Freedom's Way National Heritage Area

Home
United States
Devens, MA
Freedom's Way National Heritage Area

Call Directions Website Contact the organization

Working in partnership with the National Park Service, National Heritage Areas are places that tell a rich and distinctly American story.
(1)

Freedom's Way National Heritage Area works in partnership with the National Park Service and hundreds of local partners to protect and promote the natural, cultural, and historical resources of 45 communities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Encompassing 45 communities in North Central Massachusetts and Southern
New Hampshire, Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area (FWNHA) was
established to foster a close working relationship between local and regional partners, governmental agencies and the private sector to preserve the special historic identity of the region. As the coordinating entity for the Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area, the Freedom’s Way Heritage Association connects the people, places and communities of the Heritage Area through preservation, conservation and educational initiatives to protect and promote shared resources and encourage residents and visitors to explore the landscape, history and culture of the region.

11/03/2026

🧘 Art of Presence: Yoga at deCordova | Lincoln, MA

Slow down and move through a vinyasa practice surrounded by large-scale contemporary sculpture. An instructor from On The Mat Yoga leads this guided session at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, where the art and the landscape become part of the practice.

Two sessions are offered:
🔹 10:30 to 11:00 AM: Family Yoga
🔹 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM: Ages 13+

Pre-ticketing is required. Your ticket includes campus admission, so arrive early or stay after to explore the grounds. Adaptations are available on request.

📅 Wednesday, November 11
⏰ 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM
📍 Sculpture Park & Museum, 51 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln, MA
🔗 thetrustees.org/decordovaevents

Find more events at freedomsway.org

11/03/2026

🌿 Community Service Day at Nashoba Brook Conservation Land | Acton, MA

Spend a Sunday afternoon giving back to one of Acton’s most beloved trails. Friends of Pine Hawk invites volunteers to help remove invasive plant species and tidy up the trail at Nashoba Brook Conservation Land. Local Scout troops are welcome to join, and the Town of Acton will supply all the tools.

An optional brunch kicks things off at 11:30 AM. Space is limited to 25 volunteers, ages 13 and up. Event details are emailed to registrants a few days beforehand.

📅 Sunday, November 8
⏰ 1:00 to 3:00 PM (optional brunch at 11:30 AM)
📍 Nashoba Brook Conservation Land, Acton, MA
🎉 Free, registration required
🔗 pinehawk.org

Find more events at freedomsway.org

11/02/2026

🔥 13th Annual Fruitlands Bonfire | Harvard, MA

Write a wish. Tuck it in the basket. Watch it go up in flames. Fruitlands Museum says goodbye to the 2026 main season with its 13th annual bonfire on November 7th.

Gather at 4 PM, and as night falls around 4:45 PM the fire is lit, sending hopes and dreams into the autumn sky. Hot apple c***r will be for sale (cash only).

Advance registration is required and this one tends to sell out. Tickets are per car, so one pass covers everyone riding with you.

📅 Saturday, November 7
⏰ 4:00 to 6:00 PM
📍 Fruitlands Museum 102 Prospect Hill Road, Harvard, MA
🎟️ $15 per car for Trustees Members, $25 for nonmembers
🌧️ Rain date: Sunday, November 8, 4 to 6 PM
🔗 thetrustees.org/event/449792

Find more events at freedomsway.org

11/02/2026

👗 Upcoming Talk: An Entire Wardrobe 250 Years Out of Style | Lancaster, MA

What did your clothes say about you in 1776? Quite a lot, it turns out. Living history interpreter Audrey Stuck-Girard explores what clothing meant to early Americans, both as a valuable material possession and as a way of signaling who you were in society.

Using images of surviving garments and period artwork, she will examine how dress reflected status, gender, age, race, profession, religion, and politics. She will also look at the choices modern reenactors make when assembling their own historical wardrobes, and how clothing can be a tool for public engagement and education.

Stuck-Girard is a historical wigmaker, hairdresser, living history performer, and costumer.

📅 Friday, November 6
⏰ 2:00 to 3:00 PM
📍 Thayer Memorial Library 717 Main Street, Lancaster, MA
🎉 Free and open to the public
🔗 thayermemoriallibrary.assabetinteractive.com

Find more events at freedomsway.org

10/30/2026

Explore the Freedom’s Way with a stop at these two Lincoln, MA favorites.

