USA > Vermont > Chittenden County > Gazetteer and business directory of Chittenden County, Vermont, for 1882-83 > Part 6
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Leaving the vein of marble, we find next in order a deposit of clay slate, about a mile in width, extending from the northeastern part of Milton to the southern line of the county. The varieties in clay slate are few, unless we refer to color. The rock is usually simple and homogeneous, composed of
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finely comminuted, hardened clay. If it has a good deal of iron, and if this is passing to the state of peroxyd. we shall have red slate, such as is quarried within the limits of New York, and in several localities in Vermont. The red and gray slates, and also those of a greenish color, are also found. Whoever will compare a bed of clay where the layers have been deposited quietly above one another, with the slates used for roofing, will notice a strong resemblance of form and composition ; and he cannot but suspect that the latter has been derived from the former. He can, if he will, trace out the steps of the pro- cess. Clay hardened by the sun and filled with cracks, seems to be a sort of first step in the process. Among the newer sandstones he will see similar layers, called shale, which is sometimes only a little harder than clay. These changes are produced in the shales by the more powerful influence of meta- morphic agencies, which generally also superinduce other divisional planes in the rock, such as cleavage and joints. But cleavage planes in most of the clay slates of Vermont, coincide essentially with those of deposition ; and the slaty layers seem to be mostly strata or laminæ modified. If the modifying force were pressure, it seems to have operated to convert the planes of lamin- ation and stratification into those of cleavage, increasing the number of the latter. The bed in this county, however, might more properly be termed shales, and is unfit for roofing purposes.
An immense bed of talcose conglomerate, about four miles in width, extend- ing through the whole length of the county, and underlying a greater or less portion of the towns of Hinesburgh, Huntington, Jericho, Williston, Essex, Westford and Milton, lies next to the clay slate vein on the east. According to Prof. Adams, in his report of 1845, this rock was called magnesian slate, but later its present name was considered more appropriate, and consequently adopted. The vein is a purely conglomerate species, having associated together in its formation the following varieties of rocks: Sandstones, breccias, quartz rock, calcareous rocks, novaculite schist, talcose schist, and coarse conglomerates. The sandstones are few, while the quartz variety is quite abundant. A large bed of the latter in almost a distinct formation lies in the southern part of the county, extending into the towns of Hinesburgh, Rich- mond and Williston. Prof. Thompson called these rocks Taconic, and has left the following note concerning them : "These rocks commence east of the clay slate and Eolian limestones, and extend eastward; but I shall not attempt to assign their eastern limits. They consist entirely of schistose rocks, com- posed chiefly of quartz, and most of them more or less magnesian. There is a belt extending through Westford and the east part of Essex, and the west part of Jericho to Winooski River, which is quite chloritic. This is often thick-bedded, and answers very well for a building stone, though rather soft. It has been considerably used for doorsteps, and has been transported to Bur- lington for that purpose. Some of the strata appear to be a coarse sandstone, or rather a fine conglomerate. Some places, as at Essex, exhibit a fine, com- pact magnesian slate, which is easily sawed into any form, and is used as a
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fire-stone. In many places the slaty lamina are coverd with fine talc glazing. The slate generally, in the eastern part of the county, may perhaps be called talcose, but the proportion of talc, in the greater part of it, is quite small. The predominant mineral in it is quartz, and it often occurs, either white or limpid, in seams several inches in thickness." In the Geological Reports of 1861, Prof. Hagar says: "We have made no estimate of the thickness of the talcose conglomerates, but know that they must be very thick. They must be 2,000 or 3,000 feet thick at the least calculation. We suppose that this bed of rocks includes the Sillery sandstones of Canada. These are estimated at 4,000 feet, in Canada." No fossils have been found in this range.
