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 46
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Because people are unused to such storms today or because they cannot take time to being snowed in for days at a time, they take it harder than their fathers. January of 1957 broke all records in New England for 75 years with the morning of the 14th dropping to 30-34° below on John Abbott's farm in Rock- ingham and down to 44° over in New York state. Most of the town dipped to 25-27° below. A. L. Field who has lived in Bellows Falls for 70 years, said that the 35° below reading on his thermometer at 7 a. m. was the coldest he ever remembered. It was 23° below at the Post Office at 8 a. m. and was followed by a big snow storm. People shook their heads, stayed at home and hoped that this winter would not happen again for another 50 years.
But many of them lived through the winter of 1938 which started off in January with an 18-30° below after an early Jan- uary thaw. Then 1941 was so mild that Jack Pickett, who was not called the local early bird without good reason, gathered pussy willows and dandelions the last week in November. April 10, 1955, was said to be the warmest April 10 of this century but Good Friday was a quick change about and Easter outfits were exchanged for fur coats. In January, 1956, golfers were out on the greens at the Country Club and in February of that same year, there were rains and thunderstorms the day after it was 20° below-probably the old adage about "three frosts and then a rain." The deep snow of 1944 made deer an easy prey to dogs which game wardens ordered tied up. But the heavy snow in the streets is no longer a problem as when it entailed hand shoveling or horse plowing. The snow loader, bought in 1946, pulls the white stuff into a truck which dumps it into the river, probably the cleanest stuff which now enters that once-pure stream. So while authorities insist that precipi- tation grows less and less; that the water table is falling, glaciers melting and that soon palm trees will grow in Boston, others assure us that the winters of a hundred years ago, of fifty years ago, are upon us again. However, Christmas of 1957 was the warmest since 1900 with temperatures in the 60's during that week, accompanied by rain and floods in many parts of the country. Christmas shopping in the rain proved to be, quite literally, a "wet blanket" on holiday spirits that year.
But in making a final analysis of weather in Vermont, the U. S. Weather Bureau in Burlington adds that weather, like locusts, seems to go in cycles for no reason at all and from 1903 to 1926, Vermont had the coldest weather ever recorded! Jan- uary, 1920 was even colder than the same month in 1917, with 6° above zero the average. From 1927 to 1944 the temperatures were versatile and by 1945 we began to have some of the warmest winters ever registered-the year when some of the new ski resorts practically went out of business. The year of 1956-1957 was the first colder-than-normal winter since that time and
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these records covered all of New England, in fact, most of the country. February is supposed by authorities, to be the coldest month after which the mercury rises until it hits the high spot of July 15. And, if you are interested, the coldest spot in Ver- mont is Somerset in the southern part of the state but the state's hothouse is, believe it or not, Bellows Falls with a 46.9 degree annual average! The hottest official weather recorded in Vermont was August 21, 1916 with 104 degrees at Cornwall. And in spite of anyone's long-ago reminiscences of "the biggest snow and the deepest cold," the season of 1946-1947 blew more snow on Vermont than ever before. Peru gets the most snow in the state with 126 inch average while Rutland has only 55 inches annually. And weather in the north of Vermont can be entirely different from that in the middle and south. Skiing in Vermont is the best in February and March and a northeaster such as we had in 1950, is peculiar in that the winds come down from the northeast and the snow moves in from the west or northwest. "Thaws and ploughed roads fool us about the snow cover. We forget the many small storms and mentally measure the drifts over roadside fields. It may be a record year but it takes the piling up of an infrequent blizzard to make us say 'it's real old- fashioned winter'." Mostly Vermonters today, no matter how dyed-in-the-wool Yankees, wait to decide the weather by radio or TV and even those are often way off center. (Weather Bureau data from Vermont Life, Winter, 1957.) But the winter of 1958 capped the climax when Vermont had more snow than ever in its recorded history.
WILD LIFE
Until recently Windham County has always come up with the largest deer kill in the state each year and Rockingham has always had its quota. Today Windsor County is in the lead. Doe were allowed to be killed in 1920 and the question of another doe year comes up periodically in the legislature but the idea is not popular although there are many arguments in its favor.
Bows and arrows were first allowed in 1953 in Windham County and eight others, for both doe and buck, for a ten day period preceding the regular season. They may now be used in both seasons but the law of buck only applies to them as well as to gun shooters in the regular season. While the bow and arrow kill is not stupendous, these modern Robin Hoods have a field day and come home with a surprising lot of game, bagging 62 in 1956 and over 140 in 1957. The first deer season in Vermont history to open on a Sunday was in 1946. When a farmer's garden or crops are ruined by deer, he can get damages or shoot the critter and prove the damages. He gets hot under the collar either way. In Old Town, Henry Stoddard "raised" a deer one year which grew fat on his beet crop and cleaned out
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several plantings. He didn't shoot him until November when he claimed the deer which he said belonged to him.
