St. Johnsbury Athenaeum

The St. Johnsbury Athenaeum is a private, nonprofit public library and art gallery located in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. The Athenaeum fills two roles: it serves the people of St. Johnsbury by enriching their lives, and it stands as a regional and national treasure - a monument to the nineteenth-century belief in learning. The Athenaeum is a legacy of the Fairbanks Family of St. Johnsbury, inventors and manufacturers of the world's first platform scale, who gave the Athenaeum to the trustees of the institution in 1871. With his wealth Horace Fairbanks created a center of culture for the people of his town - a true "athenaeum."