Category: News

Monkton Museum & Historical Society participated in the annual Monkton Trunk or Treat.  We were happy to introduce ourselves to the newest potential members, who ultimately will carry the legacy of our history.  Parents and children embraced the Halloween season with creative and thoughtful costumes.  It was a fun community event!

On a trip from Illinois to Nova Scotia, Jim Runyon stopped by the Monkton Ridge Cemetery to find the headstones of his third great grandparents Diah and Lucretia Peck. Despite his experience with cemetery searches for other relatives Jim was unable to locate Diah even though Findagrave.com confirmed he had been buried in this cemetery….

Roger and Helen Layn were well-known citizens of Monkton and in 2020 on Roger’s 100th birthday the whole town turned out to celebrate.  Many of us knew of their service in general terms, but this article helps us to understand the sacrifices and heroism they each displayed.  Their family still runs the farm, offering “quality meats…

What fun we had yesterday at our Community Scanning Day! Thanks to generous folks, we were able to add some great images to our photo collection. And, the stories we heard were priceless. Here is one image of teacher Doris Agan and students at the Boro School, 1956-57, donated by Marlene French Russell. Please check…

The MMHS is working to preserve Monkton’s past.  Won’t you help us by sharing photographs of people, places or events of Monkton? As historians, we try to make Monkton’s history come alive.  We are thrilled whenever we discover images of the people or places we are studying. We’ve seen how popular these photos can be…

We usually report on events from Monkton’s past but in this case we have some history in the making.  The total solar eclipse on Monday April 8 brought approximately 200 people to the Town Hall for a party organized by a small committee: Marilyn Cargill, Teri and Ralph Fitz-Gerald, Cindy Belanger and Jessica Demeritt. There were…

Stephen Haight [1738-1825] settled in Barnumton before 1800. This Friends (Quaker) family was from Dutchess Co., NY. Stephen married twice, first to Lydia Allen, who was the mother of his children, and second to Keturah Baker, widow of William Robblee. Stephen is buried in the Friends Cemetery off Cemetery Road. Stephen and Lydia, had a…

We are delighted to announce the purchase of a new scanner to collect memories from across Monkton. We’ll be hosting a scanning party on Sunday morning, May 5 from 10:00-12:00. The MHHS will collect and organize photos and documents to be saved and shared with curious folks in the future. Between now and May 5,…

This photo is from William Haight Harrison’s 1927 trip to Monkton. Does anyone know if this place in Barnumtown still stands? John Thomas, from Connecticut, came to Monkton in 1796, where he died in 1799, leaving a wife and nine children. Mrs. Thomas married Dr. Dan Stone in 1880. Dan Stone, from Connecticut, a graduate…

When our team was researching our History of East Monkton, I became interested in the topic of ice harvesting as I began to really think about the days before electric refrigeration. It was not until the late 1930s that electricity came to Monkton. Before that, homes, farms and businesses were all dependent upon ice to…