USA > Vermont > Bennington County > Manchester > Manchester, Vermont : a pleasant land among the mountains, 1761-1961 > Part 16
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CHAPTER XIX
"Devoted to Foreign and Domestic Intelligence . . . "
T HE present successful Manchester Journal was the fourth of five attempts to establish a newspaper in Manchester. The Vermont Gazette in Bennington was taken locally in the 1780s for the price of three bushels of wheat. In fact, the Manchester Pro- prietors in early May 1784 directed that an advertisement warning delinquents who hadn't paid for their land lots be placed in the Gazette for a three-week period.
The first newspaper actually published in Manchester was the Horn of the Green Mountains in March 1830. A year later, the owner, Edward C. Purdy, sold the business to G. A. Strong & Company. An early Manchester Journal reported that the Horn was trans- ferred to a neighboring village because of rivalry despite the fact that Manchester fully appreciated the newspaper "and its efficiency."
A second attempt to publish locally was during the fall cam- paign of 1836 when Martin Van Buren and the hero of Tippecanoe struggled for supremacy in the national government. This was the Vermont Express, a short-lived journal that published only three "sharp and spirited" issues. Though edited in Manchester by Ahi- man Miner, the Express was printed in Salem, New York. Miner was the local lawyer who spoke on the same Whig convention pro- gram with Daniel Webster in Stratton.
Manchester's third newspaper, the Bennington County Whig, nat- urally espoused the Whig cause. According to its editorial pledge it was "Devoted to Politics, Foreign and Domestic Intelligence, Morality, Temperance, Literature, and the Mercantile, Mechanical,
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and Agricultural Interests" of the community. B. C. Crandall of Salem, New York, began publication in the spring of 1837 in a sec- ond floor office in the brick store which stood opposite the Court House in the Village on what is now Equinox House property. After a few weeks of publishing Whiggery every Wednesday, Cran- dall ran away to parts unknown. This was much to the discomfort of a number of citizens who painfully realized that their loss was his gain.
Orlando Squires followed in the editorial chair, and in 1838 he was succeeded by the printer, John C. Osborn, who made both the size of the newspaper and its lofty slogan smaller. He also added another of his own-"The Liberty of the Press and the Liberty of the People Must Stand or Fall Together." Unfortunately, the news- paper folded up in 1839.
The Manchester Journal, a Republican weekly with a present cir- culation of 1,700, was begun May 28, 1861 by Charles A. Pierce, who came here from Brattleboro. His hope in establishing the news- paper was "to assist the national government in its noble effort of putting down the rebellion."1 His first editorial said:
Why, then, should this fair valley where Providence has so lavishly be- stowed its choicest presents, hallowed too by cherished reminiscences of state and national renown, and never before more prosperous in the en- terprise and intelligence of its inhabitants longer fail to participate directly in the formation of public sentiment or continue longer to find a voice only in the organs of sister communities?
Thus was the Journal born, now in its centennial year of publi- cation. The first office occupied the same rooms as its predecessor, the Bennington County Whig. In May 1864 the publishing office was moved to rooms in a new building on the east side of the street which had just been finished by F. H. Orvis. This was on the corner of Union Street, where a drugstore was soon after established on the first floor and still remains. A post office was also here for a time. The Journal's quarters apparently extended into the adjacent building, as the pressroom is said to have been in the old Manches- ter jail. In 1884 the location was known as the Manchester Hotel and now, as the Equinox Junior.
1. Manchester Journal, April 11, 1911.
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In 1907 the newspaper moved to rooms on the second floor of the new post office building built by Walter Hard and his mother, Mrs. Jesse Hard, further down Union Street on the north side. The Journal vacated these premises in 1959, when it moved to a newly built plant on Memorial Avenue at Manchester Center.
The first Journals were published in a relatively small format every Tuesday at the subscription rate of $1.50 and were sent post- paid within the county. The size of type and quality of paper appear excellent. Though the outer pages carried "literary" articles, the inner pages were filled with lively pertinent local information and the war issues made exciting reading. An occasional local "poet" who sent in war verse received the distinction of appearing on page one.
The Middlebury Register spoke of the Journal as being "a spright- ly little weekly sheet published by C. A. Pierce and principally edited by H. E. Miner, Esq., a recent graduate of Middlebury Col- lege. These are enterprising young men and well worthy of the patronage they receive in publication of their journal."
