This article is the fourth in a 30-part series on the historic quilt sewed by the Congregational Women’s Association in 1978. Each article will cover one of the 30 squares, the woman who sewed it, and how each square fits into Brandon’s history.

The quilt was recently hung in the Fellowship Hall of the Congregational Church by the church deacons and Reverend Sara Rossigg. The Hall is open every Sunday from 9 to 11 a.m. You can also call the church office at 802-247-6121 to arrange for someone to let you in.

Square Four

This week’s history is on square four, the Congregational Church, in the upper row of the quilt, second from the right.

Esther Weiss

The needle artist was Esther Weiss, who was 55 at the time.

Esther Ballard was born in 1923 in Milton, Vermont, where she grew up and graduated from Milton High School in 1941. She then attended the University of Vermont, graduating on the Dean’s List in 1945.

She then became a teacher of Latin and French in Orleans, Vermont, and later taught at Northfield High School, where she met the Rev. George Parker Weiss, whom she married in 1950 back home at the United Congregational Church of Milton. This was the Ballard family’s church and where Esther had been actively involved in Sunday School and church youth groups.

George was the pastor of the United Congregational Church of Northfield, and Esther was very active in the church as a pastor’s wife with both youth and adult groups. She also continued teaching at Northfield High.

In 1952, Rev. Weiss was called to the First Congregational Church of Wallingford, where they lived for the next 11 years. Again, Esther actively supported the church as the pastor’s wife.

Sadly, the Rev. Weiss died in 1963 at age 56 of kidney failure at the Veterans Administration Hospital in White River Junction. Esther, then only 40, decided to move to Brandon with her two young children, Paul, 9, and Pamela, 2.

Esther bought the cozy house at 26 Pearl Street where she would raise the children and live out her days.

She quickly joined the Brandon Congregational Church and became a very active member of the Congregational Women’s Association. She took a job as a senior advocate for the Vermont Office of Aging and began delving more seriously into her new hobby of dried flower arranging in her new studio behind the house.

A neighbor had introduced her to the art of drying flowers, and her creative mind and artistic hand took over from there. In 1972, she was featured in a four-page Vermont Life article, “Perpetual Summer”:

When the Congregational Women decided to make the historic quilt in 1978, Esther readily joined them. Her selection of the Brandon Congregational Church as her subject was not surprising, given her close ties to the four Congregational churches in her life — in Milton, Northfield, Wallingford, and now Brandon — including thirteen years as a pastor’s wife.

If you look closely at the roofs in her square, you will see that she added her signature flowers along the rooflines of both the church and Fellowship Hall:

Her fame spread, and she joined the Vermont Society of Craftsmen, exhibiting her popular dried flower arrangements all over the state, including at the annual Woodstock Art Show and the Stowe Summer Craft Show for more than 30 years. She was even featured on an episode of WCAX’s popular “Across the Fence.”

Esther remarried in 1985 to Carl Buffum and continued to specialize in preserving wedding bouquets, to rave reviews.

Esther joined the Brandon Artists Guild, where she was featured as one of four “Artful Codgers” in a news article in 2009:

Esther Ballard Weiss Buffum lived a long, productive, and artful life, passing away in 2019 at age 96. Her service at the Brandon Congregational Church was well attended and was followed by a time of remembrance in Fellowship Hall.

Brandon Congregational Church

The following brief history of the church and Fellowship Hall is excerpted from this author’s article, "Congregational Church, (slightly) oldest church building in Brandon," in The Brandon Reporter on September 24, 2025.

In 1831 and 1832, David Warren, a talented builder and church member, designed and built the current church using wood, brick, and marble from Brandon at a cost of $5,000. A bronze plaque dedicated to Warren and his wife, Almeida, still hangs in the sanctuary, though it does not identify him as the builder. Niram Clark was the chief mason, using bricks from John Conant’s brickyard on lower Carver Street. Both Warren and Clark went on to build the Baptist Church, which was completed in 1833.

