History

Three Local History Stories Told by an 1890s Trade CardJamie H. Eves, Windham Town HistorianRecently, the Mill Museum received a donation of the trade card pictured below. Trade cards were commonplace 19th-century marketing gimmicks: advertisements printed on cards about the size of baseball cards that could be handed out to potential customers. Typically, they had … Continue reading Three Stories Told by an 1890s Trade Card

The Story of a Trade CardJamie H. Eves, Windham Town Historian, 18 April 2023Artifacts tell stories, which is a major reason why museums collect and preserve them. Recently, another museum in another town donated to the Mill Museum twelve c. 1880s/1890s trade cards that had found in its collection. The cards did not really fit … Continue reading The Story of a Trade Card

Puptent PoetsJamie H. Eves, Windham Town Historian, 5 Dec. 2022On Memorial Day weekend in 2019, while picking up litter with the Willimantic Trash Mob along Bridge Street, I found two leaves from a 1945 book, Puptent Poets. I had not known about this book before I found this small piece of it, but have since … Continue reading Puptent Poets

The Lost CemeteryJamie H. Eves, Windham Town Historian, 4 Dec. 2022Four years ago, several of us went searching for the Lost Cemetery of Windham, CT. The Hale Collection, a compendium of American cemeteries and gravestone inscriptions compiled during the 1930s as a New Deal public works project, lists a cemetery in the southern part of … Continue reading The Lost Cemetery

Civil War Congressman Alfred Avery Burnham Read the Emancipation Proclamation from the Back of a Railroad Car ... Sort Of Jamie H. Eves, Windham Town Historian, 13 Dec. 2022 The Connecticut Eastern Railroad Museum -- located at 55 Bridge Street in Willimantic -- had their Railroad Days the Saturday before Labor Day, and I was … Continue reading Alfred Avery Burnham

Disputed ElectionsJamie H. Eves, Windham Town Historian, 1 Nov. 2020 (updated 15 Feb. 2021)  Most of the time, elections in the United States go pretty smoothly. One candidate wins, the others concede with at least a modicum of grace, and the public accepts the results. But sometimes an election is disputed, meaning either that one … Continue reading Disputed Elections

Lincoln's Second Inaugural AddressJamie Eves, Windham Town Historian, 30 April 2020I am thinking a lot lately about civil wars and divisions within nations. One reason for this is that my freshman United States History classes at Eastern Connecticut State University and the University of Connecticut have been examining -- this year via COVID-created distance learning … Continue reading Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

Paul Revere's Ride: A Requiem for Nation?Jamie Eves, Windham Town Historian, 5 April 2020On a cold April 5, 160 years ago today, a despondent Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited the burying ground of the Old North Church in Boston, and the genesis of a poem began to emerge in his mind. “The Midnight Ride of Paul … Continue reading Paul Revere’s Ride

Samuel Huntington and the Articles of ConfederationJamie Eves, Windham Town Historian, 22 March 2020I am "distance teaching" during the Coronavirus / COVID-19 Crisis, and so am corresponding with students in writing. That means that I am writing essays on topics that I would normally cover verbally in class. In one class, we were cut off … Continue reading Samuel Huntington & the Articles of Confederation