Shelburne — The Arms Bequests

Extracted from "History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, Volume II," by Louis H. Everts, 1879.


      Shelburne has good reason to remember Ira Arms, one of its most worthy citizens, who returned to the town, for its use and adornment, the greater part of the fortune which he acquired during his existence in Shelburne. During his life he donated to the First Congregational Church $300 and a silver communion service, and to the town the piece of land at the Falls known as the Arms Cemetery. By his will he left to each of the two Congregational Churches of the town $500 for a ministerial library; $500 to the Second Congregational Church as a permanent ministerial fund; $1000 as a fund for the repair and improvement of the Arms Cemetery; $5000 as a fund for the support of the Arms library; and $18,000 as an endowment for the Arms Academy.
      Mr. Arms was a native of Greenfield, but passed nearly the whole of his life in Shelburne, where he died in 1859, and where, in the Arms Cemetery, a marble monument marks his last earthly resting-place.





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