Early Maps BrattleboroTopographic Map of the Brattleboro Area Inside front cover Title 1 Foreword 2 Table of Contents 3 1. Introduction 5 2. The Equivalent Lands & Fort Dummer 6 3

Vermont1745-1912

With a Narrative History

Early MapsBrattleboro

of

This topographic map shows Brattleboro and the Connecticut River Valley in modern times. The whiteareas on the map indicate the locations of fertile floodplain land which first drew settlers to this valley inthe early 1700s. Northfield (bottom of map) was the northernmost settlement until 1724, when a smallmilitary outpost, Fort Dummer, was built to protect Northfield and other downstream settlements.

Fort Dummer

VT

MASSNH

Brattleboro

Topographic Map of the Brattleboro Area

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Early MapsBrattleboro

Vermont1745-1912

With a Narrative History

Published on the Occasion of the250th Anniversary of the Chartering

of Brattleboro

December 2003

ByDavid Allen

© Old Maps West Chesterfield, NH 03466

www.old-maps.com

of

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ForewordThis collection of Brattleboro’s early maps is published to commemorate the 250th anniversary of thechartering of Brattleboro, Vermont in 1753. Reproduced in this volume are more than forty old town andvillage maps, tracing Brattleboro’s history from first settlement until the early 20th century. The oldestmaps are the 1733 map which depicts Fort Dummer as a lonely trading post and the 1745 town outlinemap which shows the “Equivalent Land”. The latest map is a 1912 fire insurance map of the urban centerof Brattleboro.

The maps include the simple outline maps from the colonial period, and all the known “land ownership”maps – remarkably detailed maps which show homeowner names next to the locations of their home-steads. Of note also are fire insurance maps which depict great detail in downtown Brattleboro, and thecharming 1856,1876 and 1886 bird’s-eye views. Several modern maps are included to help the readerassociate the old maps with present day Brattleboro. A transcription of the 1753 Town Charter is alsosupplied, along with several sketches depicting the lands described in that founding document ofBrattleboro history.

The maps are arranged (generally) in chronological order and are sorted into several numbered groups.The land ownership maps are arranged with downtown and town maps in separate groups to allow foreasy comparisons. In this book we use the word “town” in its classic New England sense, refering to theentire township, and “downtown” as the compact developed area, both commercial and residential. Mapsare oriented to north, unless otherwise indicated.

This publication is issued in two formats: as a softcover paper booklet, and as a CDROM. The CDcontains JPEG image files of all the maps(some in color), complete copies of the Brattleboro maps whichare printed here on several pages, and the text. The text on the CD is in Adobe PDF format.

We hope that this volume of old maps encourages further study of these maps and of the history ofBrattleboro. The publisher welcomes comments and suggestions for a future edition of this book. Therewill be a new volume if we can get some more maps and interesting historical data.

This book would not have been possible without the assistance of several institutions and individuals,notably the Brattleboro Historical Society, the Vermont Historical Society, the Dartmouth College Li-brary, and the New Hampshire State Library. Special thanks are due to Dana Sprague for his encouragingwords and generous grants of his maps and his time, to Sara Campbell whose love of history and editorialskills are indispensable; to Thomas St. John for being a helpful guide to Brattleboro’s history and athoughtful critic; to Jeff Nugent for knowing so much about roads and the development of Brattleboro; tothe Book Cellar for helping to distribute these books; to Photo Ark Digital Imaging of Woodstock,Ver-mont for enhancing hard-to-read originals; and to several others who helped with ideas and review of thisbook, among them Walt Harrington, Paul Carnahan, Vicki McCormick, and Robert Riecken.

-David Allen

Some other publications by Old maps:

Early Maps of Greenfield, MAEarly Maps of Hinsdale, NHEarly Maps of Winchester, NHEarly Maps of Swanzey, NHEarly Maps of Keene, NHMap of Cheshire County, 1858Atlas of Cheshire County, 1877Cheshire County: The Early Maps 1753-1816McClellan’s Map of Windham County, 1856, VT (CDROM)

For ordering information, see the web site www.old-maps.com, or write to thepublisher at Old Maps, PO Box 54, West Chesterfield, NH 03466.

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Table of Contents

Topographic Map of the Brattleboro Area Inside front coverTitle 1Foreword 2Table of Contents 3

1. Introduction 52. The Equivalent Lands & Fort Dummer 63. The 1753 Charter and First Settlers 104. Early Land Divisions - New York Period 125. Early Roads and Villages 166. Introduction to Land Ownership Maps & Birds Eye Views 227. Land Ownership Maps & Bird’s Eye Views – Downtown 248. Land Ownership Maps - West Brattleboro 509. Land Ownership Maps - Entire Town 5410. Fire Insurance Maps - Main Street 6611. The Brattleboro Town Charter 70

Bibliography 72List of Maps 73Modern Maps of Brattleboro 74Brattleboro Timeline & Population Graph 76Topographic Map of Downtown Brattleboro Inside back cover

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Map 1 ca. 1745 by William Douglass. The land we now call Brattleboro was at the edge of New England’s western frontierin the 1740s, a time of hardship and danger for the few people who lived within “The Equivalent Land” along the ConnecticutRiver. Fort Dummer, shown on the west side of the Connecticut River, was the first permanent settlement in Brattleboro andthe first English settlement in Vermont. The towns shown here were all created by Massachusetts - there would be noVermont for decades after this map. The Merrimack River is on the right side of the map; Lake Winnepesaukee is at theupper right. Most of the towns shown to the north and northeast of Fort Dummer were towns in name only. Very few peoplelived above Fort Dummer during this period of struggle between the French and English for control of North America.

New England’s Northwestern Frontier in the 1740s

Fort Dummer

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1. Introduction

Brattleboro came into being in the early decadesof the 1700s, during a turbulent time in thehistory of northern New England. Europeansettlers were moving upriver into the wildernessfrom the older Connecticut Valley towns ofDeerfield and Northfield. These Englishspeaking settlers were not always welcomed bythe native peoples - the Indians - who resisted,sometimes with force, the intrusions byEuropeans onto the lands they used. Here, on asite of level land below the West River, a smallwooden fort was built, in 1724, to protectdownstream settlements. Fort Dummer was incontinuous use for a generation as a militarygarrison and a trading post. Here familes wereraised, and the English speaking history ofVermont began.

Unmapped wilderness lay to the north and westof Fort Dummer as shown on our first map. Map1 is an excerpt from a much larger map ofMassachusetts and New Hampshire by WilliamDouglass. A detail of the Brattleboro area isshown on this page, with the town of Brattleborolying within the “Equivalent Land”*, a large tractof land at the edge of the western frontier. Thetowns depicted here were all established byMassachusetts, which claimed all the land shownon this part of the map. The oldest town on thedetail map is Northfield, which then includedVernon, Vermont and Hinsdale, New Hampshire.Northfield was established in 1672, and was thenorthernmost settlement until the early 1700s.The heavy shaded line is the New Hampshire /Massachusetts line, which was set by the EnglishKing in 1741. There was no Vermont in the earlyyears. The town called Canada to Gallop is nowGuilford, Fall Fight Town is Bernardston, Mass.,Chesterfield is township “No. 1” (east side ofthe river), next to ‘Lower & Upper Ashuelot”(Swanzey & Keene, New Hampshire). It is interesting that this very old map shows the two principal waterways inBrattleboro by their present names, the West River and Whetstone River (Brook).

To protect the pioneers in the Connecticut River Valley, the Province of Massachusetts decided that a fort should beestablished upriver from Northfield.

Early Maps of Brattleboro, Vermont1745-1912

* While the Douglass map refers to this tract in the singular, in this book we will use the more common expression the “Equivalent Lands”

Detail from Map 1. The area which would becomeBrattleboro is the lower third of the “Equivalent Land” onthe west side of the Connecticut River. Note the location ofFort Dummer just above the old Guilford (“Canada toGallop”) line.

ca. 1745

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2. The Equivalent Lands and Fort DummerThe “Equivalent Lands” covered most of today’s Putney,Dummerston and Brattleboro - about 44,000 acres. That unusualtitle came about as the result of a Provincial boundaryadjustment. When the Massachusetts / Connecticut boundarywas settled in the early 1700s, Connecticut lost some land, andMassachusetts agreed to compensate Connecticut by giving thatProvince some land as an equivalent for lands lost. The“equivalents”, which included two other tracts beside thisone, were sold by Connecticut to raise money for Yale College,and the buyers in turn sold this 44,000 acre tract to four menincluding William Brattle. The Equivalent Lands were nevermapped as far as we know, but there is a written description inthe Connecticut Archives. The description records a twelvemile long tract of land starting “...at the northward end of theGreat Meadow ...“ (Putney) and then proceeding downstreamto “...the mouth of the brook that emptieth itself untoConnecticut river at the lower end of the Meadow, about threemiles southward of the West river...” The description thenfollows general bearings to the west, north and east as shownon the sketch map which we have prepared for this publication.The brook three miles below the West River is the stream wenow call Broad Brook.

The map below, from Mary Cabot’s “Annals of Brattleboro”,depicts the area of the southern boundary of the EquivalentLands. The horizontal line is the south line of Brattleboro,meeting the Connecticut River at Venters Brook. The diagonalline is the south line of the Equivalent Lands, which meets theConnnecticut at Broad Brook.This line was also the north lineof “Gallups Canada” asGuilford used to be called.This unusually named townwas created by Massachusettsin 1736 as a land grant tosoldiers (Gallup and others)who went to Canada on anearlier military expedition. Thevertical line to the right of thequarry (lower right) is thepresent Guilford/Vernon townline. The map also shows twoearly private land grants inVernon (which was then part ofNorthfield) along the river. Itis not known whether anyEuropeans lived in this area inthe 1720s and 1730s, other thansoldiers at Fort Dummer. Thevillages shown on this map arethose of the 1920s whenCabot’s history was published.

Map 2 1716 The South Boundary of the Equivalent Lands. This map, from the “Annals ofBrattleboro” (1924), shows the relationship of the ancient boundary with some later locations.

Figure 1 1716 The Equivalent Lands - An interpretationof the description of this 44,000 acre tract, from theConnecticut Archives. The Equivalent Lands included mostof present-day Brattleboro, Dummerston and Putney.

1716

1714-1753

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As noted earlier, the English King (GeorgeII) decided that the Massachusetts / NewHampshire boundary was to be an east-west line. However, no one, including theKing, knew where the line was on theground. Surveyor Richard Hazzen wassent out into the wilderness to actuallysurvey the line in the winter of 1740-1741.Hazzen’s map shows all prominentfeatures he and his survey crew foundalong the way, including Fort Dummer. Itis not clear whether Hazzen went to thefort. He spent the night at Northfield, thesubstantial settlement depicted here belowthe fort. In his diary for April 6th, 1741,he reports that he crossed the Connecticut“with great difficulty...in a canoe...” andascended a high hill from which he had“a fair view of Fort Dummer...”

The relative safety brought on by FortDummer encouraged more settlement, andin 1733 and 1734 the towns of Winchester,Swanzey and Keene were establishedalong the desirable Ashuelot River intoday’s New Hampshire (see Map 1). Theearly pioneers chose the best land first - itwould be a few more years until theVermont lands would be claimed fortownships. Winchester (then calledArlington) had an inverted “L” shapewhich gave it access to both theConnecticut and Ashulelot Rivers.* Onthe Winchester charter map, from theMassachusetts Archives, we see FortDummer, here labelled the “TruckHouse”. To “truck” was to trade. FortDummer was a center of commercialactivity as well as a fort. More details onFort Dummer follow on the next page.This old map also shows the two largeislands which existed until the mid 20thcentury, at the site of the modern bridgebetween Hinsdale and Brattleboro. Othermaps of these islands are on page 19. 1733

1741The Equivalent Lands and Fort Dummer

Map 4 1741 Fort Dummer was shown on the Massachusetts- New Hampshireboundary map prepared by Richard Hazzen

Map 3 1733 The Winchester Charter Map shows Fort Dummer as a “Truck House”- a trading post. This is the oldest map found which shows any detail in Brattleboro.

* The original Town of Winchester was re-arranged in 1753, and this area is now part of the Town of Hinsdale

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The fort was built in the winter of 1724 on atight schedule. Open hostilities with theIndians (sometimes called “Father Rasle’sWar”) had begun the summer before, includingan attack on Northfield. The Massachusettslegislature voted on December 27, 1723 “...tobuild a Block House above Northfield in themost convenient place on the lands called theEquivalent Lands... .“ A few weeks laterColonel John Stoddard, the regionalcommander, wrote a letter with hisspecifications for the fort, including thisdrawing (Map 5). Stoddard’s plan for FortDummer shows a square building with four“Mounts” - raised towers from which soldierscould see the approaching enemy.

Stoddard specified that the fort “...be made ofhewed timber...” and “...the Timber to bebullet-proof...” About twenty men built thefort that winter, under the command of TimothyDwight of Northampton. Stoddard’s letter isin the Dwight family papers at YaleUniversity’s Beinecke Library. Why would aBrattleboro historical document be at Yale?Brattleboro’s pioneer soldier was thegrandfather of an early President of Yale, alsonamed Timothy Dwight.