Adjacent to this vein of conglomerate is a large range of talcose schist, ex- tending eastward nearly to the county line. Talcose schist proper consists of quartz and talc ; but with this bed there are associated together, consisting integral parts of the formation, clay slate, with plumbaginous, aluminous and pyritiferious varieties ; hornblende schist, gneiss, quartz rock, sandstones and conglomerates, limestone and dolomites. Prof. Zadock Thompson has the follow- ing respecting this range in Chittenden County : "Along the foot of Mans- field Mountain, in Underhill, a thick-bedded mica slate occurs, which makes a very good building stone. The stratification is so completely obliterated. that much of it, like granite, splits in all directions with nearly equal facility. In connection with these beds, seams of chlorite occur. Some of the strata ranging north and south through Underhill, Jericho, Bolton, and Huntington, are of a ferruginous character, and iron ores in small quantities have been found in several places, but not enough to justify the expectation of finding it in quantity. Near this range of ferruginous slate, a narrow range of plumbaginous slate shows itself in several places, as in Huntington and Jericho. This is doubtless a continuation of the same narrow range of plum- baginous slate, which occurs in Cambridge, Waterville, and the western part of Montgomery and Richford. To the eastward of the synclinal axis passing through Underhill, and the eastern part of Jericho, the rock perhaps should be called mica slate, although it usually contains more or less talc. The rocks on the summit of Mansfield Mountain appear, in places at least, to be talcose slate. A great part of the slate which forms the mountains extend- ing from the chin towards the north, along the eastern border of the county, abounds in octahedral crystals of magnetic iron."
The rocks underlying the residue of the county are of the Asoic period and of gneiss formation. The essential ingredients of gneiss are quartz, feldspar, and mica, forming a rock closely resembling granite, differing from it only in having a distinctly stratified, slaty or laminated structure. For this reason it makes a very handsome and convenient building stone, as the sheets or strata can be easily obtained at the quarries, and it can then be split or divided into any required thickness. "The thickness of the gneiss in Vermont," says Mr. Hitchcock, "must be very great. The section across Mount Holley, in Rut- land County, may perhaps give an average of its thickness. About 8,000
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feet of strata have been removed there, of which we should estimate about 6,000 feet to have been of gneiss. Yet as the bottom of the formation may not have been reached here, the true thickness may be greater."
This ends our brief sketch of the principal rocks entering into the geolog- ical formation of the county, and we will now turn our attention for a few mo- ments to its surface geology, then drop the subject, to be taken up by far more competent hands than ours. That the whole of this beautiful territory of Ver- mont, not excepting the summits of its most lofty mountains, was once the bottom of a great ocean ; that its verdant and flower-bedecked valleys were the basin or channel of mighty lakes and rivers ; that the whole was once covered by stupendous glaciers and ice-floes, are facts incontrovertable. Each of these epochs or periods has left its history, written as plainly as the records upon the pyramids of Egypt, leaving behind, as it were; "Footprints of their Creator." But they who have deciphered the history, or "Testimony of the Rocks," have not, as has the Archaeologist that of the pyramids, arrived at the truth by delving in the ruins of a forgotten language, but from the scroll of nature, descending into the bowels of the earth, and reaching forth into the uttermost parts of the limitless heavens for information. For-
" All infinite, all limitless in awe, Heaven to great minds was given: Yet, with all his littleness, down to his inch Man can draw-the heaven."
Such is the province of the geologist.
But to return to the several changes we have mentioned. Among men of science it has become the common, if not the prevailing opinion, that all the elements with which we meet were first in an ethereal, or gaseous state-that they slowly condensed, existing for ages as a heated fluid, by degrees becoming more consistent-that thus the whole earth was once an immense ball of fiery matter-that, in the course of time, it was rendered very compact, and at last became crusted over, as the process of cooling gradually advanced-and that its interior is still in a molten condition. Thus, if the view suggested be cor- rect, the entire planet, in its earlier phases, as well as the larger part now beneath and within its solid crust, is known to geologists as elementary or molton. Then came another age, in which this molten mass began to cool and a crust to form, called the igneous period. Contemporaneous with the beginning of the igneous period, came another epoch. The crust thus formed would naturally become surrounded by an atmosphere heavily charged with minerals in a gaseous or vaporous condition. As the cooling advanced, this etherealized matter would condense and seek a lower level, thus coating the earth over with another rock. This is named the raporous period. At last, however, another age was ushered in-one altogether different from those that had preceded it. The moist vapors which must of necessity have pervaded the atmosphere began to condense and settle, gathering into the hollows and crevices of the rocks, until nearly the whole surface of the earth was covered
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with water. This is called the aqueous period. As these waters began to recede and the " firmament to appear," the long winter would cover the earth with mighty ice-floes and glaciers, forming what is known as the drift, or gla- cial period. Evidences of these several epochs are left in Chittenden County by terraces, moraines, drift boulders, etc.
