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 8
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Soon after the scythe snath business moved to Waterbury, Meyer Gordon used the premises for his used-cars and in 1931, Charles B. Carpenter, son of Ward, together with Henry Mc- Ardle son-in-law of Charles, moved their shop up from the old bobbin mill across the tracks near Barker Street, into the two- story garage on the old lot. They became the Carpenter- McArdle Co. and remained there as tenants until July 5, 1935 when they purchased all the old property from W. W. Howe, trustee in bankruptcy of the Derby, Ball & Edwards Corporation. After that they sold the main building and part of the land to Lucille Bragg. More recently the Bragg Lumber Corporation acquired the property. This main building burned on May 30, 1941. The Suction Box Covers were manufactured in this former storehouse from 1931 to July, 1954 when Mr. Carpenter
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retired. His partner purchased his interest and is continuing the business under the present name.
LIQUIDOMETER. In June, 1951, the Liquidometer opened its new building on the meadows north of Bellows Falls, making indicating and recording instruments used for aircraft, measuring liquids and other commercial uses. Their first product was a tank guage to indicate the liquid level in tanks and based on the patented hydraulic compensated system of Clarence A. deGiers who formed the Liquidometer Corporation in 1922. This guage was originally intended to indicate the level of gasoline in service station storage tanks but the Corpora- tion now manufactures about 75 different items serving all industries including the aircraft and marine. It's equipment has been used on all U. S. Naval submarines and aircraft carriers. The main offices and plant are in New York City with branch assembly plants in Bellows Falls and St. Johns, P. Q. with an engineering and service depot in Los Angeles.
COTE & FROST MANUFACTURING COMPANY, operated by Charles C. Frost for a number of years stood on the site where the Buick Garage was later erected. In 1929 he bought a lumber and building supply business in Woodstock, Vt. He died there June, 1955.
FALL MOUNTAIN DIVISION OF THE GREEN MOUNTAIN POWER COMPANY. When the Fall Mountain Power Co. became the Green Mountain Power Corporation of Montpelier in 1934 under the great system of the New England Power, many people felt that the death knell was rung for "local industrial greatness." But the Power Company felt that there would be great developments here in a few years for in 1915 they were selling more kilowat hours than ever before.
To many people, too, the New England Power was like the tentacles of a great octopus as it bought up the dam rights on small rivers to do away with competition, at the same time developing the big ones for its own use. Thus did the little saw and grist mills fold up and disappear, the buildings slipping finally into the water at their feet as happened at Brockways Mills and other places.
In 1908 the Fall Mountain Electric Light and Power com- pany, organized in 1900, was one of the largest dealers in electric light, heat and power in New England and included the details of the old Bellows Falls Electric Light Company. It still ob- tained power from the Bellows Falls Canal Company whose president was Richard S. Russell and also from a large steam plant on the Island as well as an auxiliary plant utilizing the Saxtons River in the "Forest," a mile and a half from Bellows Falls. These sources furnished heat, light, and power to Bellows Falls, North Walpole, Saxtons River, Westminster, Walpole, Drewsville, Alstead, South Charlestown and Charlestown. It boasted 35,000 sixteen candle power lamps in homes and shops;
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127 2,000 candle power arc lamps; motors using 700 horse power and put out in one year 2,200 electric flat irons, heaters for curling irons, electric hot water "bottles" and portable stoves. It owned 200 electric fans which were leased during the summer, collected, repaired and stored during the winter, ready for an- other season. For many years the store on Bridge Street held a complete assortment of electric equipment and a new showroom was opened in the present building for appliances in 1928 which closed in 1942. Officers of the Fall Mountain Electric Light and Power Company in 1908 were L. J. Royce, Vice President and General Manager; Richard S. Russell, Treasurer; E. N. Rantoul, Assistant Treasurer. James H. Williams was president until his death that year. Today the company is known as the Fall Mountain Division of the Green Mountain Power Corporation.
In 1912 the Bellows Falls Canal Company and Fall Moun- tain Electric Light and Power Co. passed from control of the Russell famly to that of Chase and Harriman of New England Power. In 1913 the Bellows Falls Power Co. was incorporated with $800,000 capital, taking over the Rockingham Paper Co. and still holding stock of the old Bellows Falls Canal Company. It sold power to the Fall Mountain Electric Company, generating it for them in 1913. In 1907 the Fall Mountain Company charged 14c a kilowat hour; in 1934 Green Mountain Power charged 9c; in 1955 it charged as low as 21/2c for residences and 11/2c for farms. Then the great Hydro-Electric Generating Company joined its power with the Vernon plant, a $100,000 deal, the new owners daring to substitute electricity for water power. The new dam of the Hydro-Electric was finished in 1928 and the 250 ton gates opened for the first time, the water being used over and over again to generate electricity, sending it over lines wherever needed in New England, the tentacles of New England Power.