Editor Miner, also an attorney in the firm of his father, "A. L. Miner & Son," went on trial May 31, 1862 at the Court House for assaulting on the steps of Vanderlip's Hotel a man who had spoken traitorously against the Union. A somewhat unprecedented case, the entire trial was published in the Journal and the situation was reviewed editorially in several other Vermont papers. The jury rendered the following verdict-"Not guilty and the jury would recommend to all loyal citizens to go and do likewise." Miner's victory was hailed "with the cheers and shouts of the assembled audience."2 Enlisting promptly in the Union Army, Miner never returned to Manchester. He was discharged before the war's end and died, aged twenty-six, a clerk in the Pensions Office, Washing- ton, D.C.
Miner should be greatly credited with the early success of the Manchester Journal. By August of that first year, circulation had reached 2,200 and continued to increase. "There need be no fears of our 'early decease'," he wrote. "We shall commence the second volume in a new and enlarged form, at which date we expect to be
2. Manchester Journal, June 10, 1862.
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a 'leetle ahead' of anything 'in our line'." This was a reference to the Bennington Banner, the Journal's leading competitor, which was seeking new subscribers.
In August 1862 Pierce and Harrison Prindle, an associate editor, "laid aside quill and scissors" to take up "that more serviceable weapon ... the musket." With three editors off to war, the Rev. James Anderson, Congregational pastor, stepped in and the paper immediately assumed a more scholarly and dignified air. Arrange- ments were made with the local telegraph office whereby latest war intelligence would reach the newspaper.
Young Loveland Munson, studying law, served as Anderson's assistant and was thus able to develop his unusual literary skill and to pay for his studies. Leonard Sargeant, the Manchester lawyer who later became Lieutenant Governor of Vermont, followed An- derson as editor in April 1863. In the summer, Charles Pierce re- turned, disabled by war, to his newspaper. During that difficult time, Munson and Sargeant served as co-editors.
Together they proposed to publish daily another sheet in an effort to bring all the fresh war news to the public. The newspaper, which was to include full telegraphic reports, would be sent to towns "south of Manchester by the early train."3 The cost was to be fifty cents monthly. However, no copies of this "extra" are available and the only evidence that it was ever published appeared in a Journal during October 1863. The editor then commented that the printers evidently had enjoyed their holiday, for they set up the masthead to read Green Freeman Mountain instead of Green Moun- tain Freeman, which was, it is believed, the title of that wartime sheet.
In the fall Munson took over alone as editor. Increased costs due to war forced him to publish a smaller format. His editorials were long, profound, and well-written, an early prophecy of the distin- guished career as writer, speaker, and judge that was to follow.
In 1865 Everett W. Pierce purchased a working interest in his brother's newspaper and the firm, which had also begun quantity job printing, assumed the title, "C. A. Pierce & Co." Correspond- ents were sought from each town in the county and though the size of the newspaper was enlarged, the quality of paper used was poor.
3. Manchester Journal, July 1863.
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In 1870 the Pierce brothers, after trying for two years, bought the Bennington Banner. The operation of two newspapers, however, proved taxing and on January 10, 1871 the Manchester Journal was sold to Franklin H. Orvis, who proceeded to rescue it from a dwin- dling circulation. He promised to make the Journal "a reliable in- dependent journal of the times" and said of the former owners :
The Pierce Boys when mere boys started the Journal with $40 borrowed capital and a few type bought on credit from the office where they had been employed. They leave the Journal office well stocked with power presses, newspaper and job type, and all the materials for running a first class country establishment. They are still the owners of two good houses and lots in our village and we predict the Banner, under their management, will prove a success-that they will make friends in Ben- nington and pay all their bills as they have here.
This was a sample of the peppy writing Orvis employed to boost circulation. Plenty of "live" news appeared in the newspaper with shorter editorials and a change of policy. "Our advertising col- umns," he promised, "will be filled with respectable live advertise- ments, not bogus lottery schemes, gift swindles, questionable quack medicines, and the like."
