will commemorate a couple who are considered pioneers of LGBTQ+ visibility.
Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake lived and worked together in town in the early 19th century. They were beloved members of the community and accepted in rural Vermont as a
They ran a thriving tailor shop that employed many local women, and, over the years, helped raise as many as 100 of their nieces and nephews.
In conjunction with the state's Division for Historic Preservation, Vermont Humanities and the town, the will dedicate the Vermont Roadside Historic Marker for the couple on Saturday, June 21.
The museum in Middlebury is home to several pieces of archival materials from Drake and Bryant, including letters, memorabilia and a framed portrait that is currently at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The image of Bryant and Drake is a double silhouette portrait, said Coco Moseley, the museum's executive director.
"The image is of the two women gazing at each other and their eyes are level with each other, their chins are uplifted, and they have this real elegance about their stature," Moseley said.
The portraiture style 鈥� common for its time 鈥� is cut from two thick mats set against a black cloth. Around their images, their own hair is braided into the shape of a heart.
Other items are in the museum's collection, including an adult cradle that Bryant and Drake used in sickness, as well as their letters and writings to each other.
Moseley said others wrote about the couple, too, signaling the community's acceptance of them as a married duo.
Bryant's nephew, , went on to immortalize their bond in a tribute published in 1850, in his Letters of a Traveler.
Cullen Bryant visited his aunt and her partner often at their Weybridge home, and in this publication, he wrote about the couple's decadeslong union, their assumption of more traditional husband and wife gender roles, and how they "slept on the same pillow and had a common purse."
"I think that there's sort of a revealing a bit in that early America was both more diverse and more accepting and more inclusive than we might initially think," Moseley said.
Bryant and Drake's story can help us understand that the presence of LGBTQ+ history is very much a part of the early American and Vermont story, Moseley said.
The commemoration on Saturday begins at the Weybridge Hill Cemetery in Weybridge with the historic marker unveiling at 1 p.m.
A pop-up exhibit of memorabilia, including letters and other items, begins at 2:30 p.m., at the Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury.
