dan was looking at it You know as an a writer from Amherst So we were looking at it from the Belcher town perspective. What could we contribute to the story about the The Shaw's and their role in Belcher town Since then is it's been picked up It was in James Avery Smith's book on the black families in Amherst Robert Rover has done a lot of research and work on the researching the black families in Amherst and He and I worked a little bit on Researching some of the engineering published story too in the 1840s when this story occurred Black people were still commodities even here in New England, you know, we think of ourselves as being the pinnacle of abolitionism but There were still people that would be willing to sell another person into slavery and It is really heroic if you look at it from the perspective of the really upstanding individuals that rescued Angeline from from her fate and We're not willing to disclose her location in spite of the fact that they were threatened with with jail time and and You know, so we've done what we can I've I've really I wrote about it in the newspaper and our collection of historical stories that we published here Dara Stikinson also pursued it and it was a you know, we it was part of our walking tour the house where the event occurred still stands Maybe we should get a historic marker or something for it. I don't know but We've tried to bring it to light and more and more I think people are Resurrecting what was a lost story because of the The value that it has for us now in understanding the times While he said he did not know of a story directly parallel to Angeline Palmer's in the Amherst area He pointed to recent efforts to draw attention to kidnappings at the time of African-American people throughout the north in an attempt to sell them into slavery in the south And I don't know of any other analogous situation where a down person was Sold into slavery or attempted to steal to be sold into slavery However, in the last couple of years Maybe five years or so. There's been much more attention to the story of Free African-Americans that were sold into say kidnapped and sold into slavery There is a new book came out last year called the kidnapping club about The confluence of different Powers that Set up children particularly African-American children in New York City to be kidnapped and sold into slavery There's a lot more attention being being spent and if you're discovering that it's actually a story that is much more Widely that happened much more frequently than we had previously Understood while her later life is lesser known Angeline Palmer did come back to Amherst marry and have a son But we do know that she came back to Amherst and she married A gentleman named Sanford Jackson and and she had a child with Sanford And that child She may have died in childbirth, but there is no record of her death that we can that we can find She certainly died shortly thereafter and the child was placed with another family distant relative in Amherst and then in a few years winds up in the last record that we have for him is as a child in the brimfield Arms house and that's the last record that we can find of him. So I sadly the story has sort of Less than satisfactory ending I guess as I said, she made her way back to Amherst, but I think she just tried to live under the radar and and Sadly died before She could really live her life The town of Amherst recently appointed Sua debt to serve as permanent town clerk Having worked in the town clerk's office since 2005 Audet has previously served as both assistant town clerk and acting town clerk throughout the tenure of four other previous permanent town clerks She was most recently acting town clerk this past fall following the September leave of absence in December resignation of former town clerk Shaveena Martin Amherst media spoke with Audet to learn more about her prior experience as well as her current goals and ambitions for the town clerk's office Well having gone through 15 years of everything in this office young everything cyclical So that's 15 cycles of everything, you know census dog licensing all the daily Business certificates marriage intentions recording vital records all kinds of things After a while it just becomes second nature. You know everything I have good reference materials I can put my finger on I know where everything is My co-worker is like whoever and I'm like, oh, yeah, you know and where's this? Oh, it's right there, you know, just This is like my home, you know Audet has been involved in 44 elections through her time in the town clerk's office Including overseeing the November 2020 elections with increased mail-in voting She has several initiatives. She would like to see continued and progressed related to voting in Amherst These include the possible Implementation of rank choice voting and greater engagement with the local community in the voting process But the biggest thing if that does pass quickly is going to be rolling out a huge education program Trying to get word out in various ways on what it means, you know, what is a bank choice ballot? How does it work all of that? So that's going to be a huge thing It will be happening at some point it may not be this year again But if it is not this year then I'd like to start implementing things early next year just to get it out You know continuously so it's in the public eye and not just beforehand whatever election we're talking So there's that and I also want to With this past election and all of the you know, the mail-in ballots and the fact that we had a central tabulation Facility to tabulate those mail-in ballots as opposed to sending them all to the precincts We got a lot of People that normally never have worked the elections because we needed the staff from the colleges from everywhere And I want to maintain that I want to continue it as best we can Depending on you know the need, but I'd like to engage more students Reach out to the populations that normally wouldn't be involved and get them involved Other initiatives our debt has overseen and would like to continue to improve upon Include updating and streamlining the dog licensing program which has moved online due to the pandemic the restoration of vital records such as Births marriages and deaths and passing the institutional knowledge of the town clerk's office on to the rest of its staff this office the importance of Being in this position is I think passing down knowledge. I don't want to be an island by myself, you know and You know at some point I'll retire and I want to make sure that the staff is knowledgeable and everything that I know I'm happy to provide stability. I really am I think that's important and happy to continue the institutional memory and To continue working with the people, you know, the residents and the voters in the Amherst Thank you for tuning in to the Amherst weekly report from Amherst media. I'm Claire Healy and we'll see you at the same time next week