USA > Vermont > Caledonia County > St Johnsbury > 150th anniversary of the founding of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, 1937 > Part 1
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Gc 974.302 Sa23sm 1852043
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOCY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01085 9780
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019
https://archive.org/details/150thanniversary00unse_1
150th Anniversary
OF THE FOUNDING OF
St. JOINSBURY VERMONT VE. 1 9 3587
JOHNSBUR
Hu
of Progress
fred
1937 Fifty Years
Published by Authority of the Sesqui-Centennial Commission Written by Lowell Smith, St. Johnsbury, Vermont Photographs by The Jenks Studio, St. Johnsbury, Vermont Photo-Engravings by Ad-Service Engraving Co., Worcester, Mass. Printed by The Cowles Press, St. Johnsbury, Vermont
1852043
St. Johnsbury
Hail, thou Green Mountain State! Home of the good and great of by-gone days! Thy patriots' honored name, Thy heroes' deathless fame, Thy sons will loud proclaim and sound thy praise.
Jonathan Arnold
N the late days of the Colonies when New England frontiers were being pushed back into the wilderness, and new settlements were being driven
up onto the slopes of the rugged hills, to cling tenaciously for a time, then vanish, save for a scar -- the Hon. Jonathan Arnold appeared, in 1787, and claimed a grant chartered to him the year before.
Arnold had represented Rhode Island in the Continental Congress where he became fired with a patriotism like few men of his day. He was still young when he completed the national political field and was inspired with the urge to go out into the frontiers of the struggling young nation and aid in its development.
In Congress he always was the first to support the Province of Ver- mont against the encroachments and claims of the provinces of New York and New Hampshire. So when he closed his duties there he took axe and town charter in hand and headed for Vermont to hew out and establish a town - which after 150 years still honors his name.
Meanwhile Vermont, in a desperate defense move to safeguard its own existence, formed an independent sovereignty state, wholly apart from the Colonies. With this discovery of themselves, the Green Mountain Boys set up their own government. The new independent state became known as "New Connecticut", and so it remained for nearly fifteen years until Vermont joined the Union of states in 1791.
"A country," said George Washington, "which is very mountainous, full of defiles, and very strong. The inhabitants are a hard race, composed of that kind of people who are best calculated for soldiers; in truth they are soldiers."
It was natural then that Arnold should turn to Vermont. He applied to Gov. Thomas Chittenden of the independent state for a grant of land where he and his associates might come and establish a settlement. Gov. Chittenden had known of Arnold's support of Vermont in Congress and was overjoyed to welcome a man of his character as a grantee and settler. On Nov. 1, 1786 the governor chartered to Arnold and his associates the tract of land destined to become the object of this Sesqui-Centennial Celebration.
JOHNSBURY,>
One Hundre dred Fifty Years of Pro 1937*
First Land Grant
History neglected the locale of St. Johnsbury until 1720 when first mention was given when King George III of England granted away an enor- mous tract of land covered today by St. Johnsbury, Kirby, Waterford. Bar- net. Lyndon and Danville. The grant undoubtedly did not include all of these adjacent towns but it cut a great slice from their present bounds. The east boundary of this grant was the Connecticut river and it included land "on both sides of a brook called the Passumpsick, lately in the County of Albany but now in the County of Gloucester."
This grant was made March 20, 1770. It was the first time that the vicinity of St. Johnsbury ever figured in history. Under the provisions of the grant the area was to be known as the Town of Bessborough. However it may be, and for whatever the cause, there is no record of any settlement ever having been made.
As a matter of fact, Bessborough, the first name St. Johnsbury ever had, lived on the royal records and maps less than five months, for on August 8 of the same year the Royal Province of New York, by authority of the crown, regranted land "situate on the West Branch of the Connecticut River forever hereafter by the name of Dunmore to be called and known."
Dunmore, then, became the second name of the present Town of St. Johnsbury. It more nearly approximated the town's present bounds than Bessborough. The "West Branch of the Connecticut" is more appropriately known today as the Passumpsic River.
