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The Westford Historical Society (WHS) will be hosting the Unheard Voices: Slavery in
Colonial Westford on Thursday, May 9th starting at 7 p.m. This program will be held at theMuseum.
Award winning living history presenter, Gwendolyn Quezaire-Presutti, will present a one
person play about Peggy, a slave owned by a Westford family. For the past twenty years,
Gwendolyn has engaged audiences with performances giving voice to real-life accounts,
struggles, self-determination, and triumphs of women. Her work is deeply researched and based on Westford archival materials. Gwendolyn’s portrayal of historical women introduces untapped history, drawing on a wide array of primary historical resources. Each performance is infused with her unique fingerprint giving an integral portrait of a historical event orperson.
Researchers and volunteers at the Museum have gone through Church records, census
reports, and town histories. They discovered that between 1732 and 1761, Reverend Hall
baptized 14 enslaved African Americans in town. Slavery was abolished in Massachusetts in 1780. Linda Greene, Director of the Westford Historical Society and Museum, said,
“We know that there were enslaved African Americans living here in Westford when it was founded in 1729. We are blessed to have the opportunity to share this overlooked part of Westford’s history.”
Unheard Voices is part of the Freedom’s Way Hidden Treasures program. This event is free and open to the public. There is a suggested donation of $5/person and $10/family.
This program is generously sponsored by the Westford Family FunFest and funded in part by a grant from the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies.
Click here for more information on Gwendolyn Quezaire-Presutti.
The mission of the Westford Historical Society is to promote the understanding and
appreciation of Westford’s unique history to the community. By providing programming that features aspects of the daily lives, activities and achievements of Westford residents, we strive to expand and enrich understanding of how our town continues to evolve. We foster an environment of teaching and learning that strengthens our sense of community. We will collect, preserve and exhibit documents, photographs, objects and sites historically significant to Westford, and encourage outside efforts to do the same.
The Westford Museum is open most Sundays 2-4pm.
For more information about this topic, please contact Linda Greene by calling
978-692-5550, or e-mail Linda at director@museum.westford.org
