History

The founding of a nation-state must decide where its powers belong. In a nation where the dichotomy of centralization and decentralization proponents exists it is confronted with black or white propositions that actually create shades of gray tugging on both trends.

The United States Constitution was written to be a strongly centralist document with a smattering of decentralist characteristics. Some of the founding members thought that it lacked balance until the Bill of Rights satisfied their arguments against ratification.

It’s not often that something happens that cries out to be corrected and then, in a matter of days, it is.  I’m not talking about Vermont’s GMO law either (which Congress mooted within the month) – no, I’m talking about Indigenous Peoples Day which has been proposed, here and elsewhere, as a less racist and more fair alternative to traditional Columbus Day.  Unfortunately, honoring native American people was not something the Selectboard could get its collective mind around and Indigenous Peoples Day lost here in Brattleboro by a vote of 2-3.  But just when you thought all was lost, along comes Governor Shumlin with a state-wide proclamation of Indigenous Peoples Day, signed, sealed, and delivered.  What do you know, we get to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day after

In the spring of 1909, the completion of a new hydro-electric dam in Vernon created at 28 mile long lake, from Vermont’s southern boarder with Massachusetts to Bellows Falls, as waters began to back up and subsume much of the river-adjacent countryside. On average, the water level rose 30 feet and eventually flooded more than 150 farms. Among the lands subsumed by permanent flood waters were a series of petroglyphs sites near the confluence of the West River and Connecticut River dating from a precolonial epoch, in the lands now known as Brattleboro, Vermont.

In August of 2015, after a 30-year search, underwater explorer Annette Spaulding found one of the petroglyph sites, subsumed in 1909 and unseen by persons for over a century.

Many circuses came to Brattleboro, thanks to the train. At the link below there is more information about the life of Pentland the famous clown, who was mentioned in the Today in History Column.

http://www.circushistory.org/Thayer/Thayer3j.htm

Here is the original post that Chris posted from a newspaper from that time. 

I saw the Today in History Column had a mention of a Belva Lockwood Burlesque, and thought that other readers would be interested in knowing that Belva was a famous advocate of women’s rights in her day, and that men in numerous towns created Belva Lockwood burlesques, where they would mock her, apparently by dressing up in drag, and mocking her, as near as I can make of it from reading old books that have been digitized.

Here is the wikipedia biography.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belva_Ann_Lockwood

Rolf

Five years ago, this week, a freak-show hurricane cum tropical storm called Irene, dropped unprecedented amounts of rain on the state of Vermont. Brattleboro’s many waterways swelled beyond their banks, including the Whetstone Brook, which crept, uninvited, on to Flat Street, creating a brown, muddy lake, damaging buildings and closing business.

BHS Trustee Joe Rivers spoke with Boys & Girls Clubs interim director, Ricky Davidson, about the day Irene visited ruination upon Brattleboro, the damage no one saw coming, and the equally tremendous swell of community spirit and generosity that aided a remarkable recovery.

Photo by and courtesy of Peter LaMorder

Ten years ago this week the Brattleboro Farmers Market announced it would purchase the old Creamery property in order to expand the Market. Have you ever wondered about the land where the Market is located? Here’s a bit of it’s history…

In 1977 the world was a different place, local car mechanic Henry Diemer reflects on the changes in Brattleboro and in the automotive world…

Nine years ago a naked skateboarder was stopped by police and warned that he could be fined $25—not for nudity—but for skateboarding on a Brattleboro sidewalk. Here’s the story…

44 years ago romance, culture and inspiration were found at the Marlboro Music Festival. Here’s the story….

Vermont Phoenix, July 7th, 1855  “BALLOON ASCENT.—Mons Gustave Reynard, an experienced aeronaut, ascended in a balloon from Springfield on the 4th. The Springfield Republican says:

“The wind was high, and when the cords were loosed, the balloon with its daring aeronaut shot upward like a rocket. It rapidly rose and swept away to the east of north and in a very few minutes was lost behind a large bank of white clouds. When at an estimated height of four thousand feet, the aeronaut detached his parachute, an umbrella-like structure, to which was attached a live white cat in net work and basket. This came slowly and safely down, but was wafted so far north by the wind that it only reached the earth in Chicopee Falls. Pussy was very badly frightened, net unhurt.

In 1969 Peter Gould was, “tired of the Vietnam War, [and] angry at my county,” as he fled the disconsolate urban chaos in search of an alternative. He found it in at Packer Corners, in Guilford, Vermont and spent the next 9 years at the farm.

In June of 2016 Peter sat with Brattleboro educator and historian Bill Holiday to recount those times in Peter’s personal narrative and the narrative of a remarkable place that lives on, nearly 50 years later.

Warning! This article contains adult related content. Viewer discretion is advised.

It might have been lice and crabs that first prompted men and women to deforest their pubic hairs. It was much easier to remove the offending critters by “deforestation” than to try pick the nits off through a tangle of curly hair. If you look at paintings and sculptures of nude men and women over time, however, curiously, they often have no genital hair. Historically, I haven’t found an explanation for this. Nevertheless, our recorded history of pubic hair removal dates back to antiquity. Our forebears of civilizations in Egyptian, Greek and Roman societies employed pubic hair removal, but it was more likely on a courtesan level.

It was the wealthy, upperclasses and monarchal courts who would have the free time to cosset themselves in the vogue and erotica of smooth pudenda. It was the poor, incoherent, uneducated masses who missed out on the fun erotica of the times. Perhaps, they devised their own?

In 2000, BHS trustee and former head ball coach of the BUHS football team, Bill Holiday, interviewed venerated Brattleboro sports legend Andy Natowich.

The BHS Podcast is proud to present that interview, in its entirety, for the first time.

This is an ad from the Phoenix here in Brattleboro in June of 1879. I include it here for all of you with dirty minds.

Dick Mitchell was an active Trustee of the Brattleboro Historical Society. He was born in Brattleboro in 1917 and passed away in 1990. What follows are memories of his growing up in the 1920’s…

The story of the Liberty is not well known. On the surface, it doesn’t make sense at all.

Yet it happened, and Lyndon Johnson covered it up.

Read what Phil Giraldi says about it:

“Last Wednesday at noon at Arlington National Cemetery I attended the annual commemorative gathering of the survivors and friends of the U.S.S. Liberty. The moving service included the ringing of a ship’s bell for each one of the thirty-four American sailors, Marines and civilians that were killed in the deliberate Israeli attack that sought to sink the intelligence gathering ship and kill all its crew.

In 1952 the first class at the new million dollar high school graduated. Here’s the story…

Next Friday evening the Diedrich Stolte Memorial Cup, the most prestigious athletic award
presented at BUHS graduation, will be awarded to a graduating senior. Here’s the story of the man behind the
award…