USA > Vermont > Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont > Part 36
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It is believed that Mr. Smith was the first inventor of the typewriter. Parts of the original machine are now preserved at Springfield.
STEWART, P. P., Pawlet .- The inven- tion of the modern cooking stove by P. P. Stewart is an illustration of the fertility of re- sources of men bred amid our hills and hav- ing to contend with early difficulties. In 1832, while visiting a friend, he observed the needs of a stove in the room ; he imme- diately made one, and it served so well that an addition of an oven was suggested ; this he made of sheet iron, which served the family well for many years. He had been a sort of industrial missionary to the Choctaw tribe of Indians, and performed this work after he left Pawlet and prior to his founding of Oberlin College. He returned to Pawlet
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in 1836. Having adopted a vegetable diet, on account of ill health, the cooking did not snit him, being burned on one side and half done on the other.
This is the way he soliloquized in regard to it twenty-eight years ago I had this story from his own lips, it has been confirmed in courts of law, and reproduced by his biogra. pher, and shows the operations of a logical mind while working out a problem. He was then struggling for a new start in life. He said his stove must be adapted to the wants of a poor man, in order to cook his food well and thoroughly and bake his bread on all sides ; a single stick of wood as large as a man's arm was to furnish the fire. He split it into three small sticks, laid them side by side, but spread out they would not burn ; he held in his hand a paper and philosophized thus: " If I turn up the sides of the sheet bringing the wood so near together that they touch, then they will burn, and the sides will throw off heat enough to heat the oven, back and front," so he cried Eureka and told his wife of his invention. He made a sheet iron box for an oven, and into this he suspended his firebox. No such thing had ever before been heard of and with the three sticks of wood he performed the work necessary for himself and wife, and upon the bed of coals already made, a single stick sufficed for ironing.
Thus simply, yet under great distress was- the modern cooking stove evolved.
STRONG, FRANK M., Vergennes. - A workman in the Sampson scale works of that city, made a special study of weighing ma- chines with a view of overcoming the wear upon the pivots and bearings. It has been stated that while engaged in this study, holding a grapeshot in his hand, it slipped and rolled upon the floor, striking the wall and rebounding ; this suggested the novel idea which he afterward incorporated in the scale. He said, " If I could put the platform of a scale upon balls like that, whenever any weight struck it rudely, I could arrange the platform so as to have the surrounding frame receive the shock, and thereby increase the life of the scale." By allowing the platform to move readily and quickly, all the vital parts of the scale are thoroughly protected.
WARDWELL, GEORGE J., Rutland .- The marble quarries of Vermont were orig- inally worked entirely by hand, the blocks being cut much as they now are, except that they were of less thickness, a large force of men being employed for that purpose at West Rutland, where the main quarries were developed.
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To Mr. William F. Barnes of West Rut- land is attributed the discovery and working of these quarries, which was done for many years in a small way, even before the intro- duction of railroads, the marble being then hanled by teams to Lake Champlain to be shipped to more distant markets by water. The great expense of entting by hand, with other troubles which frequently occurred, induced the owners of the quarries, and more especially Mr. George J. Wardwell, to invent a machine to do the work of channel- ling, which machine is still extant and in use, and which has proved very valuable in in- creasing the output of marble as well as in reducing the cost of its production, one ina- chine doing the work of many inen.
In these machines the drills are combined in gangs consisting of several drills operated by machinery, cutting channels to a greater depth and much faster than was possible by the old process. The same power that op- erates the drills also propels the machine along the channels as they are cut.
These machines have, since their introduc- tion and use at West Rutland in the quarries there, been extensively used in other marble quarries of the state, and are now in use in many sections of the country in quarrying other varieties of stone. [A biographical sketch and portrait of Mr. Wardwell will be found in Part II, page 419.]
WHEELER, FRANKLIN, Brattleboro. - Mr. Wheeler came to Brattleboro about 1820 to work for Hezekiah Salisbury, mak- ing window springs. One Sunday while wandering in the woods of West Brattleboro he stumbled and fell, hurting his crippled leg so that he thought best to rest before get- ting up. While lying on the ground, he noticed some of the stones under him covered with moss; by his stumbling and fall he had knocked off some of this moss, and he noticed shining yellow spots upon the stones; he dug out a quantity of the shining metal with his knife, resolving to try - it in a crucible to see what it was. He shut himself up in the shop, melted the ore in a crucible, and it came out pure, shining, yel- low metal. With some of it he plated the heads of the window springs and showed them to his uncle Salisbury, who said it was gold ; it was sent to Boston and there pro- nounced gold. It is not known of any earlier gold plating having been done in Vermont.
