BELDING MEMORIAL LIBRARY
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.From a library pamphlet lent to me by our devoted head librarian Anne Judson:
The Belding Memorial Library is a distinguished member of the traditional New England group of village public libraries, many of which trace their origins to the colonial period in the history of New England. This splendid exemplar of the category was founded in 1815, fifty years after the incorporation of the town itself in 1765. At that time its contents consisted of a collection of cherished books in a shoe shop. The location was moved from house to house for some time until finally, a special room was found in the original Sanderson Academy given by Mrs. Eliza W. Field. After this, the collection was given a home in a room in the basement of the Town Hall.
In 1913, Milo M. Belding erected the current building in memory of his parents Mary and Hiram Belding. Milo bought a two-family house for the purpose, and tore it down to make space for the new library. Like many, perhaps most, Ashfield youths of his day (and in fact, of the first half of the 20th century as well, at least until the post-war period following World War II ), Milo had attended Sanderson Academy and then the junior high school in Shelburne Falls. At that time there was no regional high school, and most local young people left school after the ninth grade.
Milo was a hard-working, enterprising fellow who had begun selling silk from farm to farm. At the age of twenty-three he took up the silk manufacturing business, and also manufactured skirt supporters in South Ashfield. This proved to be successful. and he was able to start his brother in the silk manufacturing business in Belding, Michigan, and in 1863 went there to establish Belding Brothers and Co.
The new building was built from grey St. Lawrence marble in the modified Greek style. The woodwork was of quartered oak, the floors of suppressed cork (whatever that is!). In 1993, when the new addition was finally approved, the library was seventy-eight years old, with nine librarians. Books were bought with town funds set aside for that purpose.
The new addition houses a children's room, a community meeting room, an elevator and toilets. In addition to the new part, improvements in lighting, floor covering and other improvements for the entire building were made. The construction cost $234,000 altogether. Part of the funding came from local, state and federal grants, the latter amounting to $115,000. The balance came from a much prized (and hotly debated) finding in the basement of the library itself, a manuscript which proved to one of a dozen copies of President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation with an original signature by Lincoln. The town divided on whether or not to keep the document for school children to admire or to sell it at Sotheby's auction house in New York City to help raise money for the new addition. The sellers ultimately won out, and the document sold for $105,000, the town's share being $94,000.
Local writer Noah Gordon, former chairman of the Trustees of the Library, and Tierza Leah Schwartz, the chairman at that time, who had done most of the organizing of the campaign to put through the project, presided over the ceremony celebrating the operning of the new addition. Mary Lucas, another longtime Ashfield resident and librarian, was given an award as Trustee of the Year for her active role in promoting and working for the project.
It was a proud day for everyone, although I suspect that there are still some Ashfield residents who mourn the loss of their precious Old Abe document. But the library is much the better for the expenditure and is extensively used by all. The collection now includes a fine video tape library, with new tapes as well as many new books on loan arriving from time to time through the Interlibrary Loan system. Books can also be ordered through the Interlibrary Loan system - so the scope of the library actually reaches far beyond its walls and the confines of the town's borders. Hours are Mondays and Wednesdays from 2-5 and 7-9, and Saturday from 10-3. Like Nolan's Neighbors and Ashfield Hardware and Supply, the Belding Library is a major gathering place for Ashfield residents. The town can feel proud of its fine library!