First, terraces .- These are simply shelves, or water-marks, left on the sides of valleys and mountains, proclaiming that they were once the beach of a lake or ocean, while the fossils left will decide which of the two it was. These terraces are the most fully developed in the valley of the Winooski ; yet the Lamoille valley, and that of the other several streams, contain fine specimens. The deposits of sand, too, proclaiming the bed of an ocean, are numerous and extensive, particularly in the towns of Milton, Col- chester, and Burlington. They are for the most part superficial, varying in depth from a few inches to eighty or ninety feet, and in general have a regular and nearly horizontal stratification. They usually terminate downward in brown or blue clay, and in many places the mixture of clay and sand is in the proper proportion for making brick, as at the foot of Winooski Falls. The elevation of the surface of these sand deposits varies from twenty to two hundred and sixty feet above Lake Champlain. The mean elevation of those . plains (terraces) to the westward of the range of limestone extending from Rock Point to Mallett's Head, and thence to Milton, may be estimated at forty feet ; and the mean elevation of the extensive sandy plains commencing in Burlington, and extending through the southwestern part of Essex, and through the central parts of Colchester and Milton, is about 200 feet. Ma- rine shells are found in this sand in numerous places. At one place in Bur- lington, half a mile northeast from Rock Point, and by the side of the road, they abound in a coarse gravel about 130 feet above the lake ; and two miles northeast of Mallett's Bay, in Colchester, is a large deposit of them at an ele- vation of more than 200 feet above the lake. At both places they are much broken, and mingled with rather coarse gravel. It would appear in these places, that the shells had been worked up above the line of the shore com- posed of drift, and that the gravel of the drift was mingled with them by the action of the waves, and these and larger objects, like the fossil whale, were buried by the washing down of the drift materials.
Second, drift .- We think it will not be difficult for almost any inhabitant to form an accurate idea of drift. For in almost every part of the county occur accumulations of bowlders, or large blocks of stone, with the angles more or less rounded, lying upon the solid ledges, or upon, or in the midst of a mixture of smaller fragments, with gravel and sand ; the whole mingled confusedly together, and evidently abraded by some powerful agency from the rocks in place, and driven along pell mell often to great distances ; for if the bowlders and fragments be examined, they will for the most part be found not to correspond to the ledges beneath, but to others many miles perhaps to the north or northwest.
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Third, moraines .- These are a class of terraces formed by ice instead of water. The theory of their formation is as follows: In the glacial period, icebergs became stranded at the base and on the sides of hills, and deposits were made around and upon them, and they would have been level-topped if the ice had remained ; but in consequence of its melting they are now ex- tremely irregular. At Underhill Flats the moraine terraces are abundant, and beautifully rounded, upon both sides of Brown's River.
STAPLE PRODUCTIONS.
As a whole, the county has an excellent, productive soil, varying from a fine alluvial deposit to clay and sand, with very little of its territory unfit for purposes of cultivation. The staple products are wheat, rye, Indian corn, oats, barley, buckwheat, potatoes, and the various products of its herds and flocks. Some idea of the extent of its products may be formed from the fol- lowing statistics, taken from the census report of 1870, though the report for 1880, when tabulated, will doubtless show a material change in many of the figures. During that year there were 218,670 acres of improved land in the county, while the farms were valued at $14,783,045.00, and produced 46,426 bushels of wheat, 11,804 bushels of rye, 163,597 bushels of Indian corn, 286,615 bushels of oats, 14,381 bushels of barley, 21,768 bushels of buck- wheat, and 333,858 bushels of potatoes. There were also in the county 4,977 horses, 21,941 milch cows, 1,014 working oxen, 17,041 sheep, and 4,809 swine. From the milk of the cows was manufactured 1,761,543 pounds of butter, and 1,374,387 pounds of cheese, while the sheep yielded 87,256 pounds of wool, or about five pounds to the fleece, providing each sheep was sheared.
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.