The new church measured 75 by 52 feet and was 110 feet high at the top of the spire.

In the National Register of Historic Places, the building is described as follows: “A good example of the early Gothic Revival Style. Similar in design to Federal Style churches of the same period, the building derives its ‘gothic’ character only from its details. The broad front elevation is approached by marble stairs and contains two entrances composed of side-lit doors surmounted by wood panels above which are pointed-arched windows with a simple tracery pattern. The doorways are each set into shallow relieving arches of the same Gothic shape. The arches are connected by a horizontal band of white marble and have keystones of the same material.”

“The wooden tower is set slightly behind the façade gable and is composed of four sections: a square base with a clock on three faces, a smaller boxed belfry with pilasters and a louvers pointed-arched opening on each face, an octagonal lantern with louvered, pointed-arched openings; and a polygonal spire.”

Chapel Built

In 1860, church members bought the land just south of the church, and a 24-by-40- foot brick “session room” that accommodated 100 persons was built, costing $805.25. This became the vestry, or chapel, and was used extensively for meetings.

Thanks to the Ladies Aid Society, the chapel was enlarged in 1899, with additions to the front and back to bring it in line with the church. The architect and builder of this phase was the prolific Thomas Rogers, who, ironically, was then living at 14 Franklin St., the same house once occupied by the church’s original builder, David Warren. A kitchen in the rear and cloakroom were built, and a rolling door was added to divide it into two separate rooms. Gothic windows were added in line with those in the church.

The chapel was renamed Fellowship Hall sometime in the mid-1900s.

In 1885, the church celebrated its centennial with the group photo below, taken on the Town Hall steps.

Church Bell & Clock

When the church was built in 1832, an 800-pound bell was installed in the belfry, and a clock in the tower below it. The town had promised the clock to the first steepled church built, and the Congregational Church narrowly beat the Baptist Church. The Baptist Church never got a clock. Although it has a clock tower, its faces remain blank.

In 1874, when the clock had stopped, local farmer Sylvester T. Moulton paid $50 to have “the old Stand-still” fixed, and the Brandon Union stated, “It is quite a convenience to the central part of our village to have the old thing running.”

The original clock had its share of problems from its installation in 1832 until it was replaced by the current clock in 1892. A year before the replacement clock was installed, the Brandon Union stated: “It is sometimes said that a town clock is a type of the town itself. Strangers might say that ours is a little slow. One thing can be said of the clock, it is right at least twice a day anyhow.”

Over the course of its 133 years, the clock and its four faces have had increasing issues as they have aged. At one point, someone shot an arrow that stopped the hands on one of the clock faces, and local resident Mike Snow had to climb the tower to remove it.

The clock was stuck at 12:35 for several years before steeple renovations in 2025, when the town had it repainted and repaired the gearing. The church clock is now fixed and correct more than twice a day!

Ministers

Since 1792, the church has been served by 30 ministers, the longest-serving remaining for 25 years. Ministers were provided a parsonage starting in 1823. In 1849, the minister stayed with a deacon’s family. Then, in 1877, the church bought the house at 66 Park St., which served as the parsonage until 1946. For the next seven years, the minister lived at 23 Carver St. the church was given the former Anderson Dana House at 74 Park St. in 1953, which was used as the parsonage until 2014. After that house was sold, the church began providing its ministers with a housing allowance.

The Rev. Sara Rossigg is the current pastor and is in her fifth year of leading the congregation. She is dedicated to continuing the church’s important role in the community. She and the church’s deacons were also instrumental in getting the historic 1978 quilt hung in Fellowship Hall.

I’m sure Esther would be very happy to see the church looking so beautiful and the quilt hanging in the Fellowship Hall, where her Time of Remembrance was held, to be seen by all.

Thanks to Claire Pate for photos of the quilt and to Phil Marks for the use of his private collection.