Vermont Guild and Grist Mill, 1948 (Weston)

The building in the painting is in Weston built over the dam for waterpower on the West River. It now operates as the Old Mill Museum, a working grist mill. Palmer Hayden came to Weston to visit Lyman Orton’s father Vrest Orton. This is one of two works by him in The Orton Collection; the other scene is the Orton’s family business in Weston, The Vermont Country Store.

Named Peyton Cole Hedgeman at his birth in Widewater, Virginia, Palmer Hayden lived in New York City. He was among a group of artists, writers, and performers during a period of cultural and social revival known as the Harlem Renaissance (lasting from about 1910 to the mid-1930s). Hayden produced important award-winning works well into his elder years, traveling between France and the United States.