History of the Windsor Public Library

The Windsor Public Library as it exists today evolved out of the various private lending libraries located in the town in the 19th century. The Windsor Library Company and the Windsor Athenaeum, both subscription-based, brought together interested parties who were able to pay for the privilege of reading up on and discussing the topics of the day.

It wasn’t until December 12, 1882 that the Windsor Library Association was formed from the remnants of the previous library organizations, with the added generosity of local donors, including Charles Cotesworth Beaman of Cornish and William Maxwell Evarts, of Windsor. The new, free library was located in the New Town Hall on Court Street – now the American Legion Hall – and offered over 3,000 titles to the borrowing public. In 1886, the Association was incorporated and the name was changed to the Windsor Public Library, and a few years later the operation was moved from the New Town Hall to the Hiram Harlow House, where it remained until the current library building was constructed in 1902.

The permanent location for Windsor’s book collection was made possible by the generous donation of Benjamin F. Blood. His original $10,000 offer to build a library on the land next to the Harlow house was increased by $3,000, after consultation with the librarian, Rev. Edward N. Goddard. Architects Brite & Bacon, of New York City, were hired due to a favorable letter to the trustees from Maxwell Evarts.

An original blueprint for the WPL building from 1903:

The Georgian Revival structure, as designed, was opened to the public on June 4, 1904. The library building, on State Street in Windsor is one story, 60 by 28 feet, with an annex, 26 by 16 feet in the rear. The roof is the “finest Maine slate”; the foundation, Ascutney granite; the exterior walls are red brick and the base, cornices and all exterior trimmings, with quoins and dentils, are of Fitchburg granite. Two sets of elongated windows are on each side of the entrance in front, a portico with Doric columns, of the same granite.

In the vestibule entrance, on the left, is a bronze relief of Mr. Blood, and a plaque bearing his birth date and place together with the following inscription:

This building was erected by Benjamin F. Blood, of Waltham, Massachusetts, A.D. 1903, and by him presented to the people of Windsor to be forever used as a public library. A former citizen of Windsor, by industry and ability, he accumulated a fortune, and this he dedicated to the best interests of the descendants of his early associates and providing for them church, school and library advantages. Mr. Blood’s generous gift to the town of Windsor still stands majestically and is heavily used by citizens in and around Windsor.

For more important figures and moments in the history of our library, please see the publication Windsor Public Library: 100 Years of Knowledge and Enrichment, compiled and edited by Susan Anthony and Jennifer Cary in 2004, from which this piece is excerpted.

The Mural by Allyn Cox

American muralist Allyn Cox (1896-1982) spent the last 30 years of his distinguished career painting historical scenes in our nation's capital. He completed the mural on the great rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building, begun over a century earlier by the Italian artist Constantino Brumidi. Cox's contribution includes scenes of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and the birth of the age of aviation. Cox also painted murals in the Great Experiment Hall on the House side of the Capitol building. There, he depicted the “Four Freedoms” and scenes of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin entertaining members of the Constitutional Convention, and others.

It was an auspicious end to a long career that began much more modestly right here in Windsor. For Allyn Cox, in the summer of 1916, at the age of 20, painted the panel above the fireplace in the Windsor Library. Sixty years later, a sharp-eyed library worker helped discover and confirm this piece of history, practically in the nick of time.

In the summer of 1978, while Cox was busily decorating the Great Experiment Hall, Marguerite Nyberg read a newspaper article in the Burlington Free Press about Allyn Cox, the D.C. muralist. She had also noted the same name on the library panel. Gail Furnas, then the Windsor Librarian, wrote Cox a letter in August 1978, inquiring about the painting, and Cox wrote back confirming that he was the artist.

The text of his letter, reproduced here in its entirety, contains several points of interest.

The Cosmos Club 2121 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008

10 September, 1978

Ms. Gail Abbot[t] Furnas, Librarian
The Windsor Public Library
43 State Street
Windsor, Vermont, 05089,

Dear Ms. Abbott:

Thank you for your letter. My parents, the Kenyon Coxes, were part of the Cornish colony of artists that gathered around Mr. Saint-Gaudens. I had just won the Fellowship in the American Academy in Rome, in those days a three-year affair, in the Spring, and looked forward to a long Summer in Cornish before leaving for Rome in October. It seemed to me that, fresh from the Art-schools of New York, and about to start my three years of studio work in Rome, it might be a good idea to try to get some experience in actual wall-painting. I asked Mr. Sherman Evarts, at that time an official of the Library, if they would let me decorate the overmantel panel -- free of charge. The Board did not object, so that is how I spent the Summer.

The inscription was supplied by Mr. Evarts, and means: “Accurate reading is of profit, Varied (reading) delights.” Author? I have forgotten. By way of payment, The Library Board gave me a leather-bound volume of reproductions of “the Hundred Best Pictures”.

I am not related to the very distinguished Archibald Cox family, but I remember Mrs. Cox very well as a beautiful young girl. I took part in the celebrated Saint-Gaudens masque in 1905 (?) and have one of the medals[,] struck in commemoration of it, with my name.

My father died in 1919, and my mother sold the Cornish cottage to Mr. Harry Arnold. I returned in 1920, after the War, to a very different world, and to the necessity of at once starting to earn my living, in New York, and have not been back to Cornish or Windsor except for a few very brief visits.

As to other information, I see you have read the notice in Who's Who, which is all correct as to dates, etc. I should be extremely grateful if you could get me a clipping, or a Xerox of it, of the notice in the Burlington Free Press.

Yours Sincerely,
[signed] Allyn Cox

Cox died four years later, of a stroke at the age of 86. A week earlier, he had been hailed as “a great artist” by Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to which he had devoted so much of his life and talent.

Sources: The Valley News, July 27, 1981, and August 1, 1981 The Windsor Chronicle, December 21, 1978, and July 24, 1987 Unidentified and undated newspaper obituary (may be the Boston Globe) Handwritten, unsigned copy (draft?) of a letter dated August 30, 1978, to Allyn Cox (presumed to have been written by Furnas) Letter from Allyn Cox to Gail Abbott Furnas dated September 10, 1978