Archived edition
Published 2026-09-18 · Vermont before the railroads crowded in, 1850–1880 · 20 stories
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 25, 1876
A colonial-era tale of a wealthy, self-righteous deacon in Lyme who claimed direct divine instruction for his charity and his courtship, preserved here in local folklore and verse.
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 18, 1876
A campus anecdote about an absent-minded professor who locked himself into the janitor's closet and only discovered the key in his own pocket hours later — a forgotten sliver of Victorian college humor.
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 18, 1876
A short comic sketch of a drunk man mistaking a telegraph pole for an assailant late at night.
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 11, 1876
A single sharp-tongued sentence of church-porch gossip about fashion and vanity, preserved here as a tiny slice of period wit.
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 18, 1876
A stagehand's pun on an actor's mishap through a loose trap door — a bit of vaudeville-era wordplay preserved from a filler column.
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 18, 1876
A grim one-liner about a Kentucky coroner's jury finding an oddly bloodless cause of death for a man shot fourteen times.
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 18, 1876
A groan-worthy pun about a newly admitted Minnesota lawyer named Crow, reprinted from a New York paper.
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 18, 1876
A macabre little joke about Virginia saloonkeepers squabbling for credit after a man's delirium tremens turned holy.
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 18, 1876
A one-line joke, reprinted from the Detroit Free Press, about a grocer who scorned advertising just as the sheriff arrived to close his shop.
