Current Exhibits
Autumn in Addison County From the Bixby’s Historical Collections
Autumn 2024
As autumn settles over Addison County, the Bixby Library’s History Team has been hard at work exploring the archives to create Autumn in Addison County, the Community Room’s newest exhibit. We’ve uncovered a stunning collection of historical artwork that captures our region in its autumnal glow.
Sit for a spell in the Community Room and enjoy these beautiful depictions of our local landscape. The artworks are accompanied by informational labels, which offer a window into our region’s past and the artists who captured it.
Biosphere in Your Backyard
Autumn-Winter 2024
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.
Building St. Peter’s Church
Summer-Autumn 2024
The Building St. Peter’s Exhibit celebrates the 150th anniversary of St. Peter’s Church in Vergennes. Learn about the community effort to construct the local Catholic Church through antique photographs, newspaper clippings, handmade maps, and artifacts including a brick from the Ferrisburgh Brickyard and an antique organ pipe. This exhibit, found in the Half-round Room, connects with our ongoing display in the Bixby Hall about Josephine Meneely, whose husband, William Meneely, President of the Meneely Bell Foundry of Troy NY, gave two bells to the church.
Thank you to Susan Ferland, President of the Vergennes Historical Society, for researching and creating this wonderful new exhibit.
Josephine A. Meneely Paperweight Collection
Ongoing throughout 2024
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
Ongoing throughout 2024
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.