The Brattleboro Historical Society Podcast

The Island Park Amusement Company was formed by the two owners, Michael Moran and George Fox. They bought the island property at auction. They were both progressive Brattleboro businessmen and were highly influenced by their wives to purchase the island property. The island in the Connecticut River had a disreputable reputation as gambling, alcohol and prostitution were linked with the previous bu...

BAMS students interviewed local historian Rich Holschuh about his research into William Brattle, our town's namesake. Rich explains how Brattleboro gained its unique name, and also shares insightful background information about early relations between the English and Native Americans.

In March of 1936 the largest flood in the history of Brattleboro raged down the Connecticut River. Here's the story...

Larkin Mead spent much of his career as a sculptor in Italy. It is said his wife was the model for this marble piece. Mead grew up in Brattleboro and began his career here. What follows is his story...

Indian eradication and slavery are two topics not usually associated with Brattleboro's past. Here are a few stories which demonstrate that Brattleboro's history can be complicated and uncomfortable...

Wells Drinking Fountain, at the top of Main Street, was created in 1890. As Main Street has evolved through the years, the fountain has remained. Here's the story...

In 1914 Marion McCune Rice, and some of her friends, sailed to Europe for a three month tour of the continent. One month in, Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and World War I began. The six women had to find a way home. Here's the story...

In 1870 Brattleboro was in a lot of trouble. Northern New England was experiencing a post-Civil War recession; and Brattleboro had just had a flood and fire that destroyed much of its business district. For 8 months town leaders traveled to New England's larger cities looking for investors to help re-build the town. There were no takers. Here's the story of how Brattleboro rose from the ashes and...

In Vermont, sociologists now recognize that the term “gypsy” was often applied to the indigenous Abenaki peoples, and their kin, some of whom adopted an itinerant peddler version of their annual subsistence cycles. In the nineteenth century, a local physician-cum-cartographer, Charles William Grau created a map of Brattleboro, noting an area off, what is today Cedar Street, as the “Gypsy Grounds.”...

In 1922 Fred Harris sparked a winter sports tradition now on the cusp of its centennial anniversary. Here’s the story…

Last episode we explored some of Mary Wilkins' early writings. In this episode we focus more on her personal life in Brattleboro.

In 1867, when Mary Wilkins was fifteen years old, her family moved to Brattleboro from Randolph, Massachusetts. For the next seventeen years, Mary Eleanor Wilkins lived here while she began her professional writing career. She went on to become one of the first financially successful, independent female authors in the United States. Here's her story...

14 year old Helen Dorr had a very traumatic childhood, but went on to earn nationwide recognition when she was awarded the Carnegie Hero Medal in the 1920s. Here's her story...

Chris Lamb is one of the bright lights of our Harris Hill Ski Jump here in Brattleboro. He started competing here at age 11, and is a two-time winner of the Winged Trophy Award, setting the hill distance record in 2010. Chris was on the USA Ski Jumping Team, and is on our local Harris Hill Ski Jump Committee. He completed a bachelors degree in philosophy and environmental studies at Marlboro Colle...

In the 1850's the Wesselhoeft building, on the corner of Elliot and Church Streets, provided services for the world's elites...by the 1920's Brattleboro's Health Officer was calling the building "a den of iniquity", here's the story...

7 years ago BAMS student Jake Atwater found a 1906 newspaper article that proved to be the "Rosetta Stone" of the Fairground Road area. The article included information identifying the location of the Civil War hospital buildings in relation to the Valley Fairground buildings. This information, combined with Sanborn maps of the area, will help BAMS students create a map of the area linking buildin...

It was D.E. Barrett, from the working class of West Brattleboro, who convinced the powerful in town to give electricity a chance, and it was the working people of town who outvoted the powerful business owners to make electric power a reality in Brattleboro. Here's the story...

In 1855 "the finest house in Brattleboro" was converted into Main Street's first mini-mall. John R. Blake turned his home into a commercial enterprise that consisted of seven businesses. The Blake Block stood where People's United Bank is now located.

Charles Frost grew up on Flat Street and was a local shoemaker. He was a modest man who made important contributions to science and humanity because of his interests and beliefs. Here's his story...

As part of an economics unit, BAMS students visited and interviewed local businesses in the old Cotton Mill, now owned by the Brattleboro Development Corporation. Here's the origin story for one of the businesses, Shapeshifters...

As part of an economics unit, BAMS students visited local businesses and recorded their origin stories. There are many businesses located in the old Cotton Mill, now owned by the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation. Here's how fancy chocolatiers, Tavernier Chocolates, began...

The Vermont Folklife Center has provided our BAMS students with collaborative ethnography strategies for conducting longer interviews with the community. This is an interview conducted by two BAMS students with one of the founders of St. Brigid's Kitchen...the image is a photo of the blessing of the Kitchen when it first opened in 1982

Brigid's Kitchen, on Walnut Street, is the oldest operating "soup kitchen" in Vermont. Carolyn Pieciak was one of the founders of the kitchen and shared her story with us. This is a highly edited version created to fit within a 4 minute time frame. The full interview, around 20 minutes, will be made available at a later date.

BAMS students researched, wrote and recorded this edition. Rudyard Kipling moved here with his young wife, built a house and began a family. While here he wrote the Jungle Book and Captains Courageous. He also had a falling out with his in-laws. Here's the story...

BHS e180 Willie Cudworth and Armistice Day by Brattleboro Historical Society