Student project highlights NWCT’s overlooked history

FALLS VILLAGE — Housatonic Valley Regional High School’s Early College Experience U.S. History course, led by history teacher Peter Vermilyea, keeps rich local history alive.

Vermilyea, who is entering his 30th year at HVRHS, emphasized the importance of uncovering local history, specifically engaging students in doing so. In 2017, this goal of his was made easy.

In the Fall of 2017, Vermilyea recounted getting a call from a teacher in the classroom next door, “You might want to come and take a look at this, I found a treasure chest,” he said.

Sure enough, within the closet sat a black and gold trunk. Inside it was all sorts of history paraphernalia.

“There were brochures, and fake reprints of the Declaration of Independence, but at the very bottom were between five and seven Civil War pension records for black Civil War veterans from Litchfield County who served in the 29th Regiment,” recounted Vermilyea.

These documents, though small in numbers, held information that would be the basis for a multi-year project. In the Spring of 2017, Vermilyea and his students launched ProjeCT 29, a website that shares the stories of Northwest Connecticut’s African American Civil War soldiers.

When asked about the decision on how to tell these stories, Vermilyea stated, “The beauty of a website is its ability to always be added to and always be amended, that was the ultimate reason.”

On the website, viewers can read biographies of different soldiers, explore an interactive map, or zoom out and unpack the larger issues connected to race.

Overseen by Vermilyea, students in his Early College Experience US History course, do all of the work from initial research to final edits. Juniors from 2017 to 2021 built up the website to what it is today. In the past 3 years, however, new projects have emerged.

A recent project by students was presented in the form of a film, retelling the story of two African American women who graduated from HVRHS in 1959 after transferring from Little Rock, Arkansas due to the unrest and violence of school desegregation. Another project highlighted the building of the Bulls Bridge in Kent, which had impacts on nearby indigenous land.

“ProjeCT 29, was the backbone for these other projects,” explained Vermilyea. “That is how we got to the Troutbeck Symposium.” Though students are not currently working on the website, their new projects are based upon untold stories of the Region, most of which involve injustices.

All of these projects, though different in topic, share the stories of local historical events surrounding marginalized groups.

In 2022, the Troutbeck Symposium, a three-day student-led historical educational forum, was started. There, students from 14 regional middle and highschools, both public and independent, are able to present and discuss their findings.

The HVRHS 21st Century Fund, local historians, activists and the owners of Troutbeck all contribute to supporting ProjeCT 29 and Troutbeck Symposium. Vermilyea remarked, “It’s a big event and it takes a lot, but the work we are doing deserves to be shared.”

Inspired by the work that his students are able to produce, he envisions running this section of the curriculum for the foreseeable future.

“This is the kind of education that is not about grades, it is purely about learning,” reflected Vermilyea. “And I believe to my core that students can be exceptionally good local historians.”

To see the research projects done by the students, visit project29.org