[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 75 (Wednesday, June 8, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1158]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           RECOGNITION OF THE AMHERST COMMUNITY HISTORY MURAL

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JOHN W. OLVER

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 8, 2005

  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the dedication of 
the Amherst Community History Mural at West Cemetery. The event marks 
the completion of a community-wide effort by the Amherst Historical 
Commission to raise funds and install a mural on the back wall of the 
Carriage Shops which abut historic West Cemetery in Amherst.
  West Cemetery is Amherst's oldest burying ground and was laid out in 
1730 for settlers of the East District of Hadley. It is a true 
historical site that represents some of Amherst's original unchanged 
landscape, which today would still be recognizable to the early 
settlers who lie there next to their fellow farmers, mill workers, 
servants, soldiers, professors and poets.
  The Amherst Community History Mural addresses five aspects of 
Amherst's history: farming, literature, domestic life, education and 
the military, and industry and economic life. Notable figures portrayed 
in the mural standing on the balcony of the Amherst Hotel include 
Robert Gilbert ``Gil'' Roberts, a member of the New Black Eagle Jazz 
Band of Boston who also played with Louis Annstrong and Josephine 
Baker; Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone; Peter Merzbach, a 20th-century 
obstetrician; the Reverend David Parsons, Amherst's first minister; and 
Charley Thompson, a janitor and friend to Amherst College students 
during the 1800s.
  Again I congratulate Amherst, my home town, on creating this mural 
that honors and remembers the great history of our community.

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