While Wheeler was making window springs at Brattleboro he invented a breech-loading, six-shooting, revolving pistol, in 1821, which was perfect in all its parts and for many years was in constant use. This antedates Colt by about fourteen years.
QUEER CHARACTERS.
BY HIRAM A, HUSE.
There is hardly a town in Vermont that has not its tradition of one or more queer specimens of humanity who left a name of curious fame among those who dwelt near his local habitation. These people-odd in different ways and in all degrees-whose name is legion cannot be individually described unless one should take up the writing of many books of which there is no end.
Moreover, they run all the way from the class whose eccentricities are tacked to strong and forceful natures and form but little part of the real man, to the one that includes those whose oddities are about all there is to them.
Within these wide limits we find many nationalities represented and more than one race. Joe and Molly-the Indians whose memory is perpetuated by the ponds that bear their name-perhaps would rightly head the list-not in degree of strange conduct but in order of time ; and many a man whose name rightfully appears in far other kinds of record would in certain phases belong in the long list.
The strong man it is said sooner or later always finds a stronger man than he, and the one who has killed his sixty-eight bears can if he seeks find another who has killed one hun- dred and twenty-three. And no doubt a large contingent of the noble army of native odd men could be recruited from the hunters and fishermen who have lived as well as from those who now live in the state.
Each profession has its contribution ; business, the trades, the farms-all give numbers to the ranks of those who are called "odd."
One who is interested in this phase of human life will find his taste gratified by many true "brief mentions" in Hemenway's Gazetteer, and, as Blackstone has it, not to speak ridiculously, even in the proceedings of the Vermont Bar Association, where are recorded divers and sundry doings and sayings of odd sticks in the profession, as well as those of the wise and learned.
But, after all, the best written history in this line is not dressed up as history at all, but comes to us in the guise of fiction. The "Yankee" is pretty much alike in the six states of his nativity and with more or less degree of fidelity has been painted in many a novel and story. Of the authors who have done this work, D. P. Thompson was a pioneer, and his Yankee was the Vermont Yankee. Thompson did not go into analysis of mode of thought or attempt photographic accuracy in giving the dialect, but his Vermont Yankees will never be turned out of doors by one who knows the genuine article. At this day Rowland Rob- inson is introducing to a wide reading public types of the queer folks in Vermont-up to date. Nothing better-closer to the fact-has ever been done in book-making than his Vermont Yankee and French Canadian in " Uncle 'Lisha's' Shop," and in "Sam Lovell's Camps"-from the opening chorus of the former, the deestric' school meetin' to the end of the books. When Thomas W. Wood paints a Yankee, the real Yankee looks at you from the canvas -- you have seen him, you know him ; when Robinson paints in words what Wood does in colors, you see and hear Uncle 'Lisha and Sam and all the others who have lived and moved and had their being under other names right here in Vermont. So that one who wants to know Vermont types can do no better than read Thompson for the old and Robinson for the later-if a man has read them once he will read them again and if any Vermonter hasn't read both of them it is high time that he did. The odd characters have
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their fair representation in these books their types there given are well worth study and life is too short for writer or reader to deal with the host of oddities who have made Ver- mont their home.
If one were to begin, say with Heman W. W. Miller, where would he end? Miller, who was a quondam quasi lawyer, school teacher, orator, what not, with a big voice and flow of words to keep it going-early abolitionist, with genuine belief in the cause and zeal, he it was who, after the killing of Lovejoy by the pro-slavery mob in Alton, said in an anti- slavery speech up in Orleans county : "Fellow citizens, future ages will ereet to him a monument which shall have for its base eternal space, and from whose top you can behold the throne of Almighty God."
There is, however, a quartette of natives of this state that ought to be mentioned by name and have some brief account of them here given. Had they spent their lives in Ver- mont those of us who remain within her borders would be modestly reticent about them, but it would be hardly just to the Sons of Vermont not to lift the bushel for a moment and give a glimpse of these four shining lights.
JOSEPH SMITH .- When Dr. Denison of Royalton was called one winter night near ninety years ago to attend Mrs. Joseph Smith, it never entered his head that he was to aid in the advent of a prophet, and it is not at all probable that the good doctor would have admitted, had he lived to this day, the prophetic character of the child born that night of his patient. But thous- ands in other lands as well as this have done so, and the Mormon Church and communi- ties bear witness to the power exerted by the strange man, who came to be known as the Mormon Prophet. And however much this man Smith's "revelation" as to spiritual wives may have paved the way, it should be remembered that polygamy was established under the domination of Brigham Young, whose authority and doctrine were disputed by the surviving members of Smith's family.
Joseph Smith, son of Joseph and Lucy (Mack) Smith was born in Sharon, Dec. 23, 1805. The family was poor, but it is said that the mother, Lucy, was a woman of some peculiarities, and had herself a sort of "prophetic soul" as to some great things her sons were to do in the world. When Joseph was ten his parents moved to Palmyra, N. Y., and four years later to Manchester, N. Y., near Palmyra. In 1820, a year when four of his father's family joined the Presby- terian church, Joseph took to the woods to pray and claimed to have there had a vision, the telling of which excited only ridicule.
Smith obtained the plates soon after at- taining his majority, and told his later visions, which were treated with the same ridicule that greeted the story of his vision in the woods. He thereupon went to where the family of his wife lived in Pennsylvania, and began copying the characters that were on the plates. These characters, by the way, are said to have been a " composite "
made from several alphabetical forms. Smith claimed that he was enabled to understand them by the aid of a pair of magic spec- tacles, to which he gave the name of " Urim and Thummim." He dictated his transla- tion from behind a curtain, the first of it to one Martin Harris, and the rest to one Mar- tin Cowdery. May 15, 1829, Smith again went into the woods, this time taking Cow- dery with him, and there they professed to have been in receipt of an address from John the Baptist, and that he conferred the priesthood of Aaron and the spirit of pro- phecy upon Smith.
He claimed to have had another vision Sept. 23, 1823, and that at this time the angel Maroni or Moroni (the orthography of the family name of this angel is a little uncertain) visited him and told him of a book written on golden plates that contained the history of former inhabitants and "the fulness of the everlasting gospel." The an- gel also told him where these plates were de- posited, and Joseph went to the place de- scribed and saw the plates, but was not able to take them away, afterward learning from the angel that his inability to remove them arose from the fact that he prized the plates more than what was inscribed thereon, and that he could not hope to get into possession of them until he was willing to devote him- self to their translation.
In 1830 the Book of Mormon (the trans- lation, by aid of the magic spectacles, of the matter on the plates of gold) was published at Palmyra by Egbert B. Grandin. It is said that its basis was a story written by one Solomon Spaulding, entitled "The Manu- script Found." On the 6th of April, 1830, the Mormon Church was organized by " saints" at the house of Peter Whitmer in Fayette, N. Y., and on the next Sunday at Whitmer's house Oliver Cowdery preached
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the first sermon and several were baptized. In June, 1830, the church held its first con- ference, and had a membership of about thirty persons. Smith at this gathering claimed supernatural power, and his first " miracle " was casting the devil out of Newell Knight of Colesville, N. Y. The " Prophet " at this time, with his Book of Mormon promulgated, and, church started, was only twenty-four years old and soon did a good business, for a young fellow with his opportunities, in drawing people to his new doctrines.
The " Holy Rollers," who infested Hard- wick and vicinity more than half a century ago, and were preached against by Rev. Chester Wright, were not more zealous in season and out of season than Smith and his lieutenants, and had none of the executive ability and constructive skill of the latter. His following increased, and he announced that Kirkland, Ohio, was the promised land, and early in 1831 the new "church" settled there and at once sent out missionaries. That summer Missouri also was announced as promised land, and Smith located a Zion, as he called it, out there, afterwards return- ing to Kirkland, and getting tarred and feathered at Hiram, Ohio. His partner in this affliction was Sidney Rigdon, a Pennsyl- vanian a dozen or more years older than Smith, who tried to succeed Smith after the latter's death, but was outgeneraled by Brig- ham Young, and who, notwithstanding, ad- hered to the Mormon faith till his death in Friendship, N. Y., in 1876.
The Mormons adopted May 3, 1834, the name of "The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat- ter Day Saints," in February, 1835, organ- ized their twelve Apostles, and dedicated the first Mormon temple March 27, 1836, at Kirkland. A couple of years later there were disagreements and the prophet was accused of having stirred up some of his fol- lowers to take the life of Grandison Newell, who opposed him ; on this charge he was ar- rested but was discharged. In 1838 he got away from Kirkland and went to Far West, Mo., where for a year conflicts raged between his followers and hostile missionaries. The militia were called out, Smith lodged in jail and indicted for all manner of crimes. He escaped from jail and in April, 1839, with most of his fleeing brethren, settled in Illi- nois and founded the city of Nauvoo. In 1840 he obtained a charter for this city of Saints-soon organized the Nauvoo Legion, a military body of 1,500 men, erected and dedicated a new temple and extended his missionary work by sending preachers across the ocean.
In 1842, he was at the height of his power, but the next year his "revelation" to take spiritual wives made a break in the church,
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and was the cause of his death. All through his career his enemies had made life mis- erable for him, if being arrested forty or fifty times was enough to do it; and now two Mormons, Foster and Law, angered by his new revelation and its effect on their domestic affairs, founded a newspaper to at- tack him. The first number of their paper had the affidavits of a number of women who charged Smith and Rigdon with im- moral conduct. The prophet appears to have been a prohibitionist in his way, for he had the council adjudge the paper a nui- sance and order it abated, and his friends attacked the office, smashed the press and burned the paper and furniture.
Foster and Law escaped to Carthage, made complaint on which warrants were issued for the arrest of Smith and a score of his followers ; the officer who went to serve the warrants was driven out of Nauvoo by the city marshal. The militia were called out and the Mormons gave up the arms they held belonging to the state.
Joseph and his brother Hyrum were ar- rested for treason and taken to Carthage where the Governor of Illinois visited them in jail and promised to protect them from the mob. He did place a guard at the jail, but June 27, 1844, a mob consisting of more than a hundred disguised men attacked it, rushed in, and at their first volley killed Hyrum. Joseph next fell dead, pierced by four bullets. So closed, at the age of thirty- eight, the life of this remarkable specimen of human kind. Whether he was an enthusiast partially self-deceived or whether he was a conscious fraud each can determine for himself.
His wife refused to acknowledge the lead- ership of Brigham Young as her husband's successor and remained at Nauvoo when the exodus of the Mormons under Young took them to Utah. His son, Joseph, who was born at Kirkland Nov. 6, 1832, remained with his mother and after attaining manhood formed the "re-organized" Mormon Church, which professedly in accordance with the teaching of "the prophet" and the Book of Mormon is antagonistic to polygamy.
BRIGHAM YOUNG .- The man who suc- ceeded Smith as prophet and leader was also a native of Vermont. Brigham Young was born in Whitingham, June 1, ISO1, and when he was three years old his folks moved to Sherburne, N. Y., and there Brigham re- mained till sixteen, his educational advan- tages consisting in attendance on school to average one day a year. He then went to work in Mendon, N. Y., and was there a carpenter and joiner, painter and glazier.
Young came to know of the Book of Mor- mon the year of its publication, and in I83 1
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he was converted to its doctrines under the preaching of Samnel II. Smith, one of the modern Joseph's brethren. April 14, 1832, he was baptized, and in the fall of that year went to Kirkland, where he became a fast friend of Smith, was soon ordained an elder, and, Feb. 14, 1835, was chosen one of the twelve Mormon Apostles. Till the dedica- tion of the Kirkland temple in 1836 Young occupied himself in its building, for which his trade fitted him, and in the study of Hebrew. The year after the dedication, when David Whitmer tried to supplant Smith, Young was very active and successful in keeping the Mormons faithful to Smith.
He went to Far West, Mo., in 1837, but got into trouble with Governor Boggs of that state, who ordered him to leave, upon which Young went into Illinois. In 1839 Young and Kimball went to England to spread the new faith and remained there two years. On his return he was one of the founders of Nauvoo.
