USA > Vermont > Bennington County > Manchester > Manchester, Vermont : a pleasant land among the mountains, 1761-1961 > Part 18
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of money continued to be awarded at Floral Hall; special exhibits were still contributed by Equinox House chefs-a six and a half foot loaf of bread, a mammoth mince pie, or a bouquet of carved vegetables. Horse racing continued-one of the bills paid by the Society in 1923 was for 7,296 pounds of hay, and the Percheron stallion was a feature that year. In 1926, Harold Giddings, later to manage the fair, supervised the races. But there were too many in- novations.
In 1912 a rest tent had been installed with a trained nurse by the Bennington County Improvement Association; in 1921 exhibits from the State Library and Tuberculosis Associations and Middle- bury College were added; in 1920 and 1922 Captain Stickney of Bellows Falls gave passenger rides in his plane using the oval for a landing field; in 1928 a Better Baby contest awarded gold pieces and silver porringers. By 1930 people passed up the Floral Hall for the pleasures of viewing tight rope walking, tumbling, trick horse, and acrobatic acts. A parade of decorated cars filing past the tall wooden judges' stand drew more attention than the exhibits of merino sheep.
As interests changed, the fair floundered. The Society blamed it on the increasing debt incurred by the annual production and the cost of new equipment and upkeep. The old folks blamed it on a lack of interest and co-operation by the younger adults. Luckily, the B.V.I.S. had a friend in Benjamin A. Bulkley, a white-bearded horse fancier from Southport, Connecticut, who had spent his sum- mers at the Equinox House since 1863.
Bulkley kept the fair from joining the ever-increasing ranks of small country fairs that had been forced to close. He purchased it ""for the purpose of restoring it to life." Some said he bought it solely as a background for his favorite horse, an elegant looking animal named "Northern Direct." Whatever the reason, the Man- chester Fair had a brief new lease on life. Though many of the fea- tures were missing, it continued to draw large crowds. In 1932 there were fireworks every night but no vegetables in the Floral Hall. The Manchester Journal called it "signs of the times."
Bulkley died in May 1934, leaving $500 for a horse monument in Connecticut. The Manchester Fair went into a tailspin. It was over ten years before an effort to revive the fair was made, this time by
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veterinarian John P. ("Doc") Lake. Early in 1949 another move- ment was started by a group of Manchester citizens to bring the fair back to its old nonprofit eminence in the community. But little was accomplished. In the meantime, Bartlett Arkell had purchased the property and presented it to the Rod and Gun Club. The grounds were then leased to the Fucci Brothers of Rutland for a five-year period.
The hootchie-kootchie atmosphere continues to prevail at the carnival-like Manchester Fair. Horse pulling, alone, seems to be the only remnant of "the good old days."
We wandered through the forest glade,
Till bursting from the verdant shade Where Bromley meadow's flowers blow
We saw three counties spread below. Clouds filled the sky in ordered flocks From Stratton round to Equinox And cast their shadows on the scene,
Purple, amid the seas of green. Gladly we gazed, and sadly turned away
And took the Long Trail back to humdrum day.
-Anonymous inscription in the Bromley Lodge Register, Green Mountain Club, 1938
CHAPTER XXII
Manchester-In-The-Mountains
M ANCHESTER became a celebrated summer resort al- most before she knew it. It was a logical development for a town so richly endowed by nature and so suitably located at the junction of several important stage roads. But what people least expected was the "cosmopolitan and exclusive" strong- hold established in Manchester by the outside "world of affairs, arts, letters, and social registers" which was to give the town "an air of rich and cultured living."1
Though skiing may have changed Manchester's economy, towns- people are aware that it is the summer population who are, and have been since they first began arriving in 1850, the lifeblood of the community. Deeper rooted, richer, and steadier, Manchester's summer business has become completely identified with the town. In fact, some of the families have been coming to Manchester for so long that it takes an old-timer to tell who is a native. The older resi- dents are the ones, too, who know it is the Village with its long, broad, tree-lined street, elegant marble walks, and handsome homes that attracts the tourists and the "summer people."
