USA > Vermont > Caledonia County > St Johnsbury > 150th anniversary of the founding of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, 1937 > Part 2
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By the time the year 1840 rolled around thirty homes bordered the road- way on the Plain. The most stately of these, the first brick house in the town, was the Judge Paddock mansion, which still stands on the upper end of Main street in all the original dignity of its day. It was constructed in 1820, the most pretentious of the dozen and a half homes on the Plain at that time.
JOHNSBURY,A
One Hundred 1937 Fifty Years of Proq
THIRTEEN
The rarest of all old photographs of St. Johnsbury is this view of Main street, then called the "Plain," in 1845. It is the only existing picture showing the old foot bridge over a brook which once coursed across the street about where the Armory now stands. At the extreme right is the front of the old stage coach and express office. The view looks toward Arnold Park.
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(Right, top) As a section of the "Plain" looked from the old North Church belfry in 1872.
(Right, center) The same view from street level. The third building in this picture was the home of Bill Fuller, famous stage coach driver.
(Right, bottom) The same scene as it appears to- day. The Church of Christ, Scientist, is in the fore- ground.
TT
Eastern Avenue was nothing but a trail to the Passumpsic River until nearly 1850. When the railroad came that year it was rapidly inhabited. The scenes at the left show a section of the upper end of the avenue in its early years, and the same section as it appears today.
1850
Eighty-seven years ago here centered most of the busi- ness activitity in the village. The old Passumpsic Bank started business in the building in the center of the group that year. The St. Johnsbury House had just been completed. The hotel and the dwelling at the extreme left are still familiar landmarks.
Near the turn of the Century. Looking north at the "bend" on the "Plain," then, and now.
FARDANKE!
1937
Structures of brick and masonry have transformed the old scene. The dwelling and the hotel still remain. The other buildings, left to right, are the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum, the municipal building and fire station, and a department store.
(Below) Broader views of the business section of the "Plain" in 1871 and as it appears today.
1
The South Congregational Church Society was formed in 1851 and built the edifice in the old photograph (left, above.) The church stands today, unchanged, an excellent example of old time New England structural art. (Below) The street scene as it appears today.
JOHNSBURY,
5
V
One Hundred
1937"
Fifty Years of Pro
In the "Brick House," as it was called in its earlier days, the first ses- sions of the St. Johnsbury Female Academy were held. The General As- sembly passed an act in the fall of 1824 establishing the school. Judge Pad- dock was one of the principals back of the move, so in the following year when the school opened he permitted classes to be held in the south west chamber of the Paddock home. This school was merged with St. Johnsbury Academy when the latter was founded in 1842.
Expansion of 1850
St. Johnsbury Village began to expand by leaps and bounds by 1850. The dull years through the first half of the century had not been spent in self-aggrandizement. The early settlers had taken the foundation left to them by Jonathan Arnold and together they worked to cement it into great strength.
On this foundation began to be builded, as the half century approach- ed, the structure that was to be the modern St. Johnsbury - an element in world commerce, a factor in the nation's industry, a place of intellectual insti- tutions, a community of beautiful homes - and if these pages, in their at- tempt to eulogize the town on its 150th anniversary, reflect favorably on the days of its founding and to those great men of pioneering days, and to those of letters, science and industry, who have figured so prominently in its up- building - they will not be amiss.
The rise of the Fairbanks family, founders of the town's greatest in- dustry, is the story of the rise of St. Johnsbury. With a generosity as large as their fortune they lavished on the town a succession of rich and beautiful gifts to assist the intellectual and moral progress among its people. Their beautiful private homes with their ornamented grounds open to the coming and going of the townspeople are landmarks to their memory.
We arrive then, to the time from which St. Johnsbury dates her ma- terial growth and importance-1831-when Thaddeus Fairbanks invented the platform scale.
It is not the purpose of this book to thoroughly chronicle the history of the town. We have covered, somewhat rapidly, the period of time between the visit of the first white man, Scout Stephen Nash in the spring of 1755, to the death of Jonathan Arnold in the early part of 1793; desperate and exciting years when man's life depended upon what he could wrest from the forest and soil. The next great chapter in St. Johnsbury's life was that from the time she lost the leadership of Arnold to the beginning of its industrial growth following the invention of the platform scale in 1831.