Deer can be seen in meadows and woodlands in this vicinity at almost any time of year, except, perhaps, in deer season. They come close to houses and feed beneath the apple trees. One summer several doe grazed on the Lovell farm beside the main road while a magnificent buck stood guard over his family, facing, with lifted head, the cars which jammed the highway.
He had doubtless been studying the calendar. In 1933 there were 40 deer bedded down for the winter at Minard's Pond. The winter of 1952-1953 was more or less open and towards spring, John Abbott of Old Town counted more than 60 deer at once, feeding in his winter rye piece on a side hill. In plain view from the main road across the valley, they caused more than one traffic jam. But you can't shoot a deer for destroying your grass although you may for some other crops or report it to the selectmen who report it to the game warden who, if convinced that you are within your rights, makes out a chit for damages to the state. The state, also, is not responsible for deer damage to forest trees nor does it let you keep the unfortunate animal which runs into your car-although it may mean a new radiator. Perhaps the rules were less strict forty years ago, at least in New Hampshire, when in March of 1915, a doe, chased by dogs, swam the Connecticut among the ice floes and made the other shore only to be chased by excited children. She leaped a wood- pile in the yard of a Polish family, ran head-on into a stone wall and dropped in her tracks. The family took over at that point and hung up the carcass, insuring their meat supply for some time to come.
In 1917 the selectmen had more complaints about deer damaging gardens than in any previous year and seven or eight farmers were paid for this depredation. Three deer were shot by exasperated farmers when they found their bean crops, apple trees and other crops, ruined by the wild herd. £ In March of the next year, Joseph Severance of Bockways Mills, became irate at the deer which cleaned up his alfalfa as fast as he could plant it. He said there was a herd of 22 feeding within sight of his house, that they lived on his alfalfa all summer, pawed the snow off and worked at it all spring. His grievance was that he got no satisfaction from the game wardens and that he finally shot one of the tresspassers. The wardens deducted the price of the deer at ten cents a pound, from his damages. Mr. Sever- ance was one of the early advocates for justice to the farmer as well as the deer. Some years ago a 1,000 pound moose traveled through town leaving tracks on Darby Hill which were identi- fied by George Webb. A few days later he was shot in a West- minster pasture. Moose are illegal game, as well as unusual, in Vermont although a friendly moose which visited Rutland City a few years ago was found shot by hunters in 1957-one
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hunter who did not claim his trophy. As the years pass, more and more hunters take to the woods each November but also more and more deer are reported in the woods each year with an estimated 125,000 at present. Since the deer herd, biolo- gists say, increases by natural reproduction about 25% each year, it would still mean 30,000 more each year, an increase of 20,000 if the kill ran to 10,000. (In 1957, the kill reached an all-time high of 11,293.) Using these figures, Milford K. Smith, writing in the RUTLAND HERALD, presages a time when a starving and weakened herd will have to be reckoned with and another doe season be on the books. Windham County is now in third place with number of deer taken during the open season with Windsor and Rutland Counties leading.
In 1929 there was a closed season on partridges or ruffed grouse, there being a scarcity of that bird in the Vermont woods. This was removed in 1931. Beaver, after many years of almost total extinction and legal protection, have made such a come- back that since 1952, they have again been trapped during February each year in localities where they are too numerous. The take for the whole state in 1953 was 1,095 and the preceding year it was 1,241 for a 17-day period. In Windham County 45 were taken in 1952 and 41 the next year with Rockingham bringing in 6 pelts. The days of the pioneers, when the valley were so full of beaver that the lowlands were flooded and roads had to go over the hills, are gone for our ancestors had no game laws. In later years they again became a menace, damming brooks and flooding meadows. Game wardens often remove them to less vulnerable spots or where their activities are valued often by helicopter. Not so long ago, a lone beaver was reported wandering down Westminster Street, looking, no doubt, for a brook with poplar trees.
