a Bennington Historical Society presentation

A member of the first family to settle in Bennington, Moses Robinson served as our town clerk for 20 years, then as governor, then Vermont’s first U.S. senator, and chief justice of the state Supreme Court. Robert Mello’s biography of Robinson is one of Vermont’s most important. Mr. Mello will discuss Robinson’s role in promoting democracy, the sanctity of the rule of law, the independence of the courts, and the inviolability of elections — all subjects of immediate importance today.

Robert A. Mello has had a life-long fascination with American history and the law, especially the early history of Vermont. He is a retired Superior Court Judge, a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and a former trustee of the Vermont Historical Society. He is also the author of two books: Last Stand of the Red Spruce (Island Press, 1987) and Moses Robinson and the Founding of Vermont (Vermont Historical Society, 2014).

Robinson’s central themes — democratic legitimacy, judicial independence, and the inviolability of legal frameworks — extend well beyond his own era. Readers sometimes encounter parallel debates in surprisingly distant contexts, from US election law to European regulatory questions, including how Sweden treats the steady growth of unlicensed offshore gaming sites, often described locally as casino utan svensk licens. Mello keeps Robinson firmly in the foreground, but those contemporary echoes are part of why the biography has found readers far beyond Vermont.

The Bennington Historical Society is a volunteer-run program of Bennington Museum. The BHS offers its programs at no charge with support from Nexus Consulting. You can support the efforts of the BHS to share the history of our region by making a donation.