History section
As a longtime marijuana activist, I took an informal review of the state of marijuana in Vermont when I came to Brattleboro almost ten years ago. Evidently, marijuana was a very popular drug of choice and commonly used. But I never dreamed that down the road four guys would help to create a refuge from the storm of prosecutorial madness for personal-use possession of marijuana.
In 1974 Mary Shiminski broke up with her boyfriend, Bert Salva. What followed inspired poetry, art and song. Here’s the story…
Anna Marsh witnessed the horrors of mental health care in the early 1800’s through the tragic experiences of a friend and a family member.
Here’s the story of the origins of the Brattleboro Retreat as researched by Maggie, a BAMS student…
According to the website Fansided, Vermont’s greatest college quarterback of all time is Brattleboro’s Joe Shield. Here’s his story…
Everyone who moved to southern Vermont in the last few decades was treated to a free calendar. It was sent out each year by Vermont Yankee (and later Entergy) and featured old photos from historical societies in the area.
These calendars contained the required safety information for the nuclear plant about emergency notifications, iodine tablets, special alert radios, evacuating the area, shelters, what to do with pets, siren testing, and a message about how radiation is natural and accidents unlikely.
The final calendar (unless one shows up soon) was sent out in 2016. Sure, it contains mini-calendar in the back for 2017 and 2018, but it was the final full calendar sent.
There are murder mysteries and strange names associated with a few small hollows in our region… here are a couple of stories…
Produced by Joe Rivers and his students at the Brattleboro Area Middle School.
Released January 12, 2017
From Today in History 1894:
Many people will learn with regret that the women in charge of the “Woman’s
Educational and Industrial union” have decided to give up the work and close the room in Ryther building February 1. The union has been very useful in helping women to help themselves.
Looks like the parent organization existed until quite recently in Boston.
http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/weiu.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women’s_Educational_and_Industrial_Union
From today in history, 1885:
The Ceres club will give a “bubble party” next Thursday at Miss Minnie Pettee’s.
Apparently it was quite the fad in the 1870s-80s, among adults more than children!
From Today’s Local History, 1879:
On Tuesday night at 11 o’clock it was discovered that fire was working under the flooring of the fourth floor of the Brooks House, about midway of the house. Lines of hose were carried up to the third and fourth stories, holes cut in floors and partitions, the house thoroughly drenched, and after upward of an hour’s work the fire was soaked out.
This week BAMS students traveled to Burlington to present our podcast to the Vermont Alliance for Social Studies Conference at the Hilton. Ethan and Ira Allen were sketchy land speculators during the 1770’s, as well as, Vermont independence heroes. This is the story…
This Week in Brattleboro History – James Conland, Rudyard Kipling and Captains Courageous
Orly Munzing, Dwight Miller and the genesis of Brattleboro’s Strolling of the Heifers.
Released November 24, 2016.
Produced by BHS trustee, Joe Rivers and his students at the Brattleboro Area Middle School.
Vermont Public Radio’s Brave Little State show just published (online with audio) their latest installement, which begins in Brattleboro’s Locust Ridge Cemetery, with yours truly. Check out the episode and enjoy the story!
VPR
From today in history 11/2/16:
1888:
The Main street canal has been dredged out this week, about six inches of deposit being scraped up and carted off. Common report has it that a charter for the “Brattleboro Canal company” is being drawn up and that its passage will be asked of the legislature permitting navigation to be opened between the Vermont National bank corner and the junction of No. Main and Asylum streets.
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1888: |
We refuse absolutely to repeat the remarks about the condition of the street crossings which the letter carriers have made to us the past week. They are all good boys, and if they grew profane when they saw the mud half-way up to their knees they were excusable and it will never be set against them as a sin. |
This article continues in the vein of my previous piece, The events described in both happen in roughly the same timespan, yet this one looks at impacts individuals can have. These articles share a common theme, that being; what are among the greatest assets of our country have come about as byproducts of our worst behavior. This is less a case of finding a silver lining, I prefer to see it as recognizing a lotus emerging from the muck.
We know plenty about Henry David Thoreau’s famous retreat, and his legendary wanderings. However were it not for the meeting and influence of his Penobscot friends, Joe Aitteon and Joe Polis, Thoreau’s time at Walden pond might have been a singular episode rather than the start of a lifelong obsession. It was these friendships that took HDT from admirer of Nature to avid student, from a pastoral pastime to a central compulsion.
Rich Holschuh serves on the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs and spends his nights and weekends investigating the story of Brattleboro and its peoples, dating to a time 12,000 years before William Brattle was even a twinkle…
In this podcast, Rich talks about his work uncovering the history of Brattleboro’s first peoples and reconnecting modern peoples to that heritage.
135-65 Million years ago, shallow seas covered much of what would later be constellated as the Southern States. More specifically, the ancient North American coastline corresponded with what is now termed the Mississippi Delta. As a result, the soil there, in a fairly narrow crescent, was particularly fertile due to the deposits of chalk and other alkaline elements. So fertile, in fact, that cotton production flourished to a greater degree there than anywhere else on the planet.
Early Vermont histories portrayed this area’s aboriginal peoples as transients who occasionally passed through southern Vermont, en route to and from Northern New York and Canada, but were ultimately not residents of the area and therefor had little claim on these lands.
In this podcast Joe Rivers and his intrepid band of middle school historians show that those early Vermont histories were very much mistaken.