Within the first year there was a conflict. Threeor four men are supposed to have been killedon October 11 of 1724 when about 70 Indiansattacked the fort. That was the only known fightat Fort Dummer itself. For the next few yearsthe fort was used as an outpost for scoutingparties. The location opposite WantastiquetMountain was well chosen.* One old letterreports that scouts were “...sent up ye WestRiver Mountain to lodge on ye top and viewEvening and Morning for smoak...” A periodof peace began in the late 1720s, and themilitary garrison became a base for trade withthe Indians. In June of 1728, Massachusettsappropriated a large sum of money for goods“...to be lodged at the Truck-house aboveNorthfield to supply the Indians withal.” Somesoldiers had their families with them, notablyCaptain Timothy Dwight, whose wife,Experience King Dwight, gave birth to a childat Fort Dummer in May of 1726. This child,also Timothy, became the father of the futureYale president, and is supposed to have beenthe first English child born in Vermont.Published histories are not clear on the matter,

Map 6 1749 A Reconstruction View of Fort Dummer. . The drawing was doneby Brattleboro artist Charles J. Brasor, probably in the early 1920s. It wasprobably based on the 1891 tracing (facing page).

Map 5 1724 Colonel Stoddard’s design for Fort Dummer

1724

*The site, now under water, is shown on the modern topographic map on the inside back cover.

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*This publication marks the first time the original Fort Dummer map has been made available to the general public. The ancient map was “discovered” in the late 1800sat the New Hampshire Historical Society, when a tracing was made and sent to Brattleboro. This tracing (reprinted here as the smaller map) was printed in the VermontPhoenix in the 1890s and later in the Annals of Brattleboro and other books. The original map, with its flowing handwriting and associated text, was left in NewHampshire. The location of the original is unknown today but an exact copy has been found at the Vermont Historical Society, and is used for this publication.

but it appears that several other familes,including children, lived at the fort duringthis early period. For 10-15 years there seemsto have been relative peace near the fort, infact a peace treaty was agreed to at the fortin 1736 between some of the Indians and theProvince of Massachusetts.

By the mid 1740s there were more settlersin the area. The Ashuelot Valley towns suchas Keene and Winchester each had a fewfamiles, as did Putney and Westminster alongthe Connecticut. This decade was difficultfor Fort Dummer and for the nearby settlers.War broke out in 1744 betwen France andEngland and conflicts soon spread to theBrattleboro area. From that time until theend of the decade there were numerousarmed skirmishes, several resulting in deaths.The fort was not attacked, but soldiers fromFort Dummer died on scouting missions, asdid settlers in nearby towns. It was sodangerous that most of the nearbysettlements were abandoned for a few years.

During this period before Vermont wasestablished, the “Equivalent Lands” and FortDummer were in New Hampshire, butmaintenance costs and staffing were paid by

Massachusetts. The Province of New Hampshire - whosenearest population centers were many miles to the east overdifficult routes - did not feel it should pay for a fort whichprotected mostly Massachussets people in the ConnecticutRiver valley. However, King George finally ordered NewHampshire to pay for upkeep and in 1749 New Hampshiresent surveyors out to make a map and gather some other factsabout the fort. A copy of the original 1749 map is reproducedhere, along with a circa 1891 tracing which is a bit easier toread, and which shows the fort’s relationship with the river.This is the only known map of the fort as it was built.* Inaddition to this map, the surveyors provided a writtendescription of some of the fort’s construction details. Thosenotes are included on the CDROM version of this book. Thesite of the fort, now under water, is presumed to have beeneroded away. In 1976, during a temporary lowering of theriver for dam repairs, a limited archeological dig wasconducted on the site. The dig resulted in a number of artifactsand the confirmation that most of the fort site was probablylost to history.

The Equivalent Lands and Fort Dummer

Map 7 1749 The Original 1749 Map of Fort Dummer by Matthew Patten

1749

Map 8 1749 The 1891 Tracing of the Fort Dummer map

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Map 9 December, 1753 The Brattleboro Charter map. This 250 year-old map, partof the New Hampshire Charter, defined the boundaries and named Brattleboro.

3. The 1753 Charter and the First Settlers

Two hundred and fifty years ago, in 1753, the townof Brattleboro was chartered by the Province of NewHampshire. Our next map is a copy of the originalmap from the charter preserved at the NewHampshire Archives. The charter itself is reprintedon page 70 at the end of this book*. In two respectsthis is the original map of Brattleboro: the NewHampshire charter both created the presentboundaries and gave the town its name. Thegrantees- the first landowners - were required to putsome effort into their new land - cultivating land,building a church, etc. The grantees, it was assumed,would either settle on this land themselves, or wouldsell tracts to others who would in turn make therequired improvements. At this time this territory isstill part of New Hampshire, thoughmost of the residents - those living inFort Dummer - are soldiers on theMassachusetts payroll. The map showsFort Dummer on the Connecticut Rivera short distance above Venters Brook.The second map on this page shows theadjoining town of Hinsdale (thenincluding Vernon) where there wassecond fort - Hinsdale’s Garrison -across the river. Venters Brook and Broad Brook (not labelled)are shown. This map is part of the Hinsdale charter map, alsomade in 1753, and was probably drawn by the same personwho drew the Brattleboro map. The Hinsdale fort was areinforced house, not as substantial as Fort Dummer. Therewere other fortified houses on the Brattleboro side of the river,knowns as Bridgeman’s and Sartwell’s Forts. When theBrattleboro charter was issued, there was relative peace on thefrontier, but it would not last. War broke out again betweenFrance and England in 1756, and the Brattleboro area becamevery unsafe. An early settler, Benjamin Moor, who had a rudecabin on present Route 30 near the Retreat farm, was killed byIndians in 1758. His wife and children were taken as captivesto Canada. Settlers in Putney, Westmoreland and Keene werekilled in this same year. The danger limited settlement, and theBrattleboro grantees failed to make the required improvementsunder the 1753 Charter. They asked for and received a secondcharter - an extension - in 1761.

1753

1753

Map 10 September, 1753 The Hinsdale Charter map shows FortDummer and also the smaller “Hinsdells Garrison” across the river.

*The charter has language which describes Brattleboro in a little more detail than the map itself, and we havedrawn an interpretation of what the words actually describe in a small sketch map on page 70.

The 1753 Charter described this land and then stated that it “....is incorporated into a Townshipby the name of Brattleborough...” The entire Charter is transcribed on page 70.

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The next map shows the situation on thenorthwest frontier about 1760. This is an excerptfrom an important early map, the Blanchard &Langdon map of New Hampshire. The map wasprinted at the behest of the Provincial governorand shows the New Hampshire townshipsrecently created. Most of what is now Vermontis uncharted territory except for Brattleboro anda few other towns along the Massachusetts borderand the Connecticut River. On the west bank ofthe river are the new towns of Brattleborough,Guilford, Fulham (Dummerston), Putney,Westminster and Rockingham. These towns wereall chartered by New Hampshire in 1753. On theeast side of the river, charters and new nameswere given to towns which were now to be calledChesterfield, Swanzey and Keene - also about1753. The towns on the west side of the riversoon came to be known as the “New HampshireGrants”. This flurry of activity by NewHampshire was related to a dispute with theProvince of New York, which held a competingclaim to the lands on the west bank of theConnecticut River. The dashed line on the leftside of the map, a projection northward of theNew York / Massachusetts boundary, was thewestern limit of New Hampshire as claimed byGovernor Wentworth. There was still no Vermont.

At this time there were a few settlers in townsalong the river. Brattleboro’s residents weremostly the soldiers at Fort Dummer, some ofwhom had families. A few settlers had startedhomesteads in the towns above Fort Dummerwhich had better farm land. Westmoreland,Walpole, Putney, and Westminster each hadperhaps a half-dozen familes in the mid 1750s.Most of these farms were abandoned by the endof the decade due to the danger. Note the routelabelled “this way Captives have been carried bythe Indians”. Many of the Indian attacks in thisperiod were by Indians from French Canada. TheFrench authorities frequently paid ransoms to theIndians for English hostages, who would then beexchanged for French prisoners held by Britishforces.

Peace came to this area permanently in 1760,when the French city of Montreal was capturedby English forces. Settlers moved intoBrattleboro and the surrounding towns in largenumbers almost immediately after the fall ofMontreal. As noted earlier, Brattleboro’s charter

The 1753 Charter and the First Settlers

was renewed in 1761, with its requirement that the lands be improved.A year later, John Arms and Samuel Wells began their homesteads.John Arms settled on present-day Route 30 near the Brattleboro retreat,where he soon built the first tavern in Brattleboro. Samuel Wells builton a site nearby along the same road. Samuel Wells was the mosteminent of Brattleboro’s early citizens; he was the lead grantee underthe New York grants and became the first judge in Brattleboro.Meanwhile, the New Hampshire / New York dispute boundary disputewas coming to its climax. In 1764, King George III ruled in favor ofNew York and made the Connecticut River’s west bank the newProvince boundary. An interesting footnote to history is that the Kingwas 26 years old when he made this decision which determined today’sVermont / New Hampshire boundary line. The King’s ruling was notvery precise however, and the boundary was in dispute in the 20thcentury. A United States Supreme Court decision in 1936 was necessaryto make certain this ancient boundary.

1757-1761

Map 11 Southern Vermont 1757-1761, when it was part of New Hampshire. All thetowns shown here were granted by Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire. Hegave his own name to the first town he created, Bennington, which was on the westernedge of the lands he claimed for New Hampshire.

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After the King ruled in 1764 that Brattleboro and therest of New Hampshire Grants were to be part of NewYork Province, land titles were clouded. To make morecertain their land rights, the landowners asked the Gov-ernor of New York to give them a new title to Brattleboro.Their 1765 petition stated that “...there is a tract of landNow Lying in Said Province of New York by ye Name ofBrattleborough...” A year later, this survey plan ofBrattleboro was issued by Alexander Colden, the Sur-veyor General of the Province of New York. Colden’smap was accompanied by text whch stated “I Have Sur-veyed and laid out by Samuel Taylor for Samuel Wellsand twenty other persons...land..in the County ofCumberland within the Province of New York...knownby the name of Brattleborough”. Colden is telling usthat he measured and divided this land for the twentyone men who owned it all under the prior New Hamp-shire land grant. (Samuel Taylor - the first name men-

4. Early Land Divisions - The New York Period

tioned - may have been the actual land surveyor, as Coldenprobably did not visit Brattleboro). This map is more precisethan the 1753 New Hampshire Charter map. Here we haveboth compass bearings and distances, and the text states thatthe total area is 19,500 acres. Most noticeable, this map sub-divides a large part of Brattleboro. The large rectangular gridin the southwest quadrant consists of 5,400 acres dividedinto 70 lots. It is not clear whether this is the original subdi-vision of that 5,400 acre tract, for a later map, the Wheelermap on page 14, indicates that there may have been a priorNew Hampshire subdivision. Unfortunately, Brattleboro’searly land records are missing. The map also depicts three350 acre lots in the northwest corner reserved for religiouspurposes and a 100 acre school lot. These latter parcels werenot the property of Wells and his associates. They were setaside by the Province to encourage the establishment of thelocal church and school.

1766Map 12 1766 The New York Survey - made to “confirm” the land titles in Brattleboro after theKing ruled that the Connecticut River was the New York / New Hampshire boundary

* a facsimile of the entire document with text is available on the CDROM version

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This next map, undated, appears to depict conditions circa1770. The map was found at the Massachusetts Archives,which suggests that it may have been drawn to help thatProvince deal with the problems caused by the new colonialboundary. A note in the left margin of the map states that thetowns north of the line were previously in New Hampshirebut are now in the jurisdiction of New York. Note that Vernonis called “Part of Hinsdale”. That is because the Town ofHinsdale was on both banks of the river before the river wasmade the boundary, and was thus left in an odd situation.The King’s boundary decision divided that town in two, butdid not specify that there should be two separate towns. For

ca. 1770

Early Land Divisions - The New York

a while after the 1764 edict, the citizens of Hinsdalestill lived in one town, but those on the east bank wereresidents of New Hampshire and those on the west bankwere in New York. A prominent feature of this map isFort Dummer, shown as a large square symbol. No otherforts or structural improvements are shown, indicatingthe significance of Fort Dummer in the late colonial pe-riod of American history. The town lines shown here inVermont (then New York) are approximate, and somenames are quite different than modern names. The Townof Draper, for example, is now Wilmington, andCumberland is Whitingham.

The Brattleboro area appeared on a map of “TheProvince of New York” in 1779, made by ClaudeJoseph Sauthier at the direction of the New York’sGovernor Tryon. When this map was published therewas widespread ferment, as many of the residentswere in rebellion against the notion that they had tobe part of New York. This section of the map is no-table for its display of some natural turbulence - the“Mountain which appears to have been a Volcano”.- Wantastiquet Mountain. There are some other his-torical records indicating that gases or sounds mayhave come from the mountain, but no scientific evi-dence exists to support the notion that a volcano wasthere. The Sauthier map also shows what may be anold military road, leading from Fort Dummer west-erly towards Fort Massachusetts (see Map 11).

