Join us for a virtual discussion of White House Wild Child: How Alice Roosevelt Broke All the Rules and Won the Heart of America by Shelley Frazer Mickle.

Copies of the book will be available at the Bacon Free Library.

Order your own copy HERE

For details on how to attend this virtual meeting via Zoom, please contact mking@minlib.net

The Zoom link to the discussion will be sent at a later date.

Delight in festive music, drink mulled cider, savor gingerbread cookies, explore captivating exhibits, shop for local history gifts, partake in our raffle, and stay for the drawing at 4:30 pm.

This event is free, but please register in advance.

Click Here to Register

Join us to hear Diane Taraz perform traditional Victorian Christmas carols this holiday season.

Many of our holiday traditions and Christmas music were revived or created during the Victorian era in the mid-1800s. Diane will present these beloved carols and fascinating stories about their origins as she performs in a hand-sewn 1850s dress and accompanies herself on guitar and dulcimer.

Diane Taraz has been writing her songs for years and breathing new life into traditional ones. She explains the intricacies of her music with a dry wit and a light touch.

This event is free, but please register in advance.

Co-sponsored with the Bacon Free Library.

Click Here to Register

Make Corn Husk Dolls and Beaded Bracelets with the Natick Nipmuc

Stop by the Bacon Free Library and make a beaded bracelet or a corn husk doll with members of the Natick Nipmuc. In honor of National Native American Heritage month, members of the Natick Nipmuc Tribe will be on-site to teach you how to create these lovely traditional crafts.

This event is held in collaboration with the Bacon Free Library.

No need to sign up. Just stop by to craft!

Join us for a virtual discussion of Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches (NF) by S.C Gwynne.

Copies of the book will be available at the Bacon Free Library.

Order your own copy HERE

For details on how to attend this virtual meeting via Zoom, please contact mking@minlib.net

The Zoom link to the discussion will be sent at a later date.

Walk Natick Center with local historian Terri Evans and learn how the railroad and the shoe industry transformed 19th-century Natick. Hear stories from the 1874 fire and discover how arts and culture inspire the “heart of Natick” today.

Please meet at the entrance to Natick's Town Hall at the corner of Park Street.

Tours last 60 minutes and are capped at 12 people. Advanced registration is required.

Please register here. This program is FREE and open to the public.

Join local historian Terri Evans for a stroll through the heart of South Natick. The tour highlights Natick’s early history as a “Praying Town” and the 19th-century residents who inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Oldtown Folks.

Tours last 60 minutes and are capped at 12 people. Advanced registration is required. Please click HERE to register. This program is FREE and open to the public.

Please meet at the entrance to the Bacon Free Library/Natick History Museum, 58 Eliot Street.

If you are interested in booking a private walking tour of South Natick, click here.

Find your house. Discover old Natick. Bring your questions.

Join us for Community Map Day at the Natick History Museum. We'll have 40+ vintage maps of Natick from our collections on display for you to explore. Local map experts will be available to answer your questions, and we'll have map prints for sale, too. Enjoy light refreshments as you browse.

Please click here to register in advance.

We look forward to seeing you!

All are welcome to join local tour guide Vincent Vittoria for a walking tour of Natick's historic Walnut Hill neighborhood. Come learn about the people, historic mansions, and other stories that give Walnut Hill such a fascinating history.

The tour will meet downtown by Moran Park (right beside the Eastern Bank on South Ave by the T tracks, with the World War II memorial). It will last about 90 minutes.

This tour is capped at 20 people. This program is FREE and open to the public. Advanced registration is required. Please register in advance HERE.

MetroWest is known for its rolling farmland, winding rivers and quaint white churches facing green town commons. But looks can be deceiving. Tales from these small towns captured headlines and shocked readers across the state with lurid details of betrayal, cruelty, greed and murder. Nina Danforth, spurred on by love and jealousy, made a midnight call to the home of Andrew Emery in Framingham seeking revenge. The murder of spinster Mabel Page in Weston sent a man to the electric chair, and forty years before Lizzie Borden, the grisly axe murder of a husband and wife sent shock waves through the terrified town of Natick. 

Authors James L. Parr and Kevin A. Swope reveal the stories behind these crimes and the motives of the desperate criminals who perpetrated them.

This program is a collaboration with the Morse Institute Library. Register here.

