Church in Old Bennington, down the hill from the Bennington Monument. Signs point the way to the Frost family grave. Travelers often stop here to pay their respects to the man many still consider the true voice of New England. Closer to the church, look for the old tombstones—some decorated with urns and skulls—of other Vermonters who lived much less famous lives.
Bennington College , just northwest of downtown Bennington, was founded in the 1930s as an experimental women’s college. It later went co-ed and garnered a national reputation as a liberal-arts school with a special reputation for teaching writing: Pulitzer Prize–winning poet W. H. Auden, novelist Bernard Malamud (The Natural), and novelist John Gardner (Grendel) all taught here. In the 1980s, Bennington produced a fresh wave of prominent young authors, including Donna Tartt, Bret Easton Ellis, and Jill Eisenstadt. The pleasant campus north of town is worth wandering; to get there, take the North Bennington Road (Route 67A) turnoff north of downtown (near the Bennington Square Shopping Center) and follow it about 2 miles north. There are also three attractive covered bridges near the college.
The Bennington Museum MUSEUM This eclectic and intriguing collection is one of the best small museums in northern New England. The museum traces its roots back to the 1850s, although it has occupied its current stone-and-column home overlooking the valley since “only” 1928. Expansive galleries feature a range of exhibits on local arts and industry, including early Vermont furniture, glass, paintings, and Bennington pottery. Of special interest are the many colorful primitive landscapes by Grandma Moses (1860–1961), who lived much of her life nearby. (This museum has the largest collection of Moses paintings in the world.) There’s also lots of American glass; a globe by Vermonter James Wilson, the nation’s first globe maker; the Bennington flag, the oldest surviving stars–and–stripes flag; and a 1925 Martin Wasp luxury car. (Only 16 were ever made, handcrafted in Bennington by Karl Martin between 1920 and 1925.) Surprisingly—given the museum’s antiquarian character—substantial space has recently been given to 20th-century artists such as Rockwell Kent and Helen Frankenthaler. Rotating special exhibits bring in serious art that’s sometimes unrelated to local history, such as a show of rarely shown works by Renoir, Monet, and Degas or a show of Haitian quilts. This is a great find.
75 W. Main St. (Rte. 9 btw. Old Bennington and downtown). www.benningtonmuseum.org. 802/447-1571. $10 adults, $9 seniors and students, free for kids 17 and under, $19 family. June–Oct daily 10am–5pm; Feb–May and Nov–Dec Thurs–Tues 10am–5pm; closed Jan.
Exploring Arlington, Manchester & Dorset
Driving north from Bennington on Route 7A, you’ll come first to the tiny town center of Arlington . With its auto-body shop, hub-of-town gas station/convenience store, ice-cream shop, and redemption center (all remnants of a time when the main highway passed right through town), this is a real, functioning Vermont village. It also has a great riverside campground (Camping on the Battenkill; www.campingonthebattenkill.com), an unusual number of good farmhouses-converted-into-inns on the surrounding roads, and an enduring connection with Norman Rockwell, who lived in Arlington from 1939 to 1953. There’s a Rockwell Exhibition at a maple products shop called the Sugar Shack (Route 7A; 802/375-6747), with reproductions of paintings and magazine covers for which he used local folks as models; several still live in the area.
Some 8 miles north of Arlington on 7A, Manchester (also sometimes called Manchester Village) and Manchester Center share a blurred town line and proximity, but maintain very different characters. The more southerly Manchester has an old-moneyed elegance and a prim, campus-like main street centered on the resplendently columned Equinox Resort (see p. 488). There’s also a neat row of shops, a wonderful golf course, a town library, a former Lincoln home (p. 482), and a fly-fishing museum (below). Just a mile and a half north along Main Street, Manchester Center is the major mercantile center for these parts; it almost feels like a small city, with its dozens of outlet stores (see box p. 482), doughnut shop, big-box grocery store, golden-arched fast food, and surprising traffic jams at the main intersection.
Follow Route 30 north out of Manchester Center for about 7 miles to reach Dorset , an exquisitely preserved village of white-clapboard architecture and marble sidewalks. While it has no sightseeing attractions, it’s definitely worth visiting, with a pair of delightful country inns (see p. 486).
American Museum of Fly Fishing MUSEUM If the legendary Battenkill has brought you to Manchester, you’ll want to tear yourself away from streamside to visit the world’s largest collection of angling art and items under one roof. The complex, which includes a gallery space, library, reading room, store, and historical resources, was specially built for the purpose. You can browse through an impressive collection of antique rods (including some owned by Daniel Webster, Ernest Hemingway, and Winslow Homer), reels, and 200-year-old flies (there are over 22,000 flies in the museum’s trove), plus photos, instructional videos, sketchbooks, and historical items. Recent exhibitions have even chronicled the growing popularity of saltwater fly fishing. This is a surprisingly fun place to while away an hour; about the only thing missing is, well, fish. The museum is neatly positioned right between the Equinox Resort (p. 488) and the Orvis fly-fishing store (see box p. 482), where there are fish, in a trout pond where you can try out the famed company’s wares.
4070 Main St. (Rte. 7A), Manchester. www.amff.com. 802/362-3300. $5 adults, $3 kids 5–14, $10 family. Tues–Sun 10am–4pm. Closed major holidays.
Hildene HISTORIC HOME Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s only child to survive to adulthood, built this 24-room Georgian Revival mansion in 1905, and summered here until his death in 1926. Unlike many showpiece homes of the era, Hildene has an atmosphere of comfort and livability—even with its sweeping central staircase and thousand-pipe 1908 Aeolian organ, played today during house tours. Lincoln chose a gorgeous natural setting for his retreat, and enhanced it with formal gardens designed after the patterns in a stained-glass window. Outstanding views of the flanking mountains make this one of southern Vermont’s most popular wedding spots every summer and fall. The home and grounds can be viewed only on group tours that start at an informative visitor center; budget 2 to 3 hours for the tour plus extra time exploring the pretty grounds and diversions, such as a restored 1903 Pullman private railroad car. Cross-country skiing and snowshoeing are allowed with admission to the grounds in winter. A visit during Christmastime is a special treat—the house is decorated as it would have been in the Lincolns’ day.
Historic Rte. 7A (just south of Equinox Resort), Manchester. www.hildene.org. 802/362-1788. Admission to house and grounds $23 adults, $6 ages 6–16, free for kids 5 and under. Guided tour of house or archives, $7.50. Daily 9:30am–4:30pm.