1779

Map 13 ca. 1770 Towns in New York Province. This map shows the prominence of Fort Dummer at thetime, even though it was no longer being used as a military garrison.

Map 14 ca. 1779 Brattleboro area from a New YorkMap by Sauthier. This map reports that WantastiquetMountain “...appears to have been a Volcano”

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Map 15 Land Divisions 1752-1788 by Judge Hoyt Wheeler in about 1891. Reprinted from Cabot’s Annals of Brattleboro

Our next map is a more detailed depiction of the earliest landgrants. It covers the same area shown on the 1766 New Yorkmap, and adds more information. (The color original is easierto read and available on the CDROM edition). It is not anoriginal map, in the sense that it was not made at the sametime as the conditions it depicts. It is a reconstruction of priorconditions, made by an amateur historian in the late 1800s.This very useful document of Brattleboro’s history was firstprinted in Cabot’s “Annals.” Cabot credits Judge HoytWheeler for making this map, but does not explain muchabout the map. Wheeler would have used old deeds, plansand other documents to compile this map which depicts bothNew Hampshire and New York land grants in the 5,400 acrearea. It is not clear where he got the New Hampshire landgrant information, as there are no known original maps ofthis subdivision. On this map the New Hampshire lots arenumbered 1-14, and the New York lots, slightly smaller, arenumbered 4-14.Wheeler also shows some of the oldest landgrants around Fort Dummer in the southeast corner of town,and further north along the Connecticut River. No roads areshown, but all major streams are depicted. Two of the lots

shown here are taken from the 1753 Charter. DowntownBrattleboro is within the 800 acres shown as “Gov Wentworth”,the tract reserved for the colonial governor of New Hamp-shire. The “Oliver Willard 1752” tract in the lower right cor-ner is the 200 acres specifically described in the Charter - theonly private tract defined in that document. The charter ex-cepts that 200 acre tract “...as the same is now fenced andimproved....” from the rest of the Brattleboro grant becauseWillard had “...heretofore cleared and improved the saidTract....”. This tells us that Oliver Willard, who was one ofthe soldiers at Fort Dummer and one of the twenty-one grant-ees of Brattleboro, may have been the first “settler” inBrattleboro, in the sense that he was growing crops and hadlivestock. It is not known why Wheeler dated these lots 1752when the charter was written a year later. Sketches of theCharter’s land descriptions are printed with the Charter onpage 70.

The original town center was on Meetinghouse Hill alongOrchard Street. On this map it is in the area of the small cem-

1752-1788

15

The small inset map on this page is part of a large New Hampshiremap published in 1784, but based on surveys done about 1774under the direction of Surveyor-General Samuel Holland. The“Holland” map indicates the importance of Colonel Samuel Wells(the only name shown) and names the two islands, perhaps for thefirst time on a map. The upstream island, Spruce Island, must havebeen higher in elevation than Gravel Island, since trees were grow-ing on it. It is interesting also that Fort Dummer is shown, as thefort is supposed to have been abandoned in the early 1760s. Notethat the road in Hinsdale stops south of the islands, at a location alittle bit north of Fort Dummer. This suggests that early river cross-ings were made near Fort Dummer and not at the islands. Theycertainly were in the late 1700s, as in 1786 a ferry license wasissued to a James Hubbard. Hubbard’s application described theferry site as “...the place where Fort Dummer formerly stood...”The road shown here from Fort Dummer to Colonel Well’s houseon the West River may be the oldest road in Brattleboro.

Early Land Divisions - The New York

ca. 1774

Map 17 The Old Town Center on Meetinghouse Hill byReverend Lewis Grout

ca. 1774

1774

etery symbol at the northeast corner of the5,400 acre grid. The cemetery is just above along horizontal line, sometimes refered to as“the center line of the town” in old documents.The town center was depicted in more detailon another latter-day map, taken from a pam-phlet authored by Reverend Lewis Grout in1894. Grout was an historian who researchedand wrote about Brattleboro’s early history.Today it is the site of Meetinghouse Hill Cem-etery. The meetinghouse was a sort of churchand town hall in the 1700s. Here religious ser-vices were held regularly, and public affairswere attended to at town meetings. The diago-nal road on the right side of the map is Or-chard Street, which currently (2003) extendsstraight through what is shown here as the Com-mon, slightly to the right of the Major Arm’sgrave site (item 3). The three other roads nolonger exist. Note the “Centre line of town”line, which corresponds with the long horizon-tal line on the Wheeler map. This line runsthrough the middle of Meetinghouse Hill Cem-etery. For more information on old lot lines inBrattleboro, refer to the modern map on page74.

Map 16 Part of the “Holland” map of NewHampshire.

16

5. Early Roads and VillagesThe earliest maps of Brattleboro, seen in the previouspages, showed no roads although some were built in thelate 1700s. A 1796 state map, the noted Whitelaw Mapof Vermont, may be the earliest “road” map of Brattleboro.Here we see six major roads in Brattleboro, and twopopulation centers. In the center of the map is the townmeeting house in West Brattleboro. The old town centeron Meetinghouse Hill was abandoned when this newmeeting house was built in 1785. It stood on WesternAvenue very close to the present site of the FirstCongregational Church. True to the New Englandtradition, the meetinghouse was near the geographicalcenter of town, so that no one had to travel too far forreligious services or to attend to town affairs. To thewest, on Ames Hill Road, labelled “Nashs”, is the millof Aaron Nash, built about 1770. To the right, at theoutlet of Whetstone Brook is the small mill village whichlater developed into downtown Brattleboro. SamuelDickinson had a sawmill here near the outlet ofWhetstone Brook. This mill was probably on the samesite as the grist mill supposed tohave built here in 1762. Furthernorth is the location of the ArmsTavern, though this map seems toshow it incorrectly on today’sPutney Road. The Arms tavernactually stood on Route 30, on thewest side of the West River, at thesite of the farm buildings knownas the Retreat Farm. Above“Nashs” we see the home and millof Seth Smith, a notable earlycitizen. Smith was a prominent“Yorker” in the 1770s, a supporterof New York’s status quo authoritywhen upstarts like the GreenMountain Boys wanted separationfrom New York. Smith’s housewas built in 1768 and still standstoday. It is interesting thatWhitelaw’s map shows Smith’smill site, but no road leading to it,perhaps an indication that no goodroad yet led to that location.

The Whitelaw map was reissued14 years later, in 1810. Thisexcerpt is chosen to showBrattleboro and the surroundingtowns. A similar view in 1821 isre-printed in color on the backcover of this book. The Whitelaw

Map 19 1810 Brattleboro in 1810 - from the Second Whitelaw Map of Vermont

1810

Map 18 1796 Brattleboro’s First Road Map - from the WhitelawMap of Vermont

1796

17

The Surveyor-General’s records at the Vermont StateArchives contain this hand-drawn map (Map 21), whichis the earliest known map of downtown Brattleboro. It ispart of a letter written to James Whitelaw by Brattleboro’sSamuel Elliott. He sent the letter and map to Surveyor-General Whitelaw to help him with the new edition of thestate map. Elliot’s letter reports that “...there is a newroad in this village...to the new toll bridge...” over theConnecticut River. The new road was Bridge Street,leading to the bridge across the river built in 1804. Elliottells Whitelaw of the importance of this new street “...asit is connected with the Bridge and Turnpike in NewHampshire and Mass...” The turnpike - a privately builttoll road - was a major improvement in Brattleboro’saccess to the Boston area. Turnpikes were designed asthrough roads with more direct routes than most localroadways, and they tended to be better maintained thantown roads. Elliot’s letter mentions one other turnpike

maps (there are several) provide a series of snapshots of the growthof Vermont. By 1810 Brattleboro had regular mail delivery asindicated by the “P” symbol near the Meetinghouse. A few newroads are shown, notably the Windham Turnpike (double lines)which extended from Brattleboro to Marlboro and towns to the west.The 1821 Whitelaw map (below and on back cover) is notable forits depiction of the enlarged downtown Brattleboro area and theCongregational Church on the Town Common. A few more roadsare shown, such as Upper Dummerston Road (middle top) and SunsetLake Road (top left).

Early Roads and Villages

Map 20 1821 Brattleboro in 1821 - from the Third Whitelaw Map of Vermont

1821

not shown on this map “...the new Turnpike from ourMeeting House...has been made....” This refers tothe Windham Turnpike which connected WestBrattleboro to Marlboro and other towns to the west.Other roads shown on this map are South Main Streetbearing southeast, Main Street (“Village Road”), HighStreet (“Road to Meetg. H.”) and Linden Street andPutney Road (“River Road”). Two prominentbusinesses are shown: the Tavern on Main Street andthe Dickinson & Holbrook Mills on Whetstone Brook.The Tavern was Samuel Dickinson’s tavern, built in1795 on the site of the present Brooks House. The“Holbrook” was Deacon John Holbrook, one of thegiants of Brattleboro’s early years. Holbrook was asurveyor and printer who also had a warehouse at thesite of today’s American building, and a wharf on theriver near these mills. Not shown on this sketch mapis the old road to the river, Arch Street.

1810

Map 21 1810 Samuel Elliott’s Sketch of Brattleboro. He wasinforming Vermont’s Surveyor General that Bridge Street (“new road”)was now completed to the new bridge to Hinsdale.

18

By the third decade of the new centuryBrattleboro was growing rapidly, aswere the surrounding towns. TheConnecticut River - the main“highway” of those days - was used fortrade with distant cities. A canal builtaround the large waterfalls at TurnersFalls, Massachusetts allowedfreightboats to travel from Brattleboroto the sea. Another canal at BellowsFalls improved upriver commerce aswell. Freight and passengers travelledon man-powered barges known asflatboats which were poled, paddledand sometimes pulled. Steamboats pliedthese waters as well, though they werenot numerous. The travel upstreamagainst the current was difficult inBrattleboro and at other locations, andplans were made to build a canal all theway to northern Vermont. The largemap is a detail from a multi-page mapmade by the United States Army Corpsof Engineers in 1830, for the purposeof designing a canal route. North is tothe left. The single dark line on the NewHampshire side of the river is theproposed canal route. The map is usefulto us because it depicts buildings inBrattleboro at an early time, and givesus some place names as well. Note thatWantastiquet Mountain has its oldname, West River Mountain, and thatthe two large islands in the river arenamed. Chapin’s Island was named forOliver Chapin, a prominent Brattleboromerchant. Chapin was a prime investorin the Brattleboro Bridge Companywhich built the bridge to Hinsdale, NewHampshire across the island. Thebridge was a toll bridge for much of the19th century. The canal - which wasnever built - was to improve rivercommerce. Flat boats travelled to andfrom Brattleboro, but they could onlytravel at certain times of the year duesuch impediments as ice flows, lowwater, and fast water such as that shownbetween the islands on this map. “TheTunnel” was a narrow channel betweenthe two islands through which the entireriver was flowing when this map wasmade. The last few hundred feet of the

water route to Brattleboro must have been very difficult in 1830. Note theshaded area on the far side of Chapin’s Island. That was probably an areaof low ground which would flood during high water. That section of theriver was sometimes called the “Little River”. The several buildings shownon this map are the larger private houses and businesses in Brattleboro. Atthe north end of the Common we see the site of the old CentreCongregational Church.. The church stood on this site until 1842 when itwas taken apart and rebuilt on the present site on Main Street. The mapalso shows the outlines of cultivation in the fields south of the village andon the Hinsdale side of the River.

The islands feature prominently in Brattleboro’s history, although they wereactually in the state of New Hampshire, and don’t appear on all of theBrattleboro maps. The McClellan (1856) and Beers (1869) maps, for ex-

1830

Map 22 1830 Proposed Canal Past Brattleboro. The US Army Corps of Enginnerssurveyed several sections of the Connecticut River where they thought canals could bebuilt to ease river commerce. One of the sections went past Brattleboro.

19Early Roads and Villages

ample, do not show landowner names on the islands. The fivesmall maps are portions of maps of Hinsdale, New Hampshirewhich do show the islands. The 1806 map is a manuscript map ofHinsdale from the New Hampshire Archives; the other four allfrom published Cheshire County maps and atlases. The top map,1806, shows the newly built bridge (built in 1804) and a portionof the 6th New Hampshire Turnpike (now Route 119). The “5miles” refers to a turnpike mile-marker at that spot. Themapmakers weren’t always careful: the 1906 map shows thebridge passing between the two islands as though it were a waterpassage.

Map 23 1806 The Bridge, The Islandsand the Turnpike through Hinsdale, NH

1806

1906 Map 27 Map of Cheshire County, NH

Canal Route

Map 26 Atlas of the State of New Hampshire

Map 25 Atlas of Cheshire County, NH Map 24 Map of Cheshire County, NH

1858

1877

1892

20

1849

Detail of DowntownBrattleboro from Map 28

This next map, dated 1849, is an unusual document, bothfor its age and purpose. The original is a small map,about the same size as it is reprinted on the facing page.On this page is an enlarged section of downtownBrattleboro. The map was issued inside a small bookletpromoting the Wesselhoeft water cure business. In themid to late 1800s Brattleboro became well known fortwo clinics which offered to cure a number of ailmentswith treatments including baths, massages, and exercise.

