It’s the crumpled sales slip stuffed in a wallet; the candy wrapper left in a pocket; the old birthday card found in the stack of wrapping paper. It’s all ephemera, the items of daily life that were never meant to be preserved, but give a valuable window into bygone times.

“Ephemera contextualizes history,” explains Don Perreault, who will be part of an upcoming program on ephemera sponsored by the Chester Historical Society at the Chester Meeting House on Sunday, April 10 at 3 p.m.

“People don’t realize it, but it is ephemera that speaks to us about the past. It is like a quilt; you see all the pieces, but if you put them together, you make a beautiful thing. You put ephemera together to make a picture.”

The upcoming program will feature ephemera related to Chester: calling cards, posters, post cards, advertisements, even old high school graduation programs. The inspiration for the program was the work of the late Al Malpa, an ephemera collector and author of a widely respected book on the subject.

When Chester-based graphic artists Jan Cummings and Peter Good wanted a way to honor Malpa’s memory, they put together a book on ephemera with the help of the archives of the Chester Historical Society that will form the basis of the program on April 10. The book itself will be available at the talk as well as at Lark in Chester and through the Chester Historical Society website.

Cummings will serve as the host and moderator of the program, which will also feature Good, Diane Lindsay, Chester Historical Society President Cary Hull, and Don, who will talk about artifacts left by much earlier inhabitants of Chester, the Wangunk tribe of Native Americans. Their territory stretched from Middletown and East Hampton down to Chester.

Some of the Native American artifacts were dug up during the construction of State Route 9. The historical society also has a small monograph written in the 1890s on the Wangunks. The society has reissued the book with an introduction by Don. The book will be on sale at the upcoming program.

The monograph details early dealings between the European settlers and the Native Americans who lived in the area, including the sale of the land that became Chester. The document involved was signed by nine Wangunks, including three women, two of whose names are given.

“I think it is so interesting that women were involved and named,” Cummings said.

The story of Chester, including its local Native American population, has fascinated Don since he was a child.

“I’ve always been interested in all things Chester and history,” Don says.

He is enthusiastic about a recent find on eBay: an 1878 salesman’s sample sheet of cards made the Gandy Company, once located in Chester, which produced among other things calling cards and advertisements.

He recalls his mother, Betty Perreault, the first woman to serve as Chester’s first selectman, telling him about digging up arrowheads at her childhood home along the Connecticut River. Don’s mother wasn’t the first of the family to be involved in local government; his grandmother Beth Lucie was the town treasurer for 20 years.

After graduating from Valley Regional High School, where he now teaches history, Don did his undergraduate work at the University of Kansas and his email address still honors the athletic symbol of Kansas teams, the Jayhawk.

He earned a master’s degree at Wesleyan in the 1990s, with a thesis that he was at first discouraged from writing. He wanted to investigate slavery in Colonial New London County, which included Middlesex County until 1785. He was originally told since there were no mentions of slavery in books, it was an unpromising subject and there would likely have been few slaves, with the exception of the occasional household servant.

Instead, Don checked through baptism, death, and probate records as well as wills and found there were more slaves in the period in New London County than anywhere else in New England. He says a local labor shortage combined with the West Indian trade was responsible for that. The trade flourished in the period before Chester Creek silted up, when the creek was a location of both of shipbuilding and commerce with the Caribbean. The State of Connecticut outlawed slavery in 1784 but that did not free enslaved people, only children who would have been born into slavery. Slavery persisted in Connecticut until 1848, when it was officially outlawed.

Don has never published his thesis but says it remains a possibility, as does more work on local Native Americans, after he retires from teaching. He has taught at Valley Regional High School for some 34 years.

When he started out, Don taught a variety of history courses, but these days teaches a course on contemporary issues as well as a local history class.

“I love the local history class. Kids tell me they drive down the road and can tell their parents about the houses, the monuments, the Underground Railroad,” he says.

There were several safe havens in Chester, he explains, where escaping slaves could be hidden as they made their way toward Canada and freedom.

Don uses some of the Native American artifacts found by his late father, Ed Perreault, in teaching the class.

Don’s wife Kristen teaches music at Essex Elementary School and, as the couple didn’t want their own children to have them as instructors, they moved to Westbrook, where Don serves on the Westbrook Board of Education.

According to Don, it’s Kristen who keeps his own urge to amass ephemera in check.

“My wife keeps me under wraps or paper might take over,” he admits.

Creating Ephemera!, a presentation of the Chester Historical Society moderated by Jan Cummings, is at the Chester Meeting House on Sunday, April 10 at 3 p.m.

Ephemera!, a book created by Jan Cummings and Peter Good for the Chester Historical Society, will be on sale at the program. It is also on sale at Lark in Chester and through the society’s website chesterhistoricalsociety.org/museum-shop.