Join us as we walk along Jones Road, once a thriving thoroughfare home to black and white families, including those of Revolutionary War veterans and neighbors, Jethro Jones and Giles Tracy.

Though hard to imagine today, in the years following the American Revolution North Blandford was a bustling neighborhood of homesteads, farms, and early industry, including saw mills, paper mills, tanneries, turning shops, a furniture and coffin shop, cloth mills, and more. Learn what drew people here – and why they left.

Jones’s fourth-great-granddaughter, Joceyln Jones Arnold, will share her personal journey of finding her patriot ancestor in Blandford and uncovering his story as a black toolmaker and solider. Participants will learn about the agricultural and industrial economy of late 18th and early 19th century North Blandford and explore the lives and struggles of these black and white veteran neighbors and their families in the decades following the American Revolution.

ABOUT THE WALK: This is an approximately 2-hour round trip walk over moderately hilly and uneven terrain along a dirt road. We’ll walk along private forestland to a cemetery where Jethro Jones and other members of his family are believed to be buried beside white Revolutionary War veteran Giles Tracy and other members of the Tracy family.

This is event is RAIN OR SHINE.

PARKING: Along one side of Blair Road only.

WHERE TO MEET: At the DAR historic marker for Jethro Jones.

FOR MORE INFO: Email hello@blandfordhistoricalsociety.org

Sponsored by: The Blandford Historical Society and the Western Mass Hilltown Hikers