Much of the focus of Beverly Farms is on the community’s charm and beauty, and its pockets of Gilded Age summer residents connected to greats in American history. But, of course, the history of “The Farms,” is deeper and richer. Nancy Coffey, a local historian, began researching the immigrant stories of families who came to Beverly Farms in the 19th Century for opportunity, and built much of the fabric of there. She goes beyond better-known stories of a summer playground for wealthy Bostonians to a more expansive community story. Coffey’s considerable body of research in now being organized into a book, one that expands the story of Beverly Farms to include its year-round working class, as well as the estate workers who arrived during the era of the North Shore Gold Coast—the 1840's to the 1950’s. Kris McGinn interviewed Coffey and writes about it, Page 5.