As early as 1819, a society existed in Burlington, called the " Chittenden County Society for Promoting Agriculture and Domestic Manufactures," of which Martin Chittenden was president, and Charles Adams, secretary. The first fair held was during the following year, 1820, near the present Oslo E. Pinney residence, and an address delivered at the Court House Square. Fairs, however, were held here by the Chittenden County Agricultural Society, as it was called, in the years 1843 and 1848, inclusive, and one was adver- tised for 1849, but not held, and in 1857, 1858, and 1862, since which time they were held in Essex. At these fairs the agricultural and mechanical pro- ducts of the county were exhibited, several hundred dollars expended in pre- miums, etc., and were in all respects a success ; but it finally became appa- rent to those most actively interested in the promotion of agricultural inter- ests in the county, that an association founded on more extended principals should be inaugurated. Accordingly, in 1881, a society called the Lake Champlain Agricultural and Mining Association was contemplated by them,
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and stock issued for $25,000.00, in shares of $25.00 each, $20,000.00 of which was taken up, when the State Society took the balance and are to hold their fairs in union with that association. Accordingly, pursuant to a vote of the corporators, who had decided to call the association The Cham- plain Valley Association for the Promotion of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, and in accordance with a published notice, the first meeting of stockholders of the association was held in the city court-room, Saturday, May 6, 1882, the State Society being represented by its Secretary, Mr. N. B. Safford: The meeting was called to order by Mr. Henry Loomis, president ; G. G. Benedict, from the committee to report by-laws and to present nomi- nations for directors, reported that the committee appointed on the part of the Champlain Valley Association had held a joint meeting with the com- mittee appointed for a like purpose by the State Agricultural Society, and had prepared the series of by-laws then presented. The report of the committee was accepted, and the by-laws, ten in number, were duly adopted. He further reported that the State Agricultural Society had selected seven gentlemen, and the committee of the Champlain Valley Association seven, for directors, and that for the fifteenth member of the board the committee unanimously agreed upon Hon. John Gregory Smith, and in accordance with that action the committee nominated the following list of fifteen gentlemen for directors : LeGrand B. Cannon, John Gregory Smith, Henry Chase, Henry G. Root, James A. Shedd, Crosby Miller, George Hammond, John W. Cramton, Lemuel S. Drew, Frederick M. VanSicklen, Urban A. Woodbury, Sidney H. Weston, Buel J. Derby, Louis H. Talcott, and Albert G. Peirce.
On Wednesday, May 10, at an adjourned meeting, the following officers were elected : President, LeGrand B. Cannon ; vice-presidents, H. G. Crane, George W. Hendee, Hervey Spencer, A. Williams, Timothy Hoyle, George Hammond, Frank W. Witherbee, H. G. Burleigh, John W. Stewart, John L. Barstow ; secretary, E. F. Brownell ; treasurer, Cyrus M. Spaulding ; general superintendent, James A. Shedd; auditors, S. H. Weston, L. H. Talcott ; construction committee, James A. Shedd, H. G. Root, F. M. VanSicklen ; executive committee, H. G. Root, J. Gregory Smith, Henry G. Chase, F. M. VanSicklen, Albert G. Peirce.
The directors, we understand, are now (May, 1882,) taking measures for the purchase of the grounds, erection of necessary buildings, etc. Thus the So- ciety starts out, under the best auspices, and bids fair to become one of the most extensive and useful in this part of the country.
MANUFACTURES.
As the manufacturing interests are spoken of in detail in connection with the several town sketches, it would be but needless repetition to give the sub- ject more than a passing glance at this point. A comparison of the present facilities, as therein set forth, with their condition half a century ago, however,
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will teach one that the history of Chittenden County, in this respect at least, has been one of sure, steady improvement ; a course, too, which has not ended, but only begun. Many portions of the territory which fifty years ago, yes, twenty-five years since, were either considered unworthy to bear the point of a plowshare, or covered with the gnarled trunks of the primeval forest, now are the site of extensive factories, where the whir of the loom or the steady stroke of the mechanic's busy hammer are heard constantly. And let us here prophesy that, he who looks upon the county a quarter of a century hence, will behold as marked an improvement during that time, as he who now takes a retrospect of the one just passed. The principal manufactures are that of lumber in all its various branches-sash, doors, blinds, wooden-ware, etc., woolen and cotton cloths, marble and granite, machinery, and dairy products. According to the United States census report of 1870, the county had 300 manufacturing establishments, operated by thirty-one steam engines, and one hundred water-wheels, giving employment to 3,451 people. There were $3,760,520.00 invested in manufactures, while the manufactured products for the year were valued at $6,537,230.00, nearly double that of any other county in the State.