The Town of Dunmore retained its name until after Jonathan Arnold came and founded the Town of St. Johnsbury which was named in honor of St. John de Crevecoeur, the then French consul at New York. St. Johnsbury was officially organized and named at a town meeting held in Arnold's home at the north end of what now is known as Main street, in 1790.
The town was named at the suggestion of Col. Ethan Allen, a friend of de Crevecoeur, as a fitting recognition of a true and distinguished friend of America. It was suggested that the town be named "St. Johns" but de Crevecoeur protested that there were already too many "St. Johns" and he offered the appellation "bury" to distinguish it from similar names. This suggestion was accepted and posterity was given a new name for which it still remains thankful. "St. Johnsbury" became the title of the town and even today it remains the only community by its name in the world.
Arnold Arrives
After Arnold's plea for a charter and grant had been successfully nego- tiated by Gov. Chittenden on Nov. 1, 1786, the slow communications of the day delayed the good news from reaching the grantee until after the rugged New England winter had set in.
Travel over such a great distance in the winter would have been full of hardships if not entirely impossible. Had they endeavored to reach the
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grant, settlement would have been difficult and the condition of the land kept a mystery until another season, so Arnold delayed his trip until the following spring.
As the days began to warm in 1787 Arnold, together with sixteen set- tlers for the new land, set out for the northern frontier. A small settlement had been started by a few adventurers of the wilderness the year before but when Arnold and his associates arrived they were generously welcomed.
The original Crown grants had been nullified when "New Connecticut" became an independent sovereignty state and the grantees had left rather than pay the new state a fee of ten cents an acre for the land. Only one man, Moses Little, by name, remained any length of time. He appealed to the legislature that the cost was too high. When the Assembly failed to reduce the fee Moses Little emigrated.
When Arnold and his settlers came none of the Dunmore grantees or settlers remained. Only the small group of adventurers who started a settle- ment the previous summer were on the land. They had done nothing except build themselves shelter and their biggest work of clearing the land for cul- tivation lay ahead.
Arnold was 46 years old when he arrived. He was a man of high character and ability, a born leader and thoroughly trained in public affairs. He just naturally assumed leadership of the settlement.
Of the original 39,000 acres in the grant, Arnold received about one- tenth. Some of the grantees later gave him their share. Under the terms of the grant the town was divided up into 71 parts, equally divided rights. Gov. Chittenden, according to usage, held one 71st part, his right being located on the east bank of the Passumpsic river north of what is now known as Center Village. One 71st part was for the settlement of a minister of the gospel ; one 71st part for support of the social worship of God; and one 71st part for the support of a school.
Arnold cast his metropolitan dignity aside when he arrived here and immediately set about clearing a lot of land with his own hands and built a home, the first frame dwelling within the limits of the town. The dwelling was a story and one-half structure about 20 feet square at the base, located at the upper end of the Plain facing what is now Arnold Park.
But for the jubilancy of a group of boys celebrating the election of President James K. Polk, the first dwelling of the town might be here today as an historical attraction. They burned it in their exuberant acclamation of the 1844 national victory. The house was built in 1787 the first summer that Arnold was here.
Between turns at helping other settlers clear their land, Arnold built his saw mill and grist mill on the mill right at the falls on the Passumpsic, just north of the mouth of the Moose. This was the beginning of Paddock Village, then known as "Arnold's Mills."
Before these mills were completed the settlers had to go to Barnet for all of their provisions, and these, as may be readily realized, could not fill all the needs of the early pioneers so the trips to Barnet were not uncommon, some carrying the provisions on their back, for many months to come.
SEVEN
JOHNSBURY Y.
a
One Hundred ndred Fifty Years of P 19.37'
of Progress
First White Man
Before we progress further with the development of the town, let us go back, as best we can, to the first white man ever to visit this territory so far as history ascertains.
Two scouts were sent out by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the spring of 1755 to learn if any Indian tribes in the north wilderness were "coming down on us." They were to go as far north as they deemed prudent. They followed the water route of the Connecticut River and were about to end their search when they found themselves at the mouth of the Passump- sic River.
