Heather Mitchell slipped on her white gloves like Princess Grace and gently twirled the new world. "The words are clear," Mitchell said, proudly. "Now you can see them easily."

Mitchell is the executive director of the Hopkinton Historical Society. She and others connected to the organization are beaming these days, now that the globe, made by world-famous globe maker James Wilson in 1811, is looking sharp and bright.

Gone are the dirt and cracks, the grime from time that robbed the handcrafted sphere of its vitality. After a nine-month restoration process, completed in May, the globe has its youthful look back. Its historical charm, of course, will never fade.

"I don't know when it was last displayed, because it was in such poor condition," Mitchell said. "It was awful. A thick, brown varnish, and you couldn't read any of the lettering on it at all."

This is what historical societies do. They preserve and restore items that

tell a story, that bring us back and allow us to taste and smell what life was like for our ancestors.

Hopkinton's historical society is downtown, in the 120-year-old William H. Long Building. Mitchell calls it "the oldest purpose-built building to house a museum of historical society in the country."

Mitchell graduated from the University of New Hampshire. She traded her degrees in business administration and international affairs, and her career in consulting, for a job with her hometown historical society. She's been the executive director for 1½ years.

She brought her guest upstairs last week, showing other items that have been restored to their natural beauty. Like the 7-foot-tall double bass, standing proudly on a platform behind a rope, the kind that stops you from entering a fancy theater until you've shown your ticket.

It has a glossy oak-like shine on its body and deep rhythm patterns in its history. It was used in the Hopkinton Congregational Church about 1830, mixing with bass violins and clarinets to inspire church members.

The double bass, cracking and fading, was restored recently for $10,000. It took one year to finish, a reflection of the meticulous work needed to bring it back to life.

Elsewhere, behind glass in a large cabinet, sits what Mitchell calls the "circus" era of artifacts, items with odd stories and unconfirmed ages.

There's the glass fragment from 1876, left over after a partridge broke its head smashing through a window. And there's the saw with eerie words on it: "With this saw, murder was committed in England." The reddish stains on the saw have not been tested for traces of blood, Mitchell said.

The newest item is a chair, next to the double bass. The tag on it says, "Obama sat here 9/12/08," and you learn that our president's derriere graced the area for a campaign shoot before he was elected. A velvet rope across the chair tells visitors their buns aren't welcome.

But the latest and greatest buzz is the edition of the 198-year-old globe, an early effort by Wilson once he moved from his native Londonderry to Bradford, Vt. Mitchell said Wilson was self-taught, inspired by the globes he saw at the Dartmouth College Library. She also says Wilson was the first globe maker in the new world.

"At the time globes were pretty popular because they coincided with an increase of people's knowledge of geography," Mitchell said. "People also liked to have globes because it was a sign of an educated person."

This particular globe was used as a teaching tool by Dr. Ebenezer Lerned at the old Hopkinton Academy, which sat on the second floor of the nearby town hall before burning down in 1831.

The globe was later stored in a garret and suffered water damage. It was returned to Lerned's daughter, who donated it to the society in 1873.

Time passed and the world grew ugly, tired, worn. Both pole areas, north and south, suffered cracking, and countries and their names turned the color of dead leaves. The globe was stored away, covered with acid-free paper. Then the society's board of directors decided to make the world a better place. (next page »)