The library will be closed Sunday, March 31st, for Easter

Memorial Hall Library

Hikes Through History with Author Alison O'Leary: A Virtual Tour

Thursday, May 6, 2021 - 7:00pm

A recording of this program is available here.

Have you ever wandered through the woods and wondered who had been there before you? In Massachusetts, many parks and trails have been carved out of historical sites. Author Alison O’Leary, an award-winning journalist and coauthor of the Appalachian Mountain Club’s new guide Best Day Hikes Near Boston, will share her favorites through this hour-long program. Using maps and historic photos, she describes several day trip destinations with historical significance and interesting features in Massachusetts. Special effort is made to include varying levels of difficulty (flat and easy to steep and challenging) and variety of scenery. These sites include a former rubber factory overlooked in the woods, contributions of the Roosevelt-era Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to our favorite parks, offbeat tales of local residents, sites of former grand estates (and tales of the owners).

Register through Zoom.

The Friends of Memorial Hall Library will hold a brief annual meeting prior to Alison's lecture.

Author Alison O’Leary is a longtime journalist and editor. She has won awards from national and regional organizations for travel writing, reporting, and editing. In 2017 the Florida Magazine Association presented her with a Silver Charlie Award for history writing. She is a 2004 graduate of Emerson College. Her published books include Inns & Adventures: A History and Explorer’s Guide to New Hampshire, Vermont and the Berkshires, which features O’Leary’s and coauthor, Michael Tougias’s individual and shared expeditions in the mountains, on the lakes and rivers of the outer reaches of this region. So Close to Home: The True Story of an American Family’s Fight for Survival During WWII traces a hardscrabble American family’s journey home from South America in 1942 when their freighter ship sails into the crosshairs of a German submarine lying in wait in the Gulf of Mexico. Best Day Hikes Near Boston is the Appalachian Mountain Club’s compendium of day hikes in Eastern Massachusetts, highlighting historical and environmental diversity.

A collaboration of Memorial Hall Library and Flint Memorial Library.

randomness