Discovering ‘Print Town’ on the Brattleboro Words Trail
By MEG MCINTYRE
“From the vantage point of Brattleboro’s tiny Pliny Park, history is all around.
To the right across High Street stands the 1871 Brooks House, a former hotel and favorite destination of 19th- and 20th-century literary figures such as Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book, who lived for a time in nearby Dummerston. Across Main Street, the American Building, now dotted with shops and restaurants, once housed the Brattleboro Reformer, the Vermont Printing Company and the Stephen Daye Press. To the left, you can see the former site of the town hall, where African American abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass delivered his first speech about president Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1866.
These are just a few of the locales highlighted on the Brattleboro Words Trail, a collaborative research project celebrating southeastern Vermont’s rich literary past and present. With more than 90 destinations featuring dynamic audio narrations — and more being added all the time — the tour takes residents and visitors on a journey through the region’s long-standing love affair with words.”