Among the workers of long duration with the Fall Moun- tain were John McCann, for 18 years with Fall Mountain Electric Light, first as foreman of Production and Construction; Maurice Stack, line worker, foreman and superintendent for 35 years, division manager since 1934. Newell A. Clark became manager when L. J. Royce died in 1926 and Edmond Leach manager from 1929 to 1934. In 1949 three employees of New England Power retired, Henry H. Dole who began work for the company in 1934 and retired to his hobby of building miniature railroads; Loren Dexter, employed for over 30 years and Miss Katharine M. Moore has been bookkeeper since 1925, retiring in 1958. Charles E. Lufkin, employed for 29 years. Employees of long standing who retired from Green Mountain Power Corp. were Jerry Lawlor, Gerry F. Walker and J. L. Baker. John C. Lawlor is now superintendent of Distribution.
BELLOWS FALLS HYDRO-ELECTRIC, branch of New
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England Power. Much of Bellows Falls' tax load is borne by the Hydro-Electric, said to be the largest power plant run by water, east of Niagara Falls. In 1930 the listers raised their appraisal nearly $3,000,000. In 1948 the State Public Utilities authorized New England Power to buy Hydro-Electric for $8,650,000 including all properties such as dams, generating stations, transmission lines and franchises located in Bellows Falls and Wilder, Vermont. The value of the Hydro-Electric property in Bellows Falls, for taxation purposes, was valued by the Supreme Court at $6,000,000. The first superintendent of the new plant was Harry H. Ostrom who came in the fall of 1927 and left in 1935 for the plant at Vernon, Vt. He was succeeded by W. J. Hooper who retired in January, 1946 and was replaced by Earl Fuller, former assistant superintendent.
When the new station was completed, three turbines each of 20,000 horse power started generating electricity for use in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The development actually had its inception soon after the Revolution with the building of the Canal which furnished power for several mills and the result today is one of the most effective power plants in the world. It might be called the third era of the canal as the second era began in 1866 when the canal was widened and deepened. Today it is 100 feet from brim to brim, its bottom cement paved and its sides protected by riprap set in cement-framed bays. Against the 1,000,000 gallons per minute of the old canal, the enlarged streams delivers 4,200,000 gallons per minute to the three turbines. Nine months of the year all the water of the river passes through their buckets and the bed of the Great Falls is dry.
The concrete dam has 13 feet of flashboards at the head of the Falls and holds the water under normal flow conditions, eleven feet higher than the old dam which was rebuilt in 1908 with its first cement structure. For emergencies, the dam has two roller gates which are among the largest of the type in the world. During floods, these are raised, determining the amount of flow by the degree of opening. The 1927 flood subjected the development to a supreme test but proved that the engineer's plans were perfect in relation to possible high water conditions. The great problem of the engineers of the New England Power was not the canal nor the dam above the Falls but how to get rid of the immense mass of moving water after it had been con- verted into electric current. This was accomplished by the vast gorge dug in the solid ledge at the foot of the canal, so broad and deep that its bottom is below the level of the river at the foot of the Falls. It is here that the water disperses itself after passing through the turbines. Excavating this gorge was a formidable task as there had to be blasting in the heart of the town. During the winter of 1928, while the Sherman Construc- tion Co. was blasting in the raceway, a terrific explosion took
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THE VERMONT FARM MACHINERY COMPANY
VERMONT NEWS CORPORATION, BELLOWS FALLS Times Building
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THE SAXTONS RIVER INN
THE SAXTONS RIVER WOOLEN MILL Which Burned Down
THE GIRLS DEPARTMENT AT SAXTONS RIVER (Kurn Hattin-Warner Home)
VERMONT ACADEMY ATHLETIC FIELD
OLD STREET RAILWAY STATION WAITING ROOM AT SAXTONS RIVER
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THE NEW FIRE STATION, LIBRARY AND COMMUNITY ROOM Remodeled From the Old Street Railway Station
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place in the dynamite shed, blowing three men to bits, one of whom, William O'Brien of North Walpole had had his home washed away in the flood the year before and who left five children. The arm of one man was found on top of a freight car and the torso of another was floating in the river. In fact, fragments of the victims were found over a long period. The explosion blew out large plate glass windows in several stores, the town hall building and the Hotel Windham. The blast was heard in Claremont, Newport and Windsor, 26 miles away as well as Grafton, 12 miles. Many people were knocked down and cut by flying glass, some required hospital treatment and several received considerable sums in compensation. No one knew, at first, how many men were killed and what really happen- ed has never been proven. But the three victims had been sent to the shack-and none ever returned. Some reports said that 100, some 250, pounds of dynamite were stored there. State Fire Marshal Preble said that doubtless smoking in the shack could have been responsible for the blast which made people 30 miles away think that an earthquake was shaking the ground. Or the primers-which were not supposed to be made up in there-contacted live wires. (Technical data from personal papers of Harry Ostrom.)
