Shelburne Museum

One of my favorite words is serendipity—finding the unexpected where you least expect it. This was a serendipitous weekend for us. We decided to explore the famous Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont. We booked a room overnight because we’d been told that it takes two days to really see it.
Electra Havemeyer Webb (she was somehow connected with the Vanderbilts) was the founder of the museum. She and her husband were filthy rich and they were collectors of a little bit of everything. The Museum is renowned for its collections of art and Americana. There 150,000 works which are in 39 buildings 25 of which are historic buildings moved from somewhere else. In some buildings are permanent collections and, in others, are temporary exhibits such as a motorcycle exhibit. Mrs. Webb had an eye for detail and the money to pay for it.
The first thing you see is this round barn. It housed the motorcycle exhibit, but we were much more interested in the barn. It is huge and goes underground for a couple of stories. This was moved from someplace else. It was originally built for the Shakers.

In this picture you can see the silo that runs the length of the building. The barn could house 80 head of dairy cows and their poop dropped to one of the lower floors where it was recycled!

The room Garth is in the Circus Building. Out front is a beautiful carousel. This room houses enclosed in glass, a miniature circus parade. The woodcarver grew up in Vergennes, VT and loved circus parades. Electra shared the same love and commissioned him to do this. You can see the end of the parade—the elephants. Throughout the building were artifacts from circuses. I don't know how long this was but it circled around in a semi-circle. The actual circus parade would have been 2 miles long. There was every animal, every type of circus wagon, mounted soldiers. Just fantastic.

I could put in a dozen pictures. After awhile, I just gave up because there was so much to see. One of my favorites was the Ticonderoga, a 220 ft. steamboat which had been hauled overland for 2 miles from Lake Champlain an engineering feat which cost Electra about $250,000. It has been restored to its 1923 luxury. I sat in a deck chair and could imagine myself as a Vanderbilt enjoying the luxury of a sail on the Lake, which if you squint hard enough you can see in the distance.

We spent seven hours there and enjoyed it thoroughly despite the squalls that kept drenching us as we walked around. I couldn’t take pictures in a lot of the buildings because I didn’t know how to turn my flash off. This is just one example of fine stitchery. Other buildings housed farm implements, canoes, stuffed animals, photographs from WWII including a wonderful glimpse of Adak, Alaska where Garth’s dad served.

We literally walked our feet off and decided not to go to the fireworks as planned that night. Burlington and the entire area is celebrating the quadricentennial of the discovery of Lake Champlain by Samuel de Champlain in 1609. They had a $40, 000 fireworks display which we happily missed and our feet thanked us for the next day. Apparently, nature added some of its own display to the celebration.

This last picture is for Jennie. This is one part of the gift shop at the Vermont Teddy Bear factory. These teddy bears are manufactured in Vermont. Their claim to fame is their lifetime guarantee. They’re famous all over the world. None of them are “bear” naked because they are all dressed in clothes even if it might be only a bow tie! This is Vermont.