These years were dreary ones. The Plain simply refused to attract more settlers and newcomers scattered hither and yon throughout the town- ship in desultory fashion. St. Johnsbury Center Village was gaining in favor over the Plain. More people lived there and an Inn was built for shelter for the wayfarer and congeniality of the settlement. The importance of the Center was so well recognized in that period that the first Town Hall was
SIXTEEN
raised there. It served the dual purpose of town hall and community church. In later years it also housed the post office.
But the day came when the inventive genius of Thaddeus Fairbanks, tiring of weighing bulky flax by armful lots, devised a scale that would check the weight of a whole rack load-the platform scale-which eventually was to lift St. Johnsbury from the throes of impecunity to a place in world com- merce and prosperity enjoyed by few towns, if any, of its size.
As the growth of the Fairbanks company is reveiwed in a complete chapter of this book, we will here center attention onto the growth of the town. It has been heretofore stated that the development of the town began with the development of the scale industry.
Within ten years after the scale making business started. St. Johnsbury Village, still called the "Plain" was a bustling community. Its population of a few hundred of a decade earlier had grown to about 2000. The "Plain" was beginning to have a distinction of its own. It boasted a meeting house, an academy, a hotel, two stores, a printing office and other mechanics. Pad- dock's furnace and Fairbanks' manufactory.
Early Homes
A few years more and the village was well on the road to prosperity. Along Main street began to develop permanent homes, many of which still stand today ; the home of the late Dr. C. A. Cramton, the home of the Misses Clark at the head of Clark's avenue, the Bertha D. Moore home at Main and Winter streets, and the principal's home on the Academy campus being among the oldest. The Paddock homestead, now occupied by Mrs. Arthur L. Stevens, was the first brick home in the town and was some 25 or 30 years old when these other houses were built, having been constructed by Judge Paddock in 1820. After 117 years the Paddock house is regarded one of the best old Georgian houses in the state. In its front room can be found the London wall- paper hung by a Boston tradesman when the house was built. This paper has scenes of the Bay of Naples.
Six years after Chickering made his first piano in America in 1823, one of them was installed in the Paddock home, and the instrument, which has survived the years, is now in the Museum. The house is distinguished by its generous proportions, its well-designed entrance with a fine Palladium win- dow, and the balustraded roof with its four large chimneys. The projecting cornice is decorated by modillions, perforated in design, to lend emphasis to the graceful line of the white balustrade just above it.
The blinds and much of the wood finish, both inside and out, were made by Thaddeus Fairbanks, who later invented the platform scale. Few changes have been made in the house. It originally had five fireplaces but there re- main now only three, two on the first floor and one upstairs. With but one exception the house remained in the Paddock family until it was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Stevens in 1912.
SEVENTEEN
JOHNSBURY.)
V
One Hundre ndred Fifty Years 1937
of Progress
There was only one other house in the village besides those on Main street in 1850. That was built down over the hill to the east of the "Plain" and can be found today on the lower end of Pearl street, a sinall, low structure hiding itself behind broad, vined piazzas.
Just before 1850 the village began to spread down over the hill from the "Plain" into what today is the heart of the business district. Prior to that date the business sections were a wilderness, traversed only by an occasional path to the river and a trail over into Paddock Village.
The railroads came in in 1850 and gave more impetus to the business at the scale factory. Population increased unabated. Main street became over-populous and a definite expansion plan was undertaken. That same year Summer street was laid out and house lots plotted. This became the second street in the village.
Shortly thereafter in the same year Eastern avenue and Railroad streets were cleared and opened to the traffic of the day which included an ever in- creasing number of teams, jiggers and drays. There was no further street laying for six years when Spring street was cut through and an approach from the trail to Danville was cut up over the steep hill onto the plateau at South Park, now the north end of Belvidere street. It was not until 1870 that Cliff street was carved out of the wilderness and four years later the popu- larity of South Park necessitated the laying of Park street.
