Overview of the Westminster Town History project
2011 is the 75th anniversary the 1936 Flood, with the highest water ever on the Connecticut River.
Court House Hill and the Flats during the 1936 flood
Revolutionary Westminster: From Massacre to Statehood by Jessie Haas is now available. The story of the Westminster Massacre grew too big to be just a chapter in the upcoming Westminster Town History, so Jessie turned it into a whole book, published by the History Press.
Work on the new Westminster Town History will be wrapping up in 2011. If you have a question or information about someone or some event in the history of Westminster, please ask it on the “Your Questions” page. Use the “Search” box at right to find articles that mention a particular name or place. (Your first post won’t appear immediately, but later posts will.)
Westminster is lucky to have award-winning author Jessie Haas to write the new Town History. It’s a huge job, especially because Westminster has such a rich and long history. This is where Vermont declared its independence in 1777, after all. Anything you can add will help.
The last Westminster Town History by Elizabeth Minard (12 MB PDF) was published in 1941 with some information added in a 1983 update. Before that, the 1885 Double History of Westminster, Vermont (meaning both East and West Parishes) was a reprint of the Westminster entry in Hemenway’s 1871 Vermont Gazetteer Vol. 5. The full text of Westminster’s entry is available online. Another brief-ish history of Westminster is found in Hamilton Child’s 1884 Gazetteer and Business Directory of Windham County. That includes some information from Benjamin Hall’s 1858 History of Eastern Vermont.
The new history will cover through the year 2000. Newer information can wait for the the next edition. No rush.
To contact the webkeeper by email, see the About page.
Thank you Dan, thank you Alice. This is fun!
I’m going to use this mostly to post questions, and we’ll figure out together how to get the right people looking at this and responding. Questions I’m thinking about now:
Who was the Morgan stallion who lived at the end of Patch Road in the very early 60s? Owned by Helen Jarvis, and he was pictured on a postcard one used to see frequently. [This topic is now under "Morgans and other horses"]
Which house did The Community live in at Westminster Station, before they moved to Basin Farm?
What was on the St. Johnsbury Trucking site before the terminal was built? And what year did that go in?
Who should we tell about this blog? I’m thinking Barbara Jones, Ruth, Barbara Greenough, Charles Wright, Rachel Duffalo, Rachel Scott–but I don’t know who I’m not thinking of. Ideas?
Thank you Dan, Jessie and Alice. I think this blog is just wonderful and will be looking forward to following it. I will jump in whenever I can.
Hi Jessie, this blog is a great idea. I don’t know about the Morgan horse, but I think the Community, (otherwise known as the Pondies?) lived in the house Alice once lived in, I bet you will hear from her. I would have to go and look, but I think it’s just south of the vets. I also don’t know about St. J, but I remember the dump just below it. It used to be on fire half the time.
I can remember (faintly) the Red Barn gift shop back when it was just a run down barn.
I can think of a bunch of people who might be interested in posting here, if you want me to pass the url along.
Kathy Lisai: Go for it. Tell as many people about this as you would like. The more readers, the more comments and questions. That is a good thing.
The historical society thought the You Tube of Organic Music of Westminster plus the video interview of Pat and Bob Haas should be kept in the archives. If anyone could burn a CD of it that would be great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0STAYq-NCk8