Occasionally bear appear in the woods near town and a number are shot each year in the state. They have been seen near Hyde Hill and Halladay's greenhouses. The 1955 legisla- ture vetoed a bill placing a ten dollar bounty on the big beasts. Not long ago Bruin raided the beehives of Oswald Freihofer behind Oak Hill Cemetery while, from a nearby house, several people watched him knock them over with a sweep of his paw and devour the combs of honey. One is claimed to have been seen in 1955 near Darby Hill. In 1923 Dr. Fred Jewett and John Black, well-known hunters of Bellows Falls, claimed that they owned the only bear dogs in New England. Our black bears are usually in the 200-300 pound class but much larger animals have been taken. More than 100 black bear were killed in Vermont before the 1957 deer season.
The famous Vermont panther about which so much contro- versy still wages, pro and con of its existence, may have been on the prowl in this vicinity in 1922 when Mr. Barnes of Saxtons River, returning home one winter night from his day's trip
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peddling meat in Bellows Falls, fell asleep near Barber's Park. He was, he says, rudely awakened by the caterwauling of what he was sure was a panther, attracted by the aroma of the re- maining meat in his sleigh. He says it did not take him long, horse, sleigh and meat, to cover the remaining distance home. Pos- sibly he had visions of tossing out roasts and cutlets to assuage the hungry animals, suggestive of a tale of the Russian steppes. In 1952, a disease struck the foxes of Windham County, causing rabies. It was also prevalent in New York State where they attacked children in their own yards and tourists were warned against them. Foaming at the mouth, one such animal drove the author and her husband into the house and only a broom prevented him from coming in too. He was finally dispatched with a bullet. The danger of cattle being infected in mountain pastures by the crazed animals, worried many farmers. Some towns have their own laws for taking game but most animals are governed by state ruling. Muskrats, otter, fox and grey squirrels are all plentiful in Rockingham although the squirrels seem to move in cycles, traveling in huge packs across country as the crop of butternuts, beechnuts, acorns-and once chest- nuts-fluctuates. A heavy nut crop once meant a hard winter but plenty of squirrel hunting. Hundreds have been known to swim a river together on their treks. The bounty on porcupines was repealed in 1953 as too many ears were of suspicious origin. After all, a New Hampshire hedgehog looks a lot like the Ver- mont specie! A really serious threat to our wild life is the fuel oil and DDT sprayed over forest areas to control the gypsy moth. Unless some less lethal method is employed, many people fear for the survival of our friends of fur and feather. There may even, some day, be no need of a "closed season" on anything.
THE WIRELESS
Back in 1921 there was a lot of skepticism about a man named Lee DeForest who was working in the Chicago laboratory of the Western Electric Company, pulling strings to make sparks and putting grids inside electric lamps to magnify wireless signals. He invented a three-element vacuum tube and helped. make what they called a radio telephone to bring miraculous words and music from distant places into your own home over the ordinary telephone. In March of that epoch-making year, over in Manchester, N. H., a gentleman by the name of Smith, listening on his wireless machine one night to a concert from station KDKA in Pittsburg, Pa., found that he was getting all mixed up with another concert from Washington, D. C., 479 miles away as the crow flies, if, as the reporter on the Manchester paper said, "a crow was foolish enough to fly that distance at one fell swoop." Mr. Smith, who was an expert on the wireless,
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disentangled the two concerts and found he was actually listen- ing to a phonograph concert 479 miles away! He called in a few friends to share his strange good fortune and used his phone to let the night staff of the paper listen in on this extraordinary concert which was "very distinct, like a phonograph in an ad- joining room with the door open." To their collective astonish- ment, they heard the voices of Caruso and Madame Louise Homer. This station, KDKA, was the first broadcasting sta- tion in the country, built for the returns of the Harding-Cox election on November 2, 1920. (More recently, station WWJ in Detroit has claimed this honor.) This historic broadcast launched an era which changed the whole pattern of United States living. It developed national entertainment figures, educated people in the best of music and drama, broadcast sports and acquainted the world with government and church doings. There came to pass the era when 7 p. m. was the "witch- ing hour," the Amos 'n' Andy spot when no one answered their phones. It brought into fame Webber and Fields, Will Rogers, Joe Penner, Rudy Vallee, Paul Whiteman, Bing Crosby, Jessica Dragonette and many others with Graham McNamee and Phillips Carlin the great sport announcers and Floyd Gibbons among the dynamic emcees. A new day had dawned.