In March 1871 publication day was changed to Wednesday and in June, David K. Simonds was hired as assistant editor. Orvis, leaving the editorial problems to Simonds, threw himself into the financial department of the newspaper with all the fervor that char- acterized his other business undertakings in Manchester. Within four months circulation reached 3,000. He boasted of subscribers in nearly every state with a very large list in New York and other cities. Advertising receipts doubled. Thus the Manchester Journal, which had been established under discouraging circumstances, prospered beyond expectations. Orvis, however, decided to drop the Journal and tackle new business challenges.
On September 28, 1871 D. K. Simonds purchased the Journal, the beginning of a long, fruitful, and influential career as editor. Possessing sound judgment and "a moral courage that never flinched from legitimate discussion," he was "a born editor," the type re- quired by old-time papers. Having written several books on the subject, anonymously, Simonds was noted for his wit which occa- sionally appeared in his columns. He bade his readers in one spring
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issue to "take the string, the bended pin, and tantalize the speckled trout." As secretary of the Battenkill Valley Industrial Society, Simonds gave excellent coverage every fall to the Manchester Fair. Every winner had his name in the paper and the listing sometimes occupied several pages.
During those years, the Journal still carried no actual news on its outer pages except for the occasional printing of newly passed Vermont law. The inner pages, however, included much advertis- ing and were strong editorially on national and state affairs.
Simonds minced few words and often exhibited more nonobjec- tive editorial feeling in his news columns than modern journalism would allow. When the Hon. Mark Skinner died in 1887, his friend, Dwight L. Moody, the evangelist, conducted the funeral. While in Manchester, he was also asked to preach in church, about which Simonds said:
We devoted considerable space to Moody's sermon and then have to leave out a portion of it. He usually preaches short discourses, but this one occupied an hour and a half and he is a rapid speaker. One must hear him to get the full force of the sermon and many who do hear him are disappointed, their expectations being raised too high.
In May 1905, after thirty-four years as editor, Simonds sold the Journal to Otto R. Bennett, stating:
Mr. Bennett is a practical printer, is in the prime of life and a man of energy and he will devote his full time to the business. We are very sure that the patrons of the Journal will suffer no loss. ...
Bennett, a native of Manchester, not only knew the town well, but had also spent three years' apprenticeship on the Bennington Banner under the Pierce brothers and an additional seventeen years at the printer's trade in New York City.
Shortly after assuming ownership, he advertised for a boy to ap- prentice himself to the Journal. Within a few days, Lester H. Thompson, barefooted and very young, answered the ad. Thirty- five years later, he was president of the company, his work having been chiefly in the mechanical end of the business. He was an ex- pert craftsman and natural-born machinist and it is said that on the
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complicated machine where he spent most of his time there was nothing that baffled him or that he could not fix.4
In May 1922, the Manchester Printing Company, including own- ership of the Manchester Journal, was incorporated by Bennett and Thompson together with the proprietor's son, George Stewart Ben- nett, who became managing editor at the time. Otto Bennett con- tinued as editor-in-chief and president of the corporation until his retirement in December 1940, when he was succeeded by Lester H. Thompson. G. S. Bennett became president on Thompson's death in 1948. In 1952 he was Vermont State Chairman of the National Editorial Association and the following year, president of the Ver- mont Press Association. He now owns the business in partnership with his wife, Ethel, and Roger B. Hurley.
Two major columnists of the Journal, in addition to the editor himself, are Walter Hard, Manchester poet, and Berniece Graham, teacher-poet-book reviewer. Hard began his column called "Fouls and Base Hits" in 1926 under the pseudonym, "DRAH." It also appears weekly in the Rutland Herald under another title. He al- ways presents a lengthy poem written especially for the issue. Mrs. Graham, writing under the nom de plume of "Suzanne" since 1938, offers a weekly merchandising column interspersed with commen- tary on community matters.
