This is the story of the unusual “Battle of Windham, CT” – a battle in the middle of a dark night when the residents couldn’t see what they were facing – they could only hear them. It happened during the French & Indian War and townspeople had been on edge. The exceptionally loud and ongoing noise that woke up the whole town was like nothing they had ever heard before. Was it war drums – or even Judgement Day? The Interim Director and Senior Curator for the Mill Museum in Windham, Jamie Eves, will resolve the mystery.

His name is X-Y-Z. At least, that’s what’s on his gravestone in the town of Deep River. The man robbed a bank in 1899 and was shot dead during the attempt. The problem is that no one knows who he was. Perhaps the lady, dressed all in black, who put a flower on his grave each year on the anniversary of his death, knows his identity. But, nobody ever approached her and asked her if she knew who he was. This intriguing story is told by the Curator of the Deep River Historical Society, Rhonda Ferristall.

The 1944 Cary Grant classic Arsenic and Old Lace is portrayed as a comedy involving two elderly women who poison inhabitants of their New York home. In fact, the story is based on the real-life drama that unfolded in the early 1900s in one of CT’s first nursing homes, located in Windsor. We’ll hear the extraordinary story of one of the state’s first serial killings from two representatives of the Windsor Historical Society” Michelle Tom (Library Archivist and Assistant Director) and Steph MacGillivary (Museum Educator).