Fragments of the blasted rocks were spread levelly along the Vermont side of the river where some future day might see new industries located. These fragments, in a solid rock, would equal a 30-story block 100 feet square on the ground. The foundations of the power station are solid rock as well as those of the turbines and generators instead of the usual concrete as the nature of the land made this possible.
The Bellows Falls station is an important step in developing the power of the Connecticut River and its tributaries. It is the little streams above and below, now owned by the company, which will yield large units of power when necessary in future years. And, as in Rockingham, landowners will protest the taking of their land and be compensated for the fields under water.
BELLOWS FALLS TIMES. It has been said that the home town paper is the barometer reflecting the ups and downs, ambitions, failures and realizations of the community which it represents. This the Bellows Falls Times has faithfully ac- complished over the years and today serves 8,879 families or 35,000 people. The late Willis C. Belknap, editor for 37 years, had strict policies which he lived up to, which made his paper interesting, alive and successful for friends and foe, for news- papers always acquire antagonists.
An editorial in the TIMES of 1915 quoted the Bennington Banner as saying that the function of a country newspaper was that it should not take sides on any issue, the belief of Mr. Belknap who added that "to be on the fence is the proper place
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for a country local paper." He agreed with the other paper that there is always a lot to be said on both sides of any issue especially politics and that "any paper" has patrons and friends in both camps and each is entitled to honorable consideration and a square deal. When fundamental principles are involved, the local paper should live up to what, in the editor's honest judgment, is for the greatest good for the greatest number regardless of whether that "greatest number goes to his church or belongs to his party." And from its earliest beginnings, as L. S. Hayes once remarked, "it has always been a soundly Republican paper."
Before he died in 1934, W. C. Belknap laid down the policy of the present Corporation which today's officers and directors try to follow. It was, in short, that Bellows Falls, Windsor, Ludlow and Springfield were to be given complete newspapers "as good as can be produced; to keep the people of each com- munity interested in and proud of their home paper."
The story begins in 1895 when the TIMES was bought by L. P. Thayer, "Elpie," the "dean of Vermont Journalism," who had also bought the St. Johnsbury Republican at the same time and who needed someone to run his Bellows Falls paper. He chose W. C. Belknap who was working on the Chattanooga Times and whose owner, Adolph Ochs, was later on the New York Times. Mr. Belknap was sold a third interest and the first year closed with a cash surplus of about $1,000. His success seemed to lie in the fact that he believed in making a paper "representa- tive of the place it purported to be published in."
One of the big assets of the paper about that time was that it gave front page notice to police items with an eye to cleaning up "booze " and drunkenness under state prohibition. Whereas some papers, mainly in Springfield, soft-pedaled such news items evidently because they did not make nice reading. The partner- ship of L. P. Thayer & Co. continued from May 1, 1895 to November 1, 1896. At that time Mr. Thayer sold his interest to his partner and the business was known as W. C. Belinap & Co. until Nov. 1, 1921 when the Vermont Newspaper Corpora- tion was formed, the Vermont Journal at Windsor having been purchased in 1909. This corporation consisted of W. C. Belknap, Paul C. and Mrs. W. C. Belknap. The Vermont Tribune was bought the next year at Ludlow with all printing centralized at Bellows Falls. In 1926 a Monday night tabloid was added to the Thursday edition, but it was not a paying proposition and only lasted about a year.
