Preservation Needs Assessment of Collections in the Horatio Colony House Museum

FAIN: PG-51590-12

Colony Memorial Trust (Keene, NH 03431-3780)
Anita Louise Carroll-Weldon (Project Director: May 2011 to September 2013)

A preservation assessment of furniture, fine and decorative arts, photographs, manuscripts, and other archival materials that belonged to three generations of the Joslin/Colony family, prominent industrialists who played important roles in the politics and economy of Keene, New Hampshire. The collections are displayed in the Horatio Colony House Museum's Federal period home, which was occupied by the family for 130 years, and now functions as a historic house museum with the holdings arranged as left by the last family member who lived there until 1977.

The Horatio Colony House Museum, located in Keene, New Hampshire and operated by the Colony Memorial Trust, is applying for assistance for a Preservation Needs Assessment. The predominantly 19th and early 20th century holdings of furnishings and fine and decorative arts comprise the intact home of a regionally prominent industrialist family. These pieces are still located as originally placed and lived with in eight rooms of the house museum. The holdings also include an impressive archival collection of family photographs, letters, diaries, manuscripts, business records and scrap books. All this is augmented by an extensive collection of rare books, music, ceramics, silver, glass and textiles. The collections have been used for college level curriculum by professors of American Literary History and Music History, and by researchers in Religious Studies and Cultural History.