Windham County - Museum Directory

BFHS's mission is to establish and maintain a space for the exhibitions of historical artifacts and implements relating to the history and growth of the area in and around the Village of Bellows Falls and the Town of Rockingham.BFHS manages a large collection including ephemera, photographs, and clothing at our new Center Museum at 31 Westminster St.  The Adam’s Grist Mill Museum houses our Vermont Farm Machinery collection, tools, grinding stones, etc.

Hours and Admission: BFHS Archives, Education Center and Museum, Open Saturday 1-3. Frank Adams Grist Mill, 20 Mill Street, Bellows Falls is open 11-3, Saturdays, MAY - 1st weekend in OCTOBER. Enjoy the Riverfront Park, the Labyrinth and the stunning vista from the Hawk’s Eye View Overlook year round.

The Brattleboro Historical Society has a large collection of local photographs as well as extensive information on individuals, properties, and businesses. 

Hours: Municipal Building- History Room: Thursdays, 2-4 pm & Saturdays, 10-12 pm. Other hours by appointment.

A local audio project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Brattleboro Words Trail leads listeners on an exciting exploration of the people and places that make it America's most storied small town.     

The society has refurbished a circa 1820s house/blacksmith shop to become its headquarters and a museum that displays all types of artifacts and manuscripts pertaining to life in Dover and the region from the late 1700s to the present. The museum opened in May 1999. Please contact the society to donate items related to Dover history.

Hours and Admission: July - September: Saturday, noon - 4:00 pm, or by appointment. Main museum area (1st floor) is accessible to the disabled.

Visitors by appointment.

To celebrate the heritage of Estey Organ Company of Brattleboro, VT by the collection, restoration, display and performance of Estey and other organs; by the preservation, research, interpretation and dissemination of historical information about the company, its products and manufacturing practices, its owners, employees, markets, customers and competitors, and its effect in the context of Brattleboro and American history.

Hours and Admission: Saturdays, 2-4 PM, mid-May through mid-October, and by appointment.

Educational, nonprofit society to bring together those persons interested in history, to discover and collect material illustrative of life, conditions, events and activities of the past and present to the history or Grafton, Vermont. To provide for the preservation and accessibility of such material, as far as may be feasible.

Hours and Admission: Year Round: Monday, Thursday, Friday: 10:00 am- 4:00 pm (please call in advance)
Memorial Day - Columbus Day: Monday, Thursday through Sunday: 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

The 1822 town hall houses exhibits of Guilford artifacts including a 19th century kitchen, arrowheads, photographs, antique and slate industry tools, textiles, household items, and a directory of Guilford's cemeteries and headstones. The society also operates the 1837 meetinghouse and the 1797 one-room brick schoolhouse.

Hours and Admission: Memorial Day - Columbus Day: Tuesday and Saturday 10:00 am - 2:00 pm, or by appointment. Free. Donations appreciated. Accessible to the disabled.

Housed in a two-room schoolhouse, the museum has a permanent exhibit that includes tools, flatirons, clothing, and quilts. There are occasional demonstrations and house tours and a map of historic homes in the area. The society is in the processing of researching and writing its town history.

Hours and Admission: May 26 - Sept 1: Saturday, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, or by appointment. Free. Partially accessible to the disabled.

With a grant from the Town of Jamaica, the society reprinted (4th edition) "Hometown Jamaica: A Pictorial History of a Vermont Village. We have many displays, photos and memorabilia filling up 3 rooms in the Historic Brick Bank Building. We are working on a database to put in our new website that will be coming out in late 2010. We will have all of the town's vital records, cemetery plots, photos and inscriptions, photos of families, buildings, genealogy, interviews, newspaper clippings, maps, and much more. We are interviewing many folks in town and scanning their photos for the website. Visitors by appointment.

Bernadine Custer-Sharpe, an artist and founding member of the Southern Vermont Arts Center, bequeathed he 1860 house to the LSH to be the home of the historical society and to be used as an arts and culture center. Bernadine was a versatile and well known artist. Much of her art work now belongs to the society - over 3000 pieces. We have a notable collection of Londonderry history and memorabilia. The historic glass plates may be seen at the South Londonderry Library.

