Calling all genealogists, local historians, and amateur detectives! This program will examine an unsolved story of murder from northern New England: Local history briefly records that in 1790, the original American settler to the Montpelier area, Jacob Fowler, killed an unnamed “Indian” in a dispute over a trapline. Together, participants will draw on historical documents, genealogical work, and the fiction of local historian D.P. Thompson to reconstruct the biographies of the two participants and explore this formative time in New England history.

Damian Costello received his Ph.D. in theological studies from the University of Dayton and specializes in the intersection of Catholic theology, Indigenous spiritual traditions, and colonial history. He is an international expert on the life and legacy of Nicholas Black Elk and the author of Black Elk: Colonialism and Lakota Catholicism. Costello was born and raised in Vermont and his work is informed by many years of ethnographic work on the Navajo Nation. Costello serves the director of postgraduate studies at NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community, an Indigenous designed and delivered ATS accredited graduate school.

This program is made possible by New Hampshire Humanities.