In 1922 the first station in Vermont came into being in the Vermont Farm Machine Shop building, in Bellows Falls, to advertise the company's products at the various fairs. It was built and run by Charles Doe one of the first men in the business and today the town's radio and TV man. He also constructed parts of receiving sets by means of printed instructions, probably one of the first do-it-yourself jobs on record. The Vermont Farm broadcast all over New England and as far west as Ohio. Charlie ran the station, was the emcee and about everything else except the talent shows which were mostly local and included Nettie Wheeler Lovell, piano; Jessie Butler, Xylophone and Perley Huntoon, clarinet. This station did important work during the 1927 flood when it operated on short wave and B batteries. Charlie still has his old license for operating that first station on 500 watts K.W. and whose generator was run by a five horsepower motor in the basement, a real homemade rig, he says and which evidently worked fine. Its tower was a 50-foot flagpole on the main building with the antenna strung between the chimney and the pole. This station operated through December, 1925 when the Vermont Farm, being in receivership, closed its doors and Charlie opened his own radio shop in the Rockingham Hotel block. He also worked in 1936 and 1938 at the Springfield, Vt. station. He says that many of the amateurs who came to work for him in his shop in those early years, went on to successful careers in commercial radio. The second radio shop in town was opened in 1927 by Edward Barrett, a local boy, who started selling Stromberg-Carlsons,
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for which company he is a successful sound engineer today on a country-wide basis and living in Boston. One of the first local men to work with radio was Charles Ladd who manufactured them at his shop on Henry Street, using the idea of a spark and no vacuum tubes and who received a prize in New York City for short radius up to 15 miles. The first radio in Westminster was made and installed by Abraham K. O'Martin, a Kurn Hattin boy. Others interested in this new entertainment included William Hume and Ralph Halladay who entertained everyone on his telephone line by holding up his loud speaker to the phone, surely an era of the party line superlative.
In April of 1922, the TIMES sardonically remarked that "the radio bug seems to be finding a fertile field in Bellows Falls." Another "fanatic" was Heinie Munsell, science instruc- tor in the high school also a well-known horseman. He had good reception and good concerts 200 miles away which he shared with his friends in his room on School Street. He first demon- strated his radio set which cost him $150, at the home of A. I. Bolles on the high land of Williams Terrace where young Albert Bolles was an eager pupil and set up an aerial to catch the air waves. In the spring of 1922, Hodgdon & Shaw advertised a treat for its customers-and those whom it probably hoped would soon be in that category. A big concert was to be broad- cast from the store and half the town flocked down that May to hear the wonderful things that came out of the air. But alas, only the head phones worked and there weren't many of those. As the disappointed folks turned homeward, the demon- strators laid it to the passing trolley cars and the high tension wires above them. Those first radios were marvelous creations employing head phones followed by loud speakers in the shape of a huge morning glory horn fashioned after the famous HIS MASTER'S VOICE of the Victrolas. They were a lofty ex- panse of exposed tubes, lights and buttons, many made by the American Telephone Company in Buffalo and looked like the switchboard at the local telephone exchange. Between the era of earphones and loud speakers was a period when either could be plugged into the set but the latter took more power than the weak signals could generate and most people fell back on the head phones, although when grandpa wanted to get Ben Turpin and you preferred hymn singing, something had to give. Many homes, especially in the country, lacked electricity but even with it, radios worked only on A, B and C batteries for several years in the 1920's. The converter from an electrical outlet eventually took care of things but all-electric sets did not beco me common until about 1926.
About ten years ago TV began to push radios into the shade with gramaphones and music boxes, as Charlie Doe and Almon Welch conducted tests to prove that Schenectady and Boston stations were practical in high locations in this vicinity. Since
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then antennae have sprouted from roof tops like spider webs but "snow" was much too common and the Bellows Falls Cable Corporation brought TV into village homes by cable, first from a spot above Hyde Hill, later from a receiving cable on Fall Mountain. It is anyone's guess what the next invention will be along these lines but it is already a long step from the foot-pumping parlor organ and the gramophone with its spiked cylinders to colored TV, the product of today.
THE NEW CATHOLIC CHURCH, ST. EDMUND OF CANTERBURY SAXTONS RIVER, VT.
THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH
SACRED HEART ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
ST. CHARLES ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
CHRIST'S CHURCH
THE ROCKINGHAM TOWN LIBRARY
THE TOWN HALL, BELLOWS FALLS, VT.
CHAPTER XVII
TOWN OFFICERS AND THE PROFESSIONS
ATTORNEYS OF ROCKINGHAM
1910. Zina H. Allbee, Oscar M. Baker, Fred B. Pingree, Herbert Ryder, Warner Graham, George H. Thompson, A. I. Bolles, Thomas E. O'Brien.
1915. George A. Weston, Charles H. Williams, Zina H. Allbee, Oscar M. Baker, A. I. Bolles, Thomas O'Brien, Fred Pingree, Ryder & Graham, George H. Thompson.
