The focus of the Farmington Village Green and Library Association is the support and preservation of its properties—the Farmington Library, Barney Library, Stanley-Whitman House museum, the Village Green and Memento Mori Cemetery and the services and programs they provide.
Each is essential to the town’s culture. The FVGLA wants to assure their continued use by Farmington and area residents.
The libraries—Farmington Library on Route 4 toward Unionville, and Barney Library on Main Street in the Village—are visited and their resources used by hundreds of people of all ages each day. Hundreds of thousands have benefitted from them in the past.
Stanley-Whitman House museum is a National Historic Landmark where one can experience living history. Thousands visit it each year. The house and museum’s rich array of programming, “Please Touch” tours, curriculum, lectures and first-person, interactive presentations of life from 1642 through 1810 enriches and expands the knowledge of visitors like nothing else in the area. The modern and spacious Spear Classroom and Whitman Tavern Room are ideal for classes and group meetings.
Memento Mori Cemetery on Main Street (Rte. 10) has 850 early-residents’ graves and is part of Farmington’s unique landscape. Its distinctive fence, pillars and arch inscribed with “Memento Mori,” or “remember, you too must die,” reminds us of our own mortality. Cemetery tours (by appt.) for tourists, teachers, students and other visitors, are an educational and historical curriculum of funerary, intellectual, social and religious customs.
The Village Green, a small park at the intersection of Routes 10 and 4, is the original property donated to the association in 1898 by Sarah Porter. The FVGLA Park and Cemetery Committee maintains and operates the green and cemetery. They host clean up days, ensure the properties are secure and available for tours. They also decorate the park’s evergreens with holiday lights and hold a carol sing on Christmas Eve for residents to accompany or simply experience.
These entities are essential to Farmington’s culture. They are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago. Without them, the face of Farmington would change dramatically.