MOHAWK REPAIR INSTITUTE

Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts · Founded 2026

Studio · Archive · Native Nursery

The Mohawk Repair Institute is an independent research institute, archive, and native plant nursery based in a historic building near the Mohawk Trail in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. Founded in 2026 by sculptor and fabricator John F. Sendelbach, the Institute works from a simple starting point: the name was already on the building when we arrived. We took it seriously.

The Institute treats landscape as evidence. Every stone wall, culvert, deed, photograph, floodplain, and living plant in this watershed belongs to a single historical record, and no part of it can be read honestly in isolation. Ecology, history, infrastructure, and memory are studied together because each explains the others. Our mission is repair: of the landscape, of the documentary record, and of the relationship between people and place. We pursue this through three connected forms of repair — ecological repair, documentary repair, and interpretive repair — and each has its pillar.

The Three Pillars

I. The Archive — documentary repair. Housed in the upper-level library, the archive is a working repository of maps, historical documents, artifacts, and regional records focused on the upper Deerfield River watershed. Every claim it publishes is examined by four witnesses: the Archive (what documents survive), the Landscape (what physical evidence remains on the ground), Memory (what oral and community tradition carries, attributed to its carriers), and Interpretation (what can responsibly be inferred — always labeled as such, because the fourth witness is required to declare its interest). Where the witnesses disagree, the disagreement is reported and left standing. This protocol was proven on the Institute's first publications and is applied to everything that follows. The protocol is published openly; it was built for this watershed, and it will work in any other.

II. The QR Network — interpretive repair. A geo-located system of physical markers and QR codes placed at sites throughout the region. Each code links to documented, verifiable records in the archive, graded so that a reader can see for themselves what is documented, what is inferred, and what is carried by tradition. Where existing public interpretation is incomplete, we make the additional evidence available. The result is an archive made legible in the landscape itself.

III. Seven Tire Natives — ecological repair. The nursery and propagation arm of the Institute. Named for seven discarded tires that became our first native plant planters, it cultivates native plant species of the upper Deerfield watershed. These plants are made available to homeowners, gardeners, trail crews, and anyone working to restore ecological character.

Ecological Repair: Trail Stewardship & Knotweed Management

Japanese knotweed is a persistent presence in our watershed. Rather than pursuing total eradication, the Institute treats it as a manageable resource through Trail Stewardship. We develop and freely publish practical methods so citizens and town crews can harvest knotweed along trails and river corridors while improving access; replant with competitive native species from Seven Tire Natives; and explore practical local uses for the harvested biomass, including pellet production and municipal heating where feasible.

A simple tool rental program at the Institute (shovels, loppers, tarps, and the like) lowers the barrier for participation. All techniques, data, and results are documented and made openly available so other communities can adopt the model. This is repair made tangible: turning a widespread invasive into trail improvements, native habitat restoration, and local energy.

Current Work: The Gray Lock Publications

The Institute's first full-length research publication is now complete: a four-document reconstruction of the life and war of Gray Lock — Wawanolewat — the Woronoco-born war sachem of the Pocumtuck confederate clans whose twenty-five-year campaign along this corridor gave Dummer's War its western name, and who ended it undefeated, unbought, and unsigned. The stack — a graded source spine, a dated chronology, a set of analytical context layers, and the full monograph — is published whole, working documents included, so that every load-bearing member of the research is visible. A companion reconstruction of Mashalisk, the Pocumtuck sunksqua whose 1672 and 1674 deeds preserve the other documented strategy of the same watershed world, extends the method.

The method's first act, for the record, was to correct its own author's previously published text. An instrument that only corrects opponents is a weapon; one that corrects its author first is a research method. That standard is the Institute's.

On the Name

The Mohawk Trail carries a layered history of conflict and romanticization rather than accurately reflecting the Indigenous peoples of this territory. We keep the name because erasure is not repair. The archive now holds the documented record of that name's career in this valley — from the wars of the 1660s, through the refusals and muster rolls of the 1720s, to the tourism christening of 1914 — and the name on our door serves as the teaching instrument that record deserves. What should become of the name on the road is a question that belongs to a wider table, and the Institute's role is to bring that table the evidence.

The Founder

John F. Sendelbach is a sculptor, fabricator, and independent researcher whose work is rooted in the material culture of Western Massachusetts. The Institute extends that same rigor to the documentation and physical repair of the landscape.

"The name was already on the building. We took it seriously."

Founding Advisory Board

Now forming. Members lend their names and standing to support the Institute's commitment to primary evidence, accurate regional history, and practical ecological repair. No operational duties required.

The Institute provides native plants, historical records, maps, research methods, and practical tools so that anyone willing to participate can help repair what was broken.

Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts · Founded 2026