By ANDY KIRKALDY
FERRISBURGH — A major federal grant recently earned by the Rokeby Museum could “transform” the Ferrisburgh institution that illustrates the key role Vermont played in the anti-slavery movement, its director said.
Rokeby director Jane Williamson announced this week that the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the historic Route 7 museum a $235,000 grant to develop a permanent exhibit on the Underground Railroad that helped escaped slaves find their freedom.
Rokeby earned the highly competitive grant by developing a proposal to highlight the stories of two fugitives who enjoyed long stays at the Ferrisburgh farm, then owned by Rowland Robinson, after fleeing slavery in Maryland and North Carolina.
By JOHN FLOWERS
MIDDLEBURY — Nick Artim still vividly recalls his high school guidance counselors’ reaction when he first told them of his desire to work at a job that melded his love of history and architecture.
“They said, ‘You’re never going to make money at that,’” Artim recalled.
Well, Artim is currently proving those guidance counselors wrong.
Artim, 50, has quietly become one of the country’s most respected authorities in designing fire protection systems for some of the western world’s most historic homes, libraries, museums and castles. Even if you look real closely, you’d be hard-pressed to see his handiwork — sprinkler heads, smoke detectors and the like — craftily camouflaged within the rafters, banisters or log walls within such iconic structures as Edinburgh Castle in Scotland and the Vermont Statehouse.
