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 6
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from Springfield, Vt. In 1955 similiar classes were held at the swimming pool at the Cedar Crest Motel on the Missing Link Road by courtesy of the owner, Stanley Patch.
During W. W. II Mrs. Eleanore Aldrich acted as chairman of the Volunteer Nurses' Aides, a war measure and the next year Mrs. Mowry Hawks enrolled 100 members in her Junior Red Cross. That same year Mrs. Richard Bragg was co-ordinator of the Veteran's Service for Rockingham, a position vacant since the death of Mrs. Madeline Kelley. This included purchasing gifts for men at the White River Hospital and finding local entertainment for them.
The local Chapter had no active chairmen until W. W. II threw it into high gear. Although there was some criticism of the National Organization in its over-seas activities, made by returning boys, local and elsewhere, others praised it highly as they told of receiving food and clothing parcels during their service in the War. Chairmen of the local Chapter were Dr. Clyde Seale, 1942-45; Miss Mildred Burton, 1945-46; Carl Parker 1946-48; Henry F. McIlhiney, 1948-50; Town Manager Cecil Bissonnette, 1950-55; Fire Chief John Keefe, 1955 -.
Among other interested workers over the years were such men and women as Rev. John Maxwell, Rev. Rodney F. Johon- not, Rev. Parker Ward, Mrs. Edward Kirkland, William Jewett, Frederick Babbitt, Mrs. William Grout and Mrs. Kenneth Marsh. Mrs. Wilfred Bodine has done much good work for the Volunteer Service program. Executive secretary for about eight years was Mrs. Cora Erwin who took over the work in 1946 and during her regime the blood bank was organized which was run from 1952-1955 by Mrs. Nahum Chesley. Treasurer for more than 20 years has been Elmer Pierce. Home Nursing was taught for several years by Mrs. Kitty Zeno and First Aid by Daniel Howard assisted by Mrs. Zoe Buxton, while Mrs. Jay Graves was in charge of the blood bank nurses for some time.
However, in 1955, the Rockingham Chapter seemed to be hanging by a thread due to lack of community interest. At a meeting that winter, only 17 persons arrived to decide the fare of the Chapter which was addressed by Mr. Joseph Ruth, Eastern National Representative from Manchester, N. H. He offered, as an alternative, the functioning of the group as a branch of the Central Windham County Chapter, but those present voted unanimously to retain their entity and that attempts be made to revitalize the Chapter. Chairman of the nominating committee to elect new officers was Dr. Edith Woodelton. Stanley Marino was appointed chairman of the Fund Drive and received a citation from the National Red Cross for "loyalty, patriotism and public spirit" when the annual drive topped the quota with $2,586.42. Mr. Ruth returned to outline the importance of this work in time of disaster and during
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the present uncertain world conditions. A course of First Aid was started at the Fire Station on Wednesday evenings. Wide citizen support was urged if the Chapter was to succeed. In September, 1955, the Chapter sent a truck load of clothing and $639 to flooded towns in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Present chairmen are Blood Bank, Mrs. Joseph Dee; Red Cross Nurses, Mrs. Arena Damon; Blood Bank Nurses, Mrs. Charles Doe; Home Service, Richard Halladay; Canteen Corps, Mrs. H. M. Burbank; Volunteer Services and Chapter Secretary, Mrs. Robert Irvine; First Aid, Daniel Howard. Connected with the Chapter for many years in various capacities has been Mrs. Thelma Bronk who has been Secretary of the Canteen Corps which celebrated its fifth anniversary in 1955, since its inception. This unit is on hand for each blood drawing and any emergency such as fire or flood. In 1929 there were 100 people enrolled in First Aid courses, 20 young people given medical care and $200 spent for relief of emergency cases. In 1957 the local chapter reorganized, merging with the county as the Rock- ingham branch of Windham County, American Red Cross with Mrs. Robert Kerr, chairman.
PROHIBITION, ITS PRELUDE AND POSTLUDE
Rockingham was long known as a strongly no-license town although in 1906 it voted for license by a 36 majority to the consternation of the town fathers who shouted that "the beer wagons of North Walpole were to blame!" However, the fact that Rockingham remained severely dry for many years was possibly influenced by the fact that for four years, directly across the Connecticut, was a plethora of saloons and only the Arch Bridge between. This fact also seemed to have a marked bearing on the activities of the local WCTU at that time. But, as a resident of the New Hampshire village remarked recently, "you must remember that a lot of that liquor went over the bridge in suit suitcases!" But North Walpole had had its fill of saloons by 1915 and that year went "dry."
