Middlebury straddles what has been dubbed the Marble Border of Western New England, a continuous vein of marble extending from the Canadian border southward through Vermont and the Berkshires. As early as the 1780s regional stonecutters began to exploit this high-quality resource. In the early 19th century Middlebury, with abundant waterpower and engineering ingenuity, mechanized its marble production to produce architectural components that were sought by major architects, shipped as distantly as to Montreal, London, and Savannah, and marketed through outlets in Boston and New York.
Elsewhere along the range, centers like Rutland, VT, Pittsfield, MA, and Marbledale, CT, were providing thousands of monuments, gravestones and architectural features to buildings, cemeteries, and town squares, exporting artfully finished products to points south and beyond.
Middlebury’s West Cemetery, with more than 3000 burials and markers, beginning in the 1790s - is a veritable museum of history and marble art. Gravestones and monuments in places where marble was quarried and worked are often more spectacular than other places. This is one of the best marble yards in Vermont.
The West Cemetery represents a who’s who of early Middlebury history including, Epraphras Miller, Horatio Seymour Gamaliel Painter and his famous daughter Abby Victoria, iron manufacturer, Jonathan Wainwright, Joseph & Phillip Battell, first town attorney and law book author John Simmons, Clockmaker, Joseph Dyer, Samuel Swift, early professors like Solomon Allen who died in 1817 and marble makers Eben Judd & David Kinnear.
Glenn Andres is Professor Emeritus of the History of Art and Architecture at Middlebury College where he taught the history of architecture and urbanism from 1970 to 2015. He .served as a long-time member of the Vermont Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and as a trustee of the Henry Sheldon Museum. He has published and designed college courses drawing upon Vermont history and the regional built environment. Andres is the author of the Walking History of Middlebury and co-author of the Buildings of Vermont, in the Buildings of the United States series sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians.
Bill Hosley is an independent scholar, historian, writer, and photographer, who retired from a long career as a museum curator and director. He is passionate about art, local history, and historic preservation. He was formerly Director of the New Haven Museum and Connecticut Landmarks, where he cared for a chain of historic attractions. Prior to that, as a curator and exhibition developer at Wadsworth Atheneum, Bill organized major exhibitions including The Great River: Art & Society of the Connecticut Valley, The Japan Idea: Art and Life in Victorian America, and Sam & Elizabeth: Legend and Legacy of Colt's Empire. Bill discovered his passion for art, architecture and local history prowling around Vermont during his years as a student at Middlebury College. Vermont studies have been an abiding passion.