Current Exhibits

Awash in Spring: Vermont Water Color Society Benefit Exhibit

Spring 2025

Celebrate the season of renewal with the Vermont Watercolor Society’s latest benefit exhibit, Awash in Spring. The collection captures the tender beauty of the season—petals unfolding, landscapes stirring to life, and the soft light of longer days. Each painting offers a fresh breath of spring, rendered in luminous watercolor by local artists. You can view Awash in Spring in the Bixby Library’s Community Room, during open hours. 40% of proceeds from all paintings sold benefit the Bixby Library.

Community, Connection, & Correspondence

Spring – Summer 2025

Travel back in time with our new exhibit, to when letter writing was the primary form of communication. Using letters found in the Tucker Family Papers, the John Devotion Smith Papers, and our Postal Collection, learn
more about our five-town area and the lives of local families, in their own words. The exhibit is located in the Half Round Room.

The Battle of Valcour Island

Winter 2024 – Spring 2025

A complicated and often maligned historical figure, there’s no question Benedict Arnold was a hero of our local waters’ naval battles. A new exhibit in Bixby Hall tells the story of Arnold and the 1776 Battle of Valcour Island through a unique fusion of history and art.

Using wood recovered from the wreck of the Congress, the late Lester Fleming Sr. and his family constructed a model of the row galley to show how it would have been during the critical Battle. With the model as centerpiece, dive into our storied local history, and learn how Arnold’s retreat and scuttling of his fleet halted British advances on Lake Champlain.

The Battle of Valcour Island exhibit was curated by History Team Volunteer, Nancy Remsen and Historical Collections Associate Kelly Bartlett. The exhibit can be enjoyed in Bixby Hall during the library’s open hours.

Biosphere in Your Backyard

Autumn 2024 – Spring 2025

Did you know the Bixby Library is in a UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve? Assigned in 1989, the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Network (CABN) is an internationally recognized network connecting people and organizations in an effort to build harmonious relationships between communities and the environment.

This Fall, the Bixby is showcasing an exhibit in the Kerr Room that links our wonderful outdoor scenery with our extensive historical collections. The exhibit, titled “Biosphere In Your Backyard” follows the themes of explore, enrich, enjoy and interprets our records through a biosphere lens, considering how the landscape around us can influence the history we create. The exhibit can be viewed in the Kerr Room, with accompanying book displays in both the Vermont Room and the Children’s Room. 

This project has been funded in part by the United States National Park Service (NPS) under assistance agreement (P23AC02038-00) to NEIWPCC in partnership with the Lake Champlain Basin Program.

Samuel Strong: War Hero and Local Legend

Summer 2024 – Spring 2025

When 14,000 British troops marched down from Canada toward Plattsburgh, N.Y. in the fall of 1814, the commander of the U.S. fort there put out a call to Vermont for help. Samuel Strong of Vergennes, a recently retired general in the Vermont Militia, was picked to lead the Vermonters who volunteered to cross the lake and join the fight.

A new exhibit in the Kerr Room tells the tale of that battle as well as the story of this important figure in Addison County history. Strong wore many hats throughout his life — sheriff, farmer, mayor, legislator, business investor, bank founder as well as soldier. The display features one of his actual hats and his golden epaulets on loan from the Vermont Historical Society. From the Bixby Library’s historical collection, there is also a handwritten account book and orders he issued requiring individuals to appear before him to settle disputes.

The Samuel Strong exhibit was curated by Nancy Remsen, Bixby Trustee and Chair of the Historical Collections Committee. The exhibit can be viewed in the Kerr Room on the second floor of the library through Spring 2025.

Josephine A. Meneely Paperweight Collection

2024 – 2025

The Josephine A. Meneely Paperweight Collection is now on display in Bixby Hall. Josephine Meneely was an art enthusiast and Ferrisburgh resident, and her gorgeous collection spans regions and years. Thank you to our Historical Collections Volunteers, Nancy Remsen, and Jamie Edwards-Orr, for curating this stunning physical and digital exhibit.

Check out our online database or visit the Bixby Library to see the complete paperweight collection.

Stone Tools Collection

2024 – 2025

Back in the ‘70s, the Bixby Library was a hotbed of ground-breaking archeological undertakings. Folks now known as luminaries in the field met here to form a highly active Vergennes Chapter of the Vermont Archeological Society. They stored and exhibited renowned collections of stone tools created by people thousands of years ago.

You can view an initial selection of these collections, along with 200-year-old objects unearthed on a dig at the homestead of Vergennes’ first European settlers, the McIntosh family, in the Half Round Room on the second floor. The Vermont Archaeological Society Papers, which document the early operations of the Society during the 1970s, are open for research in the Bixby’s archives. Please call or email us to make a research appointment.