The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
Thirty acres of outdoor art make this the largest sculpture park of its kind in New England, with more than sixty works that change over time. Inside, the museum keeps its galleries fresh with rotating exhibitions.

Codman Estate and Gardens
This 1740 country seat, known as “the Grange,” sits in a park-like landscape. Tucked behind the house, a hidden Italianate garden and an English cottage garden give you quiet corners to explore.

Start planning your trip and explore the Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area.

FreedomsWay.org

10/30/2026

🥁 Places to Go: Revolutionary War Memorial Drum Monument | Westford, MA

Outside the Westford Museum, a bronze battle drum honors the 280 Westford men who served in the Revolutionary War. Created by local artist and Westford firefighter David P. Christiana and dedicated on July 7, 2021, the monument was funded by Westford Remembers.

Among those recognized is Colonel John Robinson, who helped command the troops at the North Bridge on April 19, 1775, and later served under George Washington during the siege of Boston. The inscription honors the Minutemen and militia of Middlesex County who stood their ground at the bridge that morning.

📍 2 Boston Road, Westford, MA

Discover more heritage sites at freedomsway.org

10/30/2026

🏚️ At deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum : Hugh Hayden’s “Huff and a Puff” | Lincoln, MA

Every shingle, windowpane, and brick leans toward you. Artist Hugh Hayden has reimagined Henry David Thoreau’s one-room cabin, where he wrote Walden; or, Life in the Woods in 1845, as a dramatically slanted replica that brings a surreal, tensioned force to one of America’s most iconic homes.

Thoreau’s cabin is a modern-day pilgrimage site and a symbol of self-reliance, spirituality, political activism, and ecological consciousness. Hayden’s original outdoor commission at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum invites us to look at those American myths and markers again, and to ask what they mean today.

Hayden was born in Dallas in 1983 and lives and works in New York. His work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem, and he has created major outdoor installations at Madison Square Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Commissioned by Art & the Landscape, an initiative of The Trustees.

📍 deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum, 51 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln, MA

Discover more at freedomsway.org

10/29/2026

🌙 Upcoming Talk: Ceremonial Landscapes and the Algonquian Calendar | Acton, MA

Stone features aligned with celestial patterns. Landscapes designed to mark fish runs, corn harvests, maple syrup season, and storytelling times. The Algonquian people encoded their calendar into the land itself, and Cathy Taylor, former member of the Upton Historical Commission and longtime researcher of ceremonial stone sites, is here to explain how to read it.

📅 Thursday, November 5
⏰ 7:00 to 8:30 PM
📍 Acton Memorial Library , 486 Main Street, Acton, MA
🎉 Free and open to the public
🔗 pinehawk.org

Find more events at freedomsway.org

10/29/2026

🎃 Trick or Treat at the Old Schwamb Mill | Arlington, MA

Candy, costumes, and a 19th century mill. What more could you want from Halloween?

Bring the family to the Old Schwamb Mill for a festive Halloween open house featuring trick-or-treating, Halloween coloring crafts, a scavenger hunt through the historic mill, and a photo-op area. Costumes encouraged, candy guaranteed.

📅 Saturday, October 31
⏰ 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
📍 Old Schwamb Mill, 17 Mill Lane, Arlington, MA
🎉 Free and open to all
🔗 oldschwambmill.org/events

Find more events at freedomsway.org

10/28/2026

🌾 Places to Go: Stillwater Farm Interpretive Site | Sterling, MA

Along the Redemption Rock Trail in Sterling, the remnants of a farmstead tell a quiet story of 150 years of New England agricultural life. Stillwater Farm, originally established in the late 1700s by Zebedee Redding, passed to the Chandler family in the 19th century, who built it into one of Sterling’s more prosperous dairy operations. The imposing C.H. Chandler Barn, a rare double-ended cow barn stretching 100 feet, still stands on the property alongside the original farmhouse.

In 1990 the site was acquired by the Commonwealth as part of the Wachusett Reservoir watershed protection program. Today, the renovated 1790s farmhouse features exhibits on the watershed, the farm’s history, and local flora and fauna. The Massachusetts DCR maintains a self-guided interpretive trail on site.

📍 214-232 Redemption Rock Trail, Sterling, MA

Discover more heritage sites at freedomsway.org

Address

94 Jackson Road, Suite 311
Devens, MA
01434

Telephone

+19787723654

Website

http://www.FreedomsWay.org/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Freedom's Way National Heritage Area posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.