New England Trip 2012 – Day 4 – Bennington Museum, Bennington VT.
After visiting the Bennington Battle Monument further uphill from the museum, we returned to the museum parking lot to check out what the Bennington Historical Museum had to offer.
As the visitors to the museum pass through the opening in the tall iron gate, they are greeted on one side by a dragon that can hiss and breathe steam if it wants to ( a 1989 creation of Peter Kusch) and, on the other side, by a statue of Abe Lincoln and other interesting items from the past.
Inside the museum entrance, there is a gift shop and the Grandma Moses gallery and a military gallery on the main floor. The Grandma Moses gallery is a permanent gallery and features the artistic works of Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860 – 1961) who began late in life to paint the Vermont landscapes as she saw them. No photography is allowed in the gallery but it is indeed an interesting collection to see.
Passing through the Grandma Mose gallery, the visitor will find themselves in a classroom setting featuring not only what one might find in a one-room schoolhouse but also some examples of the museum collection of children’s toys and other vintage objects.
    
Click to enlarge.
 
 
 
 
Most of the chairs in the school room display were too small for me so I could only relive the school class moments so far.
 
There is a cemetery behind the museum with both older headstones and some more recent ones. I often stop to photograph some of the older or more ornate headstones but today was museum day so I headed to the second floor of the building.
 
The second floor of the museum has a number of different galleries featuring artists and craftsmen of the Vermont area. I enjoyed looking at their fine collection of vintage grandfather clocks.
 
It was interesting to learn that a car called the WASP was designed and manufactured for a few years in Bennington, VT by Karl Martin. I’ve photographed the specs and a larger view of the spec sheet can be see by clicking on the specification image below.
Click below for a larger version of the specifications sheet.
There were plenty of other things to look at in the museum but it was time for us to be on our way again.
Other links: Bennington Museum
