Higgins Armory Museum (Worcester, MA) – June 2011

Tuesday, 14 June 2011

I blame Ghost Hunters for this one.  I’ve watched the show for years, and enjoyed how they investigated (as they went in with the idea of what the reports are have natural, not supernatural, explanations).  While they’re based in Connecticut, they’d go all over the country.  The Ghost Hunters Team has visited places in western New York before, but nothing I ever thought would be worth a trip out to see.  But when they went to this place (the episode first aired the previous April), I knew it was a location I wanted to visit.  Located in Worcester, Massachusetts, I knew this wouldn’t be far of a drive, and would make a perfect day trip.  Today’s destination was the Higgins Armory Museum.

 

The weather was a little bit rainy (no surprise on this trip), and I volunteered to drive.  Mum came up with a route which she assured me would be better than taking Interstate 87 to Albany and picking up the Mass Turnpike.  There’s a reason why I like driving on highways.  Most of the time, I want to maximize my time at my destination, so the quicker I get there the better.  Mum’s choice of route was rural residential roads that brought us east of Albany, where we then picked up the Mass Turnpike.  Okay, that added and extra half-hour to the trip, and I didn’t need to stop for snacks along the way.  Once on the Turnpike, I was able to make decent time to Worcester.

 

 

 

 

The Higgins Armory Museum wasn’t hard to find.  Heading down the main artery in the city, we looked across the skyline to see the large steel, castle-like building with medieval-style flags on top.  Normally I’d say can’t miss that, but I’d been to Worcester in circa 1999 to visit Glen and Amy Stegner when they were living there, and some how I didn’t notice it then.  More likely I actually noticed it, didn’t realize what it was, and Glen didn’t know what the hell I was talking about when I described it (which was no different from when we were room mates in college).

 

 

 

 

At the entrance where there’s a “guest book” for visitors to sign in, I mentioned that I’d seen this place on Ghost Hunters, and that’s why I’d come all the way from Texas to visit.  They mentioned since the airing of that episode, they’d had an influx of new visitors.  Talk about the power of free advertising.  When we paid the admission fee ($10), we first went to a small theatre to watch a short film on the history of the museum.  Steel industrialist John Woodman Higgins had been collecting armor and weapons for years, and when the collection grew too large if of course caused problems with his spouse.  Mr. Higgins then founded the museum in 1931 to display his items in a manner that could be enjoyed by others to.  This four-story building’s footprint in a V-like shape and made of steel and glass, and the design was inspired by European castles.

 

 

The first floor has the gift shop, small café, and “Orientation Gallery” which showed some of the earliest pieces obtained by Mr. Higgins.  The second floor has a “classroom” designed to educate children about medieval armor, and the “Department of Curiosities” which has displays of “mythological creatures” and “strange artifacts.”  This reminded me of the warehouse in the Indiana Jones movies, and seemed a little out-of-place in the building.  Not sure if this was a side fascination of Mr. Higgins, or something which was added later to compliment the children’s section.

The third floor has high-arched ceilings with displays of armor, and various weapons, each with an information card describing what it is and its century of origin.  The two wings of the hall are lines with flags on each of the pillars.  The fourth floor is more of a balcony which overlooks the third (and is on same level of the flags).

 

This was like a visual version of those “arms & equipment guides” in those fantasy role-playing games I used to play.  Seeing some of the items here would answer the questions of what the difference between a “mace” and a “morning star” was (something which RPGers argued about a lot in the days before the internet).  The morning star was a long pole with a bunch of metal spikes on the end, and mace was more of a shorter club (without the spikes).  The “ball and chain” commonly used in fantasy movies mistakenly called a mace is actually a flail.

Some of the other representations were of tournaments, like jousting or just two knights in single combat.  While armor was heavy, you could see its placement allowed a free-range of movement.  Knights weren’t turtles that couldn’t get back up because of the weight of what they wore.  You could also see what allowed the freedom of movement also created gaps where lucky shots could maim or cause mortal wounds (like the areas around the arm pits, for example).

 

The wooden square for these two knights was the medieval equivalent of a boxing ring.  It kept the combatants near each other, which allowed them to bash each other easier.  Being that close makes thrusting attacks for difficult, thus it created a less chance for fatalities.  Lords wanted their knights to spar to enhance their skill, but they didn’t want to keep training new knights.

