USA > Vermont > Windham County > Rockingham > History of the town of Rockingham, Vermont, including the villages of Bellows Falls, Saxtons River, Rockingham, Cambridgeport and Bartonsville, 1907-1957 with family genealogies > Part 2
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But the meters soon proved their value for in June of that first year $226.83 was taken out by the officer who wheels his little cart around to swallow the contents of each meter in a satisfied gulp. The first five weeks showed receipts of $1,275.14 and they were agreed to be an asset to the community if not a solution to the entire problem. Proceeds the first year were almost enough to pay the salary of this special officer who patrols the meters. Other proceeds go to maintain and repair the machines, among other things.
The watering trough in the middle of the Square will be remembered by many as it stood there until 1923 when fifty-five new ornamental light posts with underground wires were intro- duced in the business section and the old paving stones were covered with a new surface. It spelled the end of an era which had found watering troughs necessary. The old stones may still be seen on Mill Hill, the road leading down to the old paper mills, today giving access to Adam's Grist Mill and the White Mountain Paper Co. While the rest of the village retained its old overhead wiring, the new posts marched from the Fountain up Westminster St. to the Square and on up to the Arch Bridge, down Canal St. to the railroad station and down Bridge St. to Moore & Thompson's Mill.
Once arc lights illumined the streets and the "old lamp lighter" came around to pull them down with his pole and replenish the carbon sticks over which small boys fought in the street. Electric lights first blossomed in Bellows Falls on September 21, 1884 at the Fall Mountain Paper Co. but not until Sept. 30, 1913 were arches raised over the Square at cost of $500, the same ones which disappeared with such rejoicing ten years later. Both events were celebrated with a block dance in the Square. Now those famous ornamental posts are gone too, for in 1955 they were replaced with 20,000 new lumen lights whose strange, giraffe-like contours turn night into day both outdoors and, some say, inside adjoining offices. Telephone wires went underground in the Square in 1908 and the wall phone with a crank like a phonograph, came down, was replaced by French phones and the whole system recently is giving way to dials. But the good old party line which may be composed of ten to twenty subscribers, is still in force in the country where, as the old ballad goes,"there are no secrets" and a person gets the news by taking down his receiver and listening. One Rock- ingham woman, a semi-invalid, is said to have had her phone placed beside her couch so that she did not lack for tid-bits of gossip and kept herself informed on the activities of her neighbors.
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HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM
Electricity and its modern gadgets is to blame for most of our present way of life. When the Bellows Falls Electric Light Co. was on Canal St., incandescent bulbs swung nakedly from ceilings or were hooded beneath green glass shades on tables. But it did not reach the rural districts for many years. About 1930, Leverett Lovell and Henry Stoddard traveled up and down the road from Bellows Falls to Rockingham village, often called Old Town, to interest sufficient people in having "the lights" to enable the power company to install poles and string wires along that route. This was done that same year and through the activity of "Josh" Blakeley of the Upper Meadows, power was extended to that area also. He said that unless the Meadows were hooked up too, that he would connect with the Central Vermont power. Bartonsville and Brockways Mills received power soon after this. Kerosene lamps went into farm wood sheds as they had done in town long since, only to be carried back into the house twenty years later when the old nickel lamp with its white or green china shade, the hand lamp and the big hanging lamp with glass prisms like tassels on a shawl, which hung over the dining table and was pulled up and down on a chain, became electrified and in their glory once more.
It was many more years before women knew the emancipa- tion of the electric stove and all the contrivances which beat, sweep, wash and cook for them and which made every house a Better Home-whether there was a Garden or not. Brooms and carpet sweepers gave way to electric sweepers and radiators replaced the big central stove with its isinglass door. The tin bath tub encased in wood gave way to porcelain fixtures. No longer does the ice box drip onto the floor from an over-flowing pan. Freezer lockers replace the back shed barrels of frozen pies. Even iron and soapstone sinks have given way to porcelain. Gas came to town as far back as 1872 when the Gas Light Com- pany of Bellows Falls and North Walpole was incorporated. It was given a charter in 1906 which was revoked in 1914.
