Dorset Historical Society

Hike to the Pinnacle
2026-07-19 10:00 - 11:00 (America/New_York) | Dorset Green
Hike to the Pinnacle with Kevin O’Toole. This is a 1-mile beginner/intermediate hike.
Please meet at the Dorset Green.

250 for the 250th
2026-03-06 17:00 - 20:00 | Mt. Anthony Country Club, 180 Country Club Drive, Bennington, VT, 05201, United States
Join the Cause! The Bennington Regional 250th Anniversary Committee is seeking 250 people to donate $250 to support the 250th anniversaries. The money raised will go to support events, educations efforts, creative works, monuments, and special projects related to the 250th anniversaries that started this year and will continue through 2027. This special group of supporters will enjoy discounts on 250th events and merchandise throughout the anniversary period, invitations to special events, an exclusive newsletter, preferred seating at ticketed events, and their signature on a special 250th proclamation which will be on display for the three year anniversary period and will be included in a time capsule at the end of 2027 to be opened in 2077.
Sign up today to attend our inaugural “250 for the 250th” event which will be held on March 6, 2026 from 5-8 pm at Mount Anthony Country Club in Bennington, VT. Sign up at https://www.bennington250.org/. Each donor to this event will receive a special Bennington 250 pin, and a themed lapel pin for each of the three anniversary years, with the 2025 pin honoring the Expedition to Ticonderoga.
Honor history, by becoming part of history!

POSTPONED Lecture: Archaeology and Tribal Historic Preservation: An Uneasy History with Jeffrey C Bendremer Ph.D., RPA
2026-02-25 16:00 - 17:00 | The Dorset Historical Society Bley House Museum, Corner of Kent Hill Road & Route 30, Dorset, VT, 05251
Due to inclement weather, this lecture has been postponed. We appreciate your understanding and plan to reschedule at a future date.
Join us for a lecture on Wednesday, February 25th at 4pm featuring Jeffrey Bendremer, Ph.D, RPA on archaeology and tribal historic preservation. Indigenous communities and archaeologists have often been at odds regarding how best to preserve, protect, investigate and venerate tribal heritage. Between amateur collectors, museums and academic archaeologists, Tribal Nations have often felt that their reverence for their own histories had been subordinated to outsiders who had divergent interests, priorities, ethics and goals. The establishment of Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, a provision of Section 101(d)(2) of the National Historic Preservation Act, became open to federally recognized Indian Tribes since 1996. As a result, tribal governments finally had legally-based regulatory procedures for historic preservation and a statutory basis for asserting culturally appropriate approaches to the treatment of their heritage.
Jeffrey Bendremer, Ph.D, RPA received his doctorate in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut and is currently the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
Jeff was founder and director of Salish Kootenai College’s Tribal Historic Preservation Program, the only 4-year degree in THP in America, and held professorships at Mercy College, Indiana University, College of New Rochelle, Eastern Connecticut State University and Connecticut College, teaching courses in Native American studies, anthropology, sociology, and history.
Dr. Bendremer has also worked in cultural resource management and public archaeology, including 10 years as Manager of the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut’s historic preservation program and NAGPRA Coordinator for the Connecticut Museum of Natural History and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. He has presented and published numerous academic papers on Indigenous history and culture in the northeast. He advocates for better ethics in archaeology, improved partnerships with Indian tribes and cutting-edge methods in historic preservation.
Dorset is located on the ancestral homelands of the Mohican Nation and Stockbridge-Munsee Community.

