Bennington Museum

06/20/2026

FREE! Artillery at the Battle of Bennington, Sunday June 21 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Eric Schnitzer has worked at Saratoga National Historical Park talks about how cannons played a small but notable role in the August 16, 1777 Battle of Bennington.

a Bennington Historical Society presentation Cannons played a small but notable role in the seminal August 16, 1777 Battle of Bennington. Made in England, the guns and their carriages constituted top-of-the-line military technology for the time. The men who manned, loaded, and fired the pieces were....

06/19/2026

The sculptures are arriving!

Bennington Museum is so pleased to be one of the participating venues for the annual North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show again this year. Check our website for installation progress by the 20+ participating artists, and look for a map and labels by the end of next week.

06/19/2026

Looks like the weather will cooperate and we're looking forward to Phil Henry & the Newsfeed! Show starts at 5, BYO chair.

Our parking lot is still a construction zone, and we highly recommend parking across the road at the school or in the small lot at the bottom of the hill.

CONCERTS IN THE COURTYARD We are pleased to announce that Bennington Museum has received an anonymous grant once more for 2026. Performances are free of charge. All events take place from 5-7pm. The Museum will remain open until 7pm on these days, regular admission applies. Please bring your own bla...

06/19/2026

Happy Juneteenth! Damien will be representing the Museum at the Juneteenth celebration this afternoon. 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Merchants Park in downtown Bennington. Stop by!

BENNINGTON — The Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union (SVSU), in partnership with The Bennington Martens and The Bennington Banner, invites the community to attend the Juneteenth Freedom Day Celebration on Friday,

06/18/2026

On June 18, 1909 Curnel Vaugh captured a male fawn on his father's farm in Arlington. The animal was turned over to the county game warden, who presented it to the Soldiers' Home in Bennington for the deer park. There it was joined by a female fawn that had been rescued from a dog in Winhall. A month later the Bennington Banner declared the pair were the "prettiest site in town" and tame as kittens.

This glass plate negative was taken by William Hayden, who probably used it to create souvenir postcards.

Gift of Harry and Nellie Hayden
https://bennington.pastperfectonline.com/Photo/3C3B03B7-D4DC-4513-BE49-252092795560

06/17/2026

The Bennington Free Library building was constructed in 1865, funded by local philanthropists Trenor W. Park and Seth B. Hunt. The books were confined to one room on the second floor, which also housed a reading room and a lecture hall. The first floor was rented for offices and commercial space to provide income for the library. The library was run by the Young Men’s Association, and membership was open to all for one dollar. Members were entitled to borrow one book at a time for a two-week period.

The steeple in the background belonged to the Baptist church, built in 1847 to replace an earlier structure that had burned. The steeple was toppled by strong winds in 1849 and again in 1876. The current brick church was built in 1878, with an open belfry that did not catch the wind.

This stereocard is by Calvin Dart, one of Bennington's earliest professional photographers. The two images were captured a few inches apart, so that when the finished card was placed in a special viewer, there was a three-dimensional effect.

Gift of John Sheridan
https://bennington.pastperfectonline.com/photo/28D5C287-ABFE-4086-A218-779243565029

06/16/2026

Take an Art Break and write a Six-Word Memoir. Spend at least one full minute looking deeply at this portrait. Then, in SIX WORDS (no more, no less) write the subject's memoir in the comments.

06/15/2026

Luigi Lucioni, who described himself as a “super realist” artist, is associated with his highly detailed landscapes of the Vermont countryside and exquisite still lifes. In 1937 Life magazine declared Lucioni the “painter laureate” of the Green Mountain State. Lucioni’s love of Vermont began in his teenage years when he visited relatives who worked in Barre’s granite industry, and was cemented with a commission from Electra Havemeyer Webb, founder of the Shelburne Museum, in the early 1930s, after which he began summering in the state regularly. In 1939, Lucioni bought a farmhouse and barn in Manchester, turning the barn into a studio, where he continued to paint and make etchings of the surrounding countryside for the next fifty years.

Lucioni was born in a small, mountainous village in northern Italy, emigrating to the United States in 1911, and beginning the study of art at a young age. In 1926 Lucioni won a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation scholarship. During his Tiffany Fellowship, living and studying at Tiffany’s Laurelton Hall estate in Oyster Bay, Long Island, Lucioni roomed with fellow artist Paul Cadmus, who became a close friend. Although Lucioni never came out publicly, he was part of the gay artistic world in New York City. He retained his New York residence until his death, spending his summers in Vermont.

Greens and Gray, 1950
Luigi Lucioni (1900-1988)
Gift of Gary and Deborah Lucidon
https://bennington.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/5A485FF7-E0BE-4D0C-97DD-709802883601

06/14/2026

Happy Flag Day! This flag was created in the early 1800s to commemorate the "Spirit of 1776" and the American Revolution.

Family history states that the Bennington Flag was given by Nathaniel Fillmore of Bennington to his nephew Septa, who lived near Plattsburgh, NY and participated in the Battle of Plattsburgh in 1814. It passed from uncle to nephew several more times before being given to the museum by Maude Fillmore Wilson. For a long time it was believed to have flown at the Battle of Bennington, but modern examination of the fibers proves it to be of later manufacture. Exactly who made it, and when, are still mysteries, but it's a good flag to celebrate with on this Flag Day as we keep the Spirit of 1776 alive 250 years later.

Gift of Mrs. Maude Fillmore Wilson
https://bennington.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/B575B65F-63DE-4319-BDE1-479841191726

06/13/2026

Last week we invited you to write a 6-Word memoir for this portrait, and now let's see who they are.

This is Richard S. Bayhan, son of John and Harriet Poole Bahan (he changed the spelling of his last name, but it appears both with and without the Y throughout his adult life). He was born in Bennington April 17, 1871 and had an interest in music from a young age. His mother, aunt, and grandfather were all active in the Congregational Church choir. His mother died when he was young, and his aunt saved her money to help send him to Europe to study music in Leipzig, Germany. When he returned to the United States he found employment as the organist at Pilgrim Memorial Church in Cleveland, Ohio where he remained for 26 years. He also maintained a studio where he gave lessons in voice and organ.

He never married, but shared his home at least for some time with August Palmano, a German amateur theologian who also worked at the Pilgrim Memorial church. Palmano died in 1934 and at that point Bayhan returned to Bennington, where he died two years later. Bayhan had a great interest in local history and wrote several small books on the historic people and places of his beloved hometown.

You can see other pieces related to Bayhan in our online catalog, including a conductor’s baton that he used at the Old First Church made from a chair that had belonged to Anthony Haswell: https://bennington.pastperfectonline.com/byperson?keyword=Bayhan%2C%20Richard%20Seymour

The next 6-Word Memoir will be posted Tuesday afternoon. Stay tuned!