Here they paused to ponder whether to go onward or turn back. The result was a compromise. One was to continue up the Connecticut one day's trip while the other was to explore up the new river the same length of time. It befell one Stephen Nash to follow the course of the Passumpsic. His record shows that he followed the river "to a high piece of land opposite the mouth of its east branch" and there camped over night. This would indicate that he went as far as the mouth of the Moose River and camped on the present Hooker's Hill in St. Johnsbury Village on May 6, 1755. The next day he returned to meet the other scout at the junction of the Passumpsic and Connecticut.
This is the first record of white man ever visiting the present bounds of St. Johnsbury. This is the theme of the seal so conspicuous on this publi- cation and all matters pertaining to the Sesqui-Centennial celebration. The airplane, superimposed on the resemblance of Scout Stephen Nash sitting before his campfire on Hooker's Hill, is designed to represent the progress the town has made since civilized man first stepped foot on our cherished soil.
Scarcity of Indians
Unlike many other pioneer days of New England towns, the early settlers of St. Johnsbury were spared Indian attacks. Where few Indians dared tread, these pioneering groups came and builded a permanent settlement.
Like in the later civilized days when New York and New Hampshire fought over it, St. Johnsbury was on ground contested by two warring Indian tribes, and by coincidence they came from the same territories - the tribes of the Iroquois of Lake Champlain and New York, and those of the Abenaquis or Coossucks of the Connecticut Valley and New Hampshire.
No Indian ever came into this area unless he was badly in need of food, and then when he ventured out he prepared himself to do battle for his scalp for there was almost sure to be a kill. This theoretical angle of history is borne out by the fact that few traces of Indians have ever been found in St. Johnsbury. A few definite traces have been unearthed but they have been of an unmistakable warlike nature. There is absolutely no trace of a settle- ment.
So Arnold and his early settlers had the forces of nature alone to con- tend with. They went about their labors unmolested - except on one occa- sion, of which the veracity was minimized - when a settler was chased by a
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bear, caught by the beast and went into a tail spin with it down a long hill. However this may be, it must have given the wags of the day something to talk about.
Settlement Begins
The Plain was still a wilderness when Arnold built his home, and the cry soon went up to cut off all the trees. Before many years the problem was one of planting trees to amend this great mistake, because it was not long before the knoll on which Main street eventually was laid was virtually "bald- headed."
Arnold's leadership in building a permanent home led the way for others to do the same. Most of the early settlers built their homes on the north half of the Plain and soon there was need for a road to link them to- gether and give the new settlement a "main street."
Arnold appealed to the legislature for "state aid for road work" and secured it in 1789. The road was cleared and we have the beginning of the present Main Street. This was but a short stretch of road and at its greatest length could not have extended to the present Eastern avenue intersection.
The founder and his proud group of pioneers looked upon the budding community with a great deal of satisfaction. So enthused was Arnold that he sent an advertisement to one of the great newspapers of the day, the Provi- dence, R. I. Gazette, the first advertising program the town ever experienced.
An old copy of the Gazette shows on the yellowed pages of its edition of August 8, 1789, this conspicuous advertisement :
"New Lands. Inferior to none in quality or climate, for those who prefer a competency with health and safety, to luxury with infirmity and danger, on most generous terms, and for which pay may be made in cattle, many kinds of country produce, or labor. The lands lie on or near the pleas- ant and healthful Passumpsic, in the county of Orange, state of Vermont. Particulars may be known by application to the subscriber in St. Johnsbury, in said county, who will show, not maps and charts of the country, variegated with imaginary plains, valleys and streams, but the soil itself. Titles to every lot will be had from original grantees. Conie, see, and you will undoubtedly be suited. Jonathan Arnold."
At this time the population of St. Johnsbury was 143 hardy souls and interests were becoming somewhat diversified through necessity. Now was the time for formal organization of the Town of St. Johnsbury.
After duly warning the inhabitants, the first town meeting was held at the home of Jonathan Arnold at the head of the Plain on Monday, June 21, 1790. Judgment of the inhabitants then, as it has been ever since. was all that it should be, for they selected the "father of the community", Jonathan Arnold, Esq., moderator and first town clerk. At the same meeting St. Johnsbury received its name, as has been treated in another chapter of this book.