1920. Oscar M. Baker, Bolles & Thompson, T. E. O'Brien, Fred Pingree, Ryder & Graham, Robert Twitchell, George A. Weston.
1925. Oscar M. Baker, A. I. Bolles, T. E. O'Brien, Fred Pingree, G. H. Thompson, R. R. Twitchell.
1930. Bolles & Bolles, T. E. O'Brien, Fred B. Pingree, G. H. Thompson, Robert Susena, Robert Twitchell.
1935. Bolles, Bolles & Bolles, Ralph Edwards, Alfred P. Killeen, Leonard Pearson, G. H. Thompson, Robert Twitchell. 1940. Bolles, Bolles & Bolles, Natt L. Divoll, Jr., Ralph Edwards, Leonard Pearson, G. H. Thompson, Lee S. Tillotson. 1945. James E. Bigelow, Bolles, Bolles & Bolles, Natt L. Divoll, Jr., John Dougherty, Ralph Edwards, G. H. Thompson. 1950. James E. Bigelow, Bolles, Bolles & Bolles, Natt L. Divoll, Jr., Ralph Edwards, William F. Kissell, G. H. Thompson. 1955. Bolles & Bolles, Robert Crotty, William F. Kissell, John A. Lowery, Edward J. Tenney.
The Bellows Falls Municipal Court was moved in 1948 from rooms above the fire station to the second floor of the Nelson Faught Block on Canal Street, the space being leased by the state of Vermont. This move was instigated by Municipal Judge Natt L. Divoll, Jr., who appealed to the state for better facilities as the local court was dubbed the "kitchen court," meeting in odd corners and places for many years. The new court was dignified with furniture made at the Windsor State Prison. In 1928 Judge T. E. O'Brien had served as municipal judge longer than any other such judge in Vermont. Almon I. Bolles was appointed municipal judge in 1931 which position he held until 1935 when his son Albert T. replaced him. In 1947 the position went to Natt L. Divoll, Jr., who was appointed by Gov. Gibson. A. T. Bolles was appointed judge again when Mr. Divoll became a Superior Judge of the State of Vermont in
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1955. Divoll was appointed State's Attorney of Windham County in October, 1942 and was assistant clerk of the House of Representatives in 1939 and 1941, becoming First Assistant in 1943 and Assistant Secretary of the Senate in 1949. He opened his law office in Bellows Falls in November, 1939.
Almon I. Bolles held many positions during his long and busy lifetime, in both local and state affairs including vice presi- dent of the Windham County Bar Association in 1937 and president in 1939, school director, lister, town agent and assis- tant town clerk. In 1949 he completed 50 years in law practice in Bellows Falls, having studied with his father, the late Francis A. Bolles and was in partnership with Robert Twitchell for several years. In 1947 Judge and Mrs. Bolles celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. He died in 1954. His son, Francis A., practiced law with his father as did his son Albert T. Francis A., now postmaster, was secretary of the Vermont Finance Board in 1936 and deputy secretary of Vermont in 1947. A. T. Bolles was town grand juror 1929-1931.
Warner Graham, who opened his office in Bellows Falls in October, 1907, was another local attorney well-known in town and state, being appointed secretary of Civil and Military Affairs in 1912; chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the Legislature in 1915; Judge of Probate in 1916, named to the Supreme Court Bench in 1931, and was a member of the Board of Bar Examiners. He died suddenly in 1934, ending a rising career. George H. Thompson came to Bellows Falls in 1906 as partner in the offic es of Charles H. Williams after which he became a member of the firm of Bolles & Thompson. After practicing a year in Bethel, Vermont, he entered the service and returned to take over the office of Warner Graham. Following his work as municipal judge he became judge of probate from September, 1923 to July, 1951 and was followed by Ralph Edwards who relinquished the position in 1953 and at whose death, was succeeded by Mrs. Vera Rand, his assistant for many years and who is the present incumbent. He was a member of the Board of Bar Examiners of Vermont and also vice president and a former member of the Windham County Bar Association. He was active in many town and state affairs. Ralph Edwards came to Bellows Falls about 1930, following the death of Judge T. E. O'Brien whose practice he took over and was in partnership with James Bigelow in 1941 and state's attorney in 1933. His practice was taken over by Robert Crotty who has recently been granted the right to practice in the United States Courts. He is now town counsel and town agent. John Lowery occupies the offices of Natt L. Divoll, Jr. John Dougherty opened an office in Bellows Falls in 1946 for a short time.
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