A foresighted doctor, William Gould, planted what were once Manchester's famous elms about 1780, while the marble sidewalks, as near as can be ascertained, were first laid about 1850. The first sidewalk is said to have been in front of the home of Levi C. Orvis, which now forms part of the Equinox House. Orvis died in 1849,
1. Vermont, The American Guide Series (Boston, 1937), p. 296.
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which might place the date of the first sidewalk even earlier. The fine slabs of Dorset marble sawed off at Factory Point mills are men- tioned as lying on both sides of the Street in one of the earliest issues of the Manchester Journal in 1861. By 1890 the walks totaled four miles.
Andrus L. Bowen, Manchester journalist, described the Village when it had just blossomed :
A hamlet set upon a hill bounded on the north by a swamp, on the east by sand beds, on the south by down hill and cool winds, and on the west by Mt. Equinox that has been its maker. Orvis had just started his sum- mer resort . . . the Equinox Pond had just been built, and the road down to the railroad called "Union Street" was being built. ... Many thought Orvis' mission of making Manchester a summer resort was only a vision and predicted another failure, but it was not for he succeeded beyond all expectation. ... He also brought the water from Mt. Equinox that used to be thought unfit to drink and sold it.
The construction of the Troy and Boston and the Western Ver- mont Railroads in 1852 brought Troy only two hours distant from Manchester. By 1862 the Manchester Journal was able to say :
Our quiet little village can almost vie with a Saratoga or a Newport. From present appearances this season will be as good as 1860 which was the best since our city friends began to come among us. Every house in the village was as full as a "Third Avenue car," almost entirely New Yorkers. We heard a lady who had "been the rounds" of all the fashion- able watering places remark that no other place had she enjoyed . . . so well as here.
Indeed, no pains or expense were spared by Manchester's "ele- gant and commodious" hotels "to provide such appurtenances as artificial ponds, fountains, walks, and carriage roads." Franklin H. Orvis constructed Equinox Pond sometime before 1880. Fed by three mountain streams, covering some ten acres, and measuring a mile around, Equinox Pond abounds now, as then, with trout. Some- time between 1860 and 1870 Orvis built a wagon road from Bear- town Gap to Lookout Rock on Mount Equinox directly above Man- chester. This was the heyday of carriage roads for the amusement of summer visitors. The Equinox House published a special driving map showing the most popular drives around Manchester. One
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favorite was to Peru from East Dorset over the Mad Tom road and another was to Sandgate from the West Road via Beartown Notch. Both roads are now impassable.
One of the first and best known of Manchester's summer people was Dr. W. A. Brown, a Brooklyn, New York, dentist and the father of Mrs. John Jacob Gunther, herself a leader in the town's summer population. Dr. Brown's entry into Manchester each year was her- alded by the steady shriek of the locomotive whistle which he paid the railroad firemen to tie open all the way from Sunderland to Manchester.2 Another of his attention-getters was a "prestodiga- tator," a fancy contraption of revolving tin wheels and tops, which he set up in the brook south of Taconic Avenue. In August 1861 the "Equinox Balloon" of his construction ascended from Manches- ter amid the frenzied cheers of the public. The amazing air bubble, twenty-five feet long and fifty-two feet in diameter and made of varicolored tissue paper, took a southeasterly course and rose to a height of 5,000 feet.
In 1858 Dr. Brown began a movement to remove all front yard fences in the Village. Twenty-five years later, he received permis- sion to remove the last, a fence belonging to the Rev. Dr. J. D. Wickham. Brown invited the whole town to witness the removal.3
In 1886 a group of influential citizens, aware that the summer boarding population of some 400 sought quiet and rest, asked the government to change the name of Factory Point post office (which seemed to denote a noisy manufacturing community) to Manches- ter Center. On February 23, 1901 the Manchester Development Association was organized to promote the town as a summer resort and to advertise its advantages as both a permanent and summer home. This group adopted "Manchester-In-The-Mountains" as the town trademark and sent out 15,000 brochures annually. The membership, composed of both summer and year-round residents, paid dues, which with voluntary contributions supported the asso- ciation.
Among the first officers and directors were George Smith, W. B. Edgerton, George L. Towsley, William F. Orvis, George Daniels (General Passenger Agent, New York Central Railroad), H. W.
2. Margaret and Walter Hard, This Is Vermont (Brattleboro, 1936), p. 52. 3. Manchester Journal, November 8, 1883.
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Brown, Clark Burnham, C. M. Clark, G. A. Dolby, A. M. Gilbert, H. K. Gilbert, Edward S. Isham, Robert T. Lincoln, J. N. Lichte- nauer, D. McBirney, R. F. McQueen, C. A. Nimmo, Loveland Mun- son, Paul Orvis, J. L. Taylor, George H. Thacher, Paul Waterman, and Mark S. Willing. By 1912 each section of Manchester had its own improvement association. There was also a Bennington County group.
