USA > Vermont > Washington County > Gazetteer of Washington County, Vt., 1783-1889 > Part 37
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Albert P. Towne was born in Woodbury, September 9, 1838. He was a farmer, and lived in his native town until 1875, when he came to Marshfield, where he resided until his death, December 21, 1886. His wife was Lucre -- tia B. Adams, who bore him four children, viz .: Stella W., Delbert A. (de- ceased), Della V., and Mamie E. The last two reside with their mother.
The records show that eight of the patriotic sons of Marshfield went into. the United States army in defense of our country, in the War of 1812, viz .: Abijah Bemis, Phineas Bemis, Obadiah Bemis, David Cutting, John Waugh, Abijah Hall, Isaac Austin, and Philip Delan. Lewis Bemis, a brother of the first three named, was also from this town, though he enlisted from Barnet.
In the war to suppress the Rebellion Marshfield furnished ninety-eight soldiers. Twenty-eight of this number never returned. A few were brought back to be buried, but the remains of most of them repose in the soil of the "Sunny South." In 1863 thirty-four were drafted, but only one, Cottrill Clifford, went into the service. Twenty-two paid commutation. Clifford served his time, was discharged, and was accidentally killed on his way home.
The Congregational church of Marshfield is located at the village of Marsh- field. The first Congregational church was organized December 24, 1800,. by Rev. James Hobart, of Berlin, with thirteen members. Selah Wells was the first deacon and Gideon Spencer was the next. The little church had occa- sional preaching by ministers from neighboring towns, but never had a settled pastor. In the spring of 1870 Rev. J. T. Graves was engaged to preach half of the time for six weeks. In 1871 Rev. N. F. Cobleigh became the pastor of the reorganized church, and August 16, 1871, their present church edifice was completed and dedicated. It will comfortably seat an audience of 150 persons, and is estimated, with the grounds, to be worth $1,200. Rev. J. D. Bailey is the present pastor. The Sunday-school has an average attendance of thirty.
The Methodist Episcopal church of Marshfield is located in the northern part of the town. In 1827 the Union meeting house was built in Marshfield, and the committee appointed to divide the time for the occupation of the house among the denominations that had built it set a few Sundays to the Methodists, and Rev. N. W. Aspinwall, of Cabot, held meetings for their apportioned time, alternating with Rev. Elisha J. Scott. The first quarterly meeting was held here in February, 1828. In the autumn of 1829 the first Methodist church was organized with five members. Stephen Pitkin, Jr., was the first class-leader. The first preacher sent here by conference was Rev. David Packer. In 1860 their church edifice was built, of wood, and burned in 1878. January 16, 1879, their present nicely finished and furnished church edifice was completed and dedicated. Their present pastor is Rev. C. D.
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Clapp, and the society has eighty members. The church will comfortably seat 250 people, and with all other church property is estimated to be worth $3,000. Their Sunday-school was first established in 1834 by Mrs. Andrew English and Mrs. Stephen Pitkin, Jr. It now has a membership of 176.
The Universalist church of Marshfield is located in Marshfield village. The church organization was perfected under the ministry of Rev. Lester Warren, in 1871. There was a society organized in 1855 under the name of the "Universalist Society of Liberal Christians in Marshfield." This society, with other Christian societies, occupied the Union meeting-house built in 1827. In 1857 this house was both modernized and repaired, and has passed into the possession or control of the Universalists. At the organization in 1871 the church had thirty-five members, with Rev. Lester Warren, pastor. It now has forty-five members, with Rev. S. C. Hayford, pastor. The orig- inal cost of their church edifice was $2,000. The present value of the church property, including buildings and grounds, is estimated at $1,ooo. The house will seat comfortably about 200 people. The Sunday-school has an attend- ance of thirty or forty persons.
M IDDLESEX lies in the central part of the county, in latitude 44° 20' and longitude 4° 22,' and is bounded northerly by Worcester, easterly by East Montpelier and Montpelier, southerly by More- town and a part of Berlin, from which it is separated by the Winooski river, and westerly by Waterbury.
