Abby Epplett, Historian

In August 2025, I traveled to the Windsor area of Connecticut and spent three days visiting museums, stopping at historic sites, and walking in parks. On the second day of my adventure, I went to the Vintage Radio and Communications Museum of Connecticut  (VRCMC). Across all of intense museum visitation, this museum exceeded expectation more than any other. In a year that included trips to famous stops Philadelphia, Washington DC, Old Sturbridge Village, and Plimoth Patuxet, along with dozens of other venues, this was the most unique, whimsical, and satisfying stop.

On the same day I visited the Connecticut Trolley Museum and East Windsor Historical Society , I walked through Northwest Park run by the town of Windsor, CT. This 473-acre park includes a tobacco museum, a nature center, a heritage breed animal barn, public art, and twelve miles of walking trails.

During my first day of my adventure in the Windsor, CT area, I stopped by East Windsor Historical Society to look at their collection of buildings and related outdoor artifacts. This venue was not far away from the Connecticut Trolley Museum , which I had visited in the morning, and was a great companion visit. While the society was not open during my visit, it was easy to park and look at the well-preserved space, also known as Museums on the Green. (Falmouth Historical Society on Cape Cod, which I visited back in August 2024 , similarly calls its venue Museum on the Green.)

In mid-August 2025, I took a three-day trip to the Windsor, CT area to explore many museums and parks. My first stop on the trip with the Connecticut Trolley Museum (CTM) in East Windsor. The owner of the museum, the Connecticut Electric Railway Association, Inc., was founded in 1940, making it the oldest trolley preservation organization in the country. While checking off a bucket list item, I saw trolleys and fire trucks, took a ride on a restored trolley, and visited the unique gift shop.

I recently read the eBook Witch Hunt: A Traveler’s Guide to the Power and Persecution of the Witch written by Kristen J. Sollée and published in 2020 by Red Wheel / Weiser . The book was based on Sollée’s road trip to places of importance in witchcraft history with each chapter covering a different location with Europe or the USA. Sollée seamlessly blends her lived experience with detailed research, creating a narrative of magical realism, historic documentation, and modern interpretation, from scholarly books to tourist traps. Besides exploring places less familiar to the average reader, Sollée includes references to literature turned pop culture like Shakespeare’s Macbeth and well-known artworks like Michelangelo’s David and The Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden in the Sistine Chapel. The balance of novelty and familiarity kept me engaged through the 2.5 hour reading time. Another talent exhibit by Sollée is her ability to explain new vocabulary. From the “Introductio...

In early November 2024, I visited Bigelow Hollow State Park in Union, CT , a tiny town of 785 people located in The Last Green Valley , a national heritage corridor. Much like Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor and Essex National Heritage Area , both of which appear frequently on this blog, The Last Green Valley is a member of the Alliance of National Heritage Areas (ANHA) , which preserves ecological and historical sites across the United States. The Connecticut area is unique for having the only dark nighttime skies on the East Coast between Boston, MA and Washington, DC, since eighty-four percent of the land is farms and forests. Bigelow Hollow makes up 516 acres (2.09 sq km) of those rural lands.

Finishing up my three-day trip to the Mystic / Lyme area of Connecticut, I made a few quick history stops along the way, including a nature preserve, a state park with a railroad bridge, and a historic farmstead.

Several weeks ago, I took a three-day trip to the Mystic / Lyme area of Connecticut and visited many historical sites. The most remarkable hidden gem I found during this trip was Thomas Lee House & Little Boston School, properties in Niantic, CT belonging to  East Lyme Historical Society . Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1970 , Lee House was among the best examples of post-medieval houses in New England that I have visited. In the late 1660s, the original portion of the house was built for Ensign Thomas Lee III who used the lower chamber as a Judgement Hall for holding court cases. Additions in 1709 and 1765 brought the house to its current size. The Lee family lived in the house until some point in the 19 th century, when a neighbor bought the property and turned it into a barn. Today, the lower chamber on the left is a 17 th century design, while the lower chamber on the left is an 18 th century or Georgian style design, all...

Several weeks ago, I went on a three-day adventure to the Mystic / Lyme area of Connecticut and visited many historic stops. During this trip, I went to Brookside Farm Museum in Niantic, CT, a village of East Lyme. Formerly called Smith-Harris House, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Thomas Avery House , some reasons behind its many names will be explained in this post. The route the house getting its complex name was likewise complex. In 1845, local carpenter John Clark built the Greek Revival style house for well-off merchant Thomas Avery and his new wife Elizabeth Brace Griswold Avery . The land on which it was built had been in the family for many years, with Thomas being in the seventh generation, and the new house included parts of an older house. Elizabeth died young in 1852 at age 29, so Thomas’ childless sister, Elizabeth Avery Henderson , moved into the house to care for their two surviving children. While older...

Several weeks ago, I had an adventure in the Lyme / Mystic area of Connecticut. In the village of Niantic in East Lyme, CT is Niantic Bay Boardwalk stretching 6000 feet from Niantic Bay Beach to Hole-in-the-Wall Beach. Fun yellow seashell location markers installed by Eagle Scout Joshua Miller of Troop 240 indicate how far a walker has traveled along the boardwalk and provide information for emergency services should something go amiss. Besides this excellent signage, the boardwalk boasts plenty of informational signs about the history and ecology of the area. As an added bonus, trains regularly run down the railroad tracks beside the boardwalk and cross the drawbridge on the Niantic Bay Beach end of the path. The Niantic River had been a challenge to cross since people settled in the area several thousand years ago, but the first known Niantic River Bridge was built in 1796 to replace a rope ferry, a pulley system that had brought passengers and goods...