News
Longyear Participates in Tenth Annual “Trails and Sails”
October 17, 2011
Last month Longyear welcomed more than 80 visitors to two Mary Baker Eddy Historic Houses during the tenth annual “Trails and Sails.” This Essex National Heritage Commission event featured tours at the Museum’s historic houses in Amesbury and Swampscott, Massachusetts, and free activities at more than 100 other historic, cultural, and natural sites in Essex County.
On September 16, 17, and 18, visitors participated in guided tours of Longyear’s historic house in the coastal town of Swampscott. There they met new Resident Overseers Mary and Ron Beermann. Tours focused on the healing that Mrs. Eddy experienced while living here in 1866 – a healing that would lead to the discovery of Christian Science. In later years, Mrs. Eddy would refer to this house as “the birthplace of Christian Science.”
Further north in Amesbury, visitors toured the house, and were treated to needlework demonstrations. Longyear employee Susan Kilborn prepared a demonstration of how to embroider perforated paper from designs inspired by original pieces in the Bagley family collection in this house. Susan designs and creates the needlepoint and cross-stitch products available for purchase in the Longyear Museum Store. Amesbury guide Rosalind Revilock-Frost broadened the visitor experience by also offering a quilting demonstration that provided visitors with context for the quilts exhibited throughout this house.
For more information about these historic houses and all of the houses in the Longyear Museum collection, please visit the Mary Baker Eddy Historic Houses section of our website.
Interested in learning more about nineteenth-century needlecrafts? You’re invited to participate in a Paper Embroidery workshop at Longyear Museum on November 12, 2011. The workshop includes instruction, lunch, and most supplies. Please register here or by calling 800.277.8943, ext. 275.