And these improvement groups helped! By late September in those years (the possibilities of the fall foliage season had not yet been recognized) Manchester was ready for a rest.
The fall exodus of guests from this station is about over. There were nearly 100 trunks sent out on one train going south recently. Who said the summer boarder business was not a business in itself?4
In 1926 $615 was raised by public subscription to be added to a statewide fund of $25,000 for general state publicity. Officials of the Board of Trade, the organization succeeding the Manchester Devel- opment Association, felt that there were few places in Vermont that could benefit more than Manchester. In 1927 some $21,540 had been paid in rentals by summer families. Wages paid to local help for seasonal or year-round employment by and for summer people were estimated at $750,000 annually. Summer visitors were spend- ing $500,000 each year in Manchester hotels and boarding houses. In 1928 an estimate was made that approximately $788,000 had been spent within ten years on Village buildings and repairs, all attributed to summer guests.
That Manchester has this business is not so much a matter of luck or location as it is the result of most excellent hotel facilities, fine golf links, and good advertising.5
Even during the depression, Manchester had good tourist sea- sons. A sharp upturn in October tourists came in 1950 when the area's brilliant mountain foliage began to be more heavily publicized.
In August 1938 some forty businessmen and women met at the Court House to discuss the possibilities of constructing a motor road to the top of Mount Equinox as another feature by which to
4. Manchester Journal, September 12, 1905.
5. Manchester Journal, May 3, 1928.
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entice the tourist trade. But in 1939 Dr. J. G. Davidson purchased a large tract of land on Mount Equinox and two years later built the first link of a toll road to the top of the mountain. The acquisition of all necessary land was completed by 1946 and the following year found the road open to the public. It was widened and paved in 1953. From its entrance in Sunderland, the road is five and four- tenths miles to the summit, where the Sky Line Inn, built in 1949, is located.
Manchester has had many outstanding summer citizens who have done much for their adopted community. Representative of these was Bartlett Arkell (1862-1946), founder of the Beech-Nut Packing Company, Canajoharie, New York. In 1940 Arkell was president of the Ekwanok Country Club. Through his efforts, the old clubhouse had been remodeled and following the fire which destroyed it, the new one built. He bought the Manchester Fair Grounds property and presented it to the Rod and Gun Club in the hope it would be used as a community recreation center. Because of his generosity, the club was able to install trout pools at the Bennington Hatchery. Arkell was also a benefactor of Burr and Burton Seminary, having provided funds for the purchase of Cross Cottage on Franklin Ave- nue for use as a boys' dormitory.
In 1954 the Chamber of Commerce branched out with the erec- tion and operation of a tourist information booth in co-operation with the state; the installation of two "WELCOME" signs at the north and south approaches to the town; supervision of Christmas light- ing and decoration; and an industrial exhibit of locally manufac- tured products at the Equinox House during the convention sea- son. In 1955 the Chamber added several more projects : annual town clean-up week; annual pre-town meeting; and the uniform closing of stores on Good Friday. In 1957 the Chamber began using the Information Booth as headquarters and it published summer and winter guides to the town. During that year 8,884 people in 3,617 cars stopped to ask questions about Manchester and Vermont.
S The Equinox House
THE pride of Manchester-the world-famous Equinox House- like Topsy, "just growed." The south end of the present hotel was
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the approximate site of the first hotel in Manchester built about 1770 by Colonel William Marsh, who at one time owned all the land west of the Street. A few weeks before turning Tory, he sold part of that land, all the rest being confiscated later by the state. Martin Powel kept the hotel for Marsh and it was here that the Council of Safety met in 1777 and the Legislature in 1788.