At one time the TIMES came out twice a week, Saturday and Wednesday with four pages of news and advertisements. In 1882 it was the Bellows Falls Argus as big as a bed quilt and during the War between the states, carried mostly battle news with little that was local and was devoted to the principle that "the Emancipation Proclamation could do no good." In 1919
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the oldest subscriber was E. M. Carlisle of Chester who had taken it for 56 years, ever since he "got out of farming in 1863." The oldest of the four papers, the Springfield Reporter, dates back to the close of the American Revolution and once half of it was published in Springfield and half in Castleton.
Paul Belknap left the firm in 1927 to go to Greenfield, Mass., as publisher of the Recorder there and Lester Richwagon, later superintendent of the Mary Fletcher Hospital in Burlington, became managing editor of the TIMES. He left in 1930 to become connected with the Barre Times and Roland Belknap and Ralph S. Bresland became members of the Corporation, Roland as reporter and advertising solicitor with Miss Marie Holmes as his assistant.
Then came the big fire in 1931 which wiped out the old TIMES block in the Square and destroyed that week's edition already set into type but before the fire was out, employees were on their way to Greenfield where the Recorder had offered the use of their plant and the TIMES came out on time, the men working all day and night. The present modern building was completed the next year when a big celebration was staged, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the TIMES together with the dedication of the new Post Office. Illustrious guests included Congressman Ernest Gibson and Gov. Wilson and the picture taken by the TIMES must have been carefully timed as W. C. Belknap was standing-and the Governor out of sight behind him! As the editor remarked "only once in a lifetime can a newspaper man eclipse a governor!"
The same year of the fire, Charles Smith joined the staff as adverting solicitor for the four papers and he is now a director of the Corporation. When Marie Holmes left for the Windsor office, Charles Capron took over with his "city desk" column but he went on to Ludlow as editor of the TRIBUNE and Anna King became TIMES reporter. She was followed by Alma Bennett later Mrs. Roland Belknap and then came William "Senator" Glass who died in a Japanese prison camp, following the fall of Bataan at the start of W. W. II. At his enlistment, Miss Enid Kiernan took over. Other reporters since have been Lena Bussey, Lawrence Howard, Dick Gale, Rick Karklin, James Peterson, Edgar May, Fred Chaffee, John Nisbet, Dorothy Schumann and Joseph Santini.
Shortly before W. C. Belknap died, Paul C. Belknap re- turned to the paper as business manager and advertising director and about this time a job-printing department was established in the basement of the TIMES building and the Belknap Press was formed to handle this angle. Preston D. Belknap, Dart- mouth '34, came to handle the advertising department of the four papers in 1935. In 1937 the job printing moved to Hanover, N. H. with Paul C. located there to handle that work. He
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later acquired the Evening Tribune of Albert Lea, Minnesota where he is today publisher.
The changes of machinery and methods over the years make you wonder how they ever managed to get out a paper fifty years ago. Once the TIMES was printed by hand when Daniel Higgins, a huge man with a wooden leg, turned the press by hand, a feat no other man could do, a Cotterell & Babcock press which turned with a wheel. Rollers for the presses were once made in the cellar of the editor, Mr. Swain's house.
Hand work changed over to machines, the linotype came into use and in 1941 three intertype machines were operating. By 1950 there was a Duplex Press that printed 6,000 8-page papers an hour, besides two job presses. And in 1955 this paper was the first weekly in Vermont and the second in New England, to use the new teletypesetter method of printing, a revolutionary machine developed in 1932 but only recently utilized by mag- azines, newspapers and commercial printers. Installation of this machine which was the fifth in Vermont and the forty-first in New England, allows more type to be produced in less time. through automatic typecasting. The first operators of this machine were Mrs. Clara Vosburgh and Miss Katharine Dickinson.
It is a far cry from the old editions of the TIMES, not only as to the methods used in the "back room" but also in the contents which are as interesting to read today as Godey's Ladies' Book for they give an insight into a strange world of which a later generation knows nothing. The advertising sections of the TIMES painted a sharp picture of an era when folks wore high button boots and Ferris waists, derby hats and celluloid collars; when Danderine was the popular hair pomade and the Gold Dust Twins, long gone into oblivion, shared the soap ads with Fairy Soap-"Have You A Little Fairy in Your Home?"-and Pearline for the weekly wash-and when no one knew anything about "dishpan hands."
