2025 EVENTS
Join Pomfret Historical Society at the Vanilla Bean Café for cozy fireside chats about Pomfret’s historic neighborhoods and hidden history on the third Fridays of January, February and March 2025. The Fireside Chats will begin with a ½ hour presentation and continue with Q & A and audience participation. Bring your questions, curiosities, old photos, and memorabilia about Pomfret’s past to share. Enjoy food and drink from the Vanilla Bean menu. Suggested donation $10 for Pomfret Historical Society’s Old Town House fund.
Friday, January 17th - @ 7:00 pm TIME TRAVEL AT THE VANILLA BEAN
Travel back in time from the Vanilla Bean Parking lot to the busy intersection of the Norwich/Worcester, and Hartford/Boston Turnpikes in the bustling eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Learn about the large Peter Thompson Tavern once attached to the barn and carriage house which was converted to the Vanilla Bean Café. This busy corner was the center of town in the early days surrounded by large farms and estates of prominent families. The house next door was the first general store in town, and the Thompson Inn became the home of several of Pomfret’s doctors, including Dr. Overlock. Anna Whistler and her sons James & William lived in the Searles House on the other side of the General Store. They hobnobbed with their wealthy neighbors, Captain Perry Bowers, Dr. Williams, the Vintons, and Reverand Roswell Park who ran Christ Church Hall Academy where James and William Whistler attended school. The Pomfret Train Depot (now Putnam) brought visitors from abroad, mail, and newspapers to the doorsteps of this once cosmopolitan neighborhood.
Friday, February 21st - @ 7:00 pm POMFRET’S SIX VILLAGES AND SCHOOL HOUSES
Did you know that Pomfret once had six thriving villages divided into school districts? Our rural town is spread out over 40 square miles, which might not seem like much in the age of automobiles, but back in the 18th & 19th centuries, travel was slower. Most folks walked or traveled by ox carts and horse-drawn wagons. General stores, post offices, taverns and inns sprang up on the busy turnpikes and thoroughfares before the railroad. Mashamoquet and the other small brooks in town spawned Gristmills, sawmills and textile industries which brought workers, boarding houses, stores and other commerce, the building blocks of Pomfret’s villages. Learn about the schoolhouses, and characteristics of each village including a few stories about the people who lived there in the past.
Friday, March 21st - @ 7:00 pm REVOLUTIONARY ABINGTON
The Village of Abington was established in 1751 when the 50 families living in the southern part of town got permission to build their own meeting house and hire a minister. The Old Abington Burial Ground has 60 Revolutionary War soldiers buried there. Across the road from Ephraim Ingalls’ tavern were the training grounds for Captain Zebadiah Ingalls’ 11th Regiment. There were at least two taverns nearby where the seeds of the American Revolution were planted. While the men of Abington marched off to Lexington, the women set up a silk spinning room in the James Ingalls Tavern. In the 19th century before the expansion of the Hartford/Providence Turnpike and the railroad, Abington was a bustling crossroads with several stores, a tailor shop, shoe shop, blacksmiths, a sword shop, and several mills on Abington, Blackwell, and Mashamoquet Brooks. Learn about Abington’s role in the Revolutionary War and some stories about the families who lived there.
2024 EVENTS
September 15, 2024, 2:00 P.M. WOODSTOCK BRINGS HISTORY ALIVE WITH THE 350TH ANNIVERSARY OF JOHN ELIOT’S VISIT IN 1674
On the Woodstock Common
Please come join us Sunday, September 15th, 2024 to commemorate the 350th anniversary of John Eliot's visit to Woodstock, CT. We will be meeting at 2:00 p.m. on the South Woodstock Common (rain location – South Woodstock Baptist Church) There will be a live performance by Leslie Sweetnam highlighting John Eliot's life in character and costume.