In spite of the proximity of the "wet" town over the river, in 1912 the editor of the TIMES remarked that flavoring ex- tracts, dandruff cure, lemon oil and other alcoholic preparations were being utilized as beverages "where the sale of booze in its natural state was prohibited." That year the Rockingham no-license vote was 550-222. In 1916 Vermont passed the local option law instead of state prohibition but the 18th Amendment was ratified January 29, 1919, an affront, some shouted, to the boys just returning from war. It was not repealed until 1933 as the 23rd Amendment.
During the hectic reign of those fourteen years of prohibi- tion, Rockingham was in the same state of turmoil as every other
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town in the country wherein it was illegal to make, sell, import or export intoxicating beverages. Which brought about the tragic era of bath tub gin, stills in the cellar, hip flasks and spirits guaranteed to make you deaf, dumb and blind and which lived up to their guarantee. Prohibition became a wet plank in the platforms of most political candidates and some senators from Windham and Bennington counties went on record as in favor of licensing saloons to offset the evils of the times.
Since anything rationed is also black-marketed be it butter, sugar or nylons, in 1920 came the era of smuggled liquor called "booze-running" which brought many exciting chases, shootings and arrests in the community where rum-running from Canada became a flourishing business. Rum-runners became a part of history and Max Abel, the international "runner" was captured in Bellows Falls. Dr. James Sutcliffe Hill and Howard Hindley editor of the Rutland Herald, conspired to chase the Volstead Act to cover and almost succeeded Pursuing fleet-footed lawbreakers became a favorite outdoor sport of local officers and once Officer Chauncey Lathrop fell ignominiously out of his car as he and Officer Kenneth Perkins careened wildly after bootleggers-this age wrought a whole new list of words into the English language-who employed a smoke screen to make good their getaway. Glenn Parker of Westminster was acquitted of this same nefarious business in 1929. The year after this controversial amendment was appealed, the State Liquor store opened on Canal Street whose sales run to as much as $5,000 a week because, some local wag wise-cracked, “Minard Pond tastes so badly."
CHAPTER III
INDUSTRIES AND FINANCE
At the turn of the century Ralph Flanders of Vermont, now United States Senator, in speaking of future industry in Ver- mont, said that the great asset of the state lies in the people themselves, that new undertakings should lie in fields of which they have some knowledge and experience. Vermont has natural advantages for new industries "but their success," he said, "depends on their careful selection and a willingness of local investors to risk a part of their moderate resources in well considered undertakings." The many large and small industries which have sprung up in Rockingham, although some have failed, prove that Vermonters are interested in their communities and willing to help materially in their future. But between 1953 and '54, more New England business firms ceased operations than there were new ones formed, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. In Vermont, according to the United States Department of Commerce figures, manu- facturing employment accounts for a little less than two-fifths of all non-farm jobs, (Rutland Herald, Feb. 1955.)
Back in 1912 the Democratic State Committee was shouting "What's the matter with Vermont?" They cried that she was not making progress as she should with her natural advantages and they laid it to "boss rule," political graft and tax dodges. Forty years later things had not improved as textile mills moved south where wage rates and taxes were lower. However, metal working industries in the big shops such as Springfield continued to gain. In 1954 the Development Commission ordered a survey, costing $1,500, to see what was the matter with Vermont.
The answer by the National Chemurgic Council, Inc., was brief and to the point. It announced that most of the "responsi- ble people in industry, research and agriculture do not seem to be interested or concerned with the economic situation of the state." They advocated that Vermont try to help herself more, develop more economic resources or "lose vital markets in industry and agriculture to more progressive states." This would mean looking for better markets, development in small home industries, more farm co-operation and full scale expansion of Vermont's recreational facilities. (Rutland Herald, March 18, 1954.)
It was a bitter pill to swallow but the truth, as they used to say, will bear it's own weight anywhere. Committees all over
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the state began to look in the mirror. It was a major blow to lose the woolen mills up in Winooski. It was a blow when fire took the Windham Hotel block in 1912; it was a major disaster when Rockingham lost both the high school and the Opera House building the same year by fire. When the town lost the mills of the International Paper Co., it was probably the biggest catastrophe it ever had. It was also a calamity when the fire of November, 1952, wiped out the industries on the Island.