The “Brattleboro Hydropathic Establishment” opened in1845, and three years later issued its “Second Report” de-scribing its successes in treating 392 people in the previousyear. The booklet was more of a sales device that a schol-arly treatise. In addition to the enumeration of treatments,the booklet advocated the benefits of the fresh air, exerciseand the pleasant environment of the Brattleboro area, andincluded this map “of the walks in the vicinity”. Readers areassured that “...the variety of scenery ...is indeed remark-

able...” and that this area was there-fore “...peculiarly fitted for the pur-poses of the Water Cure..”

Here we see all the roads in down-town Brattleboro for the first timeon a map. The enlarged detail showsthe area from the Town Commonsouth to the Prospect HillCemetery.The dashed lines are wa-terways; the heavy lines roads, andthe small blocks are buildings. Onthe right side, just below the bridgeto Hinsdale, is the north end of therailroad (the darker double line), butno railroad station. The tracks fromthe south had been completed in late1848, and a formal opening of therailroad (the Vermont & Massachu-setts Railroad) took place on Feb-ruary 20, 1849. The railroad beganregular operations in 1851. Thegroup of four houses shown justwest of the rail line was known asthe “The Patch”. In the 1840s Irishlaborers lived in these buildingswhile they worked on the railroad.

Our map shows all five ofBrattleboro’s churches (as smallcrosses): the Methodist Church onSchool Street, the Baptist Church onChurch Street, the Unitarian andCentre Congregational Churches onMain Street, and the UniversalistChurch on Canal Street. All thesechurches and many other featuresare seen more clearly on the 1852Presdee & Edwards map which fol-lows on page 24. The large lettersrefer to sites of interest to the pa-

21

tients of the Wesselhoeft watercure facility, which was located atthe “E”, at the corner of Churchand Elliot Streets. It is presentlythe site of the fire station.

Two hiking trails are labelledalong the valley of WhetstoneBrook: the Gardner Path alongCanal Street, and the AqueductPath which extended from theUnion Street / Elliot Street areawestwardly along the north bankof the brook above WilliamsStreet, out to the Centreville area.There is an unnamed trail leadingfrom Canal Street near the churchsymbol to Prospect Hill Cemeteryon South Main Street. This trailseems to follow the general routeof Washington Street. The“Wesselhoeft” map extends be-yond downtown Brattleboro toGuilford Center on the south, andUpper Dummerston road on thenorth. At the northwest corner ofthe map (note that the map is ori-ented with west at the top) is theold Meetinghouse Hill Cemeteryon Orchard Street. The top centerof the map (west) shows the West-ern Avenue / Guilford Street inter-section and the Centreville area.The bridge over Whetstone brookis the bridge now called the“Creamery” covered bridge.

Early Roads and Villages

1849Map 28 1849 [Wesselhoeft] Brattleboro and Vicinity

22

6. Introduction to Land Ownership Maps and Bird’s Eye ViewsMost readers will find great interest in this next series of maps and views – detailed maps which show the actual sites ofhouses and buildings - many with the owners’ names. There are four separate detailed maps of the “downtown” sectionof Brattleboro – 1852, 1856, 1869 and 1895 and three of the entire town and of West Brattleboro Village: 1856, 1869and 1895. Brattleboro is fortunate to have five detailed “bird’s eye” views as well. Three are reprinted here. For thereader’s convenience, maps of the same area are grouped together – first, the “downtown” maps and the bird’s eyeviews. Due to the large size of the originals, some of these maps are cropped, and the largest maps are not completelyreprinted here. *

The oldest is the 1852 Presdee and Edwards map. The original is a wall map,measuring about 2’ x 3’. The map is reprinted here on 6 pages, except for thedecorative margins (the CD-ROM edition has the entire map). This map is ofgreat historical value because it is the first map to show buildings and owner’snames in Brattleboro village. In some areas even property outlines are shown.

The 1856 maps of Brattleboro– one ofdowntown (page 30) and one of the wholetown (page 55) – are from the large wallmap entitled “McClellan’s Map of WindhamCounty, Vermont”. The original map isabout five feet square, and shows thousandsof names in all of Windham County.

The 1852 and 1856 maps were publishedby commercial mapmakers from majorAmerican cities, unlike the earlier maps inthis volume. This was a widely popular

business in the mid 19th century, and we are fortu-nate that these businessmen found Brattleboro afitting subject for their mapmakers craft. Wall mapsproved a bit cumbersome however – they were largeand expensive to print – and not so easy to use. Socommercial mapmakers turned toatlases like the 1869 F.W. BeersAtlas of Windham County. This at-las provides four maps: a townmap, and maps of downtown,West Brattleboro and Centreville.

An unusual map of “Brattleboroand Vicinty” was produced about1860 by Dr. Charles W. Grau, aphysician associated with theWesselhoeft establishment.

Grau’s map showed all the roads, but not homeowners’ names, inBrattleboro and portions of each adjoining town. Grau died in 1861,but his map lived on - there are at least 3 versions. The original mapmeasured 22” x 27”, and copies are extant at reduced size. A re-duced copy was issued as a fold-out map in a small booklet, similarto a modern road map. One of the later versions is distinguished bythe depiction of the West River Railroad which was built in 1880.The map showed interesting features like Chase’s Cascade, a smallwaterfall, and the nearby hiking trails on Wantastiquet Mountain.

1852 Presdee & Edwards

1869 Atlas of WindhamCounty by F.W. Beers

circa 1860 Brattleboro & Vicinity by C.W. Grau

1856 McClellan’s Map of WindhamCounty

* Complete copies of the maps, including decorative borders, are available on the CDROM version of this book.

23

Brattleboro was also the subject of several panoramic viewspublished in the 1800s. These attractive lithographs were drawnas if the author were suspended in the air above Brattleboro -hence the common name “bird’s eye view”. In fact the artists

almost certainly used Mt. Wantastiquet as their view point,although their technique did not require such a location. Thefirst view is the 1856 print by John Batchelder. Views in the mid1850s were relatively uncommon in the United States - only thelarger cities and towns could support such an effort. Little is knownabout the author, but there are other examples of his work extant,including an 1863 bird’s eye view of the Gettysburg Battlefield.The publisher, J.H. Bufford of Boston, also issued a number oflithographs of US Navy ships during the Civil War.

The next view was published by Howard H. Bailey and J.C.Hazen. This partnership was responsible for several other cityviews including Nashua and Manchester, New Hampshire in1875 and 1876 and Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1877. Bailey’s

The D.L. Miller company of Philadelphia produced a large wallmap, measuring about 4’ x 5’, in 1895. This is an extraordinarilydetailed map of Brattleboro. The details include homeownernames, street addresses, property outlines, and the actual shapesof buildings. The entire town was mapped; most of the map is ofdowntown Brattleboro and West Brattleboro.

1895 Brattleboro by D.L. Miller

1877 Brattleboro by Bailey & Hazen

1856 Batchelder View of Brattleboro

1886 View by Lucien Burleigh

brother Oakley is the author of the 1877 view ofGreenfield, Massachusetts. Brattleboro was aconvenient subject as these entrepreneurs passedthrough New England.

A decade later the last panoramic map of Brattleboroappeared - the Burleigh view. Lucien Burleigh was aprolific publisher of these lithographs. Shortly beforethis view appeared, he had completed his view ofHinsdale, New Hampshire, and in 1886 he also issueda view of Bellows Falls, Vermont.

24

Map 29 1852 Presdee & Edwards - top section

We begin with the maps of the developed, “downtown”section of Brattleboro and of West Brattleboro. The mapsof the entire town follow beginning on page 54. Modernmaps are provided on pages 74-75 to help with interpre-tation.The 1852 Presdee & Edwards map is the first accu-rate, detailed map we have of Brattleboro. Most of themap is printed here on three separate pages (omited is thedecorative border; the entire map is available on theCDROM edition). While it only covers the central vil-

lage, it does so with extraordinary detail. The map showslandowner names, the outlines of their property, and eventhe shapes of the buildings. The first railroad, completeda year earlier, is seen coursing along the river. The larg-est building in Brattleboro was the Brattleboro Retreat,then known as the Asylum. The Retreat’s prominence isunderscored by the fact that a pictorial view of the build-ings was included in the top margin of the map. An inter-esting feature of this map is the list of Subscribers Names.

7. Land Ownership Maps & Bird’s Eye Views – Downtown

map continued on next page

25Land Ownership Maps & Bird’s Eye Views – Downtown

The publishers sold copies of this map before publicationand honored the subscribers by including their names andsome occupations in the margins of the map.Most of the street names are the same as those we havetoday, but a few are different. Keyes Lane in the upper rightis now North Street. The undeveloped street just north ofKeyes is now Bradley Avenue. It is interesting that theBradley estate was contemplated for development in 1852 (it is gridded into houselots), but that four decades later it

was still undeveloped as the 1895 map shows us (page 43).The “R. Tyler” listed on several vacant lots is Charles RoyallTyler, son of the noted playright and Vermont Supreme CourtJustice. His house is shown on Main Street next to the word“Main” on this map. The unnamed north-south street on theright side is now Tyler Street. The younger Tyler, who becamea judge as well, later built a house for himself overlookingthe river at the end of Terrace Street (the unnamed east-weststreet).

1852

26

This middle section of the 1852 map shows the MainStreet area at a time of great changes in Brattleboro.The railroad, just completed, was now a through route,and gave Brattleboro high-speed access to cities to thenorth and south. Business and private travelers neededplaces to stay, and this map shows several hotels: theCentral House, the Revere House and the AmericanHouse (here labelled “Hotel”). The “J. Fisk” by theRevere House was its owner, James Fisk Sr., father ofthe notorious “Jubilee Jim” Fisk who, after he leftBrattleboro, went on to fame and fortune as one of the19th century robber barons. Fisk was murdered in 1872in New York City and his remains were brought to thisbuilding to lie in state before his funeral. The serviceswere held in the Baptist Church which by that timewas on Main Street in its present location (on this mapthe church is still on Church Street). Fisk’s gravesite is

marked by an ornate monument in the Prospect Hill Cemeteryon South Main Street.

The Wesselhoeft water cure establishment (“Dr. Wesselhoff”)had many patients at its Elliot Street clinic in 1852.

Note the lands just north of the High Street/Main Street inter-section, and compare this area with the 1856, 1869 and 1895maps which follow. In the next several years the Town Hall andtwo churches will appear on the maps.

The Center School at the top of this section of the map is theschool built about 1833 to serve all grades. This old school wasreplaced on this site by a newer and much larger building in1878, which was Brattleboro High school for many years, and isnow the Municipal Center.

Map 29 1852 Presdee & Edwards - middle section

continued on previous page


Enlarged detail of Main Street, from Elliott Street to High Street. The railroad had just come to Brattleboro when this mapwas made. Hotels, such as the Revere House, were built to provide lodging for travelers. The Revere House was owned byJames Fisk, whose son, also named James, moved to New York City, and became one of the noted “robber barons” of thenineteenth century.

1852map continued on next page

28

Enlarged detail of mill sites on Whetstone Brook. The pond was a mill pond providing water power for the Woodcock & Vinton Paper Mill, whichoperated at this site from 1847-1930. The mill pond is now a parking lot. The outlet of Whetstone Brook is not visible, as it passed beneath anotherwater-powered mill complex, the Hines, Newman & Hunt Machine shop.



1852Map 29 1852 Presdee & Edwards - bottom section

On the south side of Canal Street is the home of JacobEstey, the owner of the Estey Organ Factory. The openhillside to the southeast of his house is now filled withhouses in what is now the Prospect Street / WashingtonStreet area. The enlarged inset map to the left shows thearea around the outlet of Whetstone Brook. The streetlabelled “Mill Street”, near Whetstone Brook is now calledArch Street. As noted earlier this is one of the oldestroads in Brattleboro, for it was the connector between theriver and Main Street. At the river’s edge in the earliestdays, there were wharfs to load and unload barges. The“Hotel” site was previously used for a freight warehouse.

“Hines, Newman & Hunt” were operating a machine shop andsteam-powered flour mill according to the Subscribers Names.The outlet of Whetstone Brook is not visible because the streamran beneath the machine shop. The Riverview Restaurant nowoccupies part of this old manufacturing site. Steam-poweredmotors were beginning to replace water-powered facilities bythe mid 1800s. The large pond on the left side was a mill pondmade to power the Woodcock & Vinton paper mill. This millstarted a few years before this map was made, and continueduntil the 1930s. The pond is now a parking lot.

30

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Land Ownership Maps & Bird’s Eye Views – Downtown

1856

Map

30

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32Map 31 1856 The “Batchelder” View of Brattleboro (the CDROM edition contains the complete image)

Enlarged Detail of Downtown Brattleboro

33

The earliest published panorama of Brattleboro is this expansive view of the village from Mt. Wantastiquet, drawn by JohnBatchelder. In the downtown inset at left, we see the Lawrence Water Cure, (large building at top) near the WesselhoeftWater Cure Establishment and the Baptist Church (top center) The large mill building on the left edge of this view is theEstey Organ Factory at its old site. The inset to the right shows houses on Terrace Street (left foreground) and the BrattleboroRetreat. Note the octagon house on Terrace Street, the home of Riley Burdett.