An earlier columnist, popular during the first years of the cen- tury, was Andrus L. Bowen of East Dorset, who wrote under the pen name of "'SI CLONE." He possessed a singularly facile pen and caustic manner of commentary upon the local scene. "There was nothing he would not say-in the most engaging manner. . . . The foibles of human nature were fully apparent to him and he exposed them unsparingly, with a quite devastating wit. He was by profes- sion a painter and photographer."5
Bowen always referred to Manchester Depot and Center as Sod- om and Joppa and to the Village as Gomorrah. Many of his columns can still be found among the scrapbook clippings of the town's old- er citizens. He once expressed his philosophy as a writer for the Journal accordingly :
4. Manchester Journal, March 4, 1948.
5. Zephine Humphrey, Story of Dorset (Rutland, 1924), pp. 257, 258.
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I have had several old sinners come to me and complain because I no- ticed them in my "parables" and several of them I had never thought of but the "coat fitted and they put it on." One old fellow says its lots of fun to read them when the hit is on the other fellow but when he is hit he don't laugh worth a cent. I don't intend to hurt either their feelings or their character, and I never use personalities. I do not hide my light under a bushel neither do I carry my cider home under hay or my rum in a bottle marked chloroform, and I have my opinion of a man who prays loudly in the evening meetings and then follows the girls and their fellows, sneaking behind to hear what they say, while his wife is enter- taining the town gossips until he comes home and reports the news.
Manchester's only other newspaper was published between No- vember 19, 1899 and April 1901 by the editor-owner, Elmer E. Whitman. This was the Vermont Advance, which was published on Saturdays and advertised itself as printing "All the Golf, Hotel, Society, and Cottage News." The Advance apparently had several offices, the first of which was in the basement of Davis & Son, Man- chester Depot. Another was "just south of the Colburn House bridge."
Though it called itself an "independent newspaper," the Advance obviously favored the Republican party and its editorials were mostly political in nature. The inside pages contained mostly syndicated- type articles of general interest, while the outer pages offered fresh, lively news, much of which was contributed by paid correspondents. John Morton Marbury covered the Village news. He was the grand- son of Charles F. Orvis. Andrus L. Bowen began his journalistic career on the Vermont Advance as reporter from the "Dorset Valley."
CHAPTER XX
Libraries
T HERE is evidence that a library, name and location un- known, existed in Manchester as early as 1828 because of correspondence concerning its bylaws between John Aiken, Esq., of the Village and the Hon. Myron Clark of Factory Point. Aiken recommended that the length of time for keeping books be extended from two months to three.
Prior to his death in 1853, Josiah Burton, at the suggestion of the Rev. James Anderson of the Congregational church, planned in his will to establish the Burton Pastoral Library. A corporation was formed in 1855 for the administration of the $800 bequest, one-fourth of which was to be used immediately for suitable books and periodicals for the minister's library. The remainder was placed at interest with the annual income expended for increasing the col- lection. The voting membership of this corporation was and still is composed of all male members of the Congregational church over twenty-one years of age, who meet following the annual church meeting. By 1900 the Burton Pastoral Library numbered over 1,000 volumes. Though sectarian in nature, it has always been available to anyone.
In 1862 the Rev. Anderson, still leading the intellectual life of the community as pastor and wartime editor of the Manchester Journal, urged the inclusion of library rooms in the new Orvis building that was being constructed on the corner of Union Street in the Village. Though it is perhaps not what he had in mind, the Manchester Agricultural Library Association was organized and
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three years later met in that building. Officers of that library were H. K. Fowler, president; W. R. Dean, vice-president; George L. Ames, secretary; C. F. Orvis, treasurer and librarian.
Within a decade Manchester really became library-minded. Citi- zens of Factory Point held a social at Adams Hall to begin such a project in 1871. About the same time, Mrs. Ahiman L. Miner or- ganized a ladies' circulating library in the Village which temporar- ily lent books around to its members.
Probably Manchester's first "public" library existed at the Cen- ter in the back room of the Ondawa Fish and Game Club in the Howe block. Since the Howe block burned in December 1893, the "Library of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew" must have existed be- fore that date. Open every Saturday afternoon from two to four o'clock, the library allowed books to be taken for three cents per book "by all responsible persons over ten years of age, resident in the town of Manchester and personally known to the Librarian."
Manchester's pride is the Mark Skinner Library. Given by Mrs. Frances Skinner Willing in memory of her father, this private in- stitution is entrusted to the care of a large board of trustees and the immediate supervision of Anna B. Buck, who has been librarian forty-two years. Librarians preceding Miss Buck have been Clara Hemenway (1897-1898); Clara M. Chamberlain Howard (1898- 1908); and Eleanor Eggleston (1908-1919).