In 1915 people were crying that Bellows Falls had not ad- vanced one step in the last twenty years The population was the same, manufacturers the same; there were the same hotels. In fact, business had not increased since 1895! Only the shops had changed and were still changing that year. But the paper mills were still here then, if not in their heyday and the population was around 6,000, nearly 1,000 more than today. The "tumult and the shouting" is not too different today.
The fire of 1952 decided the town to stage an all-out drive for industrial development in Bellows Falls in order to reinstate the burned-out firms. The Bellows Falls Realty Corporation was formed with a goal of $50,000. Perhaps they aimed too high for it never got beyond $30,000 although Boyd Richardson and his committee worked hard and the giant thermometer in the Square inched its way up rapidly at first. Finally, however, money was returned to stockholders and since then nothing has been heard of the Corporation.
After the fire on the Island, some industries moved out of town for lack of other space. The Hood Egg Distributors went to Walpole, N. H. where it erected a modern plant after using temporary quarters in the old Zeno Bakery building on West- minster street. Saratoga Plastics which came to Bellows Falls in 1949, moved, in 1954, into a new $40,000 factory in North Walpole after operating in the Chamberlain Tool property. Other industries operating in the old Vermont Farm buildings were the Spalding Softball Plant which opened in May, 1946 and which turned out about 1,000 balls a day with 50 women stitchers. J. G. Baldwin & Co. came in 1947 making wiring devices, extensions and appliance cords, radio and TV harnesses and employed 150 people. This company now occupies the office of the old Vermont Farm under new management.
Over the years, there have been many industries in town, some of which have fallen by the way, many of which still carry on. The old Casein Co. of America was started in 1893 by William Hall who manufactured, among other by-products of milk, the familiar red "casein paint" used so widely on barns, houses and furniture fifty and more years ago. Mr. Hall made a comfortable fortune and retired in 1904. Later the Liberty Paper Co. on the Island, bought the plant and built a new, three-
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story concrete building into which it moved in 1913. In 1927 the Liberty closed its mill and left town.
One of the oldest firms which lasted well into this century and which made Rockingham famous for its products, was the Vermont Farm Machine Co., whose buildings overlooked the railroad station or "depot." This was one of the industries on the Island which was not an island until the canal was built in 1791. For many years the Vermont Farm was the largest tax payer, after the mills, in town. As the business prospered, more space was needed and the company received flattering offers from Wallingford, Conn. and Brattleboro, Vt. and the town was forced to make an all-out effort to match the offers which, backed by William Russell, paper mill owner, became the Bellows Falls Building Assn. with a capital of $35,000. The buildings were enlarged four times and, ironically, it was when these same buildings burned in 1952 that another building association was formed-with less success.
Among the various famous machines made at the Vermont Farm was the popular Davis Swing Washing Machine, operating by the new principle later used by Maytag and other washers and which was invented by a Vermonter. The well-known U. S. Cream Separator in use on every farm, won many prizes including the Gold Medal at the Paris International Exposition in 1900, the Pan-American International in 1901 and at St. Louis in 1904. It was similar to the DeLaval separator and a number of law suits arose due to patents, five out of seven in favor of the local firm. It held the world's record for many years for efficiency and thoroughness in separation of cream from milk. In 1908, it was the largest manufacturer of dairy appliances in the world.
The panic of 1907 was shattering to business here as else- where and not until the War in 1914 did the Vermont Farm get onto its feet with the need for munitions although it continued, meanwhile, to improve the separator with such success that the government issued no less than seven exclusive patents to them. In 1919 it bought the Monarch Evaporator. It used the Island House as part of its plant until they closed after which C. K. Hughes made and repaired parts formerly sold by the Vermont Farm Co. until 1940 when Jay Graves purchased the building, renting it since for storage purposes.
