Jamaica Historical Foundation

04/24/2026

June 6 open house at Rawsonville schoolhouse. Come join us.

04/21/2026

Steve Rawson brought in some great Rawson photos that had been donated by Cynthia Rawson.
The first is a school class calendar from the Rawsonville School. To Cynthia’s father, Walter Rawson from his teacher Miss Haven.

04/21/2026

Planning for Jamaica Day 2026 is underway. We will be doing a quilt hall again this year with a couple new twists.
What’s new this year?
-Some quilts will be for sale.
- We will be collecting you votes for “People’s Choice Award”.
- We will have a raffle quilt,
If you have quilts you would like to show and/or sell, stay tuned for additional information!

04/18/2026

https://www.middlebury.edu/museum/exhibitions/2026/with-time
Paul Strand was a photographer who during the War in 1943 traveled to East Jamaica to stay with his friend Kenneth Durant. Mr. Strand had enough gas rations to make it to Jamaica.
He traveled about the neighborhood with his camera equipment in a wheelbarrow, taking photos of folks, buildings and views of East Jamaica.
These photos have been shown in many well known museums.
This May 23rd - August 9th, there will be a show at Middlebury College Museum of Art.
This photo shown is of Mr. Bennett, who lived on a farm next to the French Bridge. If you look at the old barn closer to where Cota & Cota is, you will see an old sign hanging on the side of the barn that says, "Bennett Farm".
Mr. Bennett's daughter, Helen Rena Bennett, was in a photo dressed in her homemade silk wedding dress. The dress she made for her first wedding was made from her husband's silk parachute.
Helen went on to marry Fred Wilkins. They had five children and have had numerous grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. Many of them growing up there on the same farm land.

04/16/2026

04/15/2026

Jamaica Historical Foundation meeting tonight at the Museum at 7:00.

Time to get ready to open the Museum in May.
Lots of projects and sorting to do.
We had many donations of items brought to us last year and all winter.
These treasures from different families are wonderful and add so much to our collection of Jamaica’s history.
They do require much sorting, organizing, scanning, etc before we can put them away.

The Hefflon collection was a large collection that has been shared with the Wardsboro History Group and the Franklin, VT Historical Society.
The Vaile diaries is being shared with the Londonderry Historical Society.
The Bruce Chapin collection is being shared with the Windham History Group and Wardsboro History Group.
There are many Rawson family donations and items that have come in this year.
There are many more batches of items that have come in also.

We have a new display starting this year on the 1920’s to the 1960’s. This is exciting for us. There have been quite a few donations of items from that time period.
This is a display where you will recognize items from your parents and grandparents homes. It is still a work in progress.
This time period was huge, so many changes and ways in which everything changed.
Life became faster. Cars, better roads, grocery store items like cake mixes and tv dinners, running water, bathrooms!, televisions, getting the news quickly on tv, music was getting faster and Elvis’ hips were moving a bit too fast. Wars were happening, communism and the Nearings came to settle here. The hippie movement was about to start.
Oh, what fun this display will be!

If you are interested in helping, stop by, let us know or come to the meeting and see what we are all about.

See you at 7:00 tonight.

04/05/2026

Who was Bailey Rawson?
He was apparently quite a character.
There are many folks here in Jamaica and surrounding towns that are a descendant of Bailey and his wife Susanna Brown.
Let us know if you are one of those descendants.