Hours and Admission: June-September: Sat. 10:00 am - 2:00 pm and by appointment

The collection of furnishings, books, documents, maps, photographs, and school memorabilia are housed in the Newton House and the 1813 one-room schoolhouse on South Road, near the town center. The grounds also include a snow-roller and herb garden. Recent activities have included winter and summer lecture programs and impersonations, one-room schoolhouse reunions, archaeological digs, stone wall maintenance, old games and crafts, interpretive local history, community history projects, sing-alongs, square dances, a summer band concert, river and lake trips, visits to historic sites, old house tours, and thematic exhibits.

Hours and Admission: Currently by appointment only. 

Organization with a mission “to bring together those persons interested…in the history of the Town of Putney, Vermont…to collect any materials…pertinent to the history of Putney; to acquire property…in order to preserve historic resources.”

Hours and Admission: By appointment during renovations. 

The meeting house, built in 1787, remains substantially in its original form and is the oldest public building in Vermont that remains unchanged. Historic cemetery. One of only four remaining Type II meeting houses from the early national period, the site is a National Historic Landmark.

Hours and Admission: Seasonal opening from Memorial Day weekend through Indigenous Peoples Day, 7 days per week, 11:00 am. to 5:00 pm. Free will offering.

The museum is located on the ground floor of the former Congregational church, built in 1836. The sanctuary on the second floor has a beautiful tracker organ installed in 1900 that is still used for concerts and weddings. Collections range from children's playthings, farm implements, and tools to a completely furnished Victorian parlor and kitchen, local photographs, maps, genealogical records, and other documents. Donations accepted.

Hours and Admission: Summer: Sundays, 2:00 – 4:00 pm, or by appointment.

Research materials, recently published town history. Many old photographs scanned for use in town history and web site. Visitors by appointment.

This local history museum, in a one-room brick schoolhouse (c. 1848), contains the original schoolroom, farmhouse kitchen, farm tools, plus Vernon photographs and artifacts. The restored Pond Road Chapel, built in 1860, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The chapel is used for special events and is open by appointment.

Hours and Admission:
Museum: June - September: Sunday, 2:00 - 4:00 pm, or by appointment. Donations welcomed.
Chapel: by appointment.

The museum, upstairs at Westminster Town Hall (handicap accessible), features items of local history, especially relating to the "massacre" of March 13, 1775 at the site of the Cumberland County, New York, Court House, Westminster, Vermont. Also owned by the society is the Wm. Czar Bradley Law Office, 3613 US Rte. 5, Westminster, Vt. This original building, the only unchanged early 19th-century law office in Vermont, contains the furniture and personal artifacts used by Wm. C. Bradley from 1810 to 1858.  

Hours and Admission: Saturdays, July through August, 2:00 - 4:00 pm or by appointment.

Tools, photographs, household furnishings, church furniture, and a library with old diaries are located in a former church. A new four-panel display created by a local resident displays kitchen gadgets from all eras.

Hours and Admission: July - September: Sunday, 2:00 – 4:00 pm, or by appointment. Accessible to the disabled.

The society's collection at the Barber House Museum includes photographs, framed special local history, town artifacts, scrapbooks, and albums.

Hours of operation: Open Saturdays starting July 4th weekend through Labor Day weekend from 1:00 - 3:00.  Walking tours by appointment only, call (802) 464-3004 or (802) 464-0200.  April through November monthly meetings are held.  Check our website for a listing.

The Historical Society's County Museum  is located on the main street in Newfane, one of the most beautiful and photographed villages in Vermont. Newfane Village is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Historical Society was founded in 1927 to preserve the heritage of Windham County. The brick Federal-style museum was built in 1936 and houses what has been described as “one of the most intriguing small collections in Vermont.” The Museum’s archives of Vermont manuscripts, photographs and documents are available for historical and genealogical research.

In 2014, the Historical Society purchased the Newfane Railroad Station and after three years of restoration work, opened the West River Railroad Museum.  The Station comprises the old Depot building and Water Tank House, both of which were built in 1880. The Museum houses a significant collection of artifacts, documents and photographs documenting the West River Railroad until it ceased operation in 1936. The West River Railroad Museum is located in Historic Newfane Village on Cemetery Hill Road, a short walk from the Historical Society’s Windham County Museum.

Hours and Admission: Memorial Day Weekend through Indigenous Peoples Weekend -- County Museum and West River Railroad Museum: Saturday and Sunday Noon - 5:00. The County Museum is also open Wednesdays, Noon - 4:00. Inquiries are fielded year round.

Preserving the history of our town for future generations and to provide education to people since our town was founded in 1795.

Hours & Admission: Meeting every Wednesday from 12 to 3 pm or with appointment.