Nestled in the heart of Connecticut's largest historic district, the Webb Deane Stevens Museum's three historic houses tell important stories of national and statewide significance.
Description
Wethersfield Symposium: The Making of Silas Deane Part of the Feuding Founders Collective
We remember the founders as marble men — monumental, unified, certain. They weren't.
The Feuding Founders Collective is a multi-site public history initiative that humanizes Silas Deane, John Jay, and the Lee brothers of Virginia: men who were in conversation, in collaboration, and sometimes in open war with one another. Presented in partnership with Jay Heritage Center, Friends of John Jay Homestead, Menokin, and Stratford Hall.
The Wethersfield symposium opens the series with a question: what shaped these men before they shaped the republic? How did a Connecticut schoolteacher rise to become America's first diplomat — then plummet to disgrace? How did the Lees leverage Virginia's planter aristocracy into political power? How did Jay's legal mind place him at the center of revolutionary diplomacy?
This is a day for people who want the real story — not the tidy one.
Walk the Webb and Deane Houses before the conversation begins. Let the spaces work on you. Share a meal in the barn. Then hear from scholars representing each partner site as they paint a more layered, more human picture of these founders — their ambitions, their grudges, their shared cause. The day closes with a guided walk to the Wethersfield Cove Warehouse, where Deane built the merchant trade that launched everything.
Schedule
10:00 AM: Welcome & Orientation | 211 Main Street
10:30 AM: Tour the historic Webb and Deane Houses
12:00 PM: Lunch in the Webb Barn
1:00 PM: Roundtable Discussion
Full Day + Lunch: $55 | $50 Members of Webb Deane Stevens, Jay Heritage Center, Menokin, and Stratford Hall
House Tours & Roundtable Discussion: $20 In Person | $15 Members
Virtual Roundtable Discussion: $8
Date & Time
Sat, May 16, 2026 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM