Welcome to the New Website!

Welcome to our new website!  The mission of The Friends of the Morrill Homestead is to work closely with the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation (VDHP) to foster a greater awareness of the life and legacy of Justin Morrill and to preserve and maintain this National Historic Landmark and State Historic Site. One of the ways we support the VDHP in their operation of the Justin Morrill Homestead is with this website.  The Homestead is owned and operated by the VDHP; this website, owned and operated by the Friends, models well how the two organizations work together.

In April of 2025 a small committee (Friends Director Kumari Patricia and board members Trish Palao and Jon Stableford) began working with Brawn Media to redesign our website.  A fresher look and smarter design were where we began, but a broader vision of a user-friendly, educational, and interactive site guided our work.  Primarily, we wanted the site to be educational in the sense that visitors could choose to simply learn about the Homestead and our programs or take a deeper dive into the history of Justin Morrill and the remarkable influence he had, first in the House and then the Senate, on the culture of our nation.

What’s new?  Well, this blog for starters.  My voice is the first of many that will speak about what is current and interesting and upcoming at the Homestead. You will notice a calendar of events that can be explored in several ways, and you will be able to register online for workshops and programs and pay for them if there is a fee.  Through the website you will be able to engage with our mission, as volunteers or donors.  Whether you are curious about who we are, seeking information for a visit, or looking for information about Morrill for an assignment at school, you can decide how deep to go into the site’s text and video files.  Our old site was clear and useful, but also somewhat static; this new one should be deeper, more dynamic, and constantly growing.

But now, a few qualifying words: the website is now and always will always be a work in progress as we develop and add educational material.  What you see now is just the beginning.  In the future other voices on this blog will crow about material we have just added to the site to deepen your understanding of Justin Morrill’s long reach into the history of this country.

And the most significant qualifier: the physical site, the Homestead, is presently closed for a construction project to mitigate serious drainage issues brought into sharp focus by violent rainstorms in recent summers.  While the Vermont Division of Historic Preservation addresses these issues, the Friends’ new web site is the harbinger of a new future.