1856

Enlarged Detail: Brattleboro Retreat

34

By 1869 much had changed inBrattleboro. The effect of the railroadwith its easy access to distant marketsled to the establishment of many morebusinesses, and the population grew andchanged. The Beers atlas provides uswith these maps and the matching townmap on pages 58-9, and the WestBrattleboro map on page 51.The villageof Centreville with its mill sites and clus-ter of houses, was mapped as a separateinset on the Beers map. In 1869 St.Michael’s Catholic Church was built on

Walnut Street (“R.C. Church”). The Baptist Church is shown at its modern lo-cation on the west side of Main Street; it was being built when the Beers atlaswas published. Across the street was the site of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church,built there in 1858. This building was moved to its current home on PutneyRoad in 1953. There are several new streets with houses not seen on the previ-ous map, among them Oak, Grove, North and Tyler Streets. The Grove Streetshown here is now called Forest Street; today’s Grove Street (not shown here)connects Oak & Main Streets, as seen on the 1895 map on page 45.

Map 32 1869 Centreville from Beers Atlas


1869Map 33 1869 Beers Atlas of Windham County - top section continued on next page

On the left side of the map is a new development offWestern Avenue. Forest Square on this map is nowMyrtle Street, and the two unnamed streets are the be-ginnings of Spruce Street and Cedar Street, which wasnot to go through to Linden Street until almost 1895(see the 1895 map, page 43).

This is the last map to show Main Street before thebig fire of 1869. In that year an entire block of down-town Brattleboro burned, destroying all of the build-ings on Main Street between Elliot Street and HighStreet including the Brattleboro House.

36

The growth in Brattleboro since the1856 map is striking in some places.Prospect Street, Washington Streetand Pine Street have now been laidout, connecting Canal Street withSouth Main Street. Dozens of newhouses are now on the map in thisarea. But the Estey Organ factory hasyet to move to Birge Street. Estey’soperations were still, in 1869, beingconducted in mill buildings nearer tothe village center. There are severalempty lots on Birge Street (top left)which will be the future site of theEstey Organ Company (see the 1895map on page 44). Near the middle ofthis map the property of “G.C. Hall”is now the site of Brattleboro Memo-rial Hospital.

The Beers atlas provided a BusinessDirectory. The availability of such alisting was part of the sales appeal ofthe atlas, especially to the entrepre-

neurs whose names were listed nextto their businesses. In fact, these list-ings were probably paid listings, justas are the telephone “yellow pages”listings of the present day. Note thata few private residences are listedunder “Miscellaneous” without anyassociated business. These people areprobably subscribers to the atlas whopaid a little extra to have their namesprinted here.

Map 33 1869 Beers Atlas of Windham County - bottom section

Detail of the Canal Street / Clark Street area



1869

38Map 34 1876 Brattleboro by Bailey & Hazen

39

The 1876 bird’s eye view, from an almostvertical perspective, shows more detail thanthe earlier view. Most streets are named,and buildings are shown in considerabledetail. The diagonal road leading off the

map’s horizon to the left is Canal Street.In the upper left corner is the large houseof Governor Levi Fuller, now the site ofthe Eden Park Nursing Home. At the topcenter we see the new factory buildings ofthe Estey Organ Company. Those eightbuildings were built close for efficiency,but separate for fire safety. Also newly builtin 1876 were the Brooks House and theCrosby Block on the west side of MainStreet. This view extends only a shortdistance out Western Avenue, soCentreville and West Brattleboro are notshown. On the right (north) side of the viewis the Brattleboro Retreat, with two newwings added since the 1869 map. This viewshows us three covered bridges, the largestbeing on the road to the island. This is thesame bridge as seen on the other views. Therailroad bridge over Whetstone Brookappears to be smaller than it was on the1856 view, but this may be a result ofartistry rather than fact. There is now astone arch bridge here. Note also the smallcovered bridge on Elm Street overWhetstone Brook.


Detail of Main Street at High Street. The Brooks House is on the left;the old Town Hall is in the foreground labelled “E” 1876

40

The 1886 view, the last of the 19th century views ofBrattleboro, shows a much more developed town. In the up-per left we see the Creamery covered bridge and Guilford Streetextension leading south (left) and Western Avenue extendingoff to the west. The Creamery Bridge was built in 1879, and isin regular use today. The bridge was named for the BrattleboroCreamery which was on the south side of the bridge - see thelower right corner of the 1895 map on page 53. Orchard Streetextends northerly from Western Avenue through open fields.The Centreville settlement at the beginning of Orchard Streethad a large mill building in 1886 - the Bickford Knitting Ma-chine company. On the bottom left of the view is South MainStreet, and the Prospect Hill Cemetery. Note the busy rail-road facilities along the river. The large building near the bot-tom of the view is the freight house, where merchandise wasstored for shipment and delivery. The covered bridge over the

railroad is gone, replaced by a stone arch bridge built in1878 which is barely visible in this view. There is a promi-nent new railroad feature: the turntable along the river be-low Walnut Street. The building at the end of the coveredbridge on the island is the toll house, where fees were col-lected for the use of the bridge. A private company ownedand operated the bridge at this location until 1888. The bridgeitself lasted fifteen more years; it was dynamited in 1903 tomake way for a more modern structure.

The detail to the right shows the remarkable detail of theBurleigh view. Prominent in this excerpt are the CrosbyBlock and Brooks House on Main Street, and the 5-storyCarpenter Organ Factory on Flat Street, near the site of therecently built (2003) parking facility.

Map 35 1886 Brattleboro by Lucien Burleigh


1886

Enlarged detail of Downtown Brattleboro in 1886

42

Our next map, the D.L. Miller map,is the largest of the old maps ofBrattleboro; the original mapmeasures about 42” x 60”. It isreproduced here on several separatepages. There are three separate mapsections: downtown Brattleboro,West Brattleboro, and the entire town.The downtown section occupies mostof the map - it is reprinted here in foursections (A,B,C & D) on the nexteight pages. The West Brattleboroportion (E) is printed with other mapsof that village on page 53. The Townmap is on page 63. A small Key Mapis added to help the reader withlocation.*

The map reveals many changes fromthe prior 1869 Beers map. TheBrattleboro Retreat has been given itsmodern name, as has Linden Street.The Retreat Tower (“Tower”) wascompleted in 1893 - just two yearsbefore this map. The large open areaon the right side of the map is theRetreat Meadows, then open pasturelands, which are now under thebackwater from the Vernon Dam,which flooded this area beginning in1909. The Chestnut Hill Reservoir,completed in 1884, served a numberof houses in Brattleboro. This was aprivate water system owned byGeorge Crowell, who lived in apalatial residence called Lindenhurst,seen on the next page, at the cornerof High and Green Streets. (Thehouse site is now Town property -Crowell Park.) A water system was abig improvement over private wells,and the mapmakers showed waterlines and pipe sizes (“4 inch”). Thebuilding next to the reservoir issometimes referred to as the “FreshAir House” - where children from thecities could come for some relaxation.It burned in 1913 .

In 1895 the high school was at thecorner of Main Street and Linden

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Map 36 1895 D.L. Miller Map

*A reduced image of the whole map isprinted on page 23. Readers who have theCDROM version may wish to print out apage-sized copy of the entire map to makeit easier to follow these excerpts.

43

1895

Land Ownership Maps & Bird’s Eye Views – Downtowncontinued on next page

Key Map

A

44

Street. The school was built in 1884and still stands today as the Munici-pal Center. The interior is remodeled,except for the Brattleboro HistoricalSociety’s room on the third floor,which still has some of the oldschool’s features. The old town li-brary was located a few buildingssouth, where the Post Offfice park-ing lot is now. 1895 was the year thetrolley cars came to Brattleboro. Thestreet railway routes are shown by thedark patterns in major streets. Greatcontroversy surrounded the establish-ment of this modern transportationsystem. Those who objected, includ-ing Rudyard Kipling, who livednearby in Dummerston, protestedloudly, and even resorted to a courtinjunction to stop the railway. Theirefforts failed, and by December of1895 the trolley lines were carryingabout 2,500 passengers a day. Thestreet railway lasted until 1923, whenthe tracks were removed to make wayfor automobile traffic.

In 1895, when this map was issued,the Estey Organ plant was in fullopertation at its site on Birge Streetwhere the buildings still stand today.Organs and melodeons were madehere for shipment all over the world.At its peak, 600-700 people workedfor the Estey company. Several otherfacilities were owned by Estey, suchas the sawmill on Williams Street (seepage 48).

Some entries on these old maps raisequestions. What was the “GermanCarp Pond” just below Birge Street.Was there a fish farming businesshere? That pond is now filled in. Formany years it was an ice pond usedby the Crystal Ice & Fuel company.

The Miller map provides a nice recordof the island in the Connecticut River.This is before the island came in torecreational use as “Island Park” withballfields, grandstands and otherpublic features.

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45

1895


B

Key Map

46

The unnamed road in the lower leftis now Fairground road - named forthe agricultural fairgrounds whichstood on the present site ofBrattleboro Union High School. The“Lily Pond” is probably the samepond shown as “Turtle Pond” on the1860 Grau map which follows onpage 57.

Brattleboro was home to a VermontGovernor, Levi Fuller, who servedfrom 1892 to 1896. Fuller lived in alarge house at the corner of CanalStreet and Pine Street, where EdenPark Nursing home is now located.In 1895 Fullers’ “Pine Heights” wasone of the most magnificent estatesin Brattleboro. Governor Fuller wasborn in Brattleboro, and was associ-ated with the Estey Organ Factoryduring his working years. By the1890s, several other Brattleboro resi-dents were able to afford commodi-ous houses, and some are seen on thismap labelled with their familiarnames like “Chestnut Lawn” and“The Hemlocks”. Interestingly, hem-locks are still standing on the site ofthe latter home on Canal Street, nowused by Brattleboro Memorial Hos-pital. The first hospital was built herein 1903.

The open areas on the 1895 map arenow filled with roads and houses.Oak Grove Avenue and Clark Avenuenow pass between Canal Street andMain Street, and Fairground Road isnow a through road.

The Miller map features a“Brattleboro Patrons Directory,which is printed on the WestBrattleboro map on page 53.

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Legend from 1895 Miller map

47

1895


CKey Map

48

On the left edge of this portion ofthe Miller map is the CreameryBridge over Whetstone Brook, acovered bridge even then.“Centreville” village (not labelledas such on this map) is the areaaround the next intersection to theeast, where Williams Street (herecalled Brook Road) meets West-ern Avenue. Note the two milldams close to each other servingseparate facilities. TheCentreville School on the northside of Western Avenue is now thePhoenix House. Highway Inter-state 91 currently slices throughthis map, just to the right ofBrattle Street, and to its east aretwo “new” streets, Allerton Streetand Greenhill Parkway. TheGreen Hill Farm of D.S. Pratt hasa much older history than eventhese old maps. This was the sitewhere in 1861 a wooly mammothtusk was found buried. The tusk- about three feet long- is pre-served today in a case at theBrooks Library.

Several of Brattleboro’s neighbor-hoods have common names,among them are Esteyville andSwedeville. The 1895 map pro-vides clues as to the origins ofthese names. In the lower rightcorner of this page (and page 44)is the Esteyville neighborhood(Chestnut Street, Pleasant Streetetc.) next to the Estey Organ factory. The area some-times called Swedeville, on the north side of Whet-stone Brook near West Street, was home to a num-ber of Swedish-Americans in the late 1800s. Notethe two churches a short distance from each other:the Swedish Church and the Lutheran SwedishChurch. The latter was taken down in 1948 andreplaced by the present Trinity Lutheran Church onWestern Avenue. The “Swedish Church” is nolonger a church, but the building stills stands todayas a stained-glass studio. A newer road, Strand Av-enue, now connects West Street with Western Av-enue. The L.D. Thayer farm (bottom right) is nowthe site of the Austine School.

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D

Key Map

50

1856

8. Land Ownership maps - West Brattleboro

The 1856 map, from the McClellan wall map, is the old-est detailed map of West Brattleboro. It shows the areaalong Western Avenue, then called Main Street, fromGreenleaf Street (top) south to just above the WhetstoneBrook bridge. Bonnyvale Road and South Street (herecalled High Street) bear off to the west. Of special noteon this map is the Hayes tavern site at the top of the map,labelled with the name of R. Hayes. This was the housebuilt by Rutherford Hayes, a blacksmith, in the 1790s.One of Hayes’ grandchildren, Rutherford B. Hayes, wouldbecome President of the United States in 1877. The “R.Hayes” on the map is Deacon Russell Hayes, uncle of thePresident. The future President was born in Ohio, wherehis Brattleboro-born father (also Rutherford) was a mer-chant. The First Congregational Church is seen at itspresent site, where it has been since the 1845. This build-ing replaced the prior church building which stood justnortheast of this location, within the roadway of Western

Avenue. The older church, built in 1785 (andburned in 1842), was Brattleboro’s only churchin early town history. It is the edifice shown onthe Whitelaw maps earlier in this volume (p.16-17). On the west side of Western Avenue, labelled“B. Beal”, is the house now known as theJeremiah Beal house, now owned by theBrattleboro Historical Society. This house issupposed to be the oldest brick house in WestBrattleboro. In small print, at the three-streetintersection in the middle of the map, is the word“Hotel”. This refers to the hostelry later knownas the Glen House (see 1869 map). The MelroseHotel was built on this site in the early 1900s,and, after that structure burned, a short-livedhospital was there.