Join local historian Terri Evans for a stroll through the heart of South Natick. The tour highlights Natick’s early history as a “Praying Town” and the 19th-century residents who inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Oldtown Folks.

Tours last 60 minutes and are capped at 12 people. Advanced registration is required. Please click HERE to register. This program is FREE and open to the public.

Please meet at the entrance to the Bacon Free Library/Natick History Museum, 58 Eliot Street.

If you are interested in booking a private walking tour of South Natick, click here.

Walk Natick Center with local historian Terri Evans and learn how the railroad and the shoe industry transformed 19th-century Natick. Hear stories from the 1874 fire and discover how arts and culture inspire the “heart of Natick” today.

Please meet at the entrance to Natick's Town Hall at the corner of Park Street.

Tours last 60 minutes and are capped at 12 people. Advanced registration is required.

Please register here. This program is FREE and open to the public.

In 1964, the Continental Baking Co. opened “the largest bread and cake bakery in the world” in Natick.

Do you remember the aroma?

Join us to reminisce about Natick’s Wonder Bread Factory and remember the people who worked there from 1964 to 1999.

• See our Wonder Bread Collection

• Take your pic with an inflated Twinkie the Kid

• Enjoy Wonder Bread Give-Aways

• Remember the factory and employees

The NHS remembers longtime Continental Baking Co. driver, Paul Virdinlia, whose family generously donated the items in our Wonder Bread collection. Paul drove a Continental Baking, Co. truck three million miles with no accidents!

Did you or someone you know work for the Wonder Bread Factory? We’d love to hear from you! Call us or write to: contact@natickhistoricalsociety.org

This event is FREE and open to the public. Please register in advance here and let us know you’re coming.

Join us for a virtual discussion of The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship between John Glenn and Ted Williams by Arthur Lazarus.

Copies of the book will be available at the Bacon Free Library.

Order your own copy HERE

For details on how to attend this virtual meeting via Zoom, please contact mking@minlib.net

The Zoom link to the discussion will be sent at a later date.

Explore U.S. Numismatics with local collector, Kyle Bollen. Kyle will share his collection, discuss how he got started, and share what he's learned along the way.

Are you a collector, too? Bring in a coin from your collection and tell us all about it! Want to get started collecting? Kyle can give you some tips.

This event is free, but please register here in advance.

Walk Natick Center with local historian Terri Evans and learn how the railroad and the shoe industry transformed 19th-century Natick. Hear stories from the 1874 fire and discover how arts and culture inspire the “heart of Natick” today.

Please meet at the entrance to Natick's Town Hall at the corner of Park Street.

Tours last 60 minutes and are capped at 12 people. Advanced registration is required.

Please register here. This program is FREE and open to the public.

Join us for a virtual discussion of The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder (NF) by David Grann.

Copies of the book will be available at the Bacon Free Library.

Order your own copy HERE

For details on how to attend this virtual meeting via Zoom, please contact mking@minlib.net

The Zoom link to the discussion will be sent at a later date.

Join local historian Terri Evans for a stroll through the heart of South Natick. The tour highlights Natick’s early history as a “Praying Town” and the 19th-century residents who inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Oldtown Folks.

Tours last 60 minutes and are capped at 12 people. Advanced registration is required. Please click HERE to register. This program is FREE and open to the public.

Please meet at the entrance to the Bacon Free Library/Natick History Museum, 58 Eliot Street.

If you are interested in booking a private walking tour of South Natick, click here.

If you are interested in joining us for a virtual book discussion, please email: mking@minlib.net

Everyone is welcome to join a discussion of Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by AnnaLee Newlitz.

This program is co-sponsored with the Bacon Free Library. It is FREE and open to the public.

NEW LOCATION: COMMON STREET SPIRITUAL CENTER

Due to Wednesday’s excessive heat, we will hold this event inside at the Common Street Spiritual Center on 13 Common Street in Natick Center.

You know Frederick Douglass, but are you familiar with his 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Join us to hear this powerful speech read aloud by members of our own community. Historian and Natick resident Brenna Greer will offer an introduction to the speech and facilitate dialogue afterwards. Coffee and snacks will be served.

This event will take place on Juneteenth (Wednesday, June 19) at the Common Street Spiritual Center. The reading will be filmed by local cable station, Natick Pegasus.

