The Brattleboro Historical Society Podcast

John and Mary Carnahan came to Brattleboro in 1957. John was born and raised in Kansas and went to high school in Texas. In 1946, John enrolled at Harvard University, graduating in the Class of 1950. He proceeded to law school, receive his law degree and moved to Brattleboro. Here's the story...

The polio virus attacked a young person’s central nervous system and could cause physical deformities and paralysis. Parents were afraid for the health of their children but they did not know how to fight the invisible virus. In the 1940’s and 50’s people were urged to avoid crowded areas like movie theaters and swimming pools. Windham County responded like many communities in the country. Here's...

William French lived on the Brattleborough/Dummerston town line. 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. Som...

In the 1760’s, at the end of the French Indian War, the provenance of Brattleboro was in question. Land in this area had been granted by the Dutch of Albany, some by the French, and some by the Colonies of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and New York. Here's the story by Lewis Grout, written in the 1890's...

In 1861 Streeter volunteered to serve in the 1st regiment of the United States Sharp Shooters. Research by students at Brattleboro Area Middle School found that Streeter lived a great deal of his short adult life under a cloud of suspicion and died in 1864 of circumstances unrelated to the Civil War. Here's the story...

What was it like to be a young African American family settling into 1820’s Brattleboro? In 1823 a young couple in their twenties, with a small child, moved to Brattleboro from Massachusetts. Andrew and Phoebe Bradshaw rented a building on Main Street to begin their new life. According to available information they were the only Black family in town. Here's their story...

The cotton mill’s main building was a large, rectangular, red brick three-floor structure. In the main building, the bottom floor housed the raw cotton, the second floor was the weaving room, and the third floor was the spinning room. There was also storage and a machine shop in the main building. The administration building was attached to the southern front of the mill complex and the boiler roo...

In 1922 the business community was pretty excited. Companies along Vernon Road were having a great deal of success. The White River Chair Company, Crosby Milling and Fort Dummer Cotton Mill had all settled into the southeast corner of town and caused a housing boom. Adding to the excitement was the announcement that Presbrey-Leland of New York was building a granite cutting shed at the location of...

In 1920 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. Thi...

Lucy Terry Prince, Clarina Nichols, Edward R. Tyler, and Frederick Douglass are a few of the people who, in the past, worked locally to bring the struggle for racial and gender equality to our region. On the weekend after a Black woman was put forth as the nominee for US Vice President, and the weekend before the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, we remember their effort...

The west end of Birge Street, as it rises to a hill overlooking the Whetstone Brook, was once known as Thomasville. Elihu Thomas was a Brattleboro businessman who had his hand in many local enterprises. He partnered with others to start or expand numerous industries. He owned three separate paper-making businesses. He also had a pin and comb manufacturing company and a fanning mill company. As the...

In May 1996 the Town Crier announced plans for the first Gallery Walk in downtown Brattleboro. Sally Fegley of Tom and Sally’s Handmade Chocolates said, “The idea is to stroll from gallery to gallery. Meet the artists. Enjoy the refreshments and music. We want to make the first Friday evening every month something special in downtown Brattleboro”. Here's the story...

Vermont sheep farming began to gain popularity in the early 1800’s and peaked in the 1840’s. As the United States continued to expand West and railroads developed, small-scale woolen mills like the Brattleboro Woolen Factory struggled to compete with large woolen mills located along the railroads of southern New England. The Brattleboro Woolen Mill operated for over 40 years. Here is the story...

By 1900 the C.E. Allen Florist & Seedsman business was easily the largest in the state with his 13 greenhouses and acres of gardens and orchards. And due to his green thumb, business prowess and energy he had reached national recognition, able to ship goods to nearly every state and he even had connections in Europe to fulfill orders via telegraph in mere hours. This would become the beginning of...

In the late 1940’s the building now known as Solar Hill acted as Vermont’s Governor’s mansion. World War II veteran Ernest Gibson Jr. was elected Vermont Governor in 1946 and his large family home set back from Western Avenue took on a new role. In 1946, across an ocean 3700 miles away, Hugh Mulligan met Brigid Murphy outside a church in Frankfort, Germany. Mulligan was a recently discharged GI fr...

There is no American Legion baseball being played this summer and it begs the question, “Has this ever happened before in Brattleboro’s American Legion baseball history?” The answer, surprisingly, is ‘yes’. Brattleboro American Legion Post 5 won its first State Championship in 1965, but two years later, in 1967, could not find a coach. With no coach, the Legion did not field a team that year. Here...

There are certainly different ways to measure this, but it could be said that this summer is really the 250th anniversary of functional town government in Brattleboro. On June 19, 1865, seventeen African Americans credited to Brattleboro during the Civil War were traveling through Texas when US Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to proclaim that “all slaves are free”. Here ar...

In June, 1956 Eleanor Roosevelt traveled from Hyde Park, NY to Putney, Vt. to give a commencement address at the Putney School. This was not her first time in the area. She spoke about integration of our society during the time of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Here's the story...

This week our focus is on a manufacturing concern that operated in Brattleboro from 1890 to 1952. During that time thousands of women were employed in the production of overalls and other garments. The company is best remembered as Hooker, Corser and Mitchell Overall Company but it began in 1890 as Corser, Hidden and Company. Here's the story...

Barb Barrett's athletic achievements are both prodigious and staggering. When Barb was 12 she participated in the Pepsi Hotshot contest put on by the Brattleboro Rec. Dept. She won the local competition and traveled to Roxbury, Mass for the next level. She won that event and traveled to the Boston Garden for the New England Championship. The first round of the shooting competition took place befor...

In the spring of 1944 the national government turned to young people as a new challenge faced the country. Vermont boys and girls were being asked to help save the lives of servicemen by collecting milkweed floss to be used for filler in life jackets. Here's the story...

In lieu of a local spring sports season, we feature two of the most prolific spring track and field athletes in Brattleboro Union High School history, Ray Smith and Jan Carlson. These two, over 40 years apart in their BUHS careers, set a torrid pace in their individual and team accomplishments. Here's the story...

Shortly after the Civil War ended in 1865 a woolly mammoth tusk was found in Brattleboro. It is believed to be over 10,000 years old. There are numerous written accounts of this discovery and the tusk is presently on display in the Brooks Memorial Library. The mystery we are trying to solve revolves around the place where the tusk was originally found. We don’t know where it is. Maybe someone out...

During World War II the United States was facing a crisis. War production, supply chain disruption and worker scarcity meant that many products were not readily available. In January 1942 the US Congress passed the Emergency Price Control Act to combat inflation and federally organize the production and supply of scarce products like tires, sugar, gasoline, fuel oil, coffee, meats, shoes, and proc...

In a late April game against Northampton, MA, during that 1951 championship season, Peter Faridoni struck out 27 batters in 12 ⅓ innings of work, 20 of those came in the first 9 innings. In the state championship game in June of 1951, Faridoni pitched Brattleboro to a 9-2 victory over Spaulding of Barre, VT. He struck out 14 batters in the 9-inning game.