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Julius (a.k.a. Julian) Willard, 1857-1914, was a blind musician who lived with the Perham family of Cambridgeport (Rockingham), Vermont. He was the son of Linus B. and Harriet Clark Willard. The family lived in Cavendish, Chester, and Westminster,…

Julius (a.k.a. Julian) Willard poses with a ukulele with two other musicians. The woman with the banjo in thought to be his friend Alice Perham. The identity of the man with the guitar is unknown. Willard and Perham were known to give musical…

Musicians Julius (a.k.a. Julian) Willard and Alice Perham sit on a lawn swing and play their instruments.

Another example of a minstrel show being performed in a Vermont town. This one is for a group called the Altimont Cornet Band Minstrels performing at Hammond Hall in Ludlow in 1889

Vermont Life article about Vergennes, Vermont, pastor Ritchie Low, and his program to bring Black children from a Harlem, New York, church for a stay with white families in Vermont in 1946. This article celebrates Vermont's tolerance of racial…

Andrew Harris was a man of constant activity and tremendous energies, all of which were devoted to what at the time was the truly radical cause of racial equality in America. His untimely death of fever in December 1841 at the age of 27 is the only…

A remarkable set of resolutions that the student body of Bowdoin College in Maine passed in 1838 denounced the "unfounded and wicked prejudice" displayed against Andrew Harris at the University of Vermont "for possessing a complexion which God saw…

This brief article lays out strong evidence that Lucy Caroline (Allen) Hitchcock, daughter of Ethan Allen, was the owner of two slaves, Lavinia Parker and her son Francis, between 1835-1841 in Burlington, Vermont.

Another example of the prevalence of minstrel shows in Vermont, this is a flyer for a minstrel show put on by the Apollo Club, a local social club, at the Blanchard Opera House in Montpelier in 1886.

This 1914 article explains the notorious case of the Selectmen of Windsor v. Stephen Jacob, Esq. The defendant had held a negro woman, Dinah, as a slave for many years but when she became infirm the town became responsible for her care. The…

Although Vermont prohibited slavery in its constitution of 1777, slavery persisted in the state after that date. One of the most famous examples is Dinah, a slave owned by Vermont Supreme Court justice Stephen Jacob of Windsor. This is a typescript…

The history of Black people in Burlington during the late nineteenth century developed within the wider context of other local ethnic groups, but also should be understood on its own terms. At the same time, Afro-Burlingtonians shared many…