The manufacture of practically all implements was shunted to one side during W. W. I when the company filled large orders of shells for the Russian government, having, during 1915 $650,000 worth of orders. However, in 1915, the same year that the Machinists Union was organized, 100 to 200 men were out of work, a tragic thing for a company which had always boasted that it had never had a strike, that their men remained with them from 10 to 40 years and they had never closed down in panics, depressions or wars. And even now, a contract with
LT. COL. DONALD A. BROWN
MR. and MRS. L. T. LOVELL
GEORGE F. KENT
STEPHEN J. CRAY
WALTER B. GLYNN
-
LOG JAM at BELLOWS FALLS about 1870
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the Canadian Car & Foundry Co. kept the plant running for another 18 months with contracts promised through 1917. This was a sub-contract as the Imperial Russian. government had ordered 5,000,000 shrapnel and howitzer shells through the Canadian firm. The Federal government also gave them a contract for 750,000 shells.
But the war came to an end and found the Vermont Farm with a lot of shells on their hands which the Russians refused and which were not going to do local people much good. Receivership was the result in 1925. Although the Russians ultimately settled for their shells, there was trouble with our own government which cancelled the last of its contract within a month after the order as the Armistice was signed. The com- pany had worked feverishly on the order which was desperately needed in France, at that time. These were not settled for until 1920.
It was difficult to get going after the War with, as today, two dollars required to do the work of one previously and it was the failure to receive the expected loan of $500,000 when certain creditors became uneasy which precipitated the closing of the business. The receivers advertised to sell direct to users and cut out local dealer agents. Their old antagonist, DeLaval, had been working for this for years, selling 100,000 separators in 1923. Even the Everybody's Washing Machine upon which many hopes were pinned, failed to help the Vermont Farm in 1924. The basic patents on the washers and separators had expired and were public property for anyone to manufacture.
In 1925 a partnership was set up by F. S. Adams, for 26 years manager of the sugar tool department and W. H. Bodine, local plumber, using the name Bellows Falls Evaporator Co. and leasing the space formerly used by the tool department. They started business with an active force of men advertising widely the well-known trade names of Monarch and Williams implements, making sap buckets, spouts and other utensils ready for the spring run. This business was later sold to Jancewicz & Son, Mr. Jancewicz having formerly worked for Bodine and Adams and who was then in the Island House. Mr. Jancewicz later moved his shop to his new factory on Morgan Street.
In 1926 a final effort was made to save the industry. N. G. Williams, president of the firm for many years, made a superb attempt to interest the town in buying land and erecting build- ings outside the village limits for a larger business in separators and washers. He said that it was "easier to make a million with these than $100,000 with phonographs." Various sites were mentioned including land along the river north of Bellows Falls where there was plentiful water. Floods and high water, however, they said, would never bother them. The next year
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the famous '27 flood took everything on the flats and halfway up the hill, well on the way to the sea!
The firm never left its old site and in 1928 Henry Ford bought, for his museum in Dearborn, Michigan, an old stationary Putnam machine. The same year a 70-year-old New Haven man bought the plant for $45,000 but it was up for sale again in 1933 after foreclosure proceedings in 1929. Wooden butter prints were made there for many years and after the closing of the plant, they were made at home by Clarence Dowlin for there was still a ready market for them on farms where every woman made her own butter and printed it with her own stamp. Today, with milk going into the creameries and much of the butter coming from the same place, the old wooden prints are a curiosity. But during the last war and the scarcity of butter, many women printed their hand-colored oleo with the old wooden prints, to make it, they said, SEEM more like butter.
PAPER MILLS
In 1926, after almost 20 years of strikes and trouble, the great International Paper Co., called the "I. P. Mill," sold its property to the new Hydro-Electric and moved out of town. But during the first quarter of this century, the life of the town and village revolved around the mills as the various shifts went on and off, as the men went back and forth with their dinner pails. Village people scheduled their days and set their clocks by the whistles at seven, noon, quarter of one and one. Children raced to school by the mill whistle. And once Hosea Parker made the mistake of his life; he blew the noon whistle at eleven o'clock and the town was not the same for days!
The International had many mills, in Niagara Falls, Berlin, N. H. and Rumford, Maine, among other places, all of which had their labor troubles and strikes. In a prepared statement before the New York Board of Mediation and Arbitration on May 10, 1910, it gave a history of its mills including the Fall Mountain Paper Co. which merged with the I. P. Co. in 1898 and which was on strike in March of that year. The first labor agreement, not labeled a union, was made in some New York mills in 1902 and in June of the same year in Bellows Falls. The I. P. had notified all labor unions that it would not employ foremen belonging to a labor organization. The Bellows Falls mills went on strike that same month and were out for several months. The president of the Papermaker's Union refused to sign any agreement unless he was given jurisdiction over the paper and pulp workers.
