Webb Deane Stevens Museum

10/01/2026

Tickets on sale! https://wdsmuseum.org/event/special-event-turning-the-cards-tarot-intuition-new-beginnings/

i’m really excited about this one 🥹 next thursday i’ll be at the Webb Deane Stevens Museum for turning the cards, an evening of learning, playing with, and reading tarot together.

we’ll talk about the basics of the cards and how i approach reading them, and then we’ll put it all into practice. we’ll pull cards around questions from the group and i’ll talk through what i’m seeing, what i’m noticing, and how i get from a card on the table to an interpretation that means something. you’ll get to see my process unfold in real time, and then have some space to work with the cards yourself.

because learning tarot really isn’t about memorizing 78 card meanings. it’s learning how to look at a card, notice what’s there, and trust where your mind goes with it. no tarot experience needed, truly. come hang out, ask questions, play with some cards, and see what you notice 🤍

thursday, october 8 · 7–9 pm
webb deane stevens museum · wethersfield
$20 / $15 for members

tickets are available through WDS. link in bio!

09/11/2026

The "River Gods": Status in Wood and Paint

A house in the 18th-century Connecticut River Valley did more than shelter a family. It made a claim about who lived inside. The valley's merchant elite spent lavishly on doorways, woodwork, and painted finishes designed to mimic more expensive materials, commissioned from a class of artisans who made a living turning wealth into something you could see from the street. You can see it all the way from Old Saybrook to the homes of the “River Gods” in Historic Deerfield.

Silas Deane's house speaks the same visual language: high-style proportions, formal woodwork, a piazza built to be seen from the street and the river before it was ever entered. He built his house as a statement to say to all who passed along the river that he was a contender among the elite.

Turn the page on the Deane Diaries to learn more about this misunderstood patriot.

08/31/2026

A Merchant's World

Silas Deane's political career started somewhere far less glamorous than a committee room: it began in a countinghouse. In the 1760s, Wethersfield was a significant port on the Connecticut River, its wealth built on West Indian trade—New England goods and produce, famously red onions, sailing south in exchange for sugar, molasses, rum, and enlsaved human beings.

His 1763 marriage into the Webb family put him directly inside that network, and he expanded Webb’s successful business into one of the colony's most far-reaching merchant operations. The West Indian economy Wethersfield merchants profited from ran on plantation slavery, and Deane's fortune, like many of his contemporaries', was never separable from that system.

The skills and reputation he built inside that trade, complicated as it was, were the scaffold to his legacy: a stepson he raised and educated who would usher Washington and Rochambeau to Wethersfield, a name that shippers and creditors trusted from New England to the Caribbean, a fluency in business practices, and a room full of competing interests. Those were the skills of a merchant. A decade later, in rooms far from Wethersfield, they would matter just as much.

Photos: 1) Cove Park, Nico Tate Parker 2) Account of monies paid by Silas Deane while political and commercial agent in Europe, 1776 July 20 - 1778 February 8, CT Digital Archives Collections 3) Field of Onions, Wethersfield Historical Society

08/18/2026

There is no better time to sit a while, to breathe it in before the season turns.

The garden is full bloom, come and enjoy it over tea.

Join us for Flowers & Flavor: a garden tour and tea with WDS head gardener, Peter Winne.

🎟️ Link in bio.

08/15/2026

Trumbull painted Washington from memory while studying in London, and it became Europe's first authoritative image of him. Beside Washington stands a figure believed to be William Lee, his enslaved valet and aide who stood by his side through much of the war.

If you have followed along with us you might recognize Lee, otherwise known as "Billy" from our Untold Stories series. Billy was the nickname of William Lee, who was likely in many of the same rooms Washington was.

Next week, author Damien Cregeau paints the picture for us during his lecture and book signing of Portraits of Patriots, a story uncovering and connecting the lives of the names of the revolution. Hosted in-person and virtually.

🎟️ Link in bio.

08/07/2026

Long before it became part of the Webb Deane Stevens Museum, the Joseph Webb House and garden was saved from the wrecking ball by five local men who refused to see it torn down or turned into apartments.

After passing through preservationist Wallace Nutting's hands, the 1752 house found new life in 1919 when the Colonial Dames of Connecticut opened it to the public as a place to sit down, have a cup of tea, and soak in the history.

Visitors turned out in droves: over 1,200 in the first six months alone. That tradition of tea and storytelling continues today.

Join us for Flowers & Flavor: a garden tour and tea with WDS head gardener, Peter Winne.

🎟️ Link in bio.

source:
wethersfieldhistory.org

08/06/2026

Silas Deane was never at Fort Ticonderoga. He didn't storm it, didn't carry a musket, wasn't anywhere near Lake Champlain when Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold took it in May 1775. What he did was convince his fellow committee members in Connecticut that the colony should coordinate the effort, and then he secured the money and supplies that made the operation possible in the first place.

When news of the fort's capture reached him in Philadelphia, his elated colleagues in Congress gave him a nickname that stuck for the rest of his life: “Ticonderoga.”

It's a small story, but it says something about Deane’s work. Many of his victories happened where no one could see them. The victory at Ticonderoga brought cannons that pushed the British out of Boston and brought safety to the people of New England. It brought confidence early in the War to the Patriot cause.

Follow along for the full story: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/i07daIe/piazza



Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and W3RUS