is open for self-guided tours. Wells-Thorn House is a 1747 house featuring rooms demonstrating different periods and lifestyles from 1725 to the 1850s. Williams House is a c. 1730 house extensively renovated in 1817. The house features Federal-style furnishings and decorations. Flynt Center of Early New England Life is a modern museum with changing exhibits of history, heritage crafts, decorative arts, and other topics. History Historic Deerfield was founded by Henry and Helen Flynt, who had visited Deerfield in 1936 when their son attended Deerfield Academy. It was originally called "The Heritage Foundation" (not to be confused with The Heritage Foundation), but was changed to Historic Deerfield after Flynt's death in 1970. Local geography Historic Deerfield is based on a 330-year-old, mile-long street situated along the Deerfield River in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. Deerfield history At the time of European contact, the area now known as Deerfield was inhabited by the indigenous Pocumtuck nation. The town was originally established as a grant of land to the residents of Dedham, Massachusetts, who had given land to the Massachusetts Bay Colony for the purpose of settling Christianized Indians. For much of the colonial period Deerfield was one of New England's frontier villages. Briefly abandoned during King Philip's War in the 1670s, it was subjected to French and Indian raids during King William's War in the 1690s. In Queen Anne's War the village was subjected to a major raid, in which 40 percent of the population was taken prisoner. French and allied Abenaki, Mohawk, and other warriors breached the palisade and raided the village. They killed numerous settlers and took more than 100 residents captive. Before leaving for Canada, the raiding party burned the village. Almost all of those who survived the attack and the march to Canada eventually were ransomed and returned to New England. Eunice Williams, captured at age eight, was adopted by a Mohawk family and became totally assimilated. She married a Mohawk man and had a family with him, choosing not to return to New England. In 1741 she visited surviving siblings for the first time, and she made two more visits later. Deerfield survived the raid, and the frontier was pushed farther north and west. Settlers eventually moved into present-day Vermont and established settlements farther up the Connecticut River in New Hampshire. Art From Deerfield The town of Deerfield is home to a particular group of