Newberry Letters Taken to North Adams Museum

By Tammy Daniels
iBerkshires Staff
12:51AM / Wednesday, September 30, 2009

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Top, Joe Manning, left, and Charles 'Chuck' Cahoon with the metal letters. Above, Cahoon selects pieces inside the former Moulton's General Store. In the background is the art installation '800,000.'

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — A Main Street landmark nearly lost a half-decade ago will now hang prominently in the city's history museum.

The J.J. Newberry sign — really 12 cast-metal Serif letters and two periods, minus the long-lost "Co." — was donated to the North Adams Historical Society by writer and local historian Joe Manning on Tuesday morning.

"He wanted to make sure they were safe," said society President Charles "Chuck" Cahoon as he and Manning posed with some of the letters outside the former store.

The sign recalls a different era in the city when thousands of workers from the former Sprague Electric Co. and the textile mills would head downtown to eat at the 5 & 10's lunch counter, buy a shirt, and pick up sewing notions, toys and necessities at discount prices.

It closed in 1993 after 67 years of business. Its better-known competitor, Woolworth Co., closed its store in Adams not long after. (See some of Manning's photos of the sign in its original position.)

"Young people don't know what Newberry's was," said Manning. "Back in its day, it was as common as Walmart."

Newberry's and other proto-department stores were great equalizers, he said, because people of all types and social standing would rub elbows at the lunch counter. Those counters would become pivotal in the civil rights era in the South as black Americans demanded equality — and service — along with whites.

"It was a common point where everyone met. In some cases, it was the only store where you could buy the what you needed," said Manning. "This is part of everyday life, this is the people's history."

The society had voted in July to accept the sign; Manning only asked that the lease he had worked out with Moulton's General Store owner Mark Moulton be honored.

The Moultons had sort of adopted the sign that had been removed to make way for their own. Manning had rescued the letters from oblivion when no one had wanted them (for which he credits building owner David Carver). But his wife wanted them out the basement of their Florence home.

So he made a deal with the Moultons, leasing the sign to them for a $1 a year. The letters were installed high on the wall inside the former 5 & 10, rarely noticed by the customers in the general store.

The general store has relocated to Adams and the lease has run its course, clearing the way for the Historial Society to take possession of the letters. They will hang high on the wall inside the second floor of the Museum of Science and History in Western Gateway Heritage State Park against a vibrant red background.

Cahoon considered that the scuffed and paint-peeling letters might be restored to their original bright gold hue. But artist Jarvis Rockwell stopped to admire the blue-hued patina, caressing the weathered metal.

"That's a beautiful color. Don't restore them. Leave them just like they are," he said.

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