With this great task of organization out of the way, Arnold had time and the opportunity to think of other things. For some reason which we are
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FAMILIAR SCENES OF YESTERDAY
Time has not entirely erased the landmarks of many years ago. The head of Eastern Avenue (above, left) remains very much the same. The foot of Eastern Avenue (above, right) can be recognized by the slope toward the railroad yards although the buildings in the photographs have since gone, only to be replaced by others of almost identical design. The old streets with their horses and teams have changed more than the buildings themselves. Today these sections are the busiest in the village with auto- mobiles and concrete streets completely changing the scene.
At the "bend" on the Plain, the St. Johnsbury House (below, center) and its ad- jacent mercantile buildings have either taken on an entirely new aspect or gone completely.
STORE
ST.JOHNSBURY HOUSE.
This old rustic scene was at St. Johnsbury Center long before flood waters carried away the covered bridge.
This look-out on "The Nob" was for years the object of many a healthful climb. An angry wind was its nemesis.
Familiar is this view down Eastern Avenue. Little has this scene changed in modern tmes. The Y. M. C. A. building and Notre Dame church were just completed when this photo was taken.
Music Hall, where the town turned for
years for its entertainment. A modern apartment building now marks the site.
ignorant of. Jonathan one day visited one Enos Stevens of Barnet. Jonathan and Enos were bachelors, Jonathan a widower, and with great unanimity in confidences which canie as the lonely shadows of night began to fall, they agreed that something must be done about it. The north woods did not hold the answer. There were many good women betrothed to the settlers - so accordingly an expedition to Charlestown. N. H., on the following day was planned. The fairest daughters of the land were harbored in this village in the state across the river. With their hearts light and their beings trembling, they arrived at the home of Samuel Stevens in Charleston. To him they con- fided their wishes and the squire immediately went into a conspiracy to get two fair damsels to come to his home to tea.
There was the inevitable danger that both men would want the same girl so a matronly friend of the squire was declared referee in such an event. The young ladies came to tea and when going-home time came, both men searched out the same lady, one Cynthia Hastings. In ignorant bliss, the girls were bid "good day" after the short trip home. The referee was called to settle the double demand for the one hand and Arnold won because Cyn- thia seemed to be the best suited to a man of a professional nature.
The next day the grooms-to-be made known the object of their visit and both girls accepted. Cynthia Hastings returned to St. Johnsbury and be- came the mother of Lemuel Hastings Arnold, who was fated to be governor of Rhode Island in 1841-42, and Congressman in 1845-47.
Back in St. Johnsbury after his wedding Arnold set about making further surveys of the town. The population was increasing rapidly with im- migration from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Main street was extended to where the Academy now stands, but it still remained the only thoroughfare in the settlement. A mill appeared in Fairbanks Vil- lage and David Goss moved to the town, erected a sawmill and residence and started the settlement at Goss Hollow.
While out surveying up and down the West Branch one day, Arnold left some instruments in the care of his helper, Thomas Todd. He returned some time later to find said Todd asleep on the bank of the river. "Hence- forth," Arnold is said to have exclaimed, "let the West Branch be known as Sleeper's River." This is the only historical background explaining the source of the name of this stream to the west of the village.
Arnold had intended that his home would be only a temporary one, but from time to time he improved upon it until it was very much a permanent structure and it lived to survive many years. Some historians discredit the story of its being burned as a presidential victory bonfire, and claim that the election did not come that year until after the fire. Be that as it may, the place was in bad disrepair, claimed to be haunted, and in its unsightly con- dition was no asset to the community.
The founder of the town survived less than six years after coming to St. Johnsbury and was stricken with dropsy and died in 1793 at the age of 52. A son by an earlier marriage lived to be master of the house only three years
ELEVEN
after that, then his son in turn lived in it for several years. It then fell from the hands of the Arnold family and was prey of flames in 1844.
When Arnold died he was recognized as the leading man in this part of the state. He was chief justice of Orange County (before Caledonia Coun- ty was formed in 1797), a trustee of the newly organized University of Ver- mont, a member of the Governor's Council, and probable candidate for gover- nor.
