Connecticut River Antique Collectors Klub

Image Gallery 40 HP Bessemer oil field engine on display at show field.

In October 1993 I was laid off from my job of 22-1/2 years at a power company in Connecticut and decided to go back to Vermont where I had grown up.

In November 1993 my wife, Ruth, and I decided to try to start a club at our old country store. The store had been closed since 1972 and we had bought it in 1991. At our first meeting six interested people decided to forge ahead and organize an antique collectors club, naming it the Connecticut River Antique Collectors Klub. Through the following months we worked on a food booth and the old barn that had previously collapsed during a windstorm. We held our first show the last week of August 1994, and we had a total of 35 exhibitors attending. The club has continued to grow each year since then, with a membership of 165 families in 2001. The ladies are just as active in this club as the men are, and this factor has helped the club grow in leaps and bounds, with 172 exhibitors in place for our 2001 show.

After that first show, Gabe Machado of Albany, Vt. donated a 40 HP Bessemer oil field engine for display at the show field. It is run at all of our shows and enjoyed by many, as these types of engines were not used in this New England area.

Members have donated many pieces of equipment and we have built a 50-foot pole shed to house some of it. The old store building has been turned into a museum, housing samples of some of the many different collections of our members, including items such as milk bottles, salt and pepper shakers, coffee grinders and a turn of the century kitchen where the ladies display their collections of dishes and cookware. There is also a working print shop and a collection of over 30 washing machines and 50 or more different chamber pots and bedpans. For those interested in toys there are tractors, trucks, fire trucks and construction toys to see, too.