Griffith Library

A Testament to Bill Wilson's Roots

The Griffith Library, across the churchyard and part of the Wilson House property, rounds out the story of Bill Wilson’s deep emotional connection to East Dorset. This is the home of Bill’s maternal grandparents, Ella and Fayette Griffith, with whom he lived from age eleven. The building serves as a resource library open to the public, with Bill’s childhood room on the second floor. The Griffith Library is a charming, nineteenth-century Vermont home open for visitors from 11am to 4pm every day except Wednesdays.

Bill Wilson's formative years at the Griffith House

It is here that Bill came of age, learned to play the violin, carve and throw a boomerang, hunted, fished, practiced morse code and explored the surrounding area. He would walk the 3.5 miles up the tracks to Emerald lake to court Lois Burnham, whose family owned a house and camp along it’s shores. Their romance would blossom and it was here that they became secretly engaged. Bill would return home on breaks from Norwich University until he went into active service for World War I in 1917.

Connecting with Bill W.’s legacy

In the small village of East Dorset you’ll find The Wilson House, where Bill was born, the Griffith Library, where he grew up, and the East Dorset Cemetery, the final resting place of Bill, Lois, generations of the Griffith and Wilson family. This special place is where Bill came of age. When you visit, you will feel Bill W’s presence and more deeply understand the world that shaped the man he was to become.

The Griffith House Today

A repository of Bill Wilson's legacy

Since 2005, the Griffith Library at The Wilson House has been a quiet repository of artifacts and volumes related to Bill Wilson’s life and the history of alcoholism, its effect on the family and life in spiritual recovery. Through the work of its committee and countless hours of volunteer commitments, we pledged materials for the building's rehabilitation that welcomes visitors from around the country and the globe.

Supporting the ongoing mission of the Griffith House

The work at the library is an ongoing endeavor and inquiries on how to support and contribute towards archival materials and continued building maintenance are welcomed, including restricted donations specifically towards planned renovations and improvement.

“Whenever a civilization or society perishes, it is because they forgot where they came from.” – Carl Sandburg

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More About the Griffith Family Home & History

The home of Gardner Fayette & Ella Griffith

Located across the churchyard on Village Street North is the home of Bill and Dorothy Wilson’s maternal grandparents, Gardner Fayette (1841-1924) and Ellen Brock (1849-1921) Griffith. Fayette was a veteran of the Civil War, having served in the 14th VT Co. B for nine months beginning in October, 1862, and mustered out shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863, which his unit participated in during the third day's battle.

Fayette would return for the 50th anniversary of the battle in 1913 for the encampment and three days of ceremony, accompanied by his grandson Bill. G.F. Griffith was a farmer and successful businessman (his cousin Silas had become Vermont’s first millionaire with his lumber business in nearby Danby) owning numerous properties in and around East Dorset, proprietor of the municipal water works, served as postmaster and was active in the East Dorset Grange with wife, Ella.

The Griffith family: Bill & Dorothy's upbringing

The Griffiths had a son, Clarence (1867-1894), who succumbed to tuberculosis in Colorado where he had gone to seek relief from the fatal ailment in 1894, a year before Bill was born. Their daughter, Emily, married a local quarry worker, Gilman Wilson, in 1894 and welcomed a son the following year, who they named William Griffith Wilson, followed by a daughter, Dorothy Brewster Wilson, in 1898.

In 1906, Bill and Dorothy’s parents divorced and the two Wilson children moved back to East Dorset to live with the grandparents while their mother attended osteopathic medical school in Boston, MA. Bill would not see his father again until 1914 while visiting him in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The loving home provided by Gardner & Ella Griffith

Gardner and Ella provided a loving home for Bill and Dorothy and had means for them to attend Manchester’s Burr and Burton Seminary, then a private secondary boarding school. Bill would visit and often stay with his grandparents during his years following the Seminary as a cadet at Norwich University, and Lois visited often while staying at her parent’s camp on Emerald Lake in North Dorset while Bill was deployed in Europe.