The town was chartered June 8, 1763, to Jacob Rescaw and sixty four as- sociates, by Benning Wentworth, governor of the province of New Hamp- shire, by command of his Royal Highness King George III., in the third year of his reign, and to be six miles square, and no more, and to contain 23,040 acres. " Out of which an allowance is to be made for highways and unimprovable land, rocks, ponds, mountains, and rivers, One thousand and forty acres free, according to a plan and survey thereof, made by our said governor's order and returned into the secretary's office and hereunto annexed, butted and bounded as follows, viz .: Beginning at the Southerly or South easterly corner of Waterbury, on the Northerly side of Onion or French River (so-called), from thence running Easterly up said River bounding on the same as far as to make it six miles, on a straight line, allowing the same to be perpendicular with the Easterly line of said Waterbury, from thence Northerly, parallel with the Easterly line of said Waterbury six miles, thence Westerly about six miles to the Northeasterly corner of said Waterbury, from thence Southerly by the Easterly line of said Waterbury six miles to the place begun at." The boundaries have remained as then fixed, with the exception that a strip of land containing about 1,000 acres, which was set to the town of Waterbury, by act of the legislature in 1850. This strip of land lies on the
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west side of Hogback Mountain, and extends about half the length of the town, along the central part of the west line, and is about 250 rods wide. The inhabitants on this tract can better convene for town purposes at Water- bury.
The surface of Middlesex is mountainous and hilly, and much of its sur- face is badly broken by ravines, rocks, and ledges.
The geological formation of this town is composed almost entirely of rocks of talcose schist, with a narrow belt of clay slate which extends through the town a little west of the center.
Middlesex has some fine farming land along the Winsooki river and its largest branches. There are also many productive farms among the hills ; the soil is generally good, but in many places the surface is broken, rough, and uneven. Probably the charter allowance for unimprovable lands was not too much. The southern part of the town is watered by the Winooski and numerous small brooks that flow into it, the central part by Great brook, and the northern part by the North Branch of Winooski and its numerous tribu- taries. These streams furnish the town with many valuable sites for mills and other manufacturing purposes; nearly or quite as good as any town in the state ; but only a small portion of this fine water-power has yet been used.
Farming is the leading industry of the town, and probably nine-tenths of the male population are tillers of her soil.
The first town meeting was held at the house of Seth Putnam, March 29, 1790, when the voters present " made choice of Levi Putnam, Moderator ; Seth Putnam, Town Clerk ; Thomas Mead, Levi Putnam, and Seth Putnam, Selectmen ; Edmund Holden, Constable and Collector of taxes ; Lovewell Warren, Town Treasurer ; Jonas Harrington, Surveyor."
The town was first represented by Samuel Harris in 1791. Thomas Mead was the first settler in the town and the first in Washington county. He came in 1782 or '83. Asa Harrington, born March 15, 1785, was the first child born in Middlesex.
About 1800 Henry Perkins built the first grist and saw-mill on the Wi- nooski river, where the village now stands. Soon after, Samuel Haskins built an oil-mill, and manufactured oil from the flax-seed grown by the surround- ing farmers. Next followed the cloth-dressing-mill built by Thomas Stowell. The last named, next to the grist-mill, was a necessity. Then all wore home- made clothing.
In the charter of Middlesex it was provided that " the first meeting for the choice of town officers shall be held on the 26th day of July next, to be noti- fied and presided over by Capt. Isaac Woodruff, and that the annual meet- ing forever hereafter for the choice of officers for said town shall be on the second Tuesday of March, annually." This was twenty years before the first settler moved into the town. Middlesex was included in the New York county of Gloucester, and the first meeting of which the town has a record was held
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in New Milford, Conn., and designated " A meeting of the proprietors of the Township of Middlesex, on Onion River in the Province of New York." Partridge Thatcher presided and Samuel Averill was clerk. They voted to lay out the township and lot one division of 100 acres to each right. They also voted a tax of $3 to the right to pay the expense of surveying. This meeting was held on Tuesday, the Ioth day of May, 1770. The proprietors held their first meeting in the state of Vermont at Sunderland, October 13, 1783, when the second and third divisions of lands were recorded. The first meeting of the proprietors held in Middlesex was at the house of Lovell Warren, August 14, 1787. Seth Putnam was chosen clerk. The meeting was adjourned until the 5th of the ensuing November, when on assembling it was voted to hold all former surveys null and void. The surveys had been so inaccurate that proprietors could not find their lots, and some of the lots had been laid out in the territory of Montpelier. A resurvey was ordered, and Gen. Parley Davis was employed as surveyor, and "Isaac Putnam, hind- chainman, Jacob Putnam, fore-chainman."