Jousting had a similar idea in mind as there’s a fence which keeps each of the knights on their own side.  It also kept the horses from crossing each other’s paths, which could cause serious damage to the animals.  Horses had expensive upkeep and took time to train, while there was always some squire that wanted to prove his worth to a lady-in-waiting, and was willing to get beat up to do it.  It’s not to say there were accidents were someone died from a given blow, or a combatant played dirty intending to cause injury, but the nobility did try to minimize these occurrences.

 

It’s not just European weapons on display here, but arms from around the globe.  The regalia of the Japanese samurai are one of the most common non-European styles of armor most Westerners know, but it also had suits from Persia and India as well.  Likewise, how most people are familiar with the weapons of the samurai (katanna long sword, and the shorter wakizashi), you’d think there were only so many ways one could fold metal to make bladed weapons.

 

 

These two swords from India were ones I hadn’t seen before, and must’ve been very interesting to wield in combat.  The one in the foreground was a “nandaka,” also known as a “sword of Vishnu,” and the other was a “zulfiqar,” also called the “split-bladed sword” (for obvious reasons).  Both date from the 1600s, and they weighed about two and three pounds, respectively.  Like armor, weapons had to be strong, but they couldn’t be so heavy that they couldn’t be used.

Two of my personal favorite bladed weapons are the katar (the “punching dagger” from India), and the kukri (the curved Nepalese knife).  There was a display of different styles of katar’s, but not a kukri in sight.  While I was glad it was more than European stuff, I didn’t expect this place to have every weapon ever made.  Seeing the Indian swords showed that as much as I know about the subject, there was still more to learn.  The next display case I found caused me to do a double-take.  First I thought I was looking at weapons that only a Klingon would wield.

 

 

These vicious-looking weapons weren’t fiction, but just a small sample of the blades from the Congo region of Central Africa.  While crafted to be useful in dispatching enemies, they were also useful in intimidating opponents, as well as being symbols of family status.  I was rather impressed by this, as these were both functional and eye-catching.

Other displays in the museum showed the names of each of the pieces of full plate armor, and a series of shots to show how easily (and relatively quickly) these items could be put.  One thing which was nice about the building was the architectural features.  While the Great Hall consisted of stone work to mimic a castle, the stairwell was laced with decorative steel vines.

 

 

I had every intention of bringing my copy of Where When How with me for any possible photo opportunities, but left it in the car.  Once I’d realized it, there was no reason to run back to get it.  There were a few places I could’ve gotten pictures, I think I just enjoyed the museum more without having to worry about it.  Before we left, we stopped in the entry area to get a shot of the dog-suit of armor.

 

 

 

We did our standard questioning, and received a tip for a lunch location.  Not too far from our location was O’Connor’s Restaurant & Bar.  This had the feel of a traditional Irish pub, with the elegance of a fine dinning.  It had a full menu, and the meal we had was very awesome.  I grabbed a copy for Shawn & Veronica, as I thought this was a place they’d enjoy.

 

 

 

As we headed back towards New York, we’d considered taking the scenic route back along the Mohawk Trail (which was the route we’d take to visit Earl at Amherst), but it had started to rain.  While the overcast nature would be an obstruction to the view, the potentially slick conditions wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do try on the Hair-Pin Turn.  I guess that section of Massachusetts would be one I’d take a stab at on a future trip.  We did end up taking a roundabout route from the Mass Turnpike north to Pittsfield, and then to North Adams.

 

From there it was some winding route where I turned where Mum told me to do so which took us past Williams College, and The Clark Museum (which we’d visited back on the April 2008), and then into Vermont.  We worked our way to Manchester, where we drove past Hildene (which was a place I remember visiting in Humanities class, back in senior high).  Hildene was the summer home of Robert Todd Lincoln (the only son of President Lincoln).  This was some place of a historical nature that I’d have to come back on a later trip so I could re-appreciate the history.

 

The “back roads journey” of “Mum directing me this way” continued as we passed some small Vermont towns I vaguely recalled being in, and then to back into New York near Salem.  Once we reached Argyle, we’d completed the circle begun earlier in the day.  The drive through the countryside was pretty interesting, and it was a decent way to end out the day.

 

 

More information can be found on the places we visited at:

Higgins Armory:  www.higgins.org

O’Connor’s:  www.oconnorsrestaurant.com

Hildene:  www.hildene.org

 

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