Building styles have changed considerably in the last half century. Fifty years ago, those who could afford it, lived in spacious Victorian homes which today are difficult to heat and care for. Most of these were built with paper mill money, the source of most of the larger incomes of the town. But that era is gone and these dignified homes of the gay nineties have become apartment houses and convalescent homes today, including some on Westminster or "Tony" Terrace which was built up by many of these families. The George Wales home built at the turn of the century for the fabulous price of $14,000 is now a home for convalescents as is the home of Clark Chase.
Among other homes of this period was the Frank Flint house on Westminster St., later owned by John Babbitt; the N. G. Williams house on Atkinson St., now owned by the Walter Glynn
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HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM
family and the Masonic Temple which was once the home of Wyman Flint. The John Flint home built by Henry Green in 1829, with its palatial white pillars, was the Rockingham Hospi- tal, for many years until torn down in 1955. Its identical neighbor built by Alexander Fleming, is now Oakley Manor. While these last homes were hardly of the gay ninety vintage, they retained a dignity and beauty never overshadowed by later building. Another older home was that of Kate Williams wnich became the Fenton & Hennessey Funeral Home in 1923. The John T. Moore home on Henry St., now owned by Dr. Richard Fuller, has been made into apartments including his office and the old carriage house is the attractive home of the doctor. The large house built by Dr. A. L. Miner fifty years ago and sometimes referred to at the time as "the doctor's white elephant" as it was believed that he had planned on a hospital there, has also been made into apartments by Charles Jurkiewicz. Other lovely old homes include those of George and Fred Babbitt and Louis Robertson, the latter still owned and occupied by the family. Today's homes are smaller and more compact to fit the dollar which is of similar size. While a $10,000 home today may be even smaller than the carriage house of 1900, it has more conveniences and less work than anyone of that earlier era could possibly have imagined. The "hired girl" has disappeared but electric "servants" have replaced her.
In 1910 there were still more buggies than cars and the sprinkler wagon, painted bright green with red wheels, made its rounds each hot summer day, followed by every bare-legged child in town, ducking in and out of its welcome spray. The same troop was also faithful to the iceman who dropped chunks of ice in the road as he chopped at the great cakes on his scales. The muddy pieces were swiftly scooped up in aprons and dippers and whisked away to rattle in tin pitchers of lemonade or buckets of ice water.
These were the days before Mr. McAdams thought to make black top roads or anyone had invented chloride to lay the dust and both sprinkler carts and ice wagons were a necessary part of village life, so very necessary that someone anonymously in the spring of 1919 when the water wagon was evidently late in coming out of hibernation, wrote a song called "Now All Sing Together" which was done to the tune of "Father, Come Home." The only two available verses are as follows, the wail of a dusty village;
"Oh please, village fathers, come list to me now;
Let the sprinkling cart come out of its lair
And Springle Westminster and Rockingham Streets And an extra dose give to the Square.
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HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM
The dust flies about, the germs of disease And microbes are howling with glee;
So please get the sprinkler once more on the job That from disease-laden dust we be free."
The butcher and baker tied their horses to the maples which thickly lined the streets. In summer the drivers sat in the shade of huge umbrellas and draped their long-suffering beasts with fly netting and straw hats through which their ears poked like twin exclamation points. Many farms still had pumps in the kitchen sink or back yard, the latter (and sometimes the former) having to be "primed" with the tea kettle on a below zero morning.
As progress caught up with the village, a sewage system became a "must" and the privies which once back-grounded the main street homes in a neat row, vanished from the scene while the problem became a major issue at town meetings. In 1910 it was voted to spend $7,000 on the matter and in 1913 it was upped $20,000 more. Four years later School Street began to get its face lifted when the sharp grade was cut down with Byron Robinson, civil engineer, in charge. But work did not move smoothly, being held up by some confusion concerning use of money borrowed from one department to augment another, a sort of "rob Peter to pay Paul" affair and operations were halted until August. However, it was cold weather before the trustees got the money allotted to its respective departments with sufficient funds to finish the job and get the stairs ready for use again, the old wooden ones being replaced by concrete. At the same time S. J. Cray made extensive changes in his property beside the stairs. Burnett's Lunch Room, The Kandy Kitchen, Newsstand and millinery shop of Mrs. Stillwell all received new contours when the bank behind them was dug out.
In 1916 new village by-laws were introduced with the trustees empowered to arrange for systematic and sanitary collection and disposition of garbage-and to pay for it if nec- essary. Time was marching on. The village was also vehem- ently calling for some program to remove ashes from its back doors. "We have no dump!" it cried. Some careless folks even left their trash and garbage in the new Playground! So in August of that year the first village collection took place with farmers gathering it to feed to their hogs. Possibly the village was growing a little aristocratic and hen yards and pig sties were disappearing from back yards with resultant excess of refuse.
The new custom was carried on for a number of years with the understanding that no glass or tin cans be included which might affect porcine digestions. But even with the lowly gar- bage can, time and necessities change and in 1954 a notice was served on Reuben Blood of Putney, local collector, by the U. S. Government, that no more garbage-fed hogs could be shipped
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HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM
from Vermont. The U. S. Department of Health canceled all interstate commercial raw garbage fed swine because of a disease called VESICULAR EXAMTHEMA, resembling the dread hoof and mouth disease of cattle. So in order to ship porkers from Vermont hereafter, owners must cook all garbage or feed the animals grain for 30 days before shipping. Since either is almost prohibitive for most owners and if markets cannot be found in Vermont, the village was notified that it may be forced to set up a modern garbage disposal plant in the near future. At the same time, a similar plan for sewage disposal reared its head as state and nation started a campaign to clean up its rivers and streams.
But the village did not get its dump until 1925 when on March 13, the corporation bought about seven acres of land in Westminster from A. G. Rice, milkman and overscer of the poor in Rockingham. It cost $1,600 and allowed Rockingham to carry its trash over the bridge and deposit it in another town. This town has recently raised objections as the noxious fumes from burning refuse fill the air and rats breed like rabbits only more so and over-run nearby precincts. These make fine sport for boys with air rifles who have sometimes found it difficult to distinguish the four-footed critters from the tin stove pipe of the little house where "Cappy" Caskins, who has now found a haven on the town farm in Bartonsville, ruled his domain as keeper of the dump for many years. It always brought Cappy erupting from his door like a bombshell to the delight of the youthful riflemen. Once a fire cracker tossed down his stove pipe, fairly blew him out the door. Bellows Falls may eventually need to make other disposition of its trash, garbage and sewage for that is progress.
Another mark of the changing times are the roads outside the villages, the roads which, twenty years ago, as the automotive age pricked up its ears, boasted "greasy spoon" cating places, derelict soft drink shanks, cheap souvenir stands and the vague beginnings of over-night lodgings. These were small cabins which became larger with the years and the traveling public and which are now replaced mostly by motels.
RACIAL BACKGROUND
The people of Rockingham today are, as in every community, a medley of many nationalities, a melting pot of races which, inter-marrying, make for finer Americans, mentally and phy- sically. Among them are those of German, Scotch, French, Irish, Russian, Polish, English and Jewish blood.
Various things brought these people to this town. Many came to work in the paper mills. Others came as farmers and among the thrifty, hard working farm population have always
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been the Polish although many of them have been mill workers, but the soil has a pull on this race. Today the Soboleski family owns and operates the farm in Old Town which was the home of Samuel Whiting, first settled pastor in Rockingham and which still retains the original farmhouse. Many men, mainly Polish and Irish, arrived as immigrants and lived together in crowded tenements until able to send for their families or got married. From these different peoples, especially the Polish, has come some of the finest creative work in town.
Most of the Irish came here with the first railroad in 1848 and remained to put their roots down deeply as they and their descendants became farmers, millworkers, storekeepers and town officers. The French and German have also been factory workers, the gay and fun-loving French offsetting the more stolid and practical Germans, many of whom came originally to work in the old brewery at Cold River, drifting into the mills but by 1910 had mostly left for the mills in West Virginia and other places. Among these was a Mr. Schoppe, an expert chemist who alone knew the secret of coloring paper in the mills. There were many Germans here fifty years ago, most of them coming from Holyoke, Mass., and the Kaffeklatches of coffee and Kuchen are still remembered by their children. And if, today, someone is adept at grinding and seasoning pork at butchering time, ten to one they had a German sausage maker for an ancestor for things come down in families. Many Scotch girls came from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island to work in local families as domestics as did the Irish girls from Erin for it was a respected profession. Jewish families opened clothing stores or went into the junk business, good citizens of the town.