Map 37 1856 West Brattleboro from McClellan’s Map of Windham County

Thirteen years later the map on the next page waspublished as part of the Beers Atlas of WindhamCounty. This is one of four maps of Brattleboro inthat atlas. The Beers maps provide the approximateshapes of properties as well as names, and more de-tails including more accurate shapes of brooks and aBusiness Directory. The Hayes Tavern is still in thesame family (“Mrs. Hayes”), and across the streetwe can see the outlines of one of the two octagon-shaped houses in West Brattleboro. The other is onWestern Avenue across from the CongregationalChurch. This house was built by the Reverend Jo-seph Chandler, minister of the church at mid-cen-tury. Another man of the cloth, Reverend LewisGrout, lived on Greenleaf Street when this map wasmade. Grout is notable to us today because of hisskills as an historian. Grout, a missionary, did origi-nal research and has left us several articles on theearly history of Brattleboro.

51Land Ownership Maps - West BrattleboroMap 38 West Brattleboro from the Beers Atlas of Windham County

1869

52 Map 39 1895 West Brattleboro from the Map of Brattleboro by D.L. Miller

The 1895 map of West Brattleboro is taken from the large wall mapby D.L. Miller. The letter “E” indicates the position of this excerpton the larger map. Here we see more detailed house outlines, andeven driveways. Several larger estates are given their personal nameslike “ Woodlawn”, “The Meadowbrook Place”, and “The Maples”.West Brattleboro was served by a trolley line, and had public water(the map shows a 4” water line). The Hayes tavernis still in the same family. “Mrs W. H. Bigelow”was Mary Hayes Bigelow, first cousin to the formerPresident. Other interesting features include theBrattleboro Creamery at the bottom of the page,next to the bridge we now call the Creamery Bridge.

The Miller map, like two of the earlier maps, had alisting of subscribers, both businesses and individu-als. The listing is re-arranged in this edition.

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1895

Land Ownership Maps - West Brattleboro

Key Map

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54

9. Land Ownership Maps - Entire Town

The oldest of the “entire-town” property owner maps isthe 1856 McClellan map, taken from the large countywall map. For the first time, all of Brattleboro’s roads areshown. By this time the settlement on Meetinghouse Hillis no more, and West Brattleboro and downtown area havegrown so much that they are on separate maps (pages 50and 30). The population of the whole town at this timewas about 3900. Since there were no complete maps ofBrattleboro the surveyors had to measure all the roadsthemselves, and get the names of the homeowners. Themeasuring devices were probably a wheeled odometerwith a simple compass like the one pictured below.

The McClellan map, typical of many early maps, showsonly the prominent hills. Maps like these do not attemptto depict mountains or other geographic features whichare not obvious to people on main roads. The roads arenot mapped as well as the later maps in this series, but wepresume that this map does show all the roads in exist-ence at that time, including at least five roads which arenow abandoned. Most of the roads we have today, espe-cially the through roads to adjoining towns, were in ex-istence in 1856. One exception is Route 9 to New Hamp-shire, and the “Chesterfield Bridge” at that location.Thatroad and bridge were not completed until 1889. This mapomits the two islands at the Hinsdale bridge, but theywere there, as seen on the small 1858 map on page 19.Route 9 to Marlboro (west) is the east-west road whichhas very few houses on it after it leaves West Brattleboro.The heavily built up east-west road below Route 9 is AmesHill Road - the former through road to Marlboro.

19th century mapmakers used wheeled odometers to measure roads

55

Map 40 1856 Brattleboro - The first detailed map of the whole town from McClellan’s Map of Windham County 1856

Land Ownership Maps - Entire Town

56

Our next map is of uncertain date, but it may have beendrawn about 1860. The author, C.W. Grau, was a phy-sician at the Wesselhoeft water cure establishment. Apart of the “cure” for patients was getting out into thecountry air. This map is an excerpt from the“Brattleboro and Vicinity” map, a guide to thesurrrounding countryside. It extended as far as SpoffordLake in Chesterfield, New Hampshire and west to SouthPond in Marlboro - both likely destinations for casualtravelers.

The roads shown here are generally the same as thoseof the 1856 county map, and of the similar 1858 mapof Cheshire County, New Hampshire. It is likely thatGrau used these other maps as his base, hence the as-

sumed date of about 1860. The roads on the Grau mapare more attractively drawn than on the McClellan map,and a few more roads are shown.

Though no homeowner names are shown, a few loca-tions are named, such as several large farms which mayhave welcomed visitors: Bliss Farm, Folsom’s Farmand Clark’s Farm. But what are we to make of the“Gipsy Ground” located across from the BrattleboroRetreat? The dashed line beneath those words is prob-ably the route of Cedar Street, which may have been atrail at that time. Elevations above sea level are pro-vided, and prominent hills are given names for the firsttime on a Brattleboro map. Ginseng Hill and RoundMountain are known by those names today. Grau’s mapshows us hiking trails leading up to Wantastiquet Moun-tain and Mine Mountain on the New Hampshire side ofthe river. The larger mountain - Wantastiquet - hadreceived this new name in 1852 according to Cabot’s

Annals. The two islands in the river have different names thanthey did on the 1830 canal map. Goodhue’s, the larger island,was named for Francis Goodhue, a large landowner inBrattleboro who, among other enterprises, had a river freight-ing business. It is interesting that the author gives us the area ofeach island - 39 acres and 19 acres. Note also the feature “Turtle

57

Map 41 ca. 1860 Brattleboro and Vicinity (excerpt) - by Charles W. Grau


Pond” in the lower right corner. That pond is probably thelarge depression known as the kettle hole near BrattleboroUnion High School.The ferry crossing to Chesterfield, New Hampshire, the“Norcross Ferry” is seen just below Catsbane Island. Therewas no bridge crossing in this part of Brattleboro until 1889.

ca. 1860The road at the foot of Wantastiquet Mountain on theNew Hampshire side, now unused, was the direct routeto Chesterfield. A later edition of this map, slighty re-vised, is printed on page 60.

58

The 1869 map of Brattleboro comes fromthe Windham County Atlas published by theF.W. Beers Company. The Beers map is quitecomplete like the 1856 McClellan map, butit is more accurate, and adds new informa-tion. Not only does it show all roads andhomes, but smaller streams are shown, indi-cating that the surveyors did some off-roadwork to make these maps. School districtsare defined, and the map is accompanied bya Business Directory. Of special note is theaccuracy of the road positioning. The Beerscompany probably did original surveys of

these roads, because they are much morecarefully placed than on the Grau andMcClellan maps. The surveys were probablydone with an odometer like that pictured onthe page 54, but the surveyors of this mapclearly did a better job. Another part of theirjob, like the McClellan surveyors, was to selltheir atlases to the residents of Brattleboro.They probably carried samples of other at-lases the Beers company had produced, andshowed them to the homeowners as theypassed by making their new maps.

This map shows us why the small villagecalled Centreville got its name. Now only aintersection marked by the Vermont Coun-try Deli, in the mid 1800s this was a distinctsmall village situated midway between thetwo principal villages of the town.

Map 42 1869 Brattleboro Town from the Beers Atlas

59

1869Land Ownership Maps - Entire Town

60

In 1884 the “Gazetteer of Windham County” appeared, a fourhundred page book filled with historical text of all the townsin Windham County. A fold-out map was included in the backof the book. The Brattleboro area of that map is reprintedhere, slightly enlarged. Each road was numbered so that thebook’s Business Directory could refer to the map easily. Themap does not add much to our knowledge of roads inBrattleboro. The roads and town outline appear to be basedin the Beers map. One bit of new informatioin is the depic-tion of the West River Railroad. The railroad began its life asthe Brattleboro & Whitehall Railroad, implying that it wouldrun to Whitehall, New York, but it never got past Londonderry,Vermont. The rail line was not very successful, and ceasedoperations in 1936. Some feature names on this map are dif-ferent than todays: North Pond in Marlboro is now calledSunset Lake Road and Marlboro Pond is now South Pond.

The two maps on this page are not of much value as “land-ownership” maps, but they are included because theyshow the extent of the road network in the 1880s. TheGrau map of Brattleboro and Vicinity (page 57) wasreprinted, with modifications, some time around 1880,and our next map (Map 43) is a copy of that later edi-tion. The date derives from the fact that the West RiverRailroad is shown, a feature which did not exist until1880. This dating technique is not certain however, asmapmakers will sometimes draw a proposed road on amap, so that the map will not become quickly outdated.Although Grau’s name appears on this edition of the map,he was not the author, as he had died in 1861. This sec-ond edition of the map was printed as a full-size map(22” x 27”) and as a reduced-size fold-out map in a smallhardbound case. In addition to the West River Railroad,there are a several houses shown which were not indi-cated on the circa 1860 map.

ca. 1880Map 43 ca. 1880 Brattleboro from a later edition of the Grau Map

61

1884


Map 44 1884 Brattleboro from Child’s Windham County Gazeteer

Portion of Business Directory from the 1884 Child’s Gazeteer. The“r” , followed by a number, indicates which road the person lived on

62

Map 45 1895 Brattleboro - from the D.L. Miller map

The last of Brattleboro’s detailedtown maps is the 1895 map from theMiller wall map. This is a smallportion of the much larger map - seealso pages 42-49 (downtown) and 53(West Brattleboro). The Miller mapshows us all roads and homeownernames, and adds road names for thefirst time.

Mapmakers sometimes make errors,and there are two obvious omissionson this map. The West River Railroadis not shown although the line wasin active use in 1895. Also missingis the Chesterfield Bridge over theConnecticut River (at today’s Route9), which was built in 1889. Thetopographic map on the next page,made two years earlier than this map,shows both features.

By the late 1800s, the standard ofliving had improved and more peoplehad time for leisure pursuits such aswalking. The Miller map shows,quite accurately, the trail which leadsto the top of Wantastiquet Mountain.

Some farm sites have their acreagesshown, and distances (in rods) aregiven between road intersections(one rod equals 16.5’).

The school houses, still scatteredthroughout the map, are morenumerous than on the 1869 Beersmap, and have been re-numbered.

63

There is an interesting sketch map(shown below) among the papers ofRudyard Kipling, the noted authorwho lived for a few years inDummerston, just over the town line.Kipling’s regular carriage route toBrattleboro took him down PutneyRoad (Route 5) and across the WestRiver highway bridge, where tworailroad lines crossed the river aswell. Apparently the trains wouldoccasionally spook Kipling’s horse,and he feared an accident. Kiplingwrote a letter to the railroad in 1895,requesting that trains sound theirwhistles before approaching thisbridge. His letter included this small,but attractively drawn map, completewith a graphic warning of the conse-quences of an accident.


1895

Map 46 Kipling’s map of the three bridgesover the West River

64

Map 47 1893 Topographic Map of Brattleboro.

Most 19th century road maps were made by privatebusinesses, the previous four maps being examples. Itwas not until the late 1800s that the United Statesgovernment started making maps. The “USGS quadsheets” so familar to sportsmen and latter-day explorerswere the result of more accurate surveys than those doneby the commercial mapmakers. The Brattleboro sheet waspublished in 1893, based on field surveys of 1889. Thegoal of this mapping effort was to map the entire countryin a systematic manner. All roads and major buildings weremapped, all waterways and, most importantly, topography.The drafting of contour lines allowed for accuratedepictions of hills and valleys, and made it possible todesign new roadways and other developments with muchbetter planning than was possible before these maps weremade. Engineers could, for the first time, understand whichareas of the land were subject to flooding, and designprotective structures like dams and levees. These mapsare less attractive to the eye than the older maps becausethey are so full of information. While they were supposedto be near perfect, there are errors. One obvious mistakeon this map is the omission of Halladay Brook in thenorthwest corner of town. That brook runs through anotable ravine which extends from Sunset Lake Roadwesterly across the town line into Marlboro. The mapshows a short, small stream, and none of the ravine. Oddly,the 1869 Beers map shows the brook more completely.

Note the locations of the two railroads serving Brattleboro- the New York, New Haven and Hartford line and theWest River Railroad (then called the Brattleboro andWhitehall Railroad). The second trunk line from the south,the Boston & Maine Railroad which came throughHinsdale, New Hampshire is not shown as it was notcompleted until about 1913.

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66

Very detailed maps of buildings in downtownBrattleboro were made over a period of severaldecades by the Sanborn Map Company. These mapswere made so that insurance companies in distantcities could assess the fire risk of a given property.They show us the actual shapes, materials and uses ofthe old buildings from 1885-1925. On these two pageswe reprint a portion of the oldest fire insurance map,dated 1885, followed by similar excerpts from the1912 maps. These two pages are top and bottom ofthe same map, showing Main Street from High Street

10. Fire Insurance Maps - Main Street

to Elliott Street, Flat Street and Bridge Street. This first mapis reproduced from a microfilm copy and the details are a bitdifficult to read.

