Genealogy/Local History Questions
Contact Mary Baker-Wood (Spencer Historical Society)
Email mbakerwood@gmail.com for the quickest reply.
Phone: 508-885-7513 x 5 (Leave a message with your contact information. Messages are retrieved once a week.)
Spencer Journal
Historical Museum Hours
Closed until further notice.
Researching Your House/Buildings in Spencer
Look in the National Register of Historic Places Spencer Inventory Forms to research your house or buildings in Spencer. Note: Not all buildings in Spencer have been surveyed.
Directions to navigate the linked site:
At the MACRIS (MA Cultural Resource Information System) link (http://mhc-macris.net/)
- Choose ” Click here to begin… (located near the bottom left)
- Click the long link at the bottom of the page
- Choose Spencer from the Mass Towns List (near top of page)
- Click “add to list”
- Click Next (at bottom of page)
- Click Next (again at bottom of page)
- Now you will see the information for Spencer.
Recorded Library Programs
(Spencer Then and Now programs can be viewed on Spencer Cable Access (SCA) Channel 194, or on the SCA YouTube Channel).
Picturing Main St. Spencer Then and Now
View the 7/25/2024 program on Spencer Cable Access YouTube or Spencer Cable Access FaceBook Page.
Celebrations
History of the Massasoit Hotel
Spencer Through Time Take Two
Spencer through Time
Historical Pictures of Spencer
Digital Commonwealth: Massachusetts Collections online. 
Learn about the history of towns in MA. Includes Pictures, descriptions, maps and lesson plans.
Historical Collections
Ancestry Library Edition
Free Temporary Access. Go to the BOTTOM of the Ancestry page to search. Genealogy collection with 200+ billion images in 7,000 unique databases. Ancestry is considered the world’s most popular online genealogy resource.
Mass Moments
Listen to a one-minute audio spot or read the script, and then explore the story further by reading a background essay and clicking on a primary source document, links to follow, and places to visit. You can also use the timeline to see when a given “moment” occurred and a map to see where it happened. Visitors post comments or questions on the Discussion Board and have the option of being notified when someone responds.
State Library of MA Digital Photograph Collection
Predominantly consists of 26th Yankee Division soldiers who served in World War I.
Collection donated by the Boston Globe in 1935, represents over 8,500 soldiers from MA and other areas in the northeast. Collection contains over 11,000 images. Accompanying many of these photographs are “cut slips” produced by Boston Globe staff, which include biographical and military information, as well as newspaper clippings.
Spencer MA Historical Museum
Presently the museum is located on the mezzanine of the Richard Sugden Library. The museum was inspired by Spencer historian Henry M. Tower.
After discussing the project with Elias Hall, Dr. Charles P. Barton, Joseph W. Temple and Nathan Hersey a meeting was held in the Town Hall in December of 1873. From this meeting a circular was sent out explaining the purpose of the museum and requesting donations. The response was favorable.
Items were displayed in the basement of the Town Hall, and later moved upstairs to a room on the second floor. The museum remained at Town Hall until the Richard Sugden Library was opened in 1889. It was then moved to the Reading Room of the Library, then to the basement during renovations in 1931, and finally to the mezzanine of the Library after extensive renovations in 1997. The Museum has been operated by the Spencer Historical Society, a private non-profit group, for over twenty years.
The Museum consists of two main collections: items donated to the Historical Museum, and items donated to the Library. The Historical Society has undertaken an ambitious project to create a digital catalog of all museum collections, which will provide control over our collections and storage areas, and allow us to produce modern exhibits, displays, brochures, and online catalogs. The Library provides professional cataloging and access for archival materials such as town histories, annual reports, and genealogical materials.
The Museum is an integral part of the Library, and benefits from this partnership by sharing a security system, fire protection system, and utility costs. The Historical Society is, therefore, able to concentrate its resources on museum development. Our current focus is on acquiring and displaying artifacts to tell compelling stories about Spencer history and its families and neighborhoods.