Head over to the common to celebrate Juneteenth with all of Natick @ 1pm. More information here.

This event is free and open to the public, co-hosted by the Natick Historical Society and Natick for Black Lives Matter. Please bring your own chair or blanket.

Please note that the reader list is full! If you would like to be on a waitlist, please sign up here. Readers under 18 are encouraged to print and sign, along with a parent/guardian, this release form from Natick Pegasus.

Funding from Mass Humanities has been provided through the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

If you are interested in joining us for a virtual book discussion, please email: mking@minlib.net

Everyone is welcome to join a discussion of My Life in France by Julia Child.

This program is co-sponsored with the Bacon Free Library. It is FREE and open to the public.

Join local historian Terri Evans for a stroll through the heart of South Natick. The tour highlights Natick’s early history as a “Praying Town” and the 19th-century residents who inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Oldtown Folks.

Tours last 60 minutes and are capped at 12 people. Advanced registration is required. Please click HERE to register. This program is FREE and open to the public.

Please meet at the entrance to the Bacon Free Library/Natick History Museum, 58 Eliot Street.

If you are interested in booking a private walking tour of South Natick, click here.

Walk Natick Center with local historian Terri Evans and learn how the railroad and the shoe industry transformed 19th-century Natick. Hear stories from the 1874 fire and discover how arts and culture inspire the “heart of Natick” today.

Please meet at the entrance to Natick's Town Hall at the corner of Park Street.

Tours last 60 minutes and are capped at 12 people. Advanced registration is required. Please register here. This program is FREE and open to the public.

Stop by for an Open House at the Natick History Museum and meet Jen Richards, Research and Archives Manager for the Natick Historical Society. Bring your curiosity. Bring your questions. Find out what our archives have to offer! We’ll pull a few items from our yearbook, photography, and manuscript collections.

This program is FREE and open to the public. No registration is required.

All are welcome to join local tour guide Vincent Vittoria for a walking tour of Natick's historic Walnut Hill neighborhood. Come learn about the people, historic mansions, and other stories that give Walnut Hill such a fascinating history.

The tour will meet downtown by Moran Park (right beside the Eastern Bank on South Ave by the T tracks, with the World War II memorial). It will last about 90 minutes.

This tour is capped at 20 people. This program is FREE and open to the public. Advanced registration is required. Please register in advance HERE.

Walk Natick Center with local historian Terri Evans and learn how the railroad and the shoe industry transformed 19th-century Natick. Hear stories from the 1874 fire and discover how arts and culture inspire the “heart of Natick” today.

Please meet at the entrance to Natick's Town Hall at the corner of Park Street.

Tours last 60 minutes and are capped at 12 people. Advanced registration is required. Please register here. This program is FREE and open to the public.

If you are interested in joining us for a virtual book discussion, please email: mking@minlib.net

Everyone is welcome to join a discussion of The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee.

This program is co-sponsored with the Bacon Free Library. It is FREE and open to the public.

Join local historian Terri Evans for a stroll through the heart of South Natick. The tour highlights Natick’s early history as a “Praying Town” and the 19th-century residents who inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Oldtown Folks.

Tours last 60 minutes and are capped at 12 people. Advanced registration is required. Please click HERE to register. This program is FREE and open to the public.

Please meet at the entrance to the Bacon Free Library/Natick History Museum, 58 Eliot Street.

If you are interested in booking a private walking tour of South Natick, click here.

RESCHEDULED DATE. Join the NHS Collections Committee for a conversation about repatriation and return in small museums with Jose Vilahomat, NAGPRA Curatorial Assistant, Peabody Museum at Harvard University, and Niki Lefebvre, Executive Director, Natick Historical Society. Jose will discuss the NAGPRA process, and Niki will share examples from the NHS collections.

Advanced registration is required - space is limited. Save your spot through our Eventbrite page.

Join local historian Terri Evans for a stroll through the heart of South Natick. The tour highlights Natick’s early history as a “Praying Town” and the 19th-century residents who inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Oldtown Folks.

Tours last 60 minutes and are capped at 12 people. Advanced registration is required. Please click HERE to register. This program is FREE and open to the public.

Please meet at the entrance to the Bacon Free Library/Natick History Museum, 58 Eliot Street.

If you are interested in booking a private walking tour of South Natick, click here.