The area of the present Harmony Parking Lot was a publicpark in the 1880s and the Brooks House dominated that sideof Main Street, as it does today. The building had a numberof small shops in it in 1885, just as it does today. In fact all ofMain Street is filled with small businesses. Merchandisesold in the late 1800s was similar to what we buy now:silverware, jewelry, books, stationery and “dry goods”.

continued on next pageMap 48 1885 Fire Insurance Map top section 1885

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At the top of the map (left) we see the Baptist Church, at itspresent location, then only a 13 year old building. The maprecords the height of the building, including the steeple - 135’tall. The heating and lighting are mentioned, notably the gaslights, important facts for fire insurance. The old Town Hallwas a large building with a meeting room, library and TownClerk’s office. Those offices are familiar to us now, but thereis no “Auction Rm.” in the current Municipal Building. Onthe east side of the street is the “Hooker Block”, a buildingwhich still stands today, though greatly expanded by the additionof the Dunham building on the river side. The 1912 fireinsurance map on the next page shows the larger building. TheWest River Railroad began in Brattleboro, and its tracks arelabelled here “Brattleboro and Whitehall narrow gauge R.R.”.

Just five years before this map was made, the MethodistEpiscopal Church was built on Elliot Street. This is the buildingnow used by the Hotel Pharmacy. Across the street, at the cornerof Elliot & Main, we see the entry “Nat. Bank” at the site wherethe Chittenden Bank continues to offer financial services today.Further down the map, on Flat Street, is the “John L. Ray

Fir Insurance Maps - Main Street

Livery”, an establishment where one could rent ahorse and carriage and buy related supplies. We notethat Mr. Ray’s business sold trunks and blankets, bothof which are sold by the current occupant of this site,Sam’s Department Store. The Ray building had a“Second story level with St.” just as the Sam’s storedoes today, although this 1885 building is not the sameas today’s building.

On the bottom of the map (right page) is the outlet ofWhetstone Brook, with a dam and two water-poweredmills. Note the details offered to the fire insurancecompanies: a listing of the heating and lighting fuels,and the fact that there is “no night watchman” at eachof the mills. The “driveway” just above the machineshop is Arch Street, which was named for the archedrailroad “stone bridge” at the end of the street. Thatstone bridge was built in 1878 and is still in use today.The numbers in front of the buildings are the streetnumbers. Note that the numbering system is differenton the next map.


Map 48 1885 Fire Insurance Map bottom section1885

Bridge Street

Flat Street

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1912

continued on next page

Map 49 1912 Fire Insurance Map

High Street

Elliot Street

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The last map is a portion of the 1912 fire insurance mapof downtown Brattleboro, the section of Main Street fromHigh Street to Bridge Street. Prominent on this map is theManley Brothers automotive garage, in the middle of whatis now the Harmony parking lot. Cars were just begin-ning to be widely used in Brattleboro. The Model T, thefirst economical car, went into production in 1908, andsoon became a common sight on Brattleboro streets.The Town Hall had a sizeable auditorium in the rear, the“Festival Hall” on this map. Concerts, plays, speechesand other public events were held there, as it was the larg-est enclosed public space in Brattleboro. The building wasover fifty years old when this map was made (built in 1854)and would be used for four more decades. The Main Street

Fir Insurance Maps - Main Street

Gallery now occupies this site. By this time, on the eastside of the street, the Dunham Brothers have built a largewarehouse served by a railroad siding.

The livery stable at the corner of Flat Street is not as promi-nent as on the earlier map. Services for horses were lessneeded now that cars were coming into wide use. In fact, ayear after this map was made, this building came down,replaced by the present building which houses Sam’s De-partment Store. Another sign of a more modern world isthe Gas & Electric Company on Arch Street at the sitewhere water-powered mills used to turn. The old Ameri-can House, seen on the 1885 map, has by the time of thismap been torn down, and in its place is the current Ameri-can Building.

1912


Map 49 1912 Fire Insurance Map

Elliot Street

Flat Street

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250 years ago, in December of 1753, the Colonial Governorof New Hampshire “chartered” Brattleboro by issuing thisdocument. Refering to the loving servants of the King ofEngland, this charter delineated the reasons for establishinga new town, described the boundaries, and listed the menwho were given this land - the original “grantees”.

The grantees had to do certain things like cultivate the landand make other improvements, and were forbidden to cutany tall pine trees which might be suitable for the Royal Navy.They were told that after fifty families were settled they

(L. S.) George the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Franceand Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, &c.

To all persons to whom these presence shall come, greeting:Know ye that we of our special grace and certain knowledge and

mere motion, for the due Encouragement of settling a new plantationwithin our said Province. By and with the advice of our trusty and well-beloved Benning Wentworth, Esq., our Governor and Commander-in-Chief of our said Province of New Hampshire in America, and of ourCouncil of the said Province, have upon the conditions and reservationshereafter made, Given & Granted and by these Presents for us our Heirs& successors Do Give and Grant in equal Shares unto our Loveing SubjectsInhabitants of our said Province of New Hampshire and his Majesty`sother Governments andto their heirs and assignsforever whose Names areEntered on this Grant tobe divided to andamongst them into fifty-six shares, Two of whichshares to be laid out inone Tract of the contentsof Eight Hundred acresfor his ExcellencyBenning Wentworth, Esq., and is in full for his two shares, which Tract isbounded as follows, viz:Beginning at the rocks at the upper end of the Fort meadow so called.Thence up Connecticut River Two hundred and forty rods, & to carrythat breadth back West ten degrees North so far as to contain EightHundred acres, All that Tract or parcel of Land situate, lying & beingwithin our Prov-ince of New Hampshire containing by measurementNineteen Thousand Three Hundred and sixty acres, which Tract is tocontain five miles and one-half mile square & no more, out of which anallowance is to be made for high ways & unimprovable lands by rocks,mountains, Ponds & Rivers, one thou-sand and forty acres free accordingto a plan thereof made & presented by our said Governors orders &hereunto annexed, Butted & bounded as follows, viz:

Beginning at the mouth of Venters Brook so called where it empties

itself in to Connecticut River, & runs from thence six miles or thereaboutsto the South East corner of Marlebrough thence five miles, North ten degreesEast by Marlebrough aforesaid to a stake & stones in said Line. Thence East10 degrees south to Connecticut River aforesaid, then down said River tothe bounds first mentioned at Venters Brook, Except a Tract of land lyingin the said East corner of said Township containing about Two Hundredacres as the same is now fenced in and improved, which is hereby granted &assigned to Oliver Willard and to his heirs & assigns one. of the withinGrantees, He having heretofore cleared and improved the said Tract and isto be in full for his share & proportion of the said Township, said Twohundred acres are bounded as follows, viz: Beginning at Venters Brook andruns West ten degrees North sixty rods to a Hill and then runs under theHill round as the Hill runs to the rocks at the upper end of the Meadowcalled fort meadow, thence down the river to Venter Brook and that thesame be and is incorporated into a Township by the name of Brattleborough,and that the Inhabitants that do or shall hereafter Inhabit said Township arehereby Declared to be Enfranchised with and entitled to all & every thepriviledges & Immunities that other Towns within our said Province by lawexercise and enjoy, and further that the said town as soon as there shall be

11. The Brattleboro Town Charter - December 26, 1753

“...shall have the liberty of holding two fairs, one of whichshall be on the first Thursday in October annually, and theother on the first Thursday in February...”. The charter alsoincludes a written description of Brattleboro and of threeinterior parcels of land, a 200 acre tract belonging to OliverWillard, a small tract around Fort Dummer reserved for theKing, and 800 acres reserved for the Governor himself.Sketches of the language describing these three tracts havebeen drawn to make it easier to read this old document.

Figure 2 The Governor reserved800 acres for himself

Province of New Hampshire

Figure 3 The Town of Brattleboro as described in the Charter.See also the actual Charter Map on page 10.

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fifty Familys resident and settled thereinshall have the liberty of holding TwoFairs, one of which shall be held on thefirst Thursday in October annually, andthe other on the first Thursday inFebruary annually, which Fairs are notto continue & be held longer than therespective Saturday following the saidrespective Thursday, and as soon as saidtown shall consist of fifty familys amarket shall be opened and kept one ormore days in each week as may be tho`tmost advantagious to the Inhabi-tants.Also that the first meeting for the choiceof Town Officers agreeable to the lawsof our said Province shall be held on thefifteen Day of Jan` ry next which meetingshall be notifyed by Josiah Willard, Esq.who is hereby also appointed Moderatorof the said first meeting which he is tonotify and govern agreeable to the lawsand customs of our said Province, andthat the annual meeting forever hereafter for the choice of such officersof said Town shall be on the first Wednesday in March annually. Tohave and to hold the said Tract of Land as above expressed togetherwith all the Priviledges and appurtenances to them and their respectiveheirs & assigns forever, upon the following conditions Viz: That everyGrantee, his heirs or assigns shall Plant or cultivate five acres of landwithin the term of five years for every fifty acres contained in his ortheir share or Proportion of Land in said Township, and continue toimprove and settle the same by additional cultivations on Penalty ofthe Forfeiture of his Grant or share in said Township, & its revertingto his Majesty his heirs & successors to be by him or them regrantedto such of his subjects as shall effectually settle & cultivate the same.That all White or other Pine Trees within the said Township fit forMasting our Royal Navy be carefully Preserved for that use, and noneto be cut or felled without his Majestys Especial Lycence for so doingfirst had and obtained upon the penalty of forfeiture of the right ofsuch Grantee his heirs & assigns to us our heirs & successors as well asbeing subject to the Penalty ofany act or acts of Parliamentthat now are or hereafter shallbe enacted. Also his fortDummer & a Tract of land offifty rods square round it, viz:fifty rods West, twenty-fiverods South and twenty-five rodsNorth of said Fort. That beforeany Division of the land bemade to and amongst theGrantees, a Tract of Land as nearthe center of the Township asthe land will admit of shall be reserved and marked out for TownLots, one of which shall be allotted to each Grantee of the contents ofone acre yielding and paying therefor to us our heirs & successors forthe space of ten years to be computed from the date hereof the rent of

one Ear of Indian corn only on the first day of January annually if LawfullyDemanded, the first payment to be made on the first day of January after thefirst of January next ensuing the date hereof, and every Proprietor, Settler orInhabitant shall yield and pay to us our heirs and successors yearly & everyyear forever from and after the expiration of the ten years, from the date hereof.Namely on the first day of January which will be in the year of Our LordChrist one thousand Seven Hundred & Sixty-four, one shilling Proclamationmoney for every hundred acres he so owns, settles or possesses, and so inproportion for a Greater or Lesser Tract of the said Land, which money shallbe paid by the respective persons above said their heirs or assigns, in our CouncilChamber in Portsmouth or to such officer or officers as shall be appointed toreceive the same, and this to be in lieu of all other rents and services whatsoeverin Testimony hereof we have caused the seal of our said Province to be hereuntoaffixed. Witness Benning Wentworth, Esq., our Governor & Commander inChief of our said Province the Twenty-six day of December in the year of ourLord Christ 1753 and in the Twenty-seventh year of our Reign.

B. WENTWORTH.....By his Excellencys command with advice of Council.

THEODORE ATKINSON, Secty.

Entered and Recorded according to the original under the Province Seal, this27th day of December 1753.

Pr THEODORE ATKINSON,Secty.

Names of the Grantees of Brattleborough, viz:

William Brattle, Jacob Wendell, James Read, Isaac Brodish, OwenWarland, William Lee, Ebenezer Smith, William Gammage, John Hicks,Ebenezer Bradish, James Whitemore, William Manning, Thomas Sherren,Thomas Hastings, Jonathan Sprague, John Warland, Benjamin Lynde, AndrewOliver Junr., William Bowls, Cornelius Woodbury, William Willard, OliverWillard, Samuel Allen, Moses Wright, Sampson French, Joseph French,William Fessenden, Stephen Palmer, Stephen Palmer Junr., William Barrett,Daniel Printice, Caleb Prentice, Ebenezer Stedman, Edward Marrett, Junr.,Abner Hasey, Benjamin French, Thomas Blanchard, Thomas Blanchard, Junr,Jacob Fletcher, Samuel Searle, Samuel French, Sampson Willard, OliverColeburne, Jeremiah Coleburn, Peter Powers, Stephen Powers, DanielEmerton, William Laurence, Abel Laurance, Mather Livermore.

Also by Theodore Atkinson, his Excellency Benning Wentworth, Esq - aTract of Land to Contain Eight Hundred acres which is to be accounted Twoof the within mentioned shares and Laid out and Bounded as within mentioned,one whole share for the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospelin foreign parts, one whole share for the first settled Minister of the Gospel insaid Town, one whole share for a Glebe for the Ministry of the Church ofEngland as by law Established. Also his Majestys Fort Dummer, and a Tractof Land Fifty rods round it, viz: 50 rods West, twenty-five rods South andtwenty-five North of said Fort.

