1. Distribute background essay and instruct students to read the first paragraph of the essay without taking notes. Then ask them to re-read the paragraph, underlining key ideas.
2. Instruct students to write down and then look up in the dictionary any words or phrases that are unclear.
3. Instruct students to read the rest of the essay, following the steps above.
4. Discuss the reading with students, and ask them to assist with creating a class list of key ideas.
5. Ask students to think of questions that they might want answered about what everyday life was like for the English settlers. Create a poster on which these questions are listed. Have students copy these into their social studies notebooks as well, leaving a space after each to fill in an answer when they find one.
6. Instruct students to keep a separate page in their notebooks for listing any other questions that occur to them during work on the activities.

top of page

Student Background Essay: Relationship between the English, the French, and the Native Peoples

Student notebooks

1. Distribute copies of present day photographs of the Common, the Brick Church, and the modern map of Old Deerfield Village.
2. Instruct students to orient themselves to the map using the pictures and to find the various buildings on the map. This is what they would see if they stood on Meeting House Hill today. The sycamore tree and the road are the only things left from the time of the first English settlers. Locate the sycamore tree on the map.
3. Instruct students to look at the modern map, and identify the center of town, and the common.
4. Lead students in a discussion of the word "common" and what might have existed there. (Teacher note: the "common" was land in the center of town, owned by all the people "in common." It was used for pasturing animals. No house lots were allowed on the common.)
5. Distribute copies of the Barber woodcut, and instruct students to examine it, noticing what they can recognize from the photographs and map of today. This picture was done in 1839. The church is the same "Brick Church" (called the Meeting House back then) as the one we see today. It was built in 1824, the fifth meetinghouse to be built in Deerfield. The artist chose not to picture the bricks.
6. Distribute copies of the Hitchcock drawing. This meetinghouse was built in 1729 and taken down in 1824, when the present-day one was built. It was built on "Meeting House Hill," a little to the south of the present-day Brick Church. The section with the steeple was not there in 1729, but was added at a later date. Ask the students to cover up the steeple section and describe what the building looks like without it. You can see how much the building resembles an ordinary house, even though it is much larger. Refer to teacher background essay to discuss the importance of the bell and the clock. Discuss the implications of this drawing having been made from memory.
7. Introduce the purposes of the meetinghouse in community life (see teacher background essay).
8. Distribute (or direct students to take out copies from Lesson 3) the 1728 Woodbridge drawing and the photo of the current Deerfield Post Office, which was built to resemble the 3rd meetinghouse. In the Woodbridge drawing, instruct students to notice at least two meetinghouses, which may indicate that old ones were often kept even after new ones were built. Compare all four meetinghouse renditions. Notice how each building looked at first like a house, but over time, it began to look like a church. Discuss how the buildings are alike and different.
9. Instruct the students to use the Woodbridge drawing to identify some of the village structures and activities in or bordering on the common area, such as the cow, half-houses, road, and the person with the horse.
10. Distribute (or direct students to take out copies from Lesson 3) the 1671 map fragment. Help students recall which parts of Deerfield are shown on this map. (Lead them to see that the map stops just about where later maps show the common starting. Only the north end of the town can be seen.)
11. Instruct the students to reexamine the modern map with the stockade outlined. Inform students that the stockade (or palisade) was built in 1690, as protection from a possible attack by Native Americans. Some families with houses outside the stockade built little houses within the stockade for safety. Discuss with students what the stockade represented in daily life of the period.

top of page

Photos:
Meetinghouse Hill, view 1
Meetinghouse Hill, view 2
Deerfield Street, view 1
Deerfield Street, view 2
Deerfield Street, view 3
Meetinghouse, view 1
Meetinghouse, view 2

Modern map of Old Deerfield

Barber woodcut

Hitchcock drawing

1728 Dudley Woodbridge drawing

Post Office, view 1
Post Office, view 2

1671 map

1. Distribute Student Background Essay: The English Settlers in Deerfield, and instruct students to follow the reading and note-taking protocol introduced in Lesson 4, Part 1 (Read the first paragraph of the essay without taking notes. Re-read the paragraph, underlining key ideas. Write down any words or phrases that are unclear, and look them up in the dictionary where possible. Complete the reading repeating these steps.)
2. Instruct students to use this essay to answer (in their social studies notebooks) any questions from Activity 1 list.
3. When a student is finished with step 2 above, pair that student with another who has finished. Ask them to compare their answers, and add to their lists any answers they may have missed.
4. Distribute the two seating plans for the meeting house and ask students to explain what they are. Note that the printed one, dated 1777, comes from The History of Deerfield, and was constructed from an earlier record.
5. Discuss the differences between the two plans (pulpit turned around, some names in different places, etc.)
6. Ask if any names are women. Discuss.
7. How many people are listed on each?
8. Records indicate that there were about 40 black slaves in Deerfield at this time. Where did they sit? (They sat in back or in the gallery, which is not shown in either plan.)
9. Where do you think women with children sat? (probably in the gallery, or with their husband/father).

top of page

Student Background Essay: The English Settlers in Deerfield

"Seating the Meeting House" from the History of Deerfield

Seating of the Meetinghouse (1788)