There were other paper mills in town but the great strike concerned the I. P. mills of which there were eleven machines "under the hill," each one designated by number. The I. P.
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Co. which had stopped making news print in 1913, bought the John T. Moore and Sons mills in 1917. In 1908 there was a national financial panic and wage schedules had to take a shake- down. The unions steadfastly objected to any decrease in pay and a conference between the company and the unions broke down. The trouble started when two foremen in the Rumford Falls mills received a two dollar a week salary cut and the presi- dent of the Papermaker's Union said that unless salaries were restored, the mills would not open on Monday. There was no effort made that August to keep the mills open. A strike in 1907 lasted eight or nine months and L. S. Hayes figured that it cost the town $75,000 in wages alone. The I. P. mills were slow-running, old and expensive to run and only sentiment, since they were among the oldest of the company mills if not THE oldest, it is said, kept them running. The company threatened to close them if the men insisted on a three, not two tour day and it resulted in eventually, all the I. P. mills being closed except one at Livermore Falls, Maine.
There was some trouble with sabotage in the plants and in 1910 there were eleven strikes in as many mills all over the east. Things then ran smoothly until 1919 which was the beginning of the end when 5,000 men left work here for two weeks with a loss to the town of $26,000 in wages. The year of 1921 was the year of the big trouble when strikes, picketing and police were the order of the day for many months. The I. P. laid off 400 men and a giant mass meeting was held in the Opera House with the company arbitrating with the unions. There was daily marching of the strikers who also picketed the streets. Michael Curtin, head of the local Papermaker's union, was convicted of "attempted intimidation" and sentenced to Newfane for six months. Some of the strikers went to work at Vermont Academy, laying boiler pipe at 40c an hour .. It took two companies of the Vermont National Guard to police the streets and keep order where three times a day strikers marched on the sidewalks, crowding other people into the street. Moviemen had a field day and a film showing the famous strike was shown far and wide until local merchants decided that they had had enough, objected to the notoriety and all Vermont theaters promised to "shelve" the film. The next year papers were served on 175 I. P. strikers, trucks of pulpwood were overturned and feeling ran high.
That year strike breakers or "scabs" arrived in town who salvaged half a million dollars worth of pulpwood from the river and got it started down-stream for Hinsdale, N. H., amid stone-throwing and name calling. Signs reading No Strike- Breakers Wanted appeared on cars and in shop windows. Com- pany I of Brattleboro came up, under Capt. E. W. Gibson to protect the imported workers, met them at the station and
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provided a bodyguard with fixed bayonets to escort them from the train to trucks which carried them to their job. Twenty- five deputy sheriffs guarded the camp of the new men, but there was no violence although shots from across the river pock- marked the tents of the soldiers who camped near the mouth of Webb's Brook north of the village. Company A from Rutland was also called to help preserve order. When Gov. Hartness came down, he was refused admittance to the Armory by a conscientious guard who did not recognize him and it was due to Capt. Gibson that the Governor got inside. The captain, however, failed to take advantage of his opportunity to acquaint the Governor with the lavish accommodations of his men which were one safety razor, two hand mirrors, six towels and three cakes of soap for sixty men. It was a tense time. Many strikers paraded the streets with signs about their necks and many business men, siding with the I. P., refused to serve or sell to strike breakers. Outside people were afraid to enter the town.
Among the local mill men who stayed with the company was Patsy Lawlor who said that he lost twenty pounds, bossing ninety men who could not speak English. In 1922 the issues became so rampant that the annual village meeting in January was known as the "election fight" with two factions running for office, the Law and Order and the Citizens Ticket, known as "the real bulwark of true democracy in this country." All New England became interested. Flyers were thrown out before the meeting by the Law and Orderers listing their platform for a clean and respectable town and opposed to lawless demon- strations and headed by John Dennison with Stephen Cray for the Citizens. The community must have become sated with what almost amounted to mob rule for Law and Order won out. Many a striker was anxious for things to quiet down and take their normal routine again, but it was too late. When all but three stores in town wore "no scabs" signs, the company with- drew their forces, closed the mills and left town, moving part of the property and business to Three Rivers, Quebec. It was the end of a period of prosperity.
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