Category Archives: Blog

Learn how to grow strawberries from instructors Michelle & Marcel Bonin of Peak View Farm in Brownington. Meet at the Old Stone House Museum and then drive a few miles north on the Hinman Settler Road to Peak View Farm. Cost is $10 for members, $15 for non-members. Register online here or call the Museum at 754-2022 by May 17th.

Registration for Spring Field Day is open! School and Student Groups pre-register for a full day of history activities and handskills. Both events are held on the Museum grounds. The dates this year are May 22nd and May 29th. Visit the All School Days website (http://oldstonehousemuseum.org/all-school-days) for more details on Spring Field Day. Call the Museum for more information on how to register, (802) 754-2022.

Goodrich Photo Presentation at Jones Memorial Library in Orleans –
Sun. April 29, 2 p.m.

Learn about stereoscopic photography of the late 19th century, and
perhaps help identify the locations of some photos taken in this area
by Plainfield photographer Carlyle Goodrich as he was “faithfully
recording life in northeast central Vermont”.  For over 25 years,
Richard Petit, who this year published Carlyle Goodrich , Stereoscopic
Photographer, 1875-1881, Plainfield, Vermont, has been looking at the
Goodrich stereo views and working at identifying the images. There are
176 of Goodrich’s photographs now identified; and 60 views
unidentified.  Some of these Mr. Petit believes were taken in the
Albany, West Glover, Irasburg, Orleans, or Coventry area  The museum
will bring its stereoscopic viewers to the library for people to try
out.

These pictures show the two North Country Career Center classes (Timber Harvesting and Building Trades) involved with acquiring the timber for the barn that will be built next to the Museum in the spring.

Michael Phillips, author of The Apple Grower, a Guide for the Organic Orchardist, will be back again for his popular grafting and pruning course. He will bring hearty root stocks and scions from a variety of apple trees, for the morning grafting workshop. Students are also encouraged to bring in scions from their favorite ancient apple trees. Each student will take home at least two grafted trees. In the afternoon Michael will demonstrate renewal pruning on the Museum’s apple trees. Class Cost $50, or $40 for museum members Please register and pay online (under Event Registration), or call the Museum to pay by cash or check, by April 12.

This spring we are planning to build a replica of the barn that was originally attached to the Old Stone House.  We did an archaeological survey last summer which revealed that the 25 X 40 foot barn was built about the same time as the Old Stone House.  It served to house a few cows and chickens to provide food for the dormitory.  In fact, students were encouraged to bring a cow or chickens to school with them to add to the food supply, and save money on board.

The barn just touched corners with the Old Stone House on its southeast side.  It was connected to the stone house with an added on small shed which entered through the root cellar door, which then entered into the kitchen.  Minutes of the Society reveal that the
“unsightly barn” was taken down in 1924.  I suspect that they had their hands full restoring the stone building, had no use for the barn and didn’t want to repair that also.

We have engaged the International Timberframers Guild to cut out the frame and raise it between June 1 and 10.  There will be a big, highly publicized community barn raising on June 9.  We will house guild members in the Hall House and they can tent on the surrounding grounds and we will feed them.  They will get their members to do the work as they run workshops, including one on hand hewing.  In January and March the North Country Career Center Timber Harvesting Class cut white pine and hemlock from Allen Yale’s woodlot, which they are milling.

We will send Makaio Maher into the Building and Trades Class in March to teach them about timber framing and cut the floor joists and deck, then install it in May over the granite block foundation that John Rodgers is going to build in early May.

We are also taking an outreach educational project on the road to the elementary schools, teaching them about traditional Vermont architecture, and getting the 6th through 8th graders to cut the pegs for the timber frame with draw knives and shingle horses.  We will teach about traditional Vermont architecture and proportions, and have a playhouse sized model timber frame that each class can put together and raise. We are hoping to create ownership in the museum with the youngest members of our community to help sustain it into the future.

The Old Stone House Museum in Brownington is holding its annual
Kitchen Junket and Sliding Party on Sunday, February 26, from 1 to 4
p.m. Burt Porter and friends will play music for square dancing in
the kitchen of the Samuel Read Hall House starting at 2 pm. People can bring their
cross country skis and sleds and go sliding on the museum grounds. We have a fresh foot of snow on the fields. Admission to this family friendly event is free, but like the Kitchen
Junkets in the old days, contributions of refreshments are
appreciated. Please bring cookies and bars, fruit, crackers, and
finger food to share.

Neal Perry and his Morgan horses will be offering sleigh rides, if
there is enough snow, or wagon rides if not, for just $5 a person, with proceeds going toward this summer’s construction of a barn beside the Old Stone House. Call the museum at 754-2022 for more information, or for a last minute snow report.

The Samuel Read Hall House is the big gold house on the corner of the
Hinman Settler Rd. and Old Stone House Rd. in Brownington Village.

Handicapped and senior parking is in the driveway to the left of the
house. General parking is across the road from the Samuel Read Hall
House in the parking lot of the Brownington Congregational Church and
also beside the Twilight House which is across from the Old Stone
House.

It’s a big job to pack up your collection and bring it down to the Orleans Elementary School Gym for the show,  but it is very satisfying to be able to show it off to people who appreciate the collection and the work that went into gathering it.   We hope that more people will take advantage of this opportunity to show off their collections next
year.  Call us and reserve a table.  We had a great crowd, and it was
a wonderful way to pass a cold winter day.  All the exhibitors and visitors had a great time.

Click on the thumbnails below to enlarge the pictures.

The eighth annual Collectors Fair will be held Sunday, February 12, 9 am to 2 pm at the Orleans Elementary School gym. Participants of all ages are invited to this ultimate show-and-tell. Collectors will meet and mingle, swap and sell, sharing their hobbies with the community. The only UNWELCOME items are firearms and weapons of any kind, as this is a public school building. Refreshments will be available, and door prizes will be picked at the end of the afternoon. This is a free event. To reserve your space, please call the Old Stone House Museum at (802)754-2022 or Bob Williams at (802)467-3611. If you prefer email, please email director@oldstonehousemuseum.org. If you come, please plan to stay until 2 pm as advertised. Thanks!

This event last Saturday was sponsored by the Old Stone House Museum, Northwoods Stewardship Center and Craftsbury Outdoor Center. The group traveled on the first section of the Hinman Settler Road, the first road built though Orleans County, on a trail through woods and rolling terrain, past old cellar holes and a cemetery. This trail is a link of a proposed cross country ski trail network in the southern part of the county. The trail is approximately 3 miles, with options for longer routes at the end.