Bryant/Drake Silhouette and Collection, 1807-1860s
The double silhouette of Sylvia Drake (1784-1867) and Charity Bryant (1777-1851) of Weybridge, Vermont, is considered the earliest known image of a same-sex couple in the U.S. The portraits in profile dating from around 1810 are framed in silk and braids of human hair looped in the shape of a heart. Silhouette art was a popular portraiture format in the pre-photography era prior to 1839. The double silhouette is part of the Drake/Bryant voluminous collection of correspondence, poems, diaries, and business records that document their lives and their forty-plus year relationship. The book, Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America (2014) by Rachel Hope Cleves, was largely based on the Center’s archival collection.
Addison County Entertainment Ephemera, 1860-1920s
The Sheldon archival collection is particularly rich in entertainment and performance ephemera. One of the collection’s greatest attributes is that it attests to a robust and diverse social life in Vermont towns during the 19th and early 20th centuries. A wide variety of entertainment graced Addison County, bringing moments of comedy, tragedy, and celebration and witnessing political and social change. Audiences enjoyed theatrical performances, musical concerts, vaudeville and minstrel shows, traveling circuses, concerts, events, dances and lectures. Performers came from far away, but just as many were local individuals and groups. From posters, playbills, programs, broadsides, tickets, and other ephemera, a broad range of subjects and historical events emerge.
Power Loom Drawings by Isaac Ebenezer Markham, 1814-1825
A sketchbook and close to sixty original power loom drawings, many in watercolor, were executed between 1814 and 1825 by a young Middlebury draftsman, Isaac Ebenezer Markham (1795-1825). The images are considered the earliest-known set of textile machine maker’s workshop drawings in the U.S. Among them is a view of the Boston Manufacturing Co. at Waltham, Mass. from c. 1820, also thought to be one of the earliest views of mills in Waltham. After travelling to other textile mills across New England, Isaac E. Markham returned to Middlebury, where he died of typhus.
Manuscripts Maps by Sarah H. Chipman, 1823
A hand-drawn, beautiful miniature atlas, “A Book of Penmanship,” was created in 1823 by Susan H. Chipman (1808-1848), while a student at Miss Page’s School for girls in Middlebury. It is a remarkable example of the influence that a pioneering reformer of female education, Emma Willard, had upon local schooling. Willard introduced geography and astronomy into the girl’s curriculum while teaching in one of the first in the country female seminaries in Middlebury in the early 1800s. Chipman’s booklet contains thirty hand-colored maps accompanied by exquisitely rendered in ornamental calligraphy descriptive passages on Geography, the Solar System, and Climates. Susan H. was a daughter of Daniel Chipman, an early local settler, legislator and author.
"House Book", Henry L. Sheldon's Scrapbook #173, 1876-1901
Henry L. Sheldon compiled over 200 scrapbooks, many focusing on early Middlebury history, its citizens and community development. The highlights among them is scrapbook #173, the “House Book,” that contains a history of every building in the Village of Middlebury compiled by Sheldon in 1876 and updated in 1901. In addition, the scrapbook includes extensive information about the 1891 Middlebury fire, the Weeks family genealogy, birth records in 1896 kept by Dr. Daniel C. Noble, photographs, and more. The building information was updated by the Center’s volunteers as the “Building History Register” project. The updated records are now frequently consulted by Middlebury property owners.
Crystoleum Portrait of Joseph Battell, c. 1890
Crystoleum, or American ivorytype, is a rare photographic technique that was mostly practiced in Europe. This portrait is of Joseph Battell (1839-1915), a local early environmentalist, philanthropist, Morgan horse breeder, and a person behind many of Middlebury’s architectural landmarks. Crystoleum consists of a photograph printed on the inside of a convex glass that is adhered to a bottom piece of paper or glass with a rudimentary painted portrait that aligns with a top one. This technique was an early attempt of introducing color into photography. The portrait was recently identified and restored and is one of a few known portraits of Joseph Battell.
Semicentennial Sermon by Thomas A. Merrill, 1840
The “Semicentennial Sermon Containing a History of Middlebury...,” was delivered by Reverend Thomas A. Merrill in 1840 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of establishment of the Congregational Church in Middlebury. It is considered one of the earliest sources of information about the history of the town from one who had witnessed much of it. Thomas A. Merrill (1780-1855), a graduate of Dartmouth College, came to Middlebury in 1804 as a tutor at Middlebury College. In 1805 he was ordained and served as pastor at the Middlebury Congregational Church during the turbulent era of the Second Great Awakening, a religious revival, a position he held until 1842.
Music of the Stewart, Battell, and Swift Families, 1800s-1910s
One of the most outstanding components of the Stewart-Swift Research Center’s musical holdings are those belonging to the Stewart, Battell, and Swift families in Middlebury. Together they form an unusual, historically valuable compilation of sheet music and bound music collected over several generations in a single area. Some family members bound their sheet music into volumes, and “The Bloomer Schottisch,” dated 1851, is part of a binder’s volume belonging to Emma Battell. This family music collection tells an important historical story and constitutes a significant resource for scholars of American music, also revealing much about 19th-century culture, particularly that of women, in New England and in the broader U.S.