What to See in Windsor - Top Sights and Attractions

Museum. The Cornish Colony Museum was located in Windsor, Vermont. It was an art museum and educational institution, dedicated to displaying and teaching about the creative individuals who lived and worked in the Cornish Art Colony. The Cornish Colony Museum was operated by The Cornish Colony Museum of Windsor Vermont, a 5013 non-profit educational corporation.

The Cornish Colony Museum was established in 1998, in Cornish, New Hampshire. The Museum originally occupied Mastlands, a 19th-century Cornish Colony house. In 2005, the Cornish Colony Museum relocated to Windsor, Vermont, located in the old Windsor firehouse. After a period of struggle, including some difficulties with its tax-exempt status, the museum moved briefly back to Cornish but ceased operations around 2010. The Windsor facility was closed and parts of the collection were later auctioned locally. Some papers related to the museum's founding and history are now housed at nearby Dartmouth College.

During part of its history, the museum routinely put on two exhibits a year, focusing on both the Cornish Art Colony artists, and on modern artists in the area. The Cornish Colony Museum also participated in the local "Meet the Artist" series, and hosted the late George Tooker, and children's illustrators Ilse Plume and John Stadler.^[2]

Building in Windsor, Vermont. The American Precision Museum is located in the renovated 1846 Robbins & Lawrence factory on South Main Street in Windsor, Vermont. The building is said to be the first U.S. factory at which precision interchangeable parts were made, giving birth to the precision machine tool industry. In recognition of this history, the building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966. In 1987, the building was recognized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers as an International Heritage Site, and the collection was recognized as an International Heritage Collection. For each of these designations, the armory was considered a site where pivotal events occurred in the history of American industry, as well as a place that lends itself to comprehensive interpretation of that history.

A "machine tool" is a machine which makes parts to other machines, such as screws or gun stocks, generally without a skilled craftsman doing the precision work. Instead, a machine operator controls the machine as it does the precision work. Lathes, milling machines, and drill presses are precision machine tools. The museum has the largest collection of historically significant machine tools in the United States. The museum's holdings include a collection of industrial machinery spanning the first one hundred years of precision manufacturing, along with fine examples of early machined products including rifles, sewing machines, and typewriters. Photographs and archival records provide additional resources for interpreting this critical phase of the Industrial Revolution.

The museum is open daily from 10am until 5pm from May 1 through October.^[3]

Ascutney Mill Dam, also known as the Windsor Upper Dam and the Mill Pond Dam, is an arch-gravity dam which is one of the oldest and among the earliest storage dams in the United States. It is made of cut granite and is located in Windsor, Vermont in Windsor County near the Connecticut River, where it functioned as a source of hydropower and, later, hydroelectric power. It is on the ASCE list of historic civil engineering landmarks since 1970 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places since January 09, 2007.

The dam is built in the valley of the Mill Brook, a right tributary of the Connecticut River. The pond above the dam is known as the Mill Pond.

The Ascutney Mill Dam Company was formed to build the dam. Construction began in June 1834, and was finished in November. The purpose of the dam was to regulate seasonal water flow and provide hydropower for nearby sawmills and gristmills, which previously could not operate during periods of low water flow in Mill Brook. The dam allowed water to be stored in the impound during the winter for release during lower flow seasons.

Ithamar A. Beard was a New England engineer who surveyed the area and selected the site for the dam. Simeon Cobb and Joseph Mason were the contractors in charge of building the dam.^[6]