Joe Rivers - Brattleboro Historical Society

Clara Antonetti, Radio and Welcome Center

In 1950 Brattleboro’s first broadcasting station, WTSA, began. The station appeared at frequency 1,450 kilocycles on your radio dial, (AM 1450). It went on the air April 20th and was the eighth radio station established in Vermont. The 170-foot radio tower was built on a swampy site just north of the Milk Plant on Putney Road and a 20 X 30-foot building housing the transmitting apparatus and broadcasting studio was built up the hill from the tower. A year later, 34-year-old Clara Antonetti began working at the station. She did Christmas programming, played the piano and told children’s stories. She was the only female employee at the time and also handled a lot of the day-to-day office work of the business. Clara had grown up in Barre, Vermont and came to Brattleboro to attend the local branch of Bay Path Institute. She graduated from the stenographic department in 1939 and took a job at Holstein. […]

Carrie Hamilton, Crystal Ice and Women’s Suffrage (1890’s -1930’s)

On August 18, 1920 the Tennessee state government voted in favor of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This caused the ratification of the amendment and meant that female citizens could now vote in U.S. and state elections. The leader of the local chapter of the Women’s Suffrage Association was Carrie L. Hamilton. She was a very active community member involved in much of the social life of the town. Mrs. Hamilton was a leader of the local Eastern Star organization, often serving in state-wide office. She also belonged to the Grange, Brattleboro’s Woman’s Club and the Daughters of the American Revolution. Carrie Hamilton moved to town in 1894 with her husband, Dr. Fremont Hamilton, and her two year old son. They purchased the former Carpenter Mansion on the point of land between Linden Street and Putney Road. A few years earlier the Carpenter’s had donated the southernmost section of their property to the […]

Audrey Hilley, Wanted By The FBI (1983)

On January 12, 1983 an employee of Putney Road’s Book Press was found to be a fugitive wanted by the FBI for murder. 49 year old Teri Martin, an executive secretary, had been working at the Book Press for two months. She lived just north of Keene, NH and her Book Press supervisors thought she was a very good employee. Teri had been placed at the Book Press by the Cheshire Employment Agency and was described by the placement agent as, “very beautiful, a southern drawl type person, very congenial, very impressive.” An employee of the Book Press was quoted as saying she was “really nice, or she seemed to be. She was attractive; a small blonde with a southern accent.” It turns out Teri Martin was not her real name. Her real name was Audrey Hilley and she had been on the run from authorities for over three years. She was an escaped murder […]

Antoinette Sherri (1920’s-1970’s)

In the summer of 2021 the stone staircase at the ruins of Madame Sherri’s “Castle” on the east side of Mount Wantastiquet partially collapsed. Antoinette Sherri, a Paris-born music hall singer, came to America in 1911. With her husband she opened a theatrical costume shop in New York City. For a time they were quite successful. Their clients included the Ziegfeld Follies and Ringling Circus. Charles LeMaire was a young man who worked in the “Andre-Sherri”costume shop. LeMaire’s first costuming job was with the Sherri’s and he would later become quite famous. In 1943 he was appointed the head of wardrobe and costuming for the 20th Century Fox film studio. LeMaire would win three Academy Awards and oversee the costuming of more than 250 Hollywood films. In the 1920’s Antoinette’s husband, Andre, was reportedly an alcoholic who became very ill from drinking badly made Prohibition gin. Andre was unable to work and Charles […]

Annie Grout and the AMA (Civil War and Reconstruction)

On October 8, 1846 Lewis Grout was ordained a Congregational minister. On the same day he married Lydia Bates in Springfield, Vermont and the newly married couple traveled to Boston that evening. Two days later they boarded a ship bound for South Africa. Lewis was 31 years old and Lydia was 28. The two missionaries were traveling to Port Natal on the southeastern tip of the African continent. Their goal was to live with the native people and introduce Christianity to the region. The British had been colonizing South Africa for forty years and this missionary effort was part of their campaign. They were looking for marketable resources, a trade route to India, and an opportunity to spread the Christian religion. Two months of sailing brought the Grouts to Cape Town, South Africa. A six week layover in Cape Town acclimated the New England pair to the climate and culture of a different part of […]

Annals and Mary Cabot- (1921-1922)

The “Annals of Brattleboro” was printed by the local company, E. L. Hildreth and Company. The Vermont Phoenix said the publication was “by far, the most important history of Brattleboro ever published”. The “Annals of Brattleboro” is a two volume-1100 page-set of books that encompasses Brattleboro’s history through the 1800’s. The first volume was published in late 1921 and the second volume came out in early 1922. In 1922 H.S. Wardner, a reviewer of the “Annals” wrote, “In this handsome two-volume publication from the press of E.L. Hildreth & Company of Brattleboro, profusely enriched with illustrations, Miss Mary R. Cabot has revealed much of the pleasanter and gentler side of Vermont life from the time of Fort Dummer to near the close of the nineteenth century.” “Of peculiar interest is the fact that Brattleboro is the oldest of Vermont towns in point of settlement. At and around the fort or block-house called Fort Dummer, within […]

