WESTFIELD – All New Englanders know the signs: the air is crisp, the nights a little longer, and soon Mother Nature will hold us tight in her icy grip. Most of us are getting ready to hunker down, preparing for the snow, slush and bitter winds that we know are on the way. But some few of us look forward to the change in season and harken back to an earlier time when winter meant “dashing through the snow” and “jingling all the way.”
The Westfield Historic Industries Preservation Project, Inc. (WHIPP) would like to encourage everyone to reflect upon those bygone days and to remind us what it was like before the automobile became the primary mode of transportation, has chosen as its first fundraising venture the raffle of a beautifully framed photograph of a peaceful winter scene. Entitled “One Horse Open Sleigh,” the art-quality photograph depicts a winder wonderland featuring a couple in a horse-drawn carriage, their Christmas tree in tow.
WHIPP was established in 2010 to research, document and memorialize Westfield’s significant contribution to the Industrial Revolution in the United States. WHIPP has chosen as its first project the establishment of a working museum within Westfield’s one still operating whip making facility at 360 Elm Street. The building, accepted for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, is home to much machinery invented and perfected in Westfield solely for the manufacturing of whips. It exists nowhere else, and much of it is still in use today.
The drawing for the photograph will take place at the close of Dickens Day’s Fezziwig’s Faire on Saturday, Dec. 3, at the YMCA, 67 Court St., Westfield. It will be on display and tickets will be sold throughout the day at WHIPP’s booth. Prior to December 3, the photograph can be seen at Miss Sweet’s, 4 Russell Road, and tickets may be purchased there as well. Tickets are priced at one for $5 or three for $10.
For further information, contact Carol Martin at 568-8244.
