Vermont History Museum & Library Collections

One of the Vermont Historical Society's main purposes is to collect objects and documents that illustrate the state’s history. This is a digitized version of items exhibited in the Society's museum from 1994-1999.

Each artifact represents a moment in time, a direct physical link to the past, and each has its own story about famous people or events that still fascinate and intrigue us or tell us about everyday people and places whose names are long forgotten. We hope you will come away from this gallery of artifacts with a better understanding about Vermont and its people.

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(Please also see our online Freedom & Unity museum tour and our online museum exhibits and our online library image collections.)

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Ethan Allen's Shoe Buckles

According to the Penniman family, these shoe buckles belonged to Vermont's famous Revolutionary hero Ethan Allen. We would not usually associate such fancy accessories with someone like the rough-and-ready Allen, but as a representative of the state and a prominent citizen, he would have had to dress the part at times.

Frances Montezuma Allen's Shell Purse

This purse belonged to Frances Montresor Allen (1760-1834), second wife of Ethan Allen. Frances (or Fanny) Montezuma was born in New York City. Her father, a British officer, was killed during the French and Indian War. Her mother's second husband, Crean Brush, brought his family to Westminster, Vermont, in 1771. Brush was an ardent Tory and a representative to the New York Assembly; he helped draft the proclamation that put a bounty on Ethan Allen. Brush was imprisoned by the Americans and escaped, but he committed suicide when he failed to receive financial restitution from the British. Frances was widowed during the war, though it is unclear if her husband served in the British or American army. In 1784 the young widow was again living with her mother in Westminster. Here she met the forty-seven-year-old Ethan Allen, and the two married on February 9, 1784.

French & Indian War Powder Horn

A professional craftsman inscribed this horn with the British coat of arms and a map of Lake George, Lake Champlain, and eastern Canada, showing the location of British and French forts during the French and Indian War. Such draftsmen were often part of military units, serving primarily to create maps of new territories and earning extra money by engraving the powder horns of fellow soldiers. Ephraim Duell of Rhode Island, who settled in the Highgate area in the late 1700s, probably owned this horn. Many New England regiments came to the Lake Champlain region to assist the British regular army during the war with France in the early 1760s.

Revolutionary War Powder Horn

Made for Joseph Howes (1752-1824) of Lebanon, Connecticut, circa 1775. Inscribed on horn: Joseph Howes of Lebanon his horn made in wicked Cambridge October Ye 14 1775. Howes served as a corporal in a Connecticut regiment during the Revolutionary War. His regiment marched to the aid of the besieged Boston in 1775. Like many Connecticut veterans, Howes moved to Vermont and settled in Norwich.

Saratoga Battlefield Musket

British army issue made in Ireland, circa 1760. Marked on lockplate reads Dublin Castle, top of the stock reads L/56, and the top of the barrel reads RNB Fuzilier

Bust of William Czar Bradley

Sculpted by Larkin Goldsmith Mead, circa 1860; Marble. William Czar Bradley (1782-1867) was born in Westminster. He served as Vermont's representative to the U.S. Congress for two terms between 1813 and 1827. Although he retired from Washington politics in 1827, he was involved in state affairs as the Jacksonian Party's perpetual candidate for governor into the 1840s. Later he ran for a legislative seat as a member of the Free-Soil Party; his final affiliation was with the new Republican Party in the late 1850s. Bradley practiced law in Westminster for fifty-five years, and his law office still survives much as he left it when he closed the doors in 1857. Bradley was also a scholar and poet whose home was known for its lively conversation, hospitality, and beautiful gardens. Larkin Goldsmith Mead (1835-1910) was raised in Brattleboro. He studied sculpture with Henry Kirke Brown during the 1850s and worked as a correspondent illustrator for Harper's Weekly in 1861. In 1862 he moved to Italy, returning to the United States only for brief periods to work on special commissions or to visit family.

Farrar Redware Crock

Made at L.W. Farrar Pottery (1831-1850), Fairfax. Incised mark reads L. W. Farrar. Redware with black slip and incised decoration.

Farmer's Work Smock

Work smocks date back to colonial New England and earlier in Europe. In America, use of linen smocks is written about, but we know of none that survive. Probably because of the fabric's durability, a few examples of wool smocks like this one can be found in museum collections. The most famous is the one used by the Calvin Coolidge family in Plymouth. Farmers wore such overgarments when they worked in the fields or with animals. In northern New England smocks were in use through the nineteenth century. Because work clothes were worn until they were ragged and were then discarded or used for scraps, it is very unusual to see a smock in such good condition as is this example. Although clothing makes up a large part of the VHS collection, wedding dresses, special-occasion dresses, suits, and military uniforms predominate; everyday wear has hardly survived. Such pieces of day-to-day life are even more precious to historians.

Girls' Dresses

These spectacular red dresses are still vibrant because they were put away after Margaret Blair and her younger sister, Phebe, wore them only once or twice. We can imagine how their mother, Marion Gilfillan Blair, felt whenever she came across the dresses and read the newspaper preserved with them:

Woman's Dress

Owned by Alice Fuller (1834-1881) of Charleston, this dress reflects the style popular in the late 1850s, which favored the use of ruffles and flounces on skirts. With the advent of mass-circulating illustrated magazines and newspapers, the more common use of the sewing machine, and the availability of less expensive materials, women living in rural areas had access to and the ability to copy current fashion trends.