Annabelle Pike and the Brooks Library (1900’s)

It was in 1882 the Brattleboro Public Library opened on Main Street. The library was located in a room in the Town Hall and was open three days a week for 8 hours a day. A large selection of books, and the knowledge found in their pages, was now available to just about everyone. There had been a privately operated and funded library in town since 1821. This was actually a reading club that was only open to those who could afford membership. The idea of a public library was a clear shift in the thinking of town leaders. Since 1842 Brattleboro readers have been privileged to borrow books: first, from its early Brattleboro Library Association and 40 years later, when the shareholders offered the books to the town, from the Brattleboro Free Library, which moved in 1887 from its quarters in the lower Town Hall to the George J. Brooks Library. In […]

Abby Estey Fuller and the Civil War Years (1842-1865)

Abby Estey was born in 1842, the first child of Jacob and Desdemona Estey. Jacob Estey was the founder of the Estey Organ Company. Miss Estey attended Brattleboro schools, including the Glenwood Seminary in West Brattleboro. The Estey’s lived on the east side of Canal Street. In 1865 Abby married a machinist and mechanical engineer with the Estey Organ Company, Levi Fuller. Fuller would go on to become Vice President of the Estey Organ Company and, in 1896, Governor of Vermont. In 1928 a compilation of Abby (Estey) Fuller’s addresses given to the Brattleboro Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution were published. The following text comes from her written recollections of Brattleboro in the Civil War years. “Brattleboro, at the beginning of the war, had business interests in the South. Ira Miller’s carriages and wagons were sold to Southern planters on account of their thorough workmanship and durability. Our Water Cures were patronized […]

William French and the Westminster Massacre

William French lived on Old Ferry Road. He was born in 1753 and died in 1775, 8 days shy of his 22nd birthday. His early death arrived in a hail of gunfire at the Westminster courthouse. His body was struck by five bullets fired by his neighbors. How does a community get to the point where neighbor will shoot neighbor? The early days of Brattleborough were contentious. Some settlers were loyal to New York, some to New Hampshire, some liked British rule, and some despised it. In those first years, those loyal to New York and the King of England controlled town government. Land speculation was a driving influence along the Connecticut River. In 1764 the King’s Council gave control of all land west of the Connecticut River to the colony of New York. Under Massachusetts and New Hampshire oversight, settlers had been in the area since the 1720’s but now, forty years later, Great […]

Thomas Akeley (Revolutionary War)

Akley (Akeley) is a name that has been part of Brattleboro and Guilford since before the Revolutionary War. According to historical records, Francis Akeley Jr. moved to Guilford from the Boston area before the war began. He had been an indentured servant to the Houghton family. The Houghton family moved to Guilford in 1773. Francis was twenty two years old when the Houghton’s moved to Vermont. It is unclear whether he was still working for the Houghton’s or if he followed them to Guilford to start a life of his own. This story will focus on Francis’ younger brother, Thomas. A few months ago we came upon Thomas’ grave in West Brattleboro’s Mather Road Cemetery. The stone is faded and hard to read but the gravesite has a Revolutionary War marker beside it. The plaque that has fallen from the stone says, “Thomas Akeley…A Soldier of the Revolutionary War…served 5 months 9 days 1775”. This […]

The Great Cow Wars

The Arms Tavern was located where the Retreat Farmhouse is now. In January, 1784 the tavern was surrounded by armed men who fired musket balls and buckshot into the building. Two men inside the tavern were wounded from the attack. This was one of many military actions that took place during the Great Cow Wars and was the catalyst for finally bringing the conflict to a close. You may not have heard of them, but the Great Cow Wars were a series of local confrontations that partially overlapped with the larger American Revolution. From 1779 to 1784 this region of the Connecticut River Valley was in constant conflict. Many landowners were not interested in becoming citizens or taxpayers of the newly declared Vermont Republic. Settlers who had moved into this area during the previous twenty years were faced with the choice of declaring loyalty to New York, Vermont, Great Britain and/or the United States. Whichever […]

Stephen Greenleaf and the Revolution

In April, 1772, Stephen Greenleaf was appointed Justice of the Peace for Cumberland County in the Province of New York. He had recently moved from Boston with his family and purchased 800 acres of land and a saw mill from Samuel Wells. The 800 acres would become the most valuable land in Brattleboro, but 250 years ago the two room home that the Greenleaf family moved into was the only building in the area now known as Main Street. The 800 acres purchased from Wells had originally been the land set aside for New Hampshire’s Governor Wentworth when the town was chartered in 1753. In 1766, after the King of England had declared that Brattleboro was really a part of the province of New York, Samuel Wells traveled to Albany and obtained New York title to the land. In the 1770’s the Great River Road, now Main Street, ran from Fort Dummer to the Wells […]