The Springfield Armory National Historic Site will introduce the kiosk on Saturday at 1:30 p.m.
It was 225 years ago that cannons blared and muskets shot their loads as a group of post-Revolutionary War insurgents attempted to storm and seize the arsenal in Springfield.
To commemorate this moment in American history, the Springfield Armory National Historic Site on Saturday at 1:30 will introduce the public to a new, interactive kiosk that explores the history of the conflict. In addition, park ranger Richard Colton will deliver an informative program on Shays and his rebels. A question and answer period will follow.
The event is free and open to the public.
“The kiosk allows us to greatly expand upon our small Shay’s exhibit. Visitors now have an opportunity to look beyond what is in front of them in the exhibit and to explore audiovisual materials in which there is music and voices of the times. The kiosk will also take them to other collections on Shay’s Rebellion including those at Old Deerfield,” said Colton.
After the American Revolutionary War, Daniel Shays struggled to support his family as Massachusetts imposed heavy fees and tax burdens on its citizens to pay its war debt. In an effort to correct the injustices they experienced, Shays and others, many of them veterans of the war, attempted to storm and occupy the Springfield Arsenal on January 25, 1787. The rebellion that bears his name ended in loss of life and near disaster for the new Commonwealth. Out of the bloodshed and anger, say historians, came a strengthened nation that same year. Some even consider Shays’s Rebellion the precursor to the writing of the United States Constitution.
Colton said he always has something new to share with listeners at his talks, and this year is no different.
“I recently came across a document by John Bryant, a senior officer on site at the Springfield Arsenal. He wrote a letter to a private citizen two days before the attempted storming of the site, in which he lays out the defensive arrangements at the time. Up until now we had never seen any document in detail and had to hypothesize what was going on. He makes it quite clear in his letter that the rebels were walking into a trap which was considerably greater than most accounts with three field cannons and a howitzer,” said Colton.
The park ranger said they had deduced that the rebels were met by at least one field cannon and one howitzer, but were lacking proof of others.
“I had my suspicions that there were more after looking at the Wait Marker which stood out on Boston Road at the time and was pitted on three sides by grape shot during the crossfire. And, for that to happen, either one of the pieces would have needed to be moved. So, it was gratifying for me to confirm my suspicions about the field pieces,” said Colton.
The interactive kiosk will be a permanent part of the museum exhibit on Shays’s Rebellion. The kiosk and its companion website – wwwshaysrebellion.stcc.edu – were created by Springfield Technical Community College and funded through a grant from the Massachusetts Foundation on the Humanities.
The Springfield Armory National Historic Site – the location of the nation’s first armory (1794 – 1968) established by George Washington – includes historic grounds, buildings, and the world’s largest American military firearms collection.