The corporation was set up to consist of eleven members, five to be residents of Manchester and all but five, residents of Vermont. There is also a committee of administration which consists of not more than eighteen persons, none of whom are to be members of the corporation. Nine of these must be Manchester residents and twelve, residents of the north shire of Bennington County. Annual meetings are held the last Wednesday in August. Original members of the corporation were Frances S. Willing, Henry J. Willing, Ed- ward S. Isham, Ambrose Cramer (all of Chicago, Illinois), Loveland Munson, Samuel G. Cone, Franklin H. Orvis, Jesse N. Hard, Allen L. Graves, Eli J. Hawley, and David K. Simonds (all of Manchester) .
Mrs. Willing conceived the idea of establishing a library in Man- chester in memory of Mark Skinner as early as 1889 and the matter was afterwards the subject of much consideration and consultation. The work on the building began in 1895 and on Wednesday morn-
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ing, July 7, 1897, she had the pleasure of attending the exercises opening the library. The Rev. Dr. P. S. Pratt of Dorset was presid- ing officer and the following young men from Manchester ushered -Carl Cleghorn, Lewis Hemenway, Russell Hoyt, John Marbury, Lewis Orvis, William Spelman, Mark Skinner Willing, and George Smythe. Music was by the Village choir under B. Sherman Fowler of New York with singing by the Misses Hoyt and D. J. Griffith, accompanied by John C. Whipple. Judge Loveland Munson and the Hon. Edward Swift Isham gave addresses and Sarah N. Cleg- horn read a special poem written for the occasion.
The twenty-fifth anniversary of the dedication was celebrated July 13, 1922 with the presentation of $2,500 in bonds to the per- manent fund by Mrs. Willing's sisters, Elizabeth and Frederika Skinner. Clara Hemenway, the first librarian, was present and Sarah Cleghorn read another poem. Greetings from the Dorset Library written by Zephine Humphrey Fahnestock were read by Mrs. Love- land Munson.
At the fiftieth anniversary, July 7, 1947, five were present who attended the first dedication-Mrs. Munson, Walter Hard, Mrs. Grace Hoyt, Russell Hoyt, and Miss Katherine Perkins. Dorothy Canfield Fisher gave the address followed by the reading of Miss Cleghorn's poem by Walter Hard and singing by the Burr and Bur- ton Seminary Glee Club.
Frances Willing, having a great knowledge of books and excellent judgment, had definite ideas about an ideal library. Although her health did not permit frequent attendance, she kept herself con- stantly advised as to the Library's success and requirements. At the time of its dedication, the Library contained 12,000 volumes. Mrs. Willing decreed that literature relating to the social and political history, physical geography, and natural history of Vermont, New England, and America, giving priority to those regions in the order named, be a special feature. Most of her father's personal library which centered on these subjects was given to the Manchester in- stitution. She closely followed the regular book purchases and often supplemented them with gifts of expensive publications. She herself was an author, having published, among other books, Dame Her- aldry, in 1886.
Mrs. Willing required that no part of the endowment or income
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from it was to be used for buying books. The book fund was to be derived exclusively from the public through the sale of library cards and the presentation of frequent and elaborate entertainments. "The growth and development of the library in new books depends, therefore, entirely on the people for whose benefit it was instituted, and it remains for them to justify Mrs. Willing's faith and to work actively for the library's advancement and their own."1
The first and only appeal for financial assistance occurred in 1943 when the need became serious; the response was prompt and generous. A major contribution which saved the library from ap- pealing for town funds was the gift of Mrs. Parmalee Prentice in memory of her husband.
In 1900 the library trustees authorized that books be deposited in other smaller and more remote villages of the north shire of Ben- nington County to be used under the same regulations as those of the main library. For short periods, a Bondville branch was in ex- istence under the charge of the Rev. Mr. Currier and also branches at Manchester Center and Depot.
The Mark Skinner Library now possesses over 30,000 volumes. Its present trustees are: Claude A. Rich, president; James B. Campbell, vice-president; Mrs. Esther Shaw, second vice-president; Earle E. Storrs, treasurer; Mrs. Helen Bigelow, secretary; Walter R. Hard; Stanley B. Ineson; Henry B. Robinson; Mrs. Ethel Ben- nett; Richard C. Overton; Mrs. Myrtle Bullock.
1. Manchester Journal, August 9, 1906.
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