In 1908 kitchen ranges were a necessity and in 1915 they were still part of every well-dressed home. Then the TIMES cost a dollar a year but at that, they ran a contest for new sub- scribers. Every new name netted you 2,000 votes, winner take all, which was one of those same kitchen behemoths, a $65 King Kineo Range, complete with water tank on the back, glass oven doors and all. Three years before the paper gave away a bed quilt-electric blankets were not born yet-as a special prize in a Voting Contest won by Mrs. E. A. Wright of Westminster. Prices went up fifty cents at a time and in 1918 you had to pay two dollars for the paper for a year, which price soared to $2.50 on July 1, 1920. Probably no one ever dreamed that it could jump to the stupendous price of four dollars!
Today the TIMES is a different paper from that of the turn of the century when editors culled from other papers most of
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their material and few bothered to write their own editorials. The Windsor Journal in 1912 said that the editorial column was a's eagerly sought after as the news. That year L. S. Hayes received from Mrs. Annie Dunklee, granddaughter of A. N. Swain, a file of the TIMES from 1858 to 1888 in 28 volumes to be kept in the vault of the town clerk but remaining her property. In 1922 they were purchased of Mrs. Dunklee for $25 and removed to the Vermont State Library at Montpelier.
In 1952 the Bellows Falls Times won five different awards in the New England Weekly Press Association Contest. It was judged the top weekly newspaper in New England together with the Mansfield, Mass. News also the best weekly newspaper in New England in the 3,000-4,000 circulation class. It received first prize for the best news story of the year in New England for the local "Half Million Dollar Island Fire" and second prize for the best feature story of the year in New England for the story of the Reuben Miller military funeral. It received Honorable Mention for the best feature story of the year in New England for a story about Grace E. Hunt, Snumshire corres- pondent and the same award for the best local column of the year in the same region for "Fact and Fancy" by Young Gulliver. In 1958 Miss Hunt celebrated her 100th birthday and 38 years with the paper.
Present employees and members of the firm are Roland Belknap, editor; Preston Belknap, business manager; Ralph Bresland, linotype operator and machinist, vice president, with the firm for 50 years in 1958; John Nachajski, linotype operator; Archie Belway, linotype operator; Clara Vosburgh, perforator operator; Dorothy Knowlton, perforator operator; Ralph Stevens, foreman and make-up man; Steven Naski, pressman; Walter Staniszewski, compositor; Kenneth Ramsay, compositor; Arthur Clough, compositor; Wallace Baker, photographer; William Jankiewicz, printer's devil; Max Miller, advertising dept; Burnham Blake, advertising dept; Almeda Hanley, book- keeper; Mildred Searles, clerk; Anne Edwards, proofreader Dorothy O'Connor, local news reporter; Fred Griffin, sports writer.
BELLOWS FALLS CO-OPERATIVE CREAMERY. Back in 1921 there were 300 milk producers, averaging about 3,000 cows, who professed interest in a new farmer-owned milk plant in town. This was twice as many farms and cows as in the Brattleboro area and milk plant.
Various sites were considered in North Walpole and Bellows Falls, the depot being judged a good location until the smoke and soot of the railroad sent the committee to look at an old milk plant in the Granstein building on the Island. This was a four-story edifice near the Boston & Maine tracks which, for $10,000 could be fitted up for use whereas $50,000 would hardly. cover the cost of a new building. This was agreed upon and as
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a member of the New England Milk Producing Association, the new creamery would sell milk and cream at established prices with the surplus going into butter and cheese. The plant would be owned by those farmers who shipped their milk into it, subscribing $25 per cow, only a portion of which would need to be paid in cash. The object of the new plant was to help all dairymen within 25 miles of Bellows Falls.
In an interview with a representative of the magazine FOOD MARKETING FOR NEW ENGLAND, a First National Stores organ, Judge George H. Thompson, shortly before he died, gave, in 1951, some of the early history of the creamery including the story of its origin. It was right after W. W. I he said, that the returned veterans formed a club to talk over their war stories and when Flanders' Fields and the Battle of the Marne were exhausted, they turned to local events and prob- lems. But the club, they realized, did not, for some reason, include the farm boys who were also veterans of Verdun and Arras. Thompson, then a young lawyer, thought that they, too, should be invited to join the club but when they arrived, they could talk of nothing but milk and the milk surplus. Event- ually the whole club became interested in this problem and a co-operative plant to assemble and distribute milk in southern Vermont. They called it a "country plant" and among those who gave the new project a push in the right direction were Hugh O'Brien and James MacLennan, the latter becoming the first general manager under the new board of directors.
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