About the Project and Authors
About This Project:
Hi. We are Mr. McNamara’s 6th grade class of 2001-02. We go to Wildwood Elementary School in Amherst, Massachusetts. We were given this chance to study the Hills House and we enjoyed it very much. We hope you do, too.
We first read an old newspaper article about the history of the Hills House. Then we brainstormed possible topics to study. We narrowed the choices down to four: People of the House, The House Itself, The Hat Factory, or Uses Today.
Once we had our groups, we got to work using the index of documents on the Internet done by Julia Sandy-Bailey. Through the Internet we accessed old photos, newspaper articles and other documents from the Jones Library Special Collections to gather information. Then we visited the Wildwood Cemetery to see the graves of the Hills family. This helped us figure out the genealogy of the family in Amherst. Next we visited the Jones Library special collections to see the original documents. We also toured the Amherst History Museum. Finally, came a visit to the Hills House itself to pull together this web site.We would all like to thank Ms. Julia Sandy-Bailey, Dr. Vicky Getis, Mr. McNamara, Ms. Upchurch, The Women’s Club, and everyone else who made this possible for us. Thank You!
If you have questions or comments about our site, we would love to hear from you. Email us: Wildwood School.
Reflections of the Authors:
I think that my group (People Group) probably had the hardest time with our project, even though we had the most information. It was hard to figure out how each family member was related, but it was fun all along. Thank you Mac, Julia, Vicky, Ms. Upchurch, and all the other people who helped us with this project! - Ali
I enjoyed researching information in books and on the Internet and learning things that I didn’t know about Amherst. CHRIS
One of the most fun things during this project was knowing how many rooms there were and what it looked like from the outside, and putting together a floor plan. It turned out that when we visited the house, (which turned out to be a lot of fun), our estimate was not far off. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the second floor. . -Gareth
I have never made a web site so this project was a lot of fun for me. I also liked going to the Hills House and looking at all the old things. - Jackie
I really liked researching the Hills house. I learned a lot about life in the 1800s and Amherst history. ~ Jake
I learned a lot about the history of the houses in Amherst and what was here many years ago. -Jonathan
I thought this project was very entertaining. It was fun finding information on the people who lived there and trying to figure out who was related to whom, and so on. It was fun going to different places, taking pictures and putting information together. I want to thank everyone who helped me. ~Liz
I really liked learning about Amherst history. I never knew how famous Amherst is. The part that I really enjoyed was learning about the hat factory. MARTIN
I have never done a web page before, but it was fun and it took some hard work! By Megan
I learned so much about the Women’s Club. I never really knew how much happens at the Women’s Club! I loved making the web page and I hope I get another chance to do it again. ~ Melissa
The work I did on the architect page helped me learn things I never did before. William Fenno Pratt, the architect of the house, built many other building and houses in Massachusetts, such as the Evergreens, The Boys and Girls house (one of the Hills’ Houses), The Woman’s Club (the other Hills House), and the Masonic firehouse in Northampton. -Omar
I enjoyed the project because it was educational and entertaining. I also thought the Hills House was very beautiful. -Tien
Although I was very confused at first about the people who had lived in the house, my group soon figured out most of the details about who was whose son and daughter, who was someone’s wife and more. I also enjoyed going to the cemetery and using our camera to take pictures of the people’s graves. –Tiffany