The Old Stone House, or Athenian Hall, was built in 1836 by Alexander Twilight, the nation's first African-American college graduate. Twilight was the minister of the Brownington Congregational Church and the principal of the Orleans County Grammar School. The Orleans CountyGrammar School was the only high school in the county which required many students to travel long distances for their education. They boarded with families in town, including Twilight's. Athenian Hall was built to accommodate the larger number of students attending the Grammar School. Twilight pressed his board of trustees for a larger building but failed to receive support from the majority. He alienated many of the trustees by his adamancy, and the building was left completely to Twilight. In 1834, he laid out a foundation plan for land donated by Cyrus Eaton across the road from his house. It called for a four-story granite building measuring. Over the following two years the present stone house was erected following the lines and general appearance of a similar building, quite possibly Painter Hall at Middlebury College; however, detailed information is not available on how the granite structure was built. Twilight began building in 1834 and finished two years later. From 1836 to 1859, the building was used as a dormitory for school children, boys and girls. Due to diminishing school enrollment Athenian Hall was closed for good in 1859. For a brief time Mercy Ladd Merrill Twilight continued to live there with a few boarders. She then continued alone until she moved to Derby in 1865. When she died in 1878 she was buried next to her husband in Brownington. The building stayed vacant until in 1918 when the Stone House was put up for auction. A representative of the railroad in the state of Vermont bid on the structure with the hopes of using the granite stones for bridge abutments. The Orleans County Historical Society bid at the price of $500 and won the auction. The building was opened as a museum in 1925. The attached barn was torn down in the 1920s. The building has four floors with twenty-two rooms of exhibits. It is dedicated to the history of the last two centuries in Orleans County, Vermont, and to the life of Alexander Twilight, the first African-American college graduate in the U.S. and state legislator.