Immigration into this country settled in the west in the last part of the 19th century. The high point of foreign ad- mixture was around 1911 and by 1931 the population of New England was 60% either foreign born or of foreign parents. It became the homeland of more foreigners than any other section of the country and by 1931 the fraction of foreign born had declined to 23% from 28% in 1911 and by 1940 it was only 18%. They had become a part of America.
POPULATION
According to the U. S. Census, the population of Vermont dropped 747 between 1950 and 1954. As one newspaper re- marked, it is alright for other states to lose ground but “Ver- monters are something else again. They represent a patrimony that the nation can ill afford to squander." That would make it 376,727 in 1954. But it is optimistically prophesied to be 432,000 by 1960. Vermont having always been a dairy state
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HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM
and not industrial, it has never gained rapidly in population. In 1910 it was only a little more than four times that of 1790 when the old "warning out of town" was among the various causes of migration from the state. But in 1919 the ten largest towns in Vermont with a population of over 5,000 included Rockingham. From 1900 to 1910 the rate of increase for the whole country was six times that of Vermont alone. Perhaps the fact that in 1955 the birth rate of the whole country was the highest in history, may have had some bearing on the ex- pected increase. In 1929 Rockingham led the county in having the largest grand list.
Rockingham's population rate has always helped to keep her population up since pioneer days. More recently, the Kinney family of Saxtons River counted sixteen children in 1919, Elmer Weston, who died in 1954, of the same village, boasted nine. Archie Willard of Old Town, and living there today, raised all thirteen of his offspring; Calvin was a war casualty. Clarence Carey on Parker Hill had a larger than average family as did the Rumrills and Garrapys, all residents of Old Town. Medical science does its share in boosting popula- tion with discoveries today which prolong the life span for many years. In the first fifty years of this century, medical science has helped more people than in the preceding fifty centurys. (Standard Intern. Encyclopedia Vol. 12, p. 3396.)
The population of rural Vermont is generally larger in the summer through its summer camp enrollments and summer residents. The former has more than doubled from 1943 to 1955. Rockingham has no large summer camps and only a small per cent of its country homes are owned and occupied by summer people. Since the growth of population conditions, in part, the activities and interests of a people, it is well to picture this in terms of a census table. The following shows the growth of Rockingham from 1900 to 1955.
YEAR
POPULATION
GRAND LIST
TAX RATE
1900
5,809
1910
6,207
$ 56,574.57
$1.35
1920
4,860
61,258.78
2.80
1930
3,930
104,378.18
2.0712
1940
4,256
109,374.23
1.88
1950
5,499
119,869.25
2.9611/2
1955
122,584.47
3.29
1957
5,422 (Bellows Falls 3,881.)
IT ISN'T YOUR TOWN, IT'S YOU! (anonymous)
If you want to live in the kind of town, Like the kind of a town that you'd like,
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HISTORY OF ROCKINGHAM
You needn't slip your clothes in a grip And start on a long, long hike. You'll only find what you left behind For there's nothing that's really new, It's a knock at yourself when you knock your town, It isn't your town, it's you! Real towns are not made by men afraid Lest somebody else get ahead. When everyone works and nobody shirks You can raise a town from the dead. And if, while you make your personal stake, Your neighbor can make one too, Your town will be what you want to see, It isn't your town-it's you!
CHAPTER II
TIME LINE OF HALF A CENTURY; A RECORD OF LOCAL EVENTS COLLATED WITH STATE, NATIONAL AND WORLD HAPPENINGS; THE CENTENNIAL, 1953
Soon after W. W. I, Mrs. Anna F. Brand, in charge of the United States Employment Service in El Paso, Texas, Women's Division, won a contest offered by the Delineator magazine on the subject of Americanism. Mrs. Brand's definition of this subject was as follows, which could be read with advantage by each of us and which seems particularly applicable to this chapter; "My child, remember that the land in which you live was bought by the blood of your forefathers that every man might live in freedom and justice. It is being kept safe for you by the blood of your fathers and brothers today. You-who will inherit this priceless possession-are a child of liberty, an American. Walk upright in your native land, fear no man, harm no man. Reverence that flag beneath which you stand. God grant that you may never stain its folds by any act of injustice to another little brother whom it protects-it matters not what his color or creed. Be honest, be pure, be truthful that men may look into your eyes and say, 'Here grows a man for America.'" If each of us took this text to heart, many of history's pages would make fairer reading.
