From Sowams and King Philip’s War to the Triangle Trade, from the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company and the America’s Cup, to the Haffenreffer beer dynasty, from Samuel P. Colt and U.S. Rubber, to the first family of the golden age of American theater … the list goes on and on. For better and sometimes worse, Bristol has an impressive historical pedigree. It is or has been home to the oldest colonial flag in existence, the man (Ambrose Burnside) for whom sideburns were named, one of the oldest gravestones in New England, the first explorer to make an overland crossing of Siberia, and the oldest continuous July 4 celebration in the country.

The Marquis du Lafayette led (and won) the battle of Rhode Island from his headquarters on Hope Street, sons of Bristol helped lead the earliest organized protest of the American Revolution (sorry Boston, we were burning British tax ships before you did your thing with the tea), and Herman Melville summered here before setting sail on the Acushnet.

Bristol’s history is remarkably far-reaching for a relatively small town, and of course there is a Bristol Historical & Preservation Society (BH&PS) with an archive and exhibit space that is up for the task of sharing it with the world.

That last part is not totally true.

What they do have is a small historic stone jail — itself a lovely relic of Bristol’s past — but entirely unsuitable for the task of preserving and displaying its incredible history.

Taking nothing away from the people over the years who have volunteered countless hours to maintain the BH&PS, today’s organization has a professional staff capable of curating a vibrant museum with programming to match. They just don’t have the facility.

Executive director Catherine Zipf, historian/librarian Rei Battcher, curator Lisa Decesare, and program coordinator Chelsea Johnston are doing great work, but one thing is really tying their hands.

“The building is now full,” said Zipf.

“Since 2023, we have gotten over 260 new accessions,” said Decesare. “An accession could be a single item or it could be a collection.” A recent accession of artifacts from one storied family numbered close to 1,000 items. “It is everything that you can possibly imagine. There’s a wonderful selection of vintage textiles, historic letters, games, Chinese export dinnerware dating to 1805 … it’s just all different kinds of things things that are really important to the history of the community.”

Lacking space, these items are in the attic and basement, jail cells, and stuffed into every nook and cranny in the building.

“We have a room upstairs that we can’t access anymore,” said Zipf.

“I was hired three years ago, and one of those rooms was empty. That was going to be my office,” said Johnston. “And it is now storage.”

It’s not just about the space, it’s the quality of the space that’s an issue. The BH&PS headquarters could be five times the size it is now and it still wouldn’t be appropriate for archival storage of many items like old papers and textiles. The Parson White Diaries is a sad, cautionary tale about what can happen when historical documents don’t have a proper home.

Parson White wrote about his day-to-day life here in Bristol during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The entire collection includes about 50 journals. At some point they got damp — and then mold set in. Despite the staff’s best efforts, much of White’s work is lost forever.

Town hall on her radar

“We have had preliminary conversations with the town ever since the initial thoughts were floated about moving Town Hall up to Reynolds,” said Zipf. “There’s been a lot of conversation about it.”

Some may argue to sell that building into private hands and get it back on the tax rolls, but Zipf has a different perspective.

“We’d like to see it out to bid for best use, instead of highest cost,” said Zipf. “It’s a sensitive site, with the Historical Society on one side, the Burnside Building on the other side, and the Victory Garden in the back. I do not think high-end condos is the best use for the current town hall, especially when we really do have a deep need for it. And as is, we don’t plan to do anything with it besides make it ours. We want it as it is.”

Not only does the current town hall have the square footage to make room for exhibits and programming, the Town Clerk’s office already includes climate-controlled archival storage space.

But now, with the plan shifting to locate Town Hall at the former Guiteras school building, the timeline has moved up to June of 2027.

“That’s partly why we wanted to go public about the building, because that’s suddenly a year less runway for us to figure out how to afford the building,” said Zipf.

“All the conversations have been very positive … but we need to talk about a number, and regardless of what it is, it’s going to be a number we’re going to have to fundraise. We don’t have it.

“So that’s the part where we might need some flexibility … less than a year to run a capital campaign. That’s a tall order for any institution, but especially for us.”

Zipf knows the Bristol Town Council might get pressed to return the building to the tax rolls, and an acquisition by the nonprofit BH&PS won’t achieve that.

“I think that everybody would like to hear what’s the return on the investment. And that’s a conversation we’re prepared to have. What is it that the Historical Society contributes to the town of Bristol? I mean, a lot of those are are not monetarily measured.”

“It’s our history and the stories and narratives of who we are as Bristolians and where we come from,” said Decesare. “And so much of that story is housed upstairs, blocking doors, blocking the HVAC system. So, whenever the HVAC people come, I have to move a bunch of furniture.”

They are at the point now where if someone comes in with a fabulous piece of Bristol history, they don’t know if they can take it. They are producing great programming and they want to bring that history out into the community more, and invite the community into the BH&PS space to experience it. But they can’t do that in their current home.

“We’re at a point now where we can’t protect these artifacts and we can’t show them … So if we’re not getting the town hall, what’s the alternative? We don’t have a good one,” said Zipf. “This is the optimal scenario.”