The first deed on the town records is from Samuel Averill, Jr., conveying to Samuel Averill five full rights of land, and is dated Kent, Litchfield county, December 30, 1774, and acknowledged before William Cogswell, justice of the peace.
Middlesex abounds in natural curiosities, and rugged and beautiful scenery. There is a "rocking stone " of many tons weight resting on a high ledge on the farm of Hon. William Chapin, which has so small a base on which it rests, and is so evenly balanced, that it may be easily rocked backward and forward. The "Notch," where the mountain is "rent in twain," is a fissure between its separated parts wide enough for a carriage road, and 100 feet deep, with sides of nearly perpendicular ragged rocks. The highway that ex- tends through this mountain pass is the only one that crosses the line between Waterbury and Middlesex. "The Narrows," in the Winooski river at Mid- dlesex village, is a chasm cut by the friction of the water through the solid rock thirty feet deep, from thirty to seventy feet wide, and one-fourth of a mile long. The descent is rapid, and the water rushes through the chasm with great power and velocity. A bridge spans the gulf, and connects the village of Middlesex with Moretown. A little distance below the bridge is an immense mass of rocks which rise nearly if not quite to the height of the banks, which has defied the action of the waters, and which divides the river so that a portion passes on either side of it.
The following description of the " Hogbacks " is from the pen of Hon. William Chapin :-
"Near the southwest corner of Middlesex there rises abruptly from the bank of the Winooski river a range of clearly-defined mountains, that extends about twenty miles, being nearly on the line between Middlesex and Water- bury, and extending between Worcester and Stowe, a little to the east of the line between those towns, and ending near Elmore pond, in the Lamoille val-
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ley. These mountains are called the 'Hogbacks,' in some of the earlier geographical works of Vermont, but that name now applies only to the south end of the range near the Winooski. The most conspicuous points in Middle- sex are locally known as 'Burned Mountain,' ' White Rock ' or ' Castle Rock," and ' Mt. Hunger.' This Mt. Hunger is nearly on the line between Mid- dlesex and Worcester, and a little east of the corners of the four towns of Middlesex, Stowe, Worcester, and Waterbury. Its height is 3,648 feet above the sea. As the topmost stone of this mountain, which is the highest point in the range, is doubtless in the town of Worcester, that town may, perhaps, fairly claim the honor of having within its limits one of the pleasantest places of public resort to be found in New England. The name of Mt. Hunger was given by a party of hunters who went out from Middlesex Center on a winter's day, some sixty years ago, to hunt for deer on this mountain. Lost in the vast woods, they had to stay out all night, with nothing to eat save one: partridge, and that without salt or sauce. When they got home the next day,. half starved and wholly tired out, they said they had been on Mt. Hunger .. Not a very inviting name, but very appropriate to the occasion! The only comfortable way and road to the summit at the present time is in and through Middlesex.
" The mountain top is one of the pleasantest places of earth, and will be visited so long as people inhabit the country ; standing in an isolated position, it commands a view of the whole country; to the east, to the White Moun- tains, to the west, the Adirondacks, north, to the Canadian provinces, and south, to the Massachusetts line; a score of villages, many lakes and ponds, and, best of all, thousands of New England farms and homes.
" The tops of all these mountains were covered with timber at the settle- ment of the town ; now some ten acres are burned down to the bare rock on the top of Mt. Hunger, about the same area on White Rock, and on Burned Mountain the fire has cleared some thirty to forty acres. The space thus opened affords the finest outlook upon the surrounding country. The Mt. Hunger road was commenced in October, 1877, and finished June I, 1878. The first five hundred rods was made a good, safe, and comfortable carriage road. The last half mile is very steep, and only a foot path could be made, but is so well provided with stairs that small children and aged people have made the ascent without difficulty."
This road, built by Mr. Theron Bailey, then proprietor of the " Pavilion " at Montpelier, at a great expense, under the superintendence of Hon. Will- iam Chapin, has fallen into disuse, and is not much used only by lumbermen.