Called the Apostle of the American Indian, John Eliot traveled on foot and on horseback from Roxbury MA to bring the gospel to Native Americans in the region. He established fourteen self-governing villages known as Praying Villages including what is now Woodstock. He valued the dignity of the Indigenous People, and he brought cases to court to fight for Native American rights, fought the selling of them into enslavement, established schools for children and adults, translated the Bible and twenty other books in the Algonquin language. After the King Philp's war in 1675, Eliot spent the remainder of his life trying to reestablish some of the villages that had been burned or destroyed.
The commemoration ceremony will be followed by a reception at the South Woodstock Baptist Church.
October 5 , 2024, 10:30 A.M. Walking Tour of Historic Pomfret Street.
A Last Green Valley Walktober Event
Join Pomfret Town Historian Walter Hinchman in a historical walk from the Vanilla Bean to Bradley Rd. See National Register buildings, the historic Congregational Church, Ben Grosvenor Inn site, Bradley history, Pomfret School history, Rectory School history, Clark family history, Pomfret Library history, Whistler House, Overlock Story, and Christ Episcopal Church. Park at the Catholic Church. The walk to Bradley Rd. is 1 mile, all sidewalks. A car will be available to shuttle those who can’t walk back. Dogs on leash O.K. Limit 20-25 people. Pre-register with Pomfret Historical Society, Donna Dufresne at [email protected], or call 860-465-7228.
October 19, 2024, 10:00 A.M. (Rain date Sunday October 20th 1:00 P.M.) Old Abington Burial Ground tour and workshop.
A Last Green Valley Walktober Event
Join CT Gravestone Expert, Ruth Shapleigh Brown, and historian Donna Dufresne in a preservation workshop at Pomfret’s Revolutionary War Cemetery. Sixty-one Revolutionary soldiers are buried in the cemetery. Learn about some of their stories while participating in restoration and re-setting demonstrations. Limit 20 – 25 people. No dogs please. Pre-register with Pomfret Historical Society, Donna Dufresne at [email protected] or call 860-465-7228.
October 26, 2024, 1:00 P.M. (Rain date: Sunday, October 27th @ 1:00 P.M.)
A Last Green Valley Walktober Event
Pirates and Privateers in Pomfret – The Hidden Stories of Nightingale Woods From Joseph Nightingale to the Higginbothams and Randalls. Guided historical tour of Nightingale Woods with historian, Donna Dufresne including the folklore of Blackbeard’s Treasure, and the colorful life of Joseph Nightingale, who was born on Nightingale Farm and became a wealthy merchant in Providence involved in West Indies trade and privateering during the Revolutionary War. Two – four-mile hike options on Wyndham Land Trust trails in moderate terrain with historical features including the Higginbotham foundations, millsite & cemetery. Dogs on leash O.K. Limit 20 – 25 people. Dogs on leash O.K. Pre-register with Pomfret Historical Society, Donna Dufresne at [email protected], or call 860 465 7228.
November 2, 2024 10:00 A.M. (rain date November 3rd, 1:00 P.M.): Them Bones, Them Bones, Them Malbones: Tour of Old Trinity Church and the Burial Ground built by Godfrey Malbone in 1771.
A Last Green Valley Walktober Event
Donna Dufresne will share her research on Godfrey Malbone and the enslaved people who lived and worked his land from 1741 to 1779. A gravestone cleaning demonstration will follow for those interested in preserving colonial burial grounds and removing lichen. No dogs. Pre-Register with Donna Dufresne at [email protected], or call 860-465-7228.
"Waking the Dead"
Archaeology, Genealogy and Archival Research of Enslaved Africans and Native Americans Four Workshops on research techniques and burial ground restoration featuring the enslaved Africans of Jonathan Randall from 1777 up to the Civil War.
Workshop included tours of historic sites and demonstrations on repairing and cleaning gravestones.
Series is funded by a grant from CThumanties. The Last Green Valley provided filming of all parts of the 4 days under the direction of Fran Kefalas.