It was a plain wooden building of less than two full stories with its side to the road. The ground floor consisted of two similarly sized rooms in the front, a kitchen in the rear extending from the south end of the building, and a pantry north of the kitchen. The main entrance was nearly in the center of the building and opened into the south front room. From here a door went into the kitchen and in the south end of the kitchen was the stairway. On the upper floor were two small rooms in the rear, a large front chamber in the south end of the building, and a smaller one in the north end. "These were the scanty accommodations of an inn which often numbered among its guests the leading men of Vermont and in which were enacted some of the most interesting scenes of her early history."6
Thaddeus Munson took over the Marsh Tavern upon the con- fiscation of Tory land, but by 1812 the inn lay unused and ready to be demolished. Munson had built another one close by, the frame of which was to be raised publicly March 4, 1801. Because it was a hol- iday, the first inauguration day of Thomas Jefferson, the huge crowd had the job nearly done by dark. Old New England rum flowed freely and womenfolk spent the day serving hot drinks, doughnuts, and cake. "Munson's Tavern" with its colonial front and elegant round pillars was not only the showplace of Manches- ter, but the largest and finest inn for its time in Vermont. In 1812, however, it was kept open only when the court was in session.7
J. P. Roberts ran the hotel for a while and in 1816 Thaddeus Munson's administrators sold it to Captain Peter Black for $2,125. He enlarged the house and built sheds and barns where the Marsh Tavern had stood. In 1840 Martin Vanderlip bought the inn from James Pierce. He tore down the sheds and enlarged the house to more than twice its original size. The Vanderlip family kept the
6. Loveland Munson, The Early History of Manchester (Manchester, 1876), p. 26. 7. Munson, Manchester, p. 61.
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hotel for about thirty years. A large addition made in 1854 put the Vanderlips greatly in debt and finally, in order to satisfy the heavy mortgages, the hotel was sold to A. J. Gray, who re-named it the "Taconic."
During this time, north of the Taconic, were two brick stores, the first having been built by Walter J. Shephard in 1834 and the sec- ond, an older one belonging to Levi C. Orvis. Orvis removed the old store about 1841 and went into partnership with Shephard. That store was approximately in the location of the present office of the Equinox House. In 1832 Orvis had built a beautiful and sub- stantial dwelling house with double parlors directly north of the old store. Its location was that of the present north parlor of the Equi- nox House.
Upon the death of Levi Orvis, his son, Franklin, closed the store, purchased the property, and by enlarging, remodeling, connecting, and improving both the house and store, consolidated the whole into one long building. He called it the "Equinox House" and the official opening as a hotel was in June 1853. There were 125 rooms including sixty in the annex (Equinox Junior) across the street. In 1880 he also bought the adjoining Vanderlip or Taconic Hotel with seventy-five more rooms and connected it with the Equinox House by a second story bridge over what was then the upper part of Union Street.
Often identified with the Equinox House was the whipping post that stood nearly in front of the north end of the hotel. Across the street was the pillory. These were used in the days when the sheriff was as apt to cut off earlobes or brand foreheads as to mete out any other kind of punishment.
The Equinox House in the nineteenth century catered to a clien- tele which came chiefly from New York City. Many guests came by rail with parlor and sleeping car accommodations. Some notable citizens spent the summer here, bringing not only their families, but also their stables of fine horses along with coachmen, footmen, grooms, stablemen, and harnessmen. It was one of the events of the day to watch these elaborate turnouts start for an afternoon drive. At dusk, the servants, many of whom were Negroes, rested in front of their little cottages across from the stables. Guests and townsfolk purposely rode by to hear the singing to the strumming of banjoes.
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The listing of all new arrivals at the hotel was printed weekly in the Manchester Journal, and the newspaper extolled the hostelry at every opportunity :
The number of charming children seen daily in front of the "Equinox" tells plainly enough that parents think it is a real Family Hotel; and for grown-up visitors, a series of amusements have nightly been extempo- rized in the large Parlor. Plays, Dances, Charades, Concerts, Tableaux, Shadow-Pictures, Fancy Dress Balls, all have in their turn cheered the evening hours. Then there have been the excursions to the summit of Mount Equinox, to the Cave in Skinner's Hollow, to Deer Knoll, to the Marble Quarries, to Well's Pond and to Downer's Glen. The Angler has had the finest sport in Bourn and Lye Brooks, in the Battenkill, and in the Equinox Trout Ponds; and the Artist and the Author have found congenial subjects for pen and pencil. In short, Manchester has estab- lished itself as a favorite summer resort; and if it is so successful now, what will it be when times prove better?
While the main hotel had the public rooms, the annex held the Music Hall, which was built by Charles N. Bennett in 1868. Danc- ing and most entertainments, both for the town and hotel, were held there. The last affair held in the Music Hall (or Casino) was an Ondawa Club dance in November 1912. In the following spring, the hotel began renovations to turn the building into guest rooms.
