To highlight our newly available Vermont newspapers on the Chronicling America website, I’d like to direct your attention to some issues for 150 and 175 years ago. We have titles from both 1861 and 1836 now available, with more to come.

In the July 26, 1836 edition of the Rutland Herald (available here), amongst the week’s poems, anecdotes and fiction, the editor was trumpeting the Presidential ticket of Wm. H. Harrison and Francis Granger, and the gubernatorial candidate Silas H. Jennison. Page 3 contained a series of reprinted news items that are particularly interesting, including a notice of a gentleman who was struck by lightning in Belchertown, MA. It seems the town billed the man’s widow:

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The Herald also printed an item about the planned state insane asylum in Brattleboro:

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1861: Amongst all the articles detailing the stirrings of war, the July 26 1861 edition of the Burlington Free Press weekly edition contains a pair of letters from J.T. Drew of the Vermont Second Regiment written to the Free Press for publication. Click through here to see the page online. Mr. Drew details the comings and goings of the regiment, and ends with a plea that readers send some dried fruits so that the men weakened by illness might recover:

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A sad reminder that the tragedies of war so often occur far from the battlefield.

I encourage you to explore these issues and other Vermont titles now available on the Chronicling America website: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ . Take a look for yourself and see what you find!

– Tom McMurdo