Virtual Walking Tour: Manchester Village
The 1961 Bicentennial marker at the foot of the Soldier’s Memorial in the Village reads: “This historic crossroads born of liberty and nurtured by the freedom loving hub for wayfarers. Host to generations. This pleasant land among the mountains.” The origins of Manchester Village date to before America was a nation. Explore 260 years of changes in its streetscape with Bill Badger and MHS curator Shawn Harrington through the history, stories and photos from the days of the American Revolution to its heyday as a summer colony and learn about community members who shaped Manchester into the New England four-season destination it is today.
GUEST SPEAKERS:
Bill Badger is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College (B.A. Art History, Phi Beta Kappa) and a 1974 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Fine Arts (M. Architecture). He received a summer fellowship in Early American Arts and Decorative Arts from Historic Deerfield and a Dales Traveling Fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania. For several summers he worked as an architectural historian for the Historic American Building Survey (U.S. Department of Interior). He is a founding member and current Membership Chair of the Rutland Railroad Historical Society. Bill has been a dedicated board member of MHS for several decades. He and his wife, Pam, live in Manchester.
Shawn Harrington serves as Curator of the Manchester Historical Society and is a lifelong resident of Bennington County. His interest in history began at an early age when -as a second grader – he discovered The Shires of Bennington: A Pictorial History of a Vermont County (edited by Tyler Resch, Bennington Historical Society, 1975) in the library at the Shaftsbury Elementary School. Over the past 8 years, he has been digitizing the thousands of pieces in the MHS collection to use for outreach and education at local schools, as well as in print and social media. He has worked for the past two decades in the financial services industry with a tenure as a member of the New York Stock Exchange and resides in Manchester Center with his two sons.