A pioneer in the business district was the old Passumpsic House, a hotel which intervening years has changed into the modern New Avenue House. By the time the railroad was completed late in 1850 Railroad street had developed into an enterprising business community. Around the Pas- sumpsic House were several small business houses: groceries, markets, a tailor shop, dry goods, furniture and fur stores.
At that time the new bridge across Passumpsic River opened the way to many and desirable building lots along the broad fields and raspberry patches between Harris Hill and Moose River. "The New City" which finally developed into Portland street and Summerville was at its beginning; the prospective growth in that direction made Railroad street yet more important as a business center. Meantime the new city began taking on increasing im- portance of its own. It crept steadily eastward along Portland street and down toward the mouth of the Moose river ; took "Elyville" into its capacious embrace; climbed up the steep slopes of Harris hill, till, standing by itself alone, it ranked among the larger villages of the town.
Village Organized
The corporators met and organized the Village of St. Johnsbury on January 5, 1853, the bounds of which were to include Main street, the Depot, Fairbanks Village and Paddock Village. Among other things it was voted at the first Village meeting to stop cattle, horses, sheep, swine and geese from running at large.
EIGHTEEN
Summerville in its infancy, about 1885. The old wooden Portland Street School can be seen in the left center of the photograph. Most of these houses still stand.
Looking north from the roof of the Court House in 1870, showing the second Old North Church.
An unusual picture of St. Johnsbury Village from Fair- banks Hill in 1871 showing the old North and South churches.
St. Johnsbury's motordom comprised nine automobiles in 1906. Here they are, out for an airing. They went all the way to Joe's Pond and back the same day - yes, and had time for an outing, too. Many of these daring young men in the "horse- less carriages" are prominent in the community today.
(Below) Railroad Street look- ing south as it appeared 35 years ago.
Railroad Street, looking north, 50 years ago, showing the old Passumpsic House on the left.
DENTIST.
A bird's-eye view of downtown St. Johnsbury and Summerville from the Academy grounds about 50 years ago.
JOHNSBURY.
S
One Hundre undred Fifty Years of Pr 1937
The first big battle the Village had on its hands was over the annexa- tion of Summerville. The question of extending the boundaries of the Vil- lage eastward occasioned much debate and diverse opinions on both sides of the river. Three commissioners from out of town were appointed to conduct impartial negotiations. The citizens on both sides of the river held separate meetings and after hard fought battles both meetings voted "yes" by majori- ties which could be counted on the digits. However, the narrow margin was sufficient for annexation and the Village's population was thereby increased by about one thousand.
During the boom following the 1850 development of the business dis- trict action was taken to make St. Johnsbury the shire town of the County. The Village was fast outgrowing Danville which had been the county seat since 1796. A legislative committee, on November 29, 1855, authorized the county seat to be removed to St. Johnsbury which was done the following year after the neighboring town to the west had held the distinction for sixty years.
The Caledonia County Court House was completed a year later, in 1857, after the Village had removed the bones of its interred dead, including those of Dr. Jonathan Arnold, founder of the town and his family, from the Village Cemetery which formerly occupied Court House Park. The resident of four score years ago could hardly have imagined a smooth sloping turf, a statue of America, twin cannon and a band stand on the ground then covered with old fashioned grave stones and tangled bushes.
This enclosure, after all removals had been made to Mt. Pleasant Ceme- ery was quit-claimed to the Village Trustees, by William C. Arnold, repre- senting the heirs of Dr. Jonathan Arnold, as a site for the Court House and Town Hall, "the residue of said land to be used as ornamental public grounds." In the spring of 1857 the grading, turfing and planting of elm trees was com- pleted. The erection eleven years later of the memorial to the soldiers of the Civil War gave added dignity to the grounds, and naturally suggested the name Monument Square, which in later years became more familiar as Court House Park.
The monument was erected and set in place in August, 1868. The memorial was provided by the Town to honor St. Johnsbury men who gave their lives in the Civil War. Larkin G. Mead of Florence, Italy, a native of Vermont, carved the figure depicting "America" in Italy and delivered it at a cost of $5000. It is of Italian marble. Peter B. Laird made the granite base from a design by Architect Grebble of Philadelphia at a cost of $4000. The statue was elevated into position veiled in flags at special ceremonies.
