In 1998 Strafford Historian Gwenda Smith wrote a letter to Eilzabeth Markin of The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford Connecticut. Markin had published an article in the November 1976 issue of The Magazine Antiques on the early 19th century portrait painter Zedekiah Belknap.Smith was writing in regards to the portraits of Jedediah Harris and his wife Judith Harris which hang in the Morrill Memorial Library. Smith felt they might well be among the over 200 hundred portraits done by Belknap. Harris was the mentor and business partner of Senator Justin Morrill, and Morrill gave the first library to his hometown and named it the Harris Library.

As two of Strafford‘s store buildings merit special mention this year —Coburns’ Store building having reached its 100th birthday in I985, and the old White Store in the upper village having been extensively restored —it seems fitting to present here a brief history of our main commercial structures.

This document in our archives is the deed of sale for a 125 acres of land sold by Samuel Pennock to Titus Goodall of Lyme for twelve pounds, in September, 1775. By this time, Pennock was already identified on a list of suspected Tory sympathizers in what was then Gloucester County, New York. He and his brothers and fellow Loyalists, James Jr. and Aaron, would have property in Strafford confiscated in the 1780s. Selling the land was perhaps a stopgap measure on Pennock’s part to gain some sort of income on the property before it could be seized. Read more about the Pennocks and this property here.

Adapted from John Freitag’s Historical Note, “Why Justin Morrill Got His Stamp”, printed in the 2023 Strafford, Vermon Town Report.