Nowadays, ‘pest control’ might mean getting the red squirrels out of your attic, but in centuries past, it was a matter of public health and safety. Epidemics would sweep through communities: cholera, diphtheria, measles, chickenpox, influenza. We are vaccinated against diseases these days, but before modern medicine, they could kill. Towns needed a way to deal with pestilence, since there were no hospitals and not every town had a doctor.

Isolation was a method for stopping the spread of infectious disease. An infected family could shelter in place. But for illness in many homes at once, there was the Pest House [that’s short for ‘pestilence’]. Bennington built a simple structure on the West side of the river, outside of the Village Center. The very ill who were highly infectious would be sent there to wait it out. Volunteers, either a family member or a charitable townswoman who had previously survived the disease, would tend the sick.

The building was fair-sized but comfort was doubtful. The sick probably had to provide their own bedding and food. This was not a hospital in the modern sense — it was a holding space to keep the sick away from the well, until they recovered or died.

Eventually the building had other uses. Being near the railway, it became the Tramp House for a while. Homeless men who were out of work would ride the rails in the 1930s, going from place to place looking for jobs. When they arrived in Bennington, they were told to stay in the Tramp House until they left town.

Later, the Pest House was moved next to the Town Hall and used for storage. At last, it was moved down Main Street, to the sight of one of the original factories, to become the building for the Bennington Historical Society.

The next installment of the Bennington NH Historical Society Blog will be posted on January 29, 2024. If you click the Follow button, all future posts will be sent straight to your inbox every month.