Holdings and History
Founded in 1994 by the Alden Skinner Camp #45 of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, the museum encompasses the Hirst brothers' collection (14th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry), the Thomas F. Burpee collection (colonel, 21st Connecticut Volunteer Infantry), and the Weston collection (musician, 5th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry). There are also numerous items of other veterans which have been given to the post.
The Museum contains the O'Connell-Chapman Library, which has over 1000 volumes of Civil War literature, in addition to original copies of the 128 volumes of The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. This was compiled by the US War Department and originally published from 1880-1901. The Library also owns original Civil War map books and several photographs.
The building has the Grand Hall, an outer room, and a kitchen. The museum and library, along with the hall and its rooms, are the property of the Alden Skinner Camp #45 of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. Recently, the Museum acquired part of its original property from the town of Vernon. Once owned by the GAR, the property was annexed by the town. The Ross S. Dent Reading Room has been returned to the Museum.
The Memorial Hall is also used for meetings by the Connecticut Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS).
Read more about this topic: New England Civil War Museum
Famous quotes containing the words holdings and/or history:
“Polarized light showed the secret architecture of bodies; and when the second-sight of the mind is opened, now one color or form or gesture, and now another, has a pungency, as if a more interior ray had been emitted, disclosing its deep holdings in the frame of things.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In the history of the human mind, these glowing and ruddy fables precede the noonday thoughts of men, as Aurora the sun’s rays. The matutine intellect of the poet, keeping in advance of the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this auroral atmosphere.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)