Stopping Stones Memorial

These plaques are a permanent record of a dark period in Burlington's past.

Glance down at the pavement on Main Street in Burlington, Vermont and your eyes may fall on a pair of brass plaques embedded in the pavement. These handmade metal markers are part of a larger public art installation throughout the United States to commemorate the lives of some of the 10 million enslaved Americans. Stopping Stones was launched in 2020 as a means of integrating permanent memorials into the fabric of cities.

These particular markers were placed in concrete on the site of the home where Lavinia Parker and her son Francis were enslaved from 1835 to 1841. They were enslaved by Lucy Caroline Allen Hitchcock, daughter of Ethan Allen. Both the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church and Ohavi Zedek Synagogue contributed to these two particular Stopping Stones.

The Stopping Stones were inspired by Stolpersteine, a public art project started in Cologne by artist and activist Gunter Demnig. To date, the artist has placed more than 95,000 brass plaques in over a dozen countries throughout Europe in memory of those who lost their lives in the Holocaust.