Author Talk: Tyler Alexander on "If I Can Get Home This Fall: A Story of Love, Loss, and a Cause in the Civil War"
2026-01-30 18:00 - 19:00 | Northshire Bookstore, 4869 Main St, Manchester Center, VT, 05255, United States
On Friday, January 30th at 6pm at Northshire Bookstore, author Tyler Alexander will share the epic story of Dan Mason, a white man who served in the Civil War as a soldier in the Sixth Vermont Infantry and as an officer in the Nineteenth U.S. Colored Troops. It is a story of these two units from very different realities but with a common purpose.
Drawing on Mason’s letters home to his fiancé, Harriet Clark, and on other historical records, Tyler Alexander provides a compelling account of the human cost of war and offers insight about the experiences and attitudes of those who witnessed war firsthand, including enlisted troops and officers, men and women, Democrats and Republicans, and white and Black Americans. Alexander examines how the most controversial issues of the war—emancipation, the draft, military strategy, the arming of Black troops, and Reconstruction policy—were viewed in real time by the participants who found themselves engulfed in the maelstrom of war, particularly those from a strongly anti-slavery farming community in the hills of northeast Vermont. The voices from this distant time offer an example of what real patriotism, courage, and moral conviction look like in times of extreme national divisions over race, identity, and the meaning of democracy.
“These are some of the best and most moving of the thousands of Civil War letters I have encountered. The reader will experience an extraordinary degree of empathy and admiration for Sergeant Dan Mason of the Sixth Vermont Infantry, who subsequently became captain of the Nineteenth U.S. Colored Troops. Tyler Alexander weaves together the letters with biographical and narrative details that tell a remarkable (and tragic) personal, as well as historical, story.”—James M. McPherson, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
“In his splendid book, Tyler Alexander brings alive the Civil War experiences of a young fighter in the Vermont Brigade. . . . The narrative features copious, moving letters written by Dan Mason to his sweetheart Harriet Clark and blends these with public accounts of evolving war aims. The result is a vivid account of how a struggle to restore the Union was transformed and how the promise of freedom and democracy to all Americans, regardless of race, was embraced by the rank and file no less than by political leaders. The poignant, gripping, and tragic story speaks to the idealism of the Civil War era and how this history relates to today’s dire challenges.”—Robert Bonner, author of The Soldier’s Pen: Firsthand Impressions of the Civil War
TYLER ALEXANDER is an educator in Vermont who teaches American history and government. He is a former James Madison Fellow and studied forestry, history, and education at the University of Maine and the University of Vermont. One of Alexander’s ancestors served alongside Dan Mason in Company D of the Sixth Vermont.
If you have questions about this or any other Northshire event, please write the fine folks at events@northshire.com.

Holiday Open House
2025-12-06 11:00 - 14:00 | The Dorset Historical Society Bley House Museum, Corner of Kent Hill Road & Route 30, Dorset, VT, 05251
Join us for our annual Holiday Open House! Taste a selection of sweet treats, and view our newest exhibit on the history of Dorset’s apple orchards.

Halloween at DHS!
2025-10-31 16:30 - 18:00 | The Dorset Historical Society Bley House Museum, Corner of Kent Hill Road & Route 30, Dorset, VT, 05251
The Dorset Historical Society will be joining other Downtown Dorset Entities handing out candy and our unique Dorset Historical Society Trading Cards to visiting trick or treaters!

Fall Festival
2025-10-11 11:00 - 15:00 | Dorset Green
Gather your friends and neighbors – we’re having a Fall Festival!
Please join us on Saturday, October 11th from 11a-3pm for a Fall Festival on the Village Green, hosted by The Union Store. Wagon Rides and games for the kids, local vendors, and a bake sale for The Dorset School’s DPV. Don’t miss this day of fun, food, and community spirit!

Community Event: Glenn Fay on "Ambition: The Remarkable Family of Ethan Allen" at Northshire Bookstore
2025-05-16 18:00 | Northshire Bookstore, 4869 Main St, Manchester Center, VT, 05255, United States
The Northshire Bookstore in Manchester will present an evening with Glenn Fay, Jr. for a reading and discussion of his recently released book, Ambition: The Remarkable Family of Ethan Allen on Friday, May 16th at 6pm.
Ambition, published by Onion River Press, dives into the relationships of Ethan Allen’s aspiring extended family of brothers, sisters, wives, children, grandchildren, and associates. Many of these characters helped create the original republic we now know as Vermont while living in the Manchester area. Ambition also describes the Allens’ imprint on the present-day unique state of Vermont. The book is available everywhere. Signed copies will be available at the event and afterward.
Ambition has been endorsed by Vermont historians Kevin Graffagnino, Former Governor Jim Douglas, Elise Guyette, Michael Bellesiles, Gary Shattuck, Phyllis Drury, and others.
Glenn Fay is a native Vermonter and descendant of Green Mountain Boy Daniel Champion and New Hampshire militiaman Jon Powers II. He has researched and written about characters in the American Revolution with two prior books, Vermont’s Ebenezer Allen: Patriot, Commando, and Emancipator, and Hidden History of Burlington, Vermont, both from The History Press. Glenn serves on the board of directors at the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum in Burlington.