The town's founder lies buried in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery beneath a plain marble slab bearing the simple inscription : "Hon. Jonathan Arnold, Died Feb. 1, 1793. Age 52." He was reburied there when bones in the old burying grounds, now Court House Park, were interred in Mt. Pleasant in 1856.
His family traces its forebears to Yuir, King of Guentland and Yuir, second son of Calwaladr, King of the Britons.
Development of Plain
St. Johnsbury had no particular rank among the towns of the county during its first half century. It was relatively unimportant until the advent of education, religion, manufacturing and the transfer of the county seat from Danville in 1856 after the neighboring town to the west had been the shire 60 years.
During the early years after Jonathan Arnold's death there was a slow but substantial growth along the Plain. More homes were built and an oc- casional modest store appeared. By 1800 the population of the town had in- creased to 663. Most of these, however, did not settle on the Plain.
North of the Plain a prosperous and rapidly growing village attracted attention. It threatened for a time to over-shadow the earlier settlement. In later years the growth of this new village retarded but ever since it has been a substantial community in its own right. It is St. Johnsbury Center Village, scarcely three miles north.
Here was built the first church in the town, used as a combined town hall and meeting house. The building was raised in 1804 and has been in continuous service as a meeting house since that time, although it was taken apart and moved from its hill-top location to a more convenient spot in the village in 1845.
It took ten town meetings in ten consecutive years for the voters to finally agree to raise money by a tax to erect a building for public worship and town meetings. As a matter of fact religion failed to take much foothold in the town until 1810. Even after a place for public worship had been pro- vided Sunday services of worship were irregular and denominations had no exclusive control. No provision was made for heating the place; in fact the building had no chimney. Situated as it was on a high and bleak location, it would appear that it was more torture than comfort in the colder months of the year to attend the rather infrequent services.
St. Johnsbury Plain boasted a post office in 1803. It sold no stamps but the ingenious first postmaster, Joseph E. Dow, by virtue of "a commis-
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sion issued from Washington City", scrawled some official markings on com- munications for posting. It cost an average of 18 cents to post a letter to Massachusetts. As late as 1820 dutiful correspondents of the town were pay- ing anywhere from 10 to 25 cents to post their letters, the price being de- termined by the distance they were to travel.
Post riders or any individual coming this way would obligingly bring a batch of mail along. Before the post office was established they would leave it at a store or the tavern. Delivery after that was not half so slow as it would seem. Mail was such a luxury that anybody about when it arrived would appoint himself postman and deliver it as fast as he could make the rounds of the town.
The post riders usually came once a week, starting out from the near- est post office at Newbury, bringing on horseback all the mail for communi- ties north of there. The postage on a newspaper, a luxury in those days, was likely to exceed the yearly subscription price. The rider usually announced his arrival with a blast from a throaty horn.
The stage coaches were late in coming to St. Johnsbury as it was con- sidered an unimportant town. The nearest they came for years was Haver- hill, N. H., an important crossroads for the Boston to Quebec stage line. There is no record of the date when the first stage coach came to the town. It must have been near the middle of the century.
At that time the stages were bringing mail and express and depositing it at an express office on the Plain. This building later was moved off the main thoroughfare and today reposes back of a stately landmark on Main street where it is used as a cobbler shop.
In 1810 it appeared that growth of the Plain would stagnate. While the flow of immigrants spread out all over the township only 12 families had built homes along the Plain. In the next five years the Plain increased by only six more families. And it has been written of the simple life of that time : "There was not one cooking stove nor carpet nor pleasure wagon on the Plain, yet the people were contented and happy."
While the Plain was being neglected names so familiar to all St. Johns- bury began to appear as settlers squatted in groups here and there through- out the township. W. C. Arnold, son of Jonathan, started a settlement at Four Corners. David Goss already had led quite a settlement into Goss Hol- low. Ebenezer Aldrich went into such a populous section of the town that he immediately named it New Boston to give it metropolitan color. Sanger's Mills and Little York were names which followed Center Village as late as 1830. In rapid order Spaulding Neighborhood, Chesterfield Hollow, Colegate Hill, Cole Corner and East Village appeared.
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