Contemplation Garden

The Minor Memorial Library Contemplation Garden, designed by Roxbury's David Gardener, offers an outdoor reading room for library patrons.

Enclosed in a shrub border of Viburnum prunifolium (known as Blackhaw viburnum), which is a great native species, the garden features a double row of 28 European Hornbeam trees (Carpinus Betulus "Fastigiata") trees lining a walkway that borders a large grass rectangular lawn.

Blackhaw Vibrnum

European Hornbeam

Memorial benches are positioned amid trees for seating.

The meandering South Street Walk between the Contemplation Garden and the Library's front entrance is enhanced with Specimen Trees.

The Contemplation Garden is also a place of repose and thought that offers a beautiful way to memorialize a family member or friend. Garden trees may be sponsored for $1000.

Each sponsored tree will be designated with a 3-inch by 5-inch heavy brass engraved marker.

Of the nine Specimen Trees designed for the Library's South Street Walk, two are available for sponsorship at a cost of $1500 each:

1. Magnolia "Elizabeth"

2. White Fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus)

For more information or to discuss arrangements for your choice of a Memorial Tree, or a Specimen Tree, please speak with Valerie Annis, Library Director at 860-350-2181.

Thank you for your interest.

Commemmorative Walkway

Minor Memorail Library Commemorative Walkway

In 1673 Capt. John Minor was the first European settler to explore this area.  It bacame the town of Woodbury, and in 1796, the Roxbury Parish of that town was incorporated as a separate community.  Mabel Smith, a former Principal of the Booth Free School, a descendant of Capt. John Minor commemorated her mother's family when she donated the land for the new Roxbury Library in 1988.  It was build by more than a million dollars donated by the rsidents of the town, and completed in 1994.  This was, nearly a hundred years after the Rev. Walter Downes Humphrey, established the first Roxbury Library in the Roxbury Town Hall in 1896.  The Hodge Memorial Library on the Roxbury Town Green was built in 1937 on land and with funds donated by Albert Hodge and enlarged in 1967 with funds donated by Everett Hurlburt.   The Friends of the Library moved the books from the Hodge to Minor saving the town some $26,000.  Generations of children from the Booth Free School have used the Roxbury Library through the years, and have been introduced in these three building to the world of books.  This Commemorative Walkway that takes the Booth Free students from South Street to the Minor Memorial Library will be their Pathway to Knowledge.    by Timothy Field Beard

The walkway, which incorporates brick pavers and Roxbury granite, is an ongoing fundraising project of the Minor Memorial Library. Engraving may be specified to commemmorate inportant dates, names, and/or events.   Small pavers measuring 4" x 8" are $125 each and provide three lines of text, each line containing up to  20 characters.  Large pavers measuring 11" x 11"  are $225 each and provide four lines of text, each line containing up to 20 characters.   Please stop by the library to pick-up an order form or call the library at 860-350-2181 for additional information.