Westminster, VT Historical Society

03/17/2026

"...at 4:00 am on March 17, 120 ships carrying more than 10,000 soldiers and more than 1,000 Tories weighed anchor and left Boston." Heather Cox Richardson, March 17 2026
With them, aboard the brigantine Elizabeth, was this gentleman.

03/14/2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCF1VwRnJDU

On this day 251 years ago, over 400 armed and angry colonists filled Westminster's single street. Inside the courthouse, the judges, sheriff, and posse members hunkered down. Protestors had been shot and wounded overnight by the sheriff's posse, after the chief judge had promised they could stay in the courthouse undisturbed. A young farmer from Brattleboro, William French, had died of his wounds while drunken posse members mocked his dying groans. The men in the street were incandescent with rage, but the leader of the Walpole, NH militia, Benjamin Butterfield, while fully sympathizing, prevented violence. At the end of the day, two men walked into the courthouse and suggested that the officials surrender. They did so, and were treated far better than many felt they deserved; they were simply placed in the cells. On this day New York government ceased to function in what is now eastern Vermont. It was never restored.
Watch our 2025 commemoration here, in another video by Mike Smith.

The event marks the 250th anniversary of the Westminster Massacre, focusing on the historical impact of Barb Greeno and the events of March 13, 1775. It refl...

03/13/2026

251 years ago today, the Westminster Massacre took place.
1 year ago today was the first day of our 3-day commemoration, which recently received an Award of Merit from the Vermont Historical Society. That's YOUR award if you took part, and you can relive the glory here. If you had to miss it, I hope you enjoy the great video from Mike Smith. Two more to come!

The Westminster Historical Society commemorated the 250th anniversary of the Westminster Massacre of 1775 with Three days of presentations coinciding with th...

03/06/2026

I found myself back at Westminster's Old East Parish Cemetery yesterday.

03/04/2026

Westminster's Old East Parish Cemetery is the last resting place of at least forty-three Revolutionary War soldiers. The 'rebirth' of this cemetery began last year when the Vermont Old Cemetery Association (VOCA) led volunteers in gravestone restoration. Stones were straightened, cleaned and repaired. The restoration will be continued and hopefully completed when VOCA and volunteers return this June.

03/01/2026

01/15/2026

From the Ethan Allen Homestead Museumhttps://www.facebook.com/share/p/165rNML5x6/

in 1777, Vermont declared its independence from New York in Westminster, VT.

From the Vermont Declaration of Independence:

"Right 1. That whenever protection is withheld, no allegiance is due, or can of right be demanded.

2nd. That whenever the lives and properties of a part of a community, have been manifestly aimed at by either the legislative or executive authority of such community, necessity requires a separation. Your committee are of opinion that the foregoing has, for many years past, been the conduct of the monopolizing land claimers of the colony of New-York"

You can read the whole Declaration here: https://declarationproject.org/?p=110

Five months later, the convention reconvened in Windsor, where they named the new state Vermont, and wrote the state Constitution.

12/18/2025

This was so much fun. I'd like to do it for Westminster history buffs sometime (in warmer weather, of course). It was basically a tour of invisible buildings, and I know a lot of us are a little vague on just where some of them were. Let me know in the comments if you'd find that interesting.

Last month, our volunteers and staff and got to visit Westminster, VT Historical Society!

President Jessie & others gave our group a wonderful guided tour of early Westminster, as F***y Allen Penniman knew it, including the site of the Westminster Massacre (an early Revolutionary War incendiary event), the old Crean Brush house site (F***y's stepfather), and we even got to go inside the old Penniman house (F***y's third marriage) and the early 19th-century law office of William Czar Bradley (a family friend of F***y's) -- what a treat!

Thank you to the staff and volunteers who preserve and educate people on the history of Westminster and for sharing it with us.

You can learn more about the Westminster Historical Society here: https://www.westminstervthistory.org/



[Photo: EAHM staff and volunteers gathered for a group photo in the Westminster Town Hall, where the historical society exhibits are located. What a grand mural in the background!]

11/20/2025

Westminster townies, one of our own will be featured at Fort Ticonderoga in 2026, as her 'daughter' F***y was in 2025. Margaret, a Loyalist and the wife of the hated Crean Brush, lived in Westminster in the early 1770s, up until the Massacre, when she and F***y left hostile territory for New York. She and F***y returned in 1783 to try to regain their confiscated property. Margaret had remarried, an Irish tailor named Patrick Wall. She and Patrick lived on the main street for the rest of their lives, and lie buried side by side under the table top gravestones just in front of the Bradley family tomb.

11/15/2025

Check this out if you are making a northbound pitstop. Is this something we should do?

At the Welcome Center in Guilford

11/13/2025

I just discovered this page with images of the Westminster West village store, as I was writing about it for the Gazette.

11/10/2025

More photos of VOCA. Great News! We are on VOCA's schedule to come back and finish restoring the rest of the gravestones at East Parish Cemetery (we will confirm the date). Our goal is to eventually restore all of Westminster's Cemeteries.