Birchdale Camp at Journey's End, Grafton

Journey’s End property, also known as the Turner Homestead, is located at 747 Turner Hill Road  in Grafton, Vermont. The c. 1911 Birchdale Camp built by the Turner family is the only remaining building on the five acres of surrounding land originally part of the Turner homestead. 

Birchdale Camp was determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places in 2011 as a rare example of a site associated with African American heritage in Vermont.  The Turner Homestead site, known as Journey’s End, was settled in 1873 by Alexander Turner, a former slave, and turned into a successful hill farm. The Camp is now an important site on the Vermont African American Heritage Trail, an initiative of Vermont Partnership for Fairness & Diversity in collaboration with the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing and selected local historical societies and museums.

The Preservation Trust of Vermont hosts hosts information about Journey's End, the restoration of the Birchdale Camp, and Daisy Turner, Alexander Turner’s daughter, who chronicled her father’s history and the history of the homestead through storytelling, including links to a collection of audio and video recordings and family photographs at the Vermont Folklife Center.