Croquet and lawn tennis were played on the green in front of the hotel. Euchre was the favorite card game and a table or two of prom- inent men, as well as a large gallery, could be found playing after each meal. These men took an unusual interest in the game, play- ing by the strictest rules and never for money.
Dining room service at the Equinox House was performed by trained men waiters from the best New York hotels. It was the only hotel in New England which then, and fifty years later, still em- ployed white waiters. After F. H. Orvis doubled his prices in 1856 because he wasn't succeeding, the charge for dinner was fifty cents and board was from six to nine dollars weekly. Children and serv- ants were half-price. A pair of horses and driver were boarded for $10 weekly until 1918, when the price went up to $21.
On August 23, 1865 the Equinox House menu carried twelve separate dishes and vegetables and twenty desserts and pastries.
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Dinner on Sunday was served "at 21/2" and "Tea at 51/2." When golf came into popularity, the dinner hour was changed from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00-9:00 p.m. as golfers preferred not to play after a heavy meal.
The Equinox House has been host to many distinguished guests, but it is perhaps proudest of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, who arrived, with her son Robert, on the ten o'clock train on the morning of August 25, 1863 for a two-week stay. Mary Lincoln again came for a two- or three-week visit in August 1864. Robert accompanied her, but left the following day "taking the cars at Troy for the West."8 Mrs. Lincoln occupied rooms in the north wing of the hotel and spent much of her time driving around Manchester. (Coachmen could then be hired for $10 weekly.) With no idea of the impending tragedy of her husband's assassination, she had the promise of the President to spend his vacation with her in Manchester in 1865.
Probably the first convention to meet at the Equinox House was that of the Vermont Editors and Publishers Association, June 9, 1871. The hotel was opened especially early that season for the occasion by F. H. Orvis. Now, nearly 100 years later, such open- ings are the rule rather than the exception, for the convention sea- son presents a full calendar which runs far into the summer as well as late in the fall.
In April 1887 the Equinox House advertised several new bath- rooms "which are all supplied with splendid mountain water and are a great luxury to the guests." This was the result of new piping from a spring far up on Mount Equinox. Instead of the hour thought necessary for the water to make its initial run, the priceless com- modity made its trip down the mountain in fifteen minutes. This was cause for great rejoicing. Now marble sidewalks could be washed, lawns watered, and the job of the street sprinkler, who kept dust down in front of the hotel, considerably eased. Previously he had drawn his water from the brook at Dellwood Cemetery.
Prior to the death of F. H. Orvis in 1900, his sons, Edward (Ned) and William aided him in the management of the hotel. After 1900 Ned carried on alone. Though the Equinox Company was incorpo- rated about 1902, George Orvis purchased the hotel from his
8. Manchester Journal, August 30, 1864, p. 2.
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brothers in 1908 and appointed Andrew E. Martin, who had already been with the hotel thirty years, as manager and vice-president.
George Orvis added more baths, steam heat, a new kitchen, and dining room and remodeled the ballroom and parlors. There were now 200 rooms, 120 with connecting baths. Vegetables served in the hotel were advertised as being "from our own farm." Increased automobile travel called for more garage facilities and quarters for chauffeurs. Work, therefore, began in November 1912 on Union Street for the Carsden Inn with 100 rooms and a fireproof garage, the largest in the state.
In September 1912 ex-President Theodore Roosevelt made a twenty-minute speech in front of the hotel on his way by auto to Rutland. The Manchester Journal was cool :
The spectators were not much impressed by the appearance or the voice of the speaker, most of whom had never seen him before. Mr. Roosevelt was in poor voice, and did not show up as big, physically, as a great many had thought he would.9
Another spectator regarded the visit more enthusiastically :
Such crowds of people assembled as never I think have been seen in Manchester before. I did hear one woman say, "I only went to see his teeth!" ... He spoke of course of Messrs. Penrose and Archbold who were then testifying to contributing to his campaign funds before the Senate Investigating Committee. He spoke of the fallacious remark "We can't trust the mob," adding "Why, you're the rabble ! You're the mob!" in a hearty voice to the assembled luxurious guests of the Equinox House-a delightful scene! Those who were near him saw, they de- clared, frightful grimaces. [I] missed seeing these. [I] noted, however, his easy cultivated pronunciation, and frank, wholesome, friendly . . . personality. 10
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