The first railroad train came into Bellows Falls, puffing wood smoke and tossing out sparks in January, 1849 and one hundred years from that eventful day which was to change the whole life of the town and state, the descendants of those men who laid the rails and dug the roadbed along with their town- folk, turned out to celebrate the event. Certainly no one of them remembered those old engines which required wood piles at stragetic intervals along the way "split and piled convenient to the track on ground as nearly level with the track as practi- cable-6 feet high with bark up - so piled as not to fall when the snow thaws," according to an old circular of the Vermont Central Railroad in 1871. The railroad paid $5.00 a cord delivered in the yards at Bellows Falls-$4.00 if left in the woods.
The day in 1949, a wet, uncomfortable day, featured a parade of ancient vehicles, ox carts and antique costumes. Shops substituted articles which were sold a hundred years ago and while the rain and slush soaked many a hoop skirt and bonnet, everyone entered into the spirit of the day and a dinner and
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dance was held in the evening. The noon train north carried on it many picturesque people who, boarding it at Walpole, rode, gratis, to Bellows Falls, to the bewilderment of the regular passengers. Band boxes, foot warmers, muffs and tippets again filled the aisles as they did so long ago. The clock turned back- ward with pantalettes and poke bonnets pouring up the steps of the sleek streamliner. Gentlemen in gaudy vests, derby hats and waxed moustaches-one of them looked a lot like Eddie Massucco-attempted to inveigle the mystified passengers into various unsavory card games. As the train pulled into the Bellows Falls station, various shortride passengers were herded before a microphone on the platform for their impressions on the brief but hilarious ride as cameras clicked and silk hats, canes, tight pantaloons, lace mitts and full skirts poured down the steps. And most of them, in the spirit of 1849, said "It fair took my breath away-fifteen miles an hour!"
But the greatest celebration to which Rockingham ever fell heir to-and certainly the most publicized-was its bi- centennial in 1953, marking 200 years of life beside the Long River or River of Pines as the Indians called it. Some of its struggles in early town meetings had been portrayed in a brief skit celebrating the 180th anniversary of the first town meeting, on Town Meeting Day in the Armory in 1941. Characters were descendants of the early settlers, clad in homespuns, coon skin caps and with ancient muskets. Filling the old offices were Judge A. T. Bolles, moderator, as Andrew Gardner, the first pastor; Preston Hadley as Moses Wright, Hog Reeve; Dean Lake as Ab. Whipple, Hog Reeve; L. Putnam Lovell as Amaziah Wright, Deer Reeve; Francis Bolles as Thomas Stebbins, Natt Divoll, Jr. as William Symonds, Leverett C. Lovell as Mical Lovell and Dana Halladay as Samuel Burr. The production was the special project of the William French Chapter, D. A. R., Miss Ethel Hill, chairman. Since the town lines were laid out in 1736, this was decided upon as the best date from which to begin the history of Rockingham.
But 1953 was the big year, 200 years from the day when Rockingham received its charter. The celebration was scattered throughout the year, beginning, again on Town Meeting day, March 3 this year, with a 3-act play, ENOCH HALE'S BRIDGE depicting the tale of the first bridge over the Connecticut river at any point, built in 1785 and how Col. Hale lost it to his rival, Frederick Guyer of Boston. Frances S. Lovell was hired by the town to write the play which was put on by the Rockingham Players. Colorful costumes of the period and authentic back- grounds of old furniture furnished by local dealers, aided in the success of the play although it is doubtful if Col. Hale ever collected toll in 1795 in a red satin waistcoat and white pants, the garments which were furnished by a Boston costume house.
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The play was directed and coached by Max Miller of the Players and was presented to a packed house and no admission charged. Following it, a costume ball was held by the Elks in which couples did the latest dances clad in the knee breeches and wide skirts of another day.
Beginning in May, about fifty people worked steadily upon the August festivities. Meetings were held each Monday night in the High School under the direction of the co-chairmen and prime movers of the affair, Max Miller and John C. Hennessey whose efforts spear-headed the event to success.
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