USA > Vermont > Rutland County > Wallingford > People of Wallingford, a compilation > Part 10
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should become rich, would you be more happy, or would our children be better educated and better brought up & could we be more useful in the society of our friends?"
Grandfather was thirty-six when he expressed this attitude to- ward life. What influenced him in the decision? There is every evidence, as the years went on, that he had not made a decision later regretted. For the next fifty years he lived a life consistent with this expressed view-a chance to do honorable service and to enjoy the company of kindred souls, whether they be of family kin or otherwise.
In Vermont, both he and his wife had many relatives, all sim- ilar in tastes. They wanted and had homes of refinement in which they placed the education of their children in mind and in soul as the first great purpose of existence. In Wallingford in 1836 there were such homes, the homes of descendants of town forefathers, and of those who had come more recently to the town. Among these were the Munsons, who later dwelt in beautiful houses along the Otter River to the south of the village. In that neighbor- hood too was the home of Lucinda Button, who had married Col. Dyer Townsend, a son of a Wallingford forefather. Near the village was the farm of Calvin M. Townsend, who had mar- ried Charlotte Miller, Irene's sister. To the north of the Village was the home of Frederick Button who lived at the Homestead.
In the village itself were the Martindales, the Fox family, who lived in the brick house on Main Street, the Harris family, the Hulls, the Randalls and others, all of whom made church life the centering of most of their social activity.
In 1835 Lyman Batcheller had moved to Wallingford and had established a fork industry. Grandfather believed in Walling- ford's future. As late as 1850, after the death of Epaphras Miller, the question of his changing his location came up again. It was hoped grandfather would take the old brick homestead in Mid-
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dlebury as his children's share of the property, but he again felt Wallingford was his choice. He then believed that Walling- ford, with its water power and nearness to Rutland, would de- velop fastern than Middlebury.
My bandbox of letters reveals little of the life of the forties except for some delightful letters from grandfather to his chil- dren, written from Montpelier where he was attending Legisla- ture, 1844-1845. This was an important time in Vermont legisla- tion. My grandmother, Irene, had died in 1844, leaving five children; the youngest but a few months old. She died in infancy. Grandfather did not re-marry until 1851, when he married Sarah Miller, a cousin of Irene. Sarah was a daughter of Loraine Jack- son (first white child born in Wallingford) and of Elisha Miller of Williston. She had spent much of her life in Middlebury at the home of Rebecca and Samuel Miller. Uncle Samuel did for Elisha's children as much as Alexander did for those of Epaphras. But there was a great difference in the homes.
Uncle Alexander was broad minded, liberal in his religious ideas. Uncle Samuel was supposedly very orthodox. His wife was the cultured, the aristocratic, the very pious, but very sincerely so, Rebecca Mattock. Sarah brought with her to Wallingford the influence of the orthodox Samuel Millers.
My grandfather Button was more liberal in his views. Both he and Uncle Alexander had a natural taste for philosophy, and both clung to their individualistic theories to the end.
I am told that after one evening meeting, a group remained that they might talk regarding asking grandfather to become a church member. I expect he listened courteously, spoke his ideas, and it is certain he continued as before.
Grandfather's library is unusual in the number of variety of Editions of the Bible, together with long shelves of Barnes' Notes and other volumes designed to aid in the comparative study of the Bible.
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He wrote in 1856 to his wife Sarah, after the death of her own step-mother:
Wallingford, 23 Aug. 56 8 AM
"My dear wife-Your letters have been read, the last one yester- day saying your mother's sufferings were at an end, that she sleeps quietly in death. The fact is, death only effects these bodies, that which we can see and feel, but the real being still lives, and we hope lives in a better and more exalted state of existence. Death only opens to us real life and just frees us from all that clogs and makes the soul or life, or in other words the real man, in any sense, unhappy. That is, if the soul or that immortal spirit seeks its happiness in and from the true source of all real happiness, the life or immortal part of man is a real fountain from which under proper culture there should spring up only pure and en- obling, satisfying joys, clogged more or less by these mortal bodies, but still sufficient at all times to make the soul happy here and hereafter-The reason is the soul feeds on spiritual food and is not dependent whatever on the house and habitation in which it resides, and death only delivers us from that which is and al- ways must be a clog and hindrance to the spiritual part. Why then should we wish to recall our friends ? * I have writ- ten hastily and just as my thoughts came along-"
It is difficult to choose from the many bandbox and linen bag letters when one is thinking of the wide variety of tastes of pos- sible readers of this paper.
In the fifties the all important question of educating the chil- dren was the chief topic. Ellen, the eldest daughter, went to Burlington Seminary and then to Emma Willard's school for girls in Troy. George and William Harvey went to Burr & Burton in Manchester: Emma went to a seminary in Ohio.
Sarah Miller was a good step-mother, earnestly giving her life to duty as she saw it. She wrote long, interesting letters to all the children away from home. Her letters are full of news of village life, and so are those from various other members of the family.
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One letter speaks of the fact that Mr. Harris, who lost his house by fire in 1851, after looking about for some other section as a possible place for a home, has decided to rebuild in Wallingford. Then, as now, Wallingford people loved their home town. The Harris house was rebuilt in '53. (Now the Taft residence.) The fire also destroyed grandfather's office building, so when a new one was being considered, Mr. Harris entreated that grandfather build it on a line with the Harris house. Grandfather argued it should be on a line with his own property, so there it was built, by McKnight, who carried out the early American style of the house. The two families continued their happy associations.
In '49, grandfather wrote to Ellen, in school in Burlington,
Wallingford 5 Oct 1849
"To my daughter Ellen: You must just write us, if we do not write you. This will do you no harm, and be somewhat useful, as it will give you an easy and familiar style in letter writ- ing. Even a short sentence or two every day, giving us a kind of diary, or an everyday description of your feelings, and progress in school, and of what you may observe in the world around you, and even of the manners and characters of those you may see.
In '52, grandfather was happy to take time off to go for butter- nuts with his boys-so he writes to Ellen at school, and con- tinues, "Be diligent in study and an example to others of all that is excellent."
In '53, grandfather was paying young Harvey fifty cents a cord for chopping wood-so George at home on vacation writes Ellen at school. He speaks in this letter of an academy project.
Wallingford March 23d 1853
"My dear Sister: There has been some talk about estab- lishing an academy in this village. Mr. Kent offers to give the land to build it on, if they will build. The land is situated between
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his house and Mrs. Randall's. They held a meeting on the sub- ject last Monday night. Father, Mr. Munson, Mr. Clark, Mr. Edwin Martindale and Dr. Bill were chosen committee. Father and Mr. Munson went up to Rutland to get a plan of the academy there this afternoon. They are trying to have it like the academy in Rutland, and mean to have it one of the best schools in the state. It will probably be done by next fall. If they have a good school here, had we not better come and attend it, it will be pretty cheap to what it is abroad it will not take near as much money (for I am pretty tight and like to keep my money well) and such being the case, I think we had better come home and attend it.
* * March 24th. I will take up my letter again this morning and see if I can finish it this time. Father got back from Rutland this morning. He has a plan of the academy there. We hear that two barrels of liquor were seized at the depot under the new law. They were owned by Mr. Proctor of South Wallingford. *
Thanksgiving in '53 was evidently a very different one from many of those in previous years when two