COURTS AND COUNTY BUILDINGS.
At the organization of Addison County, as previously mentioned, courts were appointed to be held alternately at Addison and Colchester ; and after the establishment of Chittenden County, Colchester was still retained as the shire town, although all causes pending in the supreme court were tried in Addison County. On October 21, 1788, however, an act was passed restor- ing the supreme court to Chittenden County, "with all actions and appeals from this county, pending in the county of Addison, to be heard, tried, and determined in said court, to be holden at Colchester," and fixing the stated terms of the court on the first Tuesday of August annually. The supreme court held two annual sessions in Colchester, commencing with the August term, 1789. At this and the succeeding term, Nathaniel Chipman presided as chief justice, and Noah Smith and Samuel Knight as assistant justices ; and at the third terni, held at Burlington, Elijah Paine was chief justice, and Samuel Knight and Isaac Tichenor assistant justices. The county court held six terms at Colchester, commencing with the February term, 1788; the first four terms (embracing the years 1788-1789), John Fassett, Jr., of Cambridge, pre- sided as chief justice, and John White, of Georgia, and Samuel Lane, of Burlington, assistant justices ; John Knickerbocker, clerk; Noah Chitten- den, of Jericho, sheriff; Samuel Hitchcock, of Burlington, State's attorney. John McNeil, of Charlotte, was judge of probate, Isaac McNeil, register, and Stephen Lawrence, of Burlington, county treasurer. The next four terms of the court, the last two held at Burlington, at the inn of Gideon King (1790 and 1791), John Fassett, Jr., presided as chief justice, and John White and
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John McNeil, assistant justices ; Martin Chittenden, clerk ; Stephen Pearl, sheriff, Samuel Hitchcock, State's attorney for 1790, and William C. Harring- ton for 1791 ; Col. John Spafford, county treasurer. The county still retained its original limits, which extended over the counties of Grand Isle, Franklin, Lamoille, and parts of Washington and Orleans, and was divided into three probate districts, with Matthew Cole, of Richmond, Jonathan Hoyt, of St. Albans, and Timothy Pearl, of Burlington, were appointed judges of probate, in their respective districts.
The first jury trial in the county, after its organization, was at the February term of the court, 1788, being an action of trespass quare clausum fregit, in favor of John Collins vs. Frederick Saxton ; in which case David Stanton, Jonathan Bush, John Doxy, Alexander Gordon, John Martin, John Chamber- lin, John Fisk, David Whitcomb, David Warren, Eben Barstow, William Smith, and Allen Hackett were empaneled as jurors.
By a special act of the legislature, passed October 27, 1790, the courts were removed from Colchester to Burlington-fixing the session of the supreme court on the fourth I uesday of August, and the county court on the last Tuesday of February, and last save one in September. The county officers continued the same up to the February term, 1794, when Martin Chittenden took his seat as one of the assistant justices in place of John White, and Solomon Miller was appointed clerk, which office he held for the next eighteen years in succession, (save the year 1808, by William Barney,) to his credit, as a very accurate and efficient officer. And until 1794, the same judges of the supreme court presided.
In the meantime, Chittenden County had been circumscribed in its limits by the erection of Franklin County on the north. Soon after this division, it seems that there was a controversy on the subject of locating the county- town and buildings. To settle the question, a special act of the legislature was passed, November 4, 1793, "appointing Thompson J. Skinner and Samuel Sloan, of Williamstown, and Israel Jones, of Adams, in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, a committee to fix on the place for holding county and supreme courts in the county of Chittenden ; and to stick a stake, for the place of building the court-house." The decision of this committee resulted in the permanent establishment of the courts and court-house at Burlington, where they still remain, and where the supreme court meets on the first Tuesday in January, and county court on the first Tuesday in April, and the third Tues- day in September. The probate districts were changed so that the county now constitutes one district. The United States circuit and district courts also hold their sessions here on the fourth Tuesday in February.
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