More than 120 years ago, Middlebury, Vt. businessman, village clerk, musician and amateur historian Henry Sheldon set his mind to collecting and preserving objects, records, photographs and other materials illuminating 18th- and 19th-century life in Addison County, Vermont.
He wrote in 1881, two years before he incorporated the Sheldon Art Museum, Archaeological & Historical Society:
"I have spent all my leisure the past year trying to benefit future generations by preserving the handiwork of the early settlers of Middleburybooks, all printed matter, manufactured articles representing all of the different occupations of the early pioneers which I have called a museum."
Tools, spinning wheels, snuff boxes, kitchen utensils, political memorabilia, advertisements, muskets, clocks, furniture, portraits, photographs, letters and diaries, and hundreds of other objects were gathered together by Henry Sheldon over a thirty-year period.
Sheldon collected until his death in 1907, documenting, storing and exhibiting his huge, eclectic collection in the 1829 marble merchant's house in which he made his home."Henry's Attic" Becomes a Community Treasure "Henry's Attic," as his museum was referred to by his friends and neighbors, is today the Sheldon Museum, the oldest community museum in the country. The collection has been expanded over the years so that it now contains one of the very best representations of Vermont objects and records in the state.
Located in downtown Middlebury's historic district, the museum offers changing exhibits and activities throughout the year. In the Federal-style Judd-Harris House, fine examples of Vermont furniture, local portraits, domestic objects, black marble fireplaces, musical instruments and many other objects are exhibited in ten rooms.
The current seasonal exhibit, "Man with a Mission: Henry Sheldon's Unique Collections," focuses on several specific collections: election-related material, currency, musical instruments, Egyptian relics, 19th-century social life and leisure activities, and oddities.
The museum's Walter Cerf Gallery houses changing art and history exhibits. Paintings, prints and photographs of the Dead Creek Wildlife Refuge by Margaret Parlour are being shown through August 22. An exhibit of 19th- and early 20th-century Vermont landscapes from the museum's collection will follow.Coming Exhibit Highlights Mourning Rituals The autumn exhibit, which will run from September 28 through late October in both the Judd-Harris House and Walter Cerf Gallery, will be "To Comfort the Living: Mourning Rituals in the Nineteenth Century." The house will depict family and household mourning customs, and the gallery will show a variety of artifacts associated with funerals and mourning in the 1800s: mourning pictures and embroidery, hair wreaths and hair jewelry, carved hearse curtains, coffin plates, gravestones, and other objects.
The Sheldon Museum is located at 1 Park Street in downtown Middlebury, Vt. Guided tours are conducted four times a day Monday through Saturday through late October; visitors may also take self-guiding tours of the Judd-Harris House and art exhibits.
Museum and museum shop hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. weekdays and 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Saturday. The Research Center and Library is open Tuesday through Friday from noon to 4:00 p.m.
For further information and a calendar of events call 802-388-2117.