Shortly after the close of the World War a memorial to the illustrious dead who gave their lives on foreign soil was planted in another section of Court House Park. These heroes are likewise revered on Memorial and Armistice day each year with fitting tributes by military and semi-military organizations.
TWENTY
Industries
I NDUSTRIAL development in St. Johnsbury began almost as early as its founding when Jonathan Arnold built his grist mill in 1782, closely follow- ed by those of Samuel French at the Center in 1800 and Judge Paddock at Paddock Village a few years later. But it remained until the next generation before St. Johnsbury was to definitely take its place among the industrial communities of note.
The beginning of industry on a large scale closely followed the inven- tion by Thaddeus Fairbanks of the platform scale which was soon to out- mode the ages old even balance. In a few short years this invention was to rocket St. Johnsbury into national and international commerce.
No sooner had the town become accustomed to the dizzy heights to which it soared suddenly in world trade through the development of Fairbanks scales, than George C. Cary boosted maple products from isolation into a mil- lion dollar industry. The business increased to $2,000,000 annually in St. Johns- bury in the years 1912 to 1914 and the town became the Maple Sugar Center of the World. The Cary Maple Sugar Co., Inc., and its subsidiary, Maple Grove, Inc., were ultimately developed and became the largest producers of commercial maple products in the entire world.
St. Johnsbury takes great pride today in the fact that it has the three largest factories of their kind in the world: The Fairbanks scale works, the Cary Maple Sugar Co., and the Tempered Maple Corporation, manufacturers of bowling pins.
There are many other substantial industrial establishments in the town, of which its people are justly proud. They hold no distinguished rank for size, but the quality of their products is unsurpassed anywhere.
As we look back at the beginnings of these great industrial enterprises it opens a flood-gate of memory to a tide of tender emotions and historical recollections which the considerate modern day man does not care to refer to as cold historical facts, but rather as the activity of his fellow townsmen of the not distant past.
From the days of the earliest settlers Vermonters have asserted their independence. To their descendants have been transmitted many of their outstanding characteristics. Of the hardy pioneers of the early days it was well said that, "Encompassed by enemies they were never conquered; beset by evils they were always undaunted; forsaken by friends they forsook not themselves." The state whose independence they secured is the monument of their labors, and the children to whom they left it rise up and call them blessed.
St. Johnsbury always has held its share of those men of fortitude. For without their independent spirit there would be little here to greet this Sesqui- Centennial year of the town. The struggle, the vicissitudes, the opposition, developed certain attributes and outstanding characteristics which have ren- dered the names of the town's early industrialists immortal. They succeeded because of necessity. Everyone who has lived in the town has in the past and continues today to benefit from the existence of those industrialists whose names have brought glory, world fame and prosperity to St. Johnsbury.
TWENTY-ONE
JOHNSBURY,
V
One Hundred
of Progress
1937 ndred Fifty Years
Sound common sense, a keen perception of right, promptness of action, calm, steady courage, tenacity of purpose, thrift and unfaltering perseverance, and a strong conviction that God helps them who help themselves, are some of the characteristics of the people whom we honor in this industrial chapter.
They fought their battles, like the business leaders since them, to ex- tirpate poverty and unhappiness from the community. Only a few are called upon to die for their country, yet all of us are called upon to live for it. Hero- ism is not confined alone to field and trench. Courage is not exclusively re- quired for war and death. To die nobly is heroic. To live nobly is magnifi- cent. One demands instant courage and the other unfaltering devotion. Thaddeus Fairbanks, the inventor, and the entire Fairbanks family who served the scale industry followed the correct course. Time has proven they laid a foundation well.
Perhaps St. Johnsbury had more diversified industries in its early days but they enjoyed little business beyond the extent of the town. There was nothing which approximated even a state-wide business until long after the scale factory was well on its way to fame.
There are many records of early mills and industries. Undoubtedly there were many more. However, grain and milling plants enjoyed moderate prosperity. The McLeod Mills, on the spot where Jonathan Arnold put up the first grist mill in 1787, developed into a large business which continued well into the twentieth century.