When Joseph and Hyrum Sinith were shot in 1844 Young was in New Hampshire, but at once set out for Nauvoo, and in August defeated Rigdon for the leadership of the church. The body of believers in the fall were eager to leave Nauvoo, and Illinois soon took its charter away and the Mormons were assailed with great enmity. Many were plundered and had their houses burned ; some were whipped and some killed.
Young proclaimed his intention to have them find a home in the wilderness and to start to seek it in 1846. In February and March, 1846, they started, and their proces- sion of several hundred wagons went west- ward. In June they were called on to fur- nish 500 men for the Mexican war, and Young had the Mormon battalion filled in three days. From July to April, 1847, they remained with the Pottawattamie Indians who gave them kind treatment. April 7, Young and 142 followers went as an advance guard to select a suitable place for the new city of the Saints, and July 24, 1847, he en- tered Salt Lake valley, choosing this as the place for their future home ; he returned in the fall to the main body. He had been chosen to succeed Smith as prophet, and was now selected as president by the twelve apostles.
May 26, 1848, Young with his family and two thousand Mormons started across the plains and reached Salt Lake City, Sept. 20, 1848. A provisional government for the new state of Deseret was organized and Young elected its Governor in 1849. The territory of Utah was established by the national gov- ernment. Young was appointed by the President its Governor and took the oath of office Feb. 3, 1851. Thus these strange people found a place to grow undisturbed,
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and the government machinery was in the hands of their ablest man.
August 29, 1852, Young openly announced polygamy as to be a part of the doctrine and practice of the church. Isolated as his peo- ple were and powerful as they were be- coming, he threw away all disguise in this matter, and claimed that his action was based on a revelation to Smith before his tragic death. But in Smith's behalf it may be urged that the Book of Mormon forbids polygamy and Smith's wife and his four children stren- uously denied ever having heard of any such revelation.
The extraordinary character of these events has not escaped the notice of writers of drama and fiction, as well as moralists and legislators. Bayard Taylor felt moved to dramatize some of their features, and A. Conan Doyle has Young as one of his charac- ters in " A Study in Scarlet." Doyle puts a sentence into the mouth of one of his Mor- mons that shows well the blind faith in which they obeyed this unique and powerful personality : "Brigham Young has said it, and he has spoken with the voice of Joseph Smith, which is the voice of God."
The doings of the Danites, or Avengers of Blood, the troubles that led to the military expedition of thirty odd years ago, the efforts of Young to strengthen and of moralists to weaken his pet twin relic-all these belong to history rather than to a brief biographical notice. At any rate, Vermonters have the satisfaction of knowing that it is " the Ed- munds law" that of late has done much to do away with the evils of polygamy.
Brigham Young died at Salt Lake City, August 29, 1877. He had seventeen wives and left forty-four children living.
HEBER CHASE KIMBALL .- This man was in 1847, when Young was elected president by the twelve apostles, chosen as one of the two counsellors to act with Young. Kimball was born in Sheldon, June 14, 1801. Some have said that Kimball was from the vicinity of Strafford as well as that Smith's people at one time lived in Tunbridge, but the ac- cepted authorities relieve Orange county from responsibility for these two men. Heber had a common school education and as he grew up worked in his father's black- smith shop in West Bloomfield, N. Y. He then learned the potter's trade and worked ten years in Mendon, N. Y. April 15, 1832, he was baptized and thenceforward was a zealous Mormon, becoming one of the twelve apostles in 1835.
He was in 1838 taken prisoner by the militia and released. The next year he went with Young on a missionary tour to Eng- land, where they spent two years. Kimball was of those who left Nauvoo in February,
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1846, and one of the pioneers who first en- camped at Salt Lake City in July, 1847. He died there, June 22, 1868.
JOHN HUMPHREY NOYES .- Altogether a different type of man from any of the trio noted above, John H. Noyes established a community that was for a time a close second to the Mormons in notoriety. He was born in Brattleboro, Sept. 6, 1811, graduated at Dartmouth College in 1830, studied law for a time, then pursued a theological course at Andover and Yale seminaries and was licensed to preached in 1833. The next year he experienced a new conversion and began to preach a new faith. He had some theory of a dual body and complex mar- riage, and ran a small community for some years before inaking what was his most famous venture. The thing by which he be- came known all over the country was the
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