Historical events
In-Service day fun! On Tuesday, January 23rd, from 10:30 am-noon, the “Peoples, Places and the History of Words in Brattleboro, Vermont” events continue with a hands-on printing workshop designed for children 6 and up, as well as the young at heart Master Printer Bill Soucy will lead this fun exploration of the art of Printmaking!
November 29 at 7 PM, Brooks Memorial Library Rolf Parker gives a presentation on conmen who made their fortunes and furthered their careers by coming to Brattleboro and working their magic art. Rolf Parker, a free-lance writer and local historian, will tell their stories, and share tips and techniques for doing your own research and story-telling. Parker will also inform the audience how their research can become part of the Peoples, Places and the History of Words Project, which is funded by an NEH “Creating Humanities Communities” grant.
Brattleboro’s Letterpress Years was mounted as a month-long exhibit at Brooks Memorial Library, opening October 11, 2017. Letterpress printing was the primary way information was printed and distributed from the 1500s through the mid-20th century. Early settlers to New England brought their European letterpresses with them, finding fertile ground in Brattleboro to set up printing operations that blanketed the region with newspapers and other periodicals including one of the nation’s first female-run papers.
Gordon Haywood is speaking at the History Center, Friday evening 12/2, to discuss his new book about the Latches family and building. 6:30PM At the BHS History Center on Main St.
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.
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 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.