March 3, 2021
Early March, temps in the low 30’s, partly sunny . . . I decided to travel north on US 5 to visit the town of Westminster. As you can see from the welcome sign, Westminster was chartered in 1735 - 286 years ago!
Two more signs erected in Westminster by the Vermont Historic Sites Commission commemorate significant Vermont history.
Copied from freedomandunity.org web site: When one hundred unarmed farmers occupying the county courthouse at West-minster refused to leave, a Yorker sheriff ordered his men to shoot them. Panic ensued and forty men, including the wounded, were herded like animals into the courthouse jail and left to die. William French, twenty-two years old, died from a gunshot to the head. Massachusetts and New Hampshire militia did come to the farmers’ aid the next day and arrested the sheriff. The Westminster Massacre of March 13, 1775 is viewed by some as the first battle of the American Revolution.
For more information about this period of Vermont history visit freedomandunity.org, click on The New Frontier : 1750-1820 and then read Rioters vs. Rebels
In the cemetery I found the slate marker for William French, the young man killed in the ‘massacre’.
( To read inscription closeups, click on side arrows)
Bradley Law Office as it stands today.
Grandson William Bradley Willard’s home
Traditional metal sap buckets decorated Maple trees throughout the town.
The owner of one yard said I could come in to look around.
I wanted to hear the sound of the sap dripping into the buckets. And if I could be so lucky, to capture a photo of a droplet.
(click on the side arrows)
Wait for it . . .
Ahhhh . . . one drop closer to yum!
Nature’s heart