Daguerreotype of the Second Vermont State House

This rare photograph of the Second Vermont State House is one of only three known to exist. Designed by Ammi Young, the building was completed in 1838 but destroyed by fire in 1857. All that survived of Young's Greek Revival building were the Doric-columned portico and the wings, built of Barre granite. Vermont's third and present State House was built in 1859. This photograph is a daguerreotype, a silver-mercury image on a sheet of silver-plated copper. Because duplicates could not be made from the original plates, this is a one-of-a-kind image. Daguerreotype images are hard to see from certain angles, so the viewer must move to get the right light.

Life mask of Abraham Lincoln

Reproduction of the mask that sculptor Leonard W. Volk created in 1860. Plaster. A limited number of reproductions of Lincoln's life mask were given to supporters of the Smithsonian Institution, which owned the original. U.S. Senator Frank L. Greene of Vermont gave his copy to the Vermont Historical Society in 1928.

Pass Signed by Abraham Lincoln

Pass reads: Allow the bearer, A. B. Darling, to pass to and visit Mobile, if and when that City shall be in our possession. A. Lincoln. April 13, 1865. Pass written and signed by Abraham Lincoln for Vermont-born Alfred Burbank Darling. Dated April 13, 1865, it was one of the last notes Lincoln wrote; he was assassinated the next night. Darling owned a hotel in Mobile, Alabama, and must have been anxious to see his property. Union troops had just captured the city on April 12, 1865.

Medal of Honor

Awarded to Sergeant Robert Coffey of the Fourth Vermont Infantry for his service at Banks Ford, Virginia, where he single-handedly captured seven Confederate soldiers on May 13, 1863. After the war Coffey helped organize the Vermont Soldiers Home in Bennington, serving as its superintendent. The congressional Medal of Honor was first presented in 1863 and is considered the highest award for bravery that can be given to an individual in the United States.

Fenton Pottery Watercooler

Made at Leander W. Fenton Pottery (1808-1859), St. Johnsbury. Incised mark: 4/ L.W. Fenton/ St. Johnsbury

Bennington Crock

Made at J & E. Norton Pottery (1850-1859), Bennington. Incised mark: J & E. Norton/ Bennington VT

Abenaki Basket

Probably made by an Abenaki, South Walden, circa 1890. During the late nineteenth century, Abenakis wintered in South Walden. They would trade baskets like these for hay for their horses. Although the VHS has a large collection of archaeological materials representative of the native peoples who lived in Vermont before the arrival of Europeans, it has few such items from the seventeenth century to the present. Only recently have historians acknowledged that there were permanent settlements of Abenakis in the state; collecting artifacts that documented Abenaki life after the colonial period was not a priority. More significantly, Abenakis who had materials representing their culture often did not consider a museum to be an appropriate repository. The Vermont Historical Society is currently working with Abenakis to determine how best to use the Abenaki items in its collections; we hope that in a future exhibit we have more objects that tell the history of Vermont's native people.

Carved Ox

Carved by Eric Johnson of Proctor, circa 1900. Painted wood. Johnson came to the United States from Sweden in 1887.

Mohawk Beaded Bag and Hat

Mohawk, probably New York, late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. Wool, silk, and glass beads. Beaded pieces like these were made by Native Americans and sold as souvenirs to tourists. The designs often had symbolic meaning to their makers, usually expressing their relationship with the natural world.

Mahogany Letter Opener With Snake Handle

Carved by Frank Moran (1877-1967) of Bakersfield, circa 1930. Mahogany. Moran was a prolific craftsman and carpenter. Many of his works can still be found in the Bakersfield area. In 1940 he carved some of his finest pieces for St. Anthony's Church in East Fairfield: the twelve stations of the cross, a crucifix, and St. Anthony with a child.

Ku Klux Klan Hood

The Ku Klux Klan had thousands of supporters in Vermont during the 1920s and early 1930s. Better known for its activities against African Americans in the South, in the northern United States the Klan persecuted Jews, Roman Catholics, and non-northern European immigrants. Its following in Vermont diminished in the 1930s because of a bungled raid on a Burlington Catholic church, the onset of the depression, and financial corruption in the national organization.

Forrest Strad Gray Violin

Circa 1920. Tin, wood, mother-of-pearl. Forrest Strad Gray (1884-1987) constructed this fiddle as a diversion from his usual tinsmithing work. As a child, Gray learned to play the fiddle from his grandfather, and he continued to play for the rest of his life.

Vermont Union Rug

Hooked by Helen Prouty Tracy, Barre. Begun in 1941 and finished in 1981. Wool on burlap. This rug is a variation on a design representing Vermont's entry as the fourteenth state in the Union, an appropriate subject in 1941, when Vermont was celebrating the 150th anniversary of its statehood. Tracy translated an original late-nineteenth-century pattern by Edward Frost into a round design. She emphasized its Vermont theme by adding Camel's Hump and Mount Mansfield in the background and including some personal symbols from her own life in Vermont. Tracy began her studies with Charlotte Stratton of Montpelier, who became one of the premier teachers and revivalists of rug hooking in the United States after World War II. In her book Rug Hooking Made Easy, Stratton wrote that Tracy's rug was probably the finest scenic rug ever hooked. When Stratton left Vermont in the late 1940s, Tracy set aside the project. In 1979 Tracy began to take classes with another well-known teacher, Anne Ashworth, and with her encouragement finished the rug in 1981.

Hermit Thrush, Vermont State Bird

Carved by Floyd Scholz of Hancock in 1991. Painted wood with Vermont marble base. Scholz created this model of Vermont's state bird to commemorate the state's bicentennial.