The population of Middlesex, as shown by the census for the last six decades, was in 1830, 1, 156 ; 1840, 1,279 ; 1850, 1,365 ; 1860, 1,254 ; 1870, 1, 171 ; and in 1880 only 1,087. In 1888 the town had eleven school districts and supported schools in ten of them, taught by fifteen female teachers, at an average weekly salary, including board, of $4.73. The whole number of scholars who attended any school was 187, of whom nine attended private schools. The entire income for school purposes was $1,587.09. The whole amount paid teachers was $1,228.75, and the whole amount paid for all school purposes was $1,451.70. Mr. William A. Chapin was superintendent. The first school district was organized in the neighborhood along the Winooski ; but when, and the site of the first school-house, we have not been able to ascertain.
20*
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TOWN OF MIDDLESEX.
MIDDLESEX (p. o.) village, on the western border of the town, at the "Nar- rows," on the Winooski river, is a station on the Central Vermont railroad. It contains a church, school-house, three stores, three blacksmith shops, one public house, one marble shop, and about 200 inhabitants.
PUTNAMSVILLE (p. o.) is a hamlet on the North or Worcester Branch of the Winooski river in the northeasterly corner of Middlesex. It contains a store, postoffice, the large and flourishing saw and planing-mills of C. C. Put- nam & Son, a school-house, and fifteen or twenty dwellings.
C. C. Putnam & Son's mills are located at Putnamsville, on the North Branch of the Winooski river, in the northeast corner of Middlesex. Here the Branch has a fall of thirty-two feet, and affords one of the best mill sites in the state. In 1815 Bradstreet Baldwin erected a mill on this fall, which was owned and operated by several parties until 1845, when the property was purchased by C. C. and Jacob Putnam. The old mill stood on the west side of the stream and at the top of the fall, and had a capacity of cutting 100,000 feet of lumber per annum. In 1854 they erected a large double gang mill on the east side of the stream, and below the fall, so as to obtain the full advantage of the thirty-two feet fall. They also put in machin- ery for dressing lumber, and a grist-mill. All was consumed by fire in 1862. The same year C. C. Putnam erected on the site the mills now standing, with two large circular saws, and also the machinery for dressing lumber and getting out chair stock. These mills saw about 2,000,000 feet of lumber per year, and dress 5,000,000 feet. The present proprietors are C. C. Putnam & Son, who employ at this place twenty-five men. They also own a mill in Worcester, with a capacity of 1,000,000 feet per year. They have a store, which does a business of about $25,000 annually.
The flour, feed, and planing-mills of A. Denison are situated in the village of Middlesex, on the Winooski river. These mills were purchased by Mr. Denison in 1883. They contain three runs of stones, and grind from 75,000 to 100,000 bushels of grain per year.
No remarkable events characterized the early settlement of this town, ex- cept the hardships common to the settlers in every new country. The settlers were hardy and industrious, and their clearings gradually widened and the forest as gradually receded.
Thomas Mead was the first settler in the town, and the first within the limits of Washington county. The following sketch is from Deming's Ver- mont Officers, and is vouched for by the tradition of his town :-
" He came from Westford, Mass., having purchased a right of land in Mid- dlesex. He came as far as Royalton, with his wife and two or three children. Here he shouldered his gun, knapsack, and axe, and set forward, alone, to find Middlesex on Winooski river. He went from Brookfield through the woods to the head of Dog river, following that down to its junction with the Winooski, and over that river to Middlesex, having informed his wife that in a given time he should return, unless he sent her word to the contrary. On his arrival he found Mr. Jonah Harrington had made a pitch and commenced
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chopping about two miles below Montpelier village, where he tarried till morning, when he went down the river about three miles to the farm now owned by Thomas Stowell, where was formerly a tavern. Here he made his pitch, and a good one, too, for a farmer ; but had he continued down to the village of Middlesex it might have been much better around the fall in that place. He was so pleased while swinging his axe among the trees on his own land, subsisting on such game as he took with a wooden trap and his gun, that his promise to his wife to return was not fulfilled. His wife became alarmed about him, procured a horse, loaded it with provisions, and set forth to find her husband. She followed up White river to its source in Gran- ville, thence down Mad river, through Warren, Waitsfield, and Moretown, to its junction with Winooski about half a mile below the village of Middlesex, crossed that river and traveled up it about one mile, where, to her joy and his surprise, she found her husband in the afternoon of the third day, doing a good business among the maples, elms, and butternuts. From Royalton to Roches- ter she had a bridle path, then to Middlesex were only marked or spotted trees; was often under the necessity of unloading her horse to get him past fallen timber, and often had to lead him some distance. Mr. Mead and family soon after moved into the town."