Community Event: Alexandre Caillot Book Launch at ByWay Books & More
2025-05-13 16:00 - 18:00 | ByWay Books & More, 399 Canal Street, Brattleboro, 05301, United States
ByWay Books & More is excited to host Alexandre Caillot, author of Late to the Fight which explores the experiences and contributions of Union soldiers from the 17 th Vermont and 31 st Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiments who entered the Army of the Potomac in time to serve during the Overland Campaign.
This event will be of particular interest to aficionados of the Civil War, military war, and regional history as well as anyone who wants to learn about the Green Mountain State’s final Civil War regiment which endured some of the most intense fighting in the conflict. Caillot will share his research and address the motivations, behavior, and combat performance of the men who filled the ranks left empty by veterans whose three-year terms had expired. There will be time for a Q&A and book signing.
Brian Matthew Jordon, Pulitzer Prize finalist for Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War says, “…Methodically rich and carefully argued, this is that rare book that challenges readers to rethink their conclusions – as well as their questions.”
Dr. Sodergren, Chair of the History and Political Science Department at Norwich University and Civil War expert, speaks highly of Late to the Fight, and says that Caillot “…explores the combat performance of the Union soldiers who filled newly raised regiments that fought through the Civil War’s final year. Historians have typically regarded these late enlistees as substandard to those who signed on at the war’s start…Caillot shows that these forgotten boys in blue left behind a record of valor and sacrifice essential to achieving the destruction of the confederacy.”
Alexandre Caillot is from the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and earned his doctorate in history from Temple University in 2023. He has previously taught at Norwich University and interned in the National Park Service, where he gave battlefield tours. Caillot has had articles published by the U.S. Military History Review and the Modern War Institute, in addition to authoring over twenty scholarly book reviews in print and online.
ByWay Books & More is located at 399 Canal St. Brattleboro, VT and has been in business for just over a year. ByWay Books & More specializes in general new trade books with a focus on the environment, a large children’s books section, many unique finds at a reasonable price, and a growing collection of foreign language and social justice books.

Author Talk: Jon Mathewson on “Dorset” History Book
2025-05-08 18:00 - 20:00 | The Dorset Village Library, Corner of Church Street and Route 30, Dorset
Join us at both the Dorset Village Library and the Dorset Historical Society on May 8th at 6pm to hear Jon Mathewson discuss the new book Dorset. The book covers the origins of Dorset and its history from 1850-1965. The talk will begin at 6pm at the Dorset Village Library. After the program, we’ll head across the street to the Dorset Historical Society where there will be a reception and more conversation until 8pm!
From 1768 on, people settled in several parts of Dorset, creating 14 school districts and six distinct villages. Join us in Dorset as we examine the histories of these villages through photographs from the 1850s to 1960. Discover the industry and recreation of North Dorset, the marble mills of East Dorset, the quarries of South Dorset, and the businesses of Dorset Village, as well as the people who have called Dorset home: Alcoholics Anonymous cofounder Bill Wilson, authors Elizabeth Prentiss and Zephine Humphrey, quarry and orchard entrepreneur Ernest West, and many others.
Dorset, an Arcadia Publishing Images of America book, is available for purchase from Dorset Historical Society. The Dorset Historical Society has been actively preserving and presenting local history since 1963.
Photo credit: Steven Schlussel.
