edsanders.com - From Lancaster NH to Old Stone House Museum

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Leave Lancaster on route 2 West into Vermont. Continue on to St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
Thence turn North on Route 5. Remain on it until you reach Orleans, VT.
Turn right just beyond Ethan Allen Furniture factory.
Proceed straight until you see the sign pointing to the left to the Old Stone House Museum.
Follow the road about 4 miles until you're there. The main building of the museum is a huge 4-story granite block structure. It was the main building of one of the first boarding school sin the country, built single-handedly by Alexander Twilight, the first black college graduate in America. The building and the collection within is well worth the trip. The drive up the last mile through the rows of huge maples is great too!

The Challenge!

If you want a real challenge and a beautiful drive (if you don't get lost), you can try following these directions:

Immediately after crossing the bridge into Vermont, turn right (north) towards Guildhall on Route 102.
Take your second left, takes you up through the Crawford farm. Keep on this road through Granby, past the one-room schoolhouse. Continue through Victory to route 114 in Burke, turn left (south). Going down a small hill after passing the center of East Burke, turn right, crossing the east branch of the Passumpsic River below the mill dam. Take a right at the top of the hill at Darling Manor.
Take your first left, and go straight to Burke Hollow.
Then Left to West Burke. In West Burke, go right (north) on 5A. Continue along the West Branch of the Passumpsic River past Mount Pisgah, by Willoughby Lake and Willoughby Cliffs.
Just past the intersection with Route 58 (to Orleans), take a left to Brownington Center.
Continue straight through Brownington Center to Brownington, and the Old Stone House Museum. Nothing to it! (Take some extra food, sleeping bags, TP, etc., in case you get lost. Most "tourists" never see these parts.

Fairbanks Museum in the middle of St. Johnsbury on the upper level of town. A real treasure of a natural history museum. Huge bird collection and a lot more! Worth seeing just for the building itself.
Also, diagonaly across the street, the St. Johnsbury Athaneum, the oldest unaltered art gallery in the USA. A treasure of art from the old Hudson River School of Art. It was considered a scandal when Mr. Fairbanks (of Fairbanks Scales) bought up a huge amount of paintings and hauled them off to the hills of Vermont "never to be seen again" Well, you can still see them. (A hint, go upstairs in the gallery on a sunny day to look down upon the huge painting of the Domes of Yosemite. The room was built for that painting with a huge skylight above. I took one of my friends there who knows a great deal more about art than I do. (He was one of the the engineers in charge of the restoration of the Statue of Liberty, his son is an artist who does scenes on Broadway and for movies). His mouth fell open in awe. I think you'll be similarly impressed.

Go to Butson's in Lancaster, buy some food and pack a picnic lunch. Eat it at the Old Stone House Museum Across the road from the museum complex is a large field with a 2-story lookout from which you can see much of northeastern Vermont and part of Quebec. Eat there.
There's an excellent small restaurant in North St. Johnsbury, (a diner, I think, can't remember the name) As you go north on Route 5 it's on the left. Doesn't look like much, but the food is excellent. All the locals go there.
Down in St. Johnsbury there's an excellent sub and pizza shop on the steep hill going down from the Athaneum.
Check out the Lancaster - NH area index for more info on food, lodging, and much more on the area.