Recorded from the Back of the Charter for Brattleborough the 27th day ofDecember, 1753.

Pr THEODORE ATKINSON,Secty.

Figure 4 Oliver Willard’s200 acres was alreadycultivated in 1753according to the Charter

Figure 5 The land aroundFort Dummer

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Early Maps of Brattleboro

BibliographyMapsThe maps reprinted in this publication come from a variety of sources. To aid those who may be interested in further research into someof the non-published maps, we provide this partial cartobibliography. Maps listed here are manuscripts and maps which are not widelyknown. Other principal sources include the collections of the Vermont Archives ; Massachusetts Archives , the Vermont HistoricalSociety; The New Hampshiore Archives; The Dartmouth College Library, the New York Archives, Library of Congress Geography &Map Division (LCG&M), and the National Archives. Where possible original maps have been reprinted. In some cases, due tounavailability of the original or legibility problems, copies have been substituted.

Map 1 The Brattleboro Area Douglass, William; Plan of the British Dominions in North America;LCG&M; [this map was published in 1753 in London, but depicts conditions of a few years earlier.]

Map 3 Winchester Charter Map Blanchard, Joseph; [Winchester Charter Map]; Massachusetts Archives; Maps & Plans, ThirdSeries, Volume 35 Page 20;

Map 4 Mass / NH Province Line in 1741 Hazzen, Richard; Northern Boundary Line of the Province of Massachusetts Bay; NewHampshire Archives; State Boundary Records

Map 5 Colonel Stoddards’ Design for Fort Dummer Stoddard, John; [January 30,1724 Letter]; Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, YaleUniversity; Dwight & Ferris Family Papers

Map 6 The Physiognomy of Fort Dummer Patten, Matthew; The Physiognomy of Fort Dummer; facsimile; Vermont Historic Society,Matt Jones Photostats

Map 9 Brattleboro Charter Map [na]; Brattleboro Town Charter; New Hampshire Archives; Town Charter Book Volume 1,page 181

Map 10 Hinsdale Charter Map [na]; Hinsdale Town Charter; New Hampshire Archives; Town Charter Book Volume 1, page178

Map 13 Towns in New York Province Dawes, William; [Towns in New York Province]; Massachusetts Archives; Maps & Plans;Mass. Archives Vol 118, P. 466

Map 21 East Village in 1810 Elliott, Samuel; Letter to James Whitelaw; Surveyor-Generals Records; Vermont ArchivesMap 23 Hinsdale Islands Map Hawkins, Daniel; Plat of the Town of Hinsdale; 1806; New Hampshire Town Plans; New

Hampshire Archives

Other SourcesBarry, Harold A. and others Before Our Time (1974)Cabot, Mary Annals of the Town of Brattleboro (1924)Child, Hamilton Windham County Gazeteer (1884)Crocket, Walter Hill Vermont, The Green Mountain State (1921)Hall, Benjamin History of Eastern Vermont (1857)St. John, William Historical References to Brattleboro (1992); ms, binder; Brooks Memorial LibraryTemple,J.H. & Sheldon, George History of the Town of Northfield (1875)Dana, Lanice Paton A Local Chronology of Brattleboro, Vermont; With Interest; April, 1932

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Early Maps of Brattleboro List of Maps

1. Introduction p. 5Map 1 ca. 1745 New England’s Western Frontier Douglass, William; Plan of the British Dominions of New England in North America

2. Equivalent Lands and Fort Dummer p. 6Map 2 1716 South Boundary of Equivalent Lands Cabot, Mary; Annals of BrattleboroMap 3 1733 Winchester Charter Map Blanchard, Joseph; [Winchester Charter Map]; Massachusetts ArchivesMap 4 1741 Mass / NH Boundary Line Hazzen, Richard; ms; New Hampshire ArchivesMap 5 1724 Stoddard’s Design for Fort Dummer Stoddard, Col. John; ms; Beinecke LibraryMap 6 1749 Reconstruction View of Fort Dummer Brasor, C.J. ; With Interest (magazine)Map 7 1749 The Original 1749 Map of Fort Dummer Patten, Matthew; facsimile; Vermont Historical SocietyMap 8 1749 The 1891 Tracing of Fort Dummer Patten, Matthew [1891 tracing]; Vermont Phoenix (newspaper)

3. The 1753 Charter and First Settlers p. 10Map 9 1753 Brattleboro Charter Map n.a.; New Hampshire ArchivesMap 10 1753 Hinsdale Charter Map n.a.; New Hampshire ArchivesMap 11 1761 Southern Vermont 1757-1761 Blanchard & Langdon; An Accurate Map of His Majesty’s Province of New Hampshire

4. Early Land Divisions - The New York Period p. 12Map 12 1766 New York Survey Colden, Alexander; ms; New York ArchivesMap 13 ca. 1770 Towns in New York Province Dawes, William; ms; Massachusetts ArchivesMap 14 1779 Brattleboro Area Sauthier, Claude Joseph; A Chorographical Map of the Province of New YorkMap 15 1752-1788 Land Divisions 1752-1788 Wheeler,H.H.; from Annals of BrattleboroMap 16 ca. 1774 Holland Map (portion) Holland, Samuel; A Topographical Map of the State of New HampshireMap 17 1774 Old Town Center Grout, Lewis; from Second Discourse on the Early History of the Congregational Church

5. Early Roads and Villlages p. 16Map 18 1796 Brattleboro’s First Road map Whitelaw, James; A Correct Map of the State of VermontMap 19 1810 Brattleboro in 1810 Whitelaw, James; A Correct Map of the State of VermontMap 20 1821 Brattleboro in 1821 Whitelaw, James; A Correct Map of the State of VermontMap 21 1810 Brattleboro Village in 1810 Elliot, Samuel; ms; Vermont ArchivesMap 22 1830 Proposed Canal Past Brattleboro Barnard,C.; Map No. 5, Connecticut River Canal, Experimental Line; National ArchivesMap 23 1806 Bridge, Islands, Turnpike - Hinsdale Hawkins, Daniel; Plat of the Town of Hinsdale; New Hampshire ArchivesMap 24 1858 Map of Cheshire County (portion) Fagan, L.; Map of Cheshire County, New HampshireMap 25 1877 Atlas of Cheshire County Map (portion) Rockwood, C.H.; Atlas of Cheshire County, New HampshireMap 26 1892 Atlas of the State of New Hampshire (portion) Hurd, D.H. ; Town and City Atlas of the State of New HampshireMap 27 1906 Map of Cheshire County (portion) Newell, Chauncey.; Map of Cheshire County, New HampshireMap 28 1849 Brattleboro & Vicinity Wesselhoeft, Robert; Second Report of the Brattleboro Hydropathic Establishment

6. Introduction to Land Ownership Maps & Bird’s Eye Views p. 22

7. Land Ownership Maps & Views - Downtown p. 24Map 29 1852 Village of Brattleboro - Presdee & Edwards Presdee & Edwards; Map of the Village of BrattleboroMap 30 1856 Plan of Brattleboro - McClellan Chace, J.; McClellans Map of Windham County, VermontMap 31 1856 Batchelder View of Brattleboro Batchelder, John; Brattleboro, Vt.Map 32 1869 Centreville from Beers Atlas Beers & Co., F.W.; Atlas of Windham Co., VermontMap 33 1869 Plan of Brattleboro - Beers Atlas Beers & Co., F.W.; Atlas of Windham Co., VermontMap 34 1876 Brattleboro View by Bailey & Hazen Bailey, H.H.; & Hazen, J.C.; Brattleboro, Vt.Map 35 1886 Brattleboro by Lucien Burleigh Burleigh, Lucien; Brattleboro, Vt.Map 36 1895 Map of Brattleboro - D.L. Miller Miller, D.L.; Map of Brattleboro, Windham County, Vermont

8. Land Ownership Maps - West Brattleboro p. 50Map 37 1856 West Brattleboro - McClellan Chace, J.; McClellans Map of Windham County, VermontMap 38 1869 West Brattleboro - Beers Beers & Co., F.W.; Atlas of Windham Co., VermontMap 39 1895 West Brattleboro - Miller Miller, D.L.; Map of Brattleboro, Windham County, Vermont

9. Land Ownership Maps – Entire Town p. 54Map 40 1856 Town of Brattleboro - McClellan Chace, J.; McClellans Map of Windham County, VermontMap 41 ca. 1860 Town of Brattleboro - Grau Grau, C.W.; Brattleboro & Vicinity; Lith. by Fred. W. Boell,Jr. N.Y.Map 42 1869 Town of Brattleboro - Beers Atlas Beers & Co.; Atlas of Windham Co., VermontMap 43 ca. 1880 Town of Brattleboro - Grau Grau, C.W.; Brattleboro & Vicinity; revised and reduced; Lith. by Hart & Von Arx, N.Y.Map 44 1884 Town of Brattleboro - Child’s Gazeteer Childs, Hamilton; Windham County GazeteerMap 45 1895 Town of Brattleboro - Miller Miller, D.L.; Map of Brattleboro, Windham County, VermontMap 46 1895 Kipling’s Three Bridges Map Kipling, Rudyard; photograph; Dana Sprague CollectionMap 47 1893 Town of Brattleboro Topographic Map U.S. Geological Survey

10. Fire Insurance Maps - Main Street p. 66Map 48 1885 Main Street Fire Insurance Map Sanborn Map Company; Brattleboro, Vermont; Library of CongressMap 49 1912 Main Street Fire Insurance Map Sanborn Map Company; Brattleboro, Vermont; Brattleboro Historical Society

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Modern Maps of Brattleboro

On these two pages are modern maps drawn for thispublication, based on the Brattleboro tax maps. TheTown map (left) shows the private property lots asdashed lines between the roads, while property linesare omitted from the downtown map to avoid clutter.These maps will be useful for study of historical landuse as many of the present boundaries are the same asancient property lines. It is especially interesting tonote how the subdivison of the 5400 acre tract in south-west Brattleboro corresponds with many of these lines,and even with some of the streets. Barrows Road,Bonnyvale Road, South Street and Guilford StreetExtension all seem to coincide in part with north-southlines on the old lotting plan (see pages 12 and 14).

Many of the horizontal property lines appear to coincide withor be parallel with that old colonial grid. The north line ofthe 5400 acre tract, also referred to as the “center line” of thetown in old documents, can be seen in fragments on this map.It passes through the top of Sherwood Circxle in the middleof the map, and just below the word “Orchard” on OrchardStreet. The old town center on Meetinghouse Hill is the clus-ter of triangular shaped lots on Orchard Street. Note that theprivate lots to the north of this line are laid out in a morerandom, less orderly manner than those to the south.

Map 50 Modern map of the Town of Brattleboro - © 2003 Old Maps

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Map 51 Downtown Brattleboro - © 2003 Old Maps

Downtown Brattleboro

Map 51 Modern map of Downtown Brattleboro - © 2003 Old Maps

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Brattleboro Timeline from early 1700s to 1918Summary of major events in local and national history to provide context for these maps.

1716 “Equivalent Lands” sold to raise funds for Yale College1724 Fort Dummer built - 40 soldiers1726 First English child born in Vermont, at Fort Dummer1753 Brattleboro chartered as a town by New Hampshire1760 Montreal captured by English - war threat ends in New England1764 Brattleboro becomes part of New York province1768 First Meetinghouse built on Orchard Street (Meetinghouse Hill)1775-1783 Revolutionary War1777-1791 Republic of Vermont1784 New Meetinghouse built in West Brattleboro1791 Vermont admitted to the United States - 14th State1825 Erie Canal Built - improved commerce to midwest1843 Dr. Wessselhoeft opens his Water Cure clinic in Brattleboro1849 First Railroad comes to town1854 Town Hall moved from West Brattleboro to Brattleboro1861-1865 Civil War1895 Trolley Line built in Brattleboro1908 Model T Ford goes into production1914-1918 World War I

This modern topographic map shows the downtown Brattleboro area in the late 1990s. The town line is near thebottom of this image. Fort Dummer was built on the west bank of the Connecticut River at the south end of a smallmeadow, across from Wantastiquet Mountain. The site is now covered by the backwater from the Vernon Dam.

Fort Dummer

Topographic Map of Downtown Brattleboro

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The Brattleboro area in the early 1800s, from the 1821 edition of the Whitelaw Map of the State of Vermont. This map showsmajor features in Brattleboro and the surrounding towns, like principal roads, mill sites, and the town meetinghouses. The datesare the charter dates for each town and the large numbers are the town population from the 1820 census.

Early Maps of Brattleboro, Vermont© 2003 Old Maps West Chesterfield, NH 03466www.old-maps.com

ISBN: 0-9747639-0-X Softcover $17.95 0-974639-1-8 w’ CDROM $29.95

A collection of Brattleboro’s early maps, tracing the history of the town from the earliest years untilthe beginning of the 20th century. Includes reproductions of more than 40 old and modern maps.

Early Maps of Brattleboro, Vermont

Documents

Early Maps BrattleboroTopographic Map of the Brattleboro Area Inside front cover Title 1 Foreword 2 Table of Contents 3 1. Introduction 5 2. The Equivalent Lands & Fort Dummer 6 3