On Tuesday, April 5, at 6:30 p.m., Jaffrey Public Library will host a virtual murder investigation with historian Damian Costello intended to appeal to genealogists, local historians and amateur detectives.
The program, “Murder in Plain Sight? An Abenaki/Settler Mystery on the Vermont Frontier,” will examine an unsolved story of murder from central Vermont. Local history briefly records that in 1790, an American settler to the Montpelier area, Jacob Fowler, killed an unnamed “Indian” in a dispute over a trapline. With audience participation, Costello will reconstruct the biographies of the two participants through historical documents, genealogical work and the fiction of local historian D.P. Thompson and explore the bigger questions of this formative time in Vermont history. Audience participation and expertise is encouraged. This program will take place on Zoom and registration is required.
Costello received his doctorate in theological studies from the University of Dayton and specializes in the intersection of Indigenous spiritual traditions, Catholic theology and Colonial history. He is an international expert on the life and legacy of Nicholas Black Elk and the author of “Black Elk: Colonialism and Lakota Catholicism.” Costello is a speaker for the Vermont and New Hampshire humanities councils and serves as the director of postgraduate studies at NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community, an Indigenous-designed and -delivered, ATS-accredited theological graduate school.
This program is funded by a SHARP grant from New Hampshire Humanities, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities, through the American Rescue Plan.
This program is free and open to the public.
For information, call the library at 603-532-7301.