Vermont - Home of Americana

We arrived in Vermont after driving in pouring rain and settled into a lovely campground in Colchester just outside of Burlington. We meet our neighbors, Maryse LaForce and Jay O'Brien, with whom we enjoyed a lovely campfire and an uncanny commonality of interests. Something tells us we will cross paths again in the future.


Burlington is a charming town. And thanks to the Colchester Library, we were able to check our email a couple of times.



We headed out for a drive to Stowe just about 45 minutes from the campground. We made a stop at a cider factory. Ed was fascinated by the old press.










Stowe looks like all the Charles Wisocki paintings and prints. Actually, all the villages in this area look like his paintings and prints. They even have the cute names he uses and quaint signs. We took this photo in Stowe.











We had one absoutely lovely day weatherwise and we jumped on the opportunity to use it at the Shelburne Museum. This is the entry visitor center.

What a special place this is! It was founded in 1947 by Electra Webb whose ancestry goes back to the Vanderbilts and Havemeyers. She was a collector of Americana and envisioned this place as a collection of 17th and 18th century buildings from New England and New York in which American art could be displayed.




Buildings have been moved to the property, restored, and now house collections ranging from quilts, Quaker artifacts, furniture, whole stores, a steam ship, a train station, a 1950s house, pre and post impressionism and more. It's set up as a village and has beautiful gardens and walkways.

This day lilly garden is outside of the circus parade building.

Here's the inside - it's everything circus. The parade exhibit is over 500 ft. long and hand carved between 1925 and 1955.

Outside is a merry-go-round on which Ed had his first ever ride.

The Ticonderoga (that's Ed sitting on the paddlewheel) was one of the last of its kind, a paddlewheel driven, vertical beam steam engine
ferry. It was built in Shelburne in 1906 to operate on Lake Champlain. We were able to visit all parts of the boat.

The old train depot looked exactly like the one in Sheboygan while I was growing up.

Whistle stopping on the old elegant train car...

The old general store is filled with items of the day. There's a pharmacy, a barber shop, and doctors and dentists offices upstairs.

I couldn't resist taking this photo of one of the cabinets in the pharmacy. Some of this stuff looks downright scary!

Also in the pharmacy. I think they're actually using leeches again...

This was my favorite building. It's houses American folk art - at its finest. Not only permanent collections, but special exhibits as well. There are exhibits downstairs, upstairs, in closets and around every corner.

The Shelburne Museum is well known in the quilt world. They have the premier collection of historic American quilts. And there was a special exhibit as well as a good selection from the permanent collection. I was in hog heaven chatting with this docent. She was working on a red work quilt and we jumped right into "quilter talk."

The special exhibit on rug hooking was amazing! These were my favorite pieces. They don't use latch hooks, but just pull the wool strips up to create a smooth rounded surface. The finite detail achieved by this artist is incredible.

Another current special exhibit is by Louis Comfort Tiffany. It includs not just the lamps, but also pottery, furniture, jewelery, silver flatware and decorative items.

I love this photo of the grounds.

This is an important museum. We'll remember it as a highlight of the area and certainly as a cronicleer of American art history.