Some time in June, 1785, Mr. Mead was gone from home, and on a very cloudy afternoon Mrs. Mead had to look for her cows, which run in the woods at large. She started in good season, leaving three small children, one a nurs- ing infant five months old, alone in the house; not hearing the bell on the cows, she took their track and followed down the river about one mile and a half, found where they had apparently fed most of the day, but no bell to be heard. She then sought their tracks, and found they had gone down the river in lieu of up, to their homes. She found they had gone over Hogback Mountain to Waterbury, one of the roughest places in all creation, almost. The cows must be found, or the children must go to bed supperless. In this dilemma she made up her mind to " go ahead," and crossing the almost im- passable mountain and following on, found her cows near the present rail- road depot in Waterbury, six or seven miles from home. By this time it had become dark, and backed up by a tremendous thunder shower rendered it so dark that returning over that mountain in the night was out of the question. In this unpleasant situation she found her way to Mr. Marsh's, the only hut in that village, and stayed until the first appearance of daylight, then started her cows for home on a double-quick time, where she safely arrived before any of her children had completed their morning nap. She concluded that her children had so long a crying spell before going to sleep that they did not awake as early as usual.
Tradition says further that
" Mr. Mead, in 1795, kept the only flock of sheep in town, and to keep them from falling a prey to the bears was obliged to keep a close watch of them and yard them nights. One morning he found his fold empty, and fol- lowing them a short distance he found a sheep that had been killed. He returned to the house for his gun and started in pursuit, and had not gone far into the woods when he saw a bear that was on a retreat. He followed bruin cautiously, and kept to the windward, and up the hill to near the top,
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when he again came in sight of his game, and was skulking along to get a better chance to shoot, when his wife came in sight and halloed to him. The sound of her voice started the bear, but a quick and accurate shot rolled this sheep thief over on the ground, dead. This courageous woman told Mr. Mead that she had seen another bear while searching for him. She led off in the direction and had not proceeded but a short distance when they dis- covered bear number two, which a single shot from the trusty gun in the hands of the unerring gunner also laid lifeless. The successful pioneers then took up the march towards home, and by way of the place where the sheep had been killed. When they came in sight of the spot bear number three was there taking breakfast. Mr. Mead at once settled his accounts, as he had the other two. We do not say that the time in question was not much of a morning for bears. With the aid of his few neighbors Mr. Mead brought in his game, who helped him to dress it and shared in the flesh."
Thomas Mead, the first settler of Middlesex, and the first in Washington county, came from Westford, Mass., in the spring of 1783, and made his pitch and settlement on the north bank of the French (now called the Winooski), river, about a mile above the "Narrows" and falls, the present site of the main village in the town. The Winooski valley had always been the main highway or trail of the Indians from the lake to the Connecticut river, and was often the route of the French and their Indian allies in their attacks on the frontier English settlements. Down along this valley came Hertel de Rouville with the 112 captives who survived the massacre of Deerfield, Mass.,. in the winter of 1703, taking along with them, as relics of the heretic church, that old church bell, which was perhaps the first that ever woke the echoes of the valley, and the venerable pastor, Rev. John Williams, who was quite likely the first unsettled minister in the town. And up this river came the stealthy band that burned Royalton in 1780. It was called French river till after the Revolution, then for a long time Onion river, which is the English for Wi- nooski, the present name. Down this valley on a bright spring morning in May, 1783, came this sturdy pioneer of civilization, Thomas Mead, bearing on his back and shoulders, it is said, a bag of meal, a gun, an axe, a kettle, some blankets and clothing, with many other necessary articles, and ammu- nitions of peace or war. He came from the Connecticut river valley up the White river to Royalton, thence up the Branch through Brookfield to the headwaters of Dog river, and down that stream to the Winooski. He left his wife and children at Royalton, and, with his gun, knapsack, etc., set off through the wilderness alone, and yet not alone, for he brought with him not only civilization but the Christian religion. After a long life spent among some of those who remembered Mr. Mead, I fail to recall a single word said against this first man of the town. He chose a good farm and lived there long enough to see his children's children around him. Late in life he re- moved to Northern New York (as I am told) and died there. Mrs. Mead came to Middlesex in the summer of 1783, by way of White river to Granville, thence down the Mad river to Middlesex. Their third son, Joel, born Janu- ary 18, 1785, would have been the first child born in town only that his.
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