It’s finally happening! After months of initial planning, the Brattleboro Historical Society Board of Trustees is thrilled to announce our latest project – bringing this town’s history out of storage and into the land of the light, with a museum. As you may know, BHS has developed exhibits and displays in numerous locations over the years and even in Montpelier at the Vermont Historical Society. This new project continues that tradition – but all in one place – Brattleboro’s own Municipal Center hallways!
The museum will bring to light the impressive history that surrounds us here in Brattleboro. Lighted display cases and panels will be installed on existing walls and available floor space. Halls will be filled with both changing displays, permanent displays; electronic and interactive exhibits and just plain curiosities. The three floors will incorporate Brattleboro’s fascinating prehistory through to the changing society of today and everything in between. And, you will be able to enjoy the exhibits anytime the Municipal Center is open. The museum will be so unique as to be a destination for tourists and a place for Brattleboro locals to stop in and enjoy anytime.
Our earliest history will draw you into the ground floor first. Think ice age, Lake Hitchcock, tectonic plates, Native Americans, Fort Dummer and more. Working our way upstairs, we will transform the halls to bring you surprises around each corner. Photos, maps, clothing, signs, miniature models and plenty of artifacts, with their stories, on display to get a real feel of old-time Brattleboro. BCTV will show off their decades of past local videos and we will even offer tours of the old cellblock which was left as-is when the police station relocated!
We’ve contracted with a professional museum organizer to keep us on track and help come up with imaginative, innovative ideas and we’ve hired another company for the high-tech exhibits. We expect to have the first displays up within the year, we’re fired up and ready to go!
BHS is truly grateful to Town Manager, John Potter and Assistant Director of Public Works, Peter Lynch, who have been readily available to answer our many questions, their support has been invaluable. We are also grateful to the entire staff at the Municipal Center who have not only been very supportive of our vision, but have offered wonderful suggestions and ideas to enhance the halls of our Municipal Center. This will be a truly unique experience, long dreamed of by all past and present BHS volunteers, board members and Brattleboro citizens.
Any questions about the progress of our project can be directed to histsoc@sover.net, as the quickest way to connect with us and someone involved in the project will be glad to respond.
Evolution of Brattleboro Historical Society
For many years, especially in the 1960s and 70s, local people questioned why Brattleboro, with history all around us, didn’t have an historical society. Through those years the Reformer letterbox had many suggestions and ideas from local citizens, but no one was willing or able to take that initial step. Brooks Memorial Library had been the repository for ancient artifacts going back over 100 years, but with no historical society, where would those artifacts be displayed or even end up?
Such were the concerns of local citizens…until 1982, when a dedicated group of history lovers, with a desire to save Brattleboro’s historical artifacts, ephemera and photos, finally took action. Local attorney and historian, John Carnahan was one of those history lovers along with: Steve Baker, Hazel Anderson, Joan Bibby, John Hooper, George Lindsey, Harold Barry, Gregory Brown, John Burgess, Ralph Chapman, Richard Michelman, Faith Pepe, Edward Richards, Richard Wellman, Richard Mitchell and Kevin O’Connor. It was indeed a diverse board with their work cut out for them.
They wasted no time completing all the documentation for starting a non-profit and began meeting regularly. Being a new organization without a home, the BHS board met at times in the library, at Brattleboro Museum and Art Center (BMAC) or even in members offices or homes. Donated objects were stored in barns and sheds or offices around town, as well as at BMAC and at the defunct Estey Organ Factory on Birge Street. It was a difficult situation which went on for years. In 1985, John Carnahan approached the select board about BHS’s growing problem without a physical location, suggesting BHS could use vacant space on the third floor of the Municipal Center, previously Brattleboro High School.
However, no decision was made for 3 years after that meeting, until 1988 when the town agreed to let BHS use the only room in the Municipal Center which had not been renovated, the old business classroom. The room was, and still is, perfect for an Historical Society, like stepping back in time with tin ceilings, holes in the floor where desks were secured in place and of course blackboards. The intrepid volunteers got to work cleaning, removing the unsightly stained and peeling paint, and painting the room. They also acquired and moved in shelving, filing cabinets, flat files, desks, tables, chairs, benches, and office supplies, plus the countless artifacts stored around town during the previous 6 years. At the same time, BMAC, which took in many Estey organs and Brattleboro artifacts prior to BHS formation, decided to focus on art and transferred their historic objects to BHS.
Our records indicate that in 1989, BHS collections were being documented (accessioned) by the same volunteers who had revamped the room. The hours it must have taken the volunteers at this stage is staggering. Thousands of items taking 20 minutes to an hour each to accession. BHS reached out to the public for help cataloging the massive collection via an ad in the Reformer which ran for months in 1989 and the early 1990s.
Volunteers hosted talks and walks, and held open hours for patrons through the following years. Vermont Yankee gave us a fancy new electronic word processor which served us well, until we secured a computer and began to venture into the world of technology with emails and internet, which was a new experience for many volunteers. In the early 2000s two enterprising high school boys, Ben Tucker and Mike Cohen, set up our first website and populated it with our digitized photos.
During this period we acquired a massive collection of Estey organs and the Estey Organ Museum was formed, our sister organization, with whom we still have a close connection. We had several generous donations during this time, including a gift of the Jeremiah Beal House, from Larry Cooke, which housed much of our collection for 20 years. Meanwhile, BHS volunteers broadened their scope of outreach to include garden parties, candlelight boat cruises on the Connecticut River, and open house events. They joined Gallery Walks, gathered oral histories, published several books, had various columns in the newspaper, and they even helped clean Madame Sherri’s ‘castle’ area. Every opportunity they had to disseminate local history was seized.
The BHS volunteers of 2026 are forever grateful for the masterful way our predecessors shaped our Historical Society of today. We continue on with the mission and, not so secretly, hold those earlier volunteers in very high esteem, wishing they were still with us to thank for their tireless work!
Come see BHS in action, get a flavor of all the work volunteers have done and continue to do. Want to help out? Contact: (802) 258-4957 or histsoc@sover.net. We are open Thursdays 2-4, Saturdays 10-12, 230 Main Street (Municipal Center), #301.