The Moose River Works was doing a fine business in garden and farm implements around 1850. It was reorganized in 1848 after several years' idle- ness when the Fairbanks brothers who founded it gave up plow making to devote full time to scales. George W. Ely resurrected the plant and started business on an ever enlarging scale. For years it bore his name. Today it is the American Fork & Hoe Co.
In 1869 St. Johnsbury became headquarters of the flour milling busi- ness established in 1813 at Passumpsic by Timothy Ide, continued by his son, Jacob, and by his grandson, Elmore T. Ide. Today the company operates under the firm name of E. T. & H. K. Ide with stores in many towns. Gris- wold & Mackinnon opened the first wholesale establishment in St. Johnsbury in 1850. It handled grain, flour and hardware, doing business at the site of the present Swift & Co. building.
A blast furnace and iron works founded by Huxham Paddock in 1828 is still continuing today as the Hooker-Reed Co. O. V. and Frank B. Hooker came into control of the plant in 1878 and since that time the name has con- tinuously been connected with the enterprise. Brick making was a St. Johns- bury industry as early as 1810 when the Bagley Brick Works was founded. Ira Bagley, the founder's son, had the distinction of making all the brick used in the construction of the Court House, the original Catholic church on Cherry street, Summer Street School and the Athenaeum.
Center Village and St. Johnsbury Plain were locations of stone sheds in the earlier days when considerable granite and marble work was being done here. Today this industry is a minor one but what stone work is turned
TWENTY-TWO
out is of the highest quality and workmanship. The manufacture of carriages once was an important industry. The wagon making firm of Miller & Ryan located in the garage building at the corner of Portland and Railroad streets did a $25,000 annual business in its day. When both proprietors died the business vanished in the face of gaining popularity of automobiles and the former carriage shop was transformed into a garage to meet the modern trend.
Other industries which gained prominence beyond the state were the file recutting plant opened by James and Charles Nutt who came here from England and the knife blade making plant, known as the Belknap Works on Sleeper's River. About 100,000 knife blades of the finest quality went out from there throughout much of the area of the United States.
Hoop skirts were manufactured in a little factory here adjacent to the location of the present Avenue House as late as 1868. The year 1880 saw 30,000 cigars monthly go out of the Roederer tobacco works. Other small in- dustries made saw horses, threshing machines, shoe pegs and bed frames. The sulphur water of Asisqua spring out near the present Cary Co. was being pumped up, charged, bottled and sold at a yearly profit of $1400 in the closing years of the last century.
The Charles Millar & Son Co., and the Tempered Maple Corp., largest man- facturers of bowling pins and bowling equipment in the world.
The American Fork & Hoe Co.'s St. Johnsbury mill where two million feet of ash logs annually are turned into handles for agricultural tools.
FA
Beech, birch and maple chairs by the thousands are turned out monthly by the Barrows plant. It owns its own timber lands from which the stock is secured.
JOHNSBURY,
One Hundre 1937 ** Fifty Years of Proqy
Crackers were imported to St. Johnsbury from Boston in 1851 and im- mediately there was a great demand for the product. Transportation was too slow to satisfy public demands so John S. Carr began a bakery to fill the orders. The Carr bakery later fell into the hands of George H. Cross and is still doing business today under the firm name of C. H. & Geo. H. Cross, Inc. Bakery products from these ovens are widely distributed through this area.
St. Johnsbury is noted today for several large manufacturing and in- dustrial plants which are dealt with separately in succeeding pages.
American Fork & Hoe Co.
Since 1902 the St. Johnsbury mill of the American Fork & Hoe Co. has been one of the town's largest industrial enterprises. It was successor to the Moose River Works, fork and hoe manufactory, and the fork, hoe and plow plant established by the Fairbankses in the 1820's. They forsook this plant to devote their full time to the scale industry and in 1848 George W. Ely re- established the fork and hoe manufactory under the name of the Moose River Works.
Just after the turn of the century the industry was taken over by the American Fork & Hoe Co. which to this day continues to manufacture handles for agricultural tools, an industry now run continuously in St. Johnsbury for about 117 years with the exception of the few years that elapsed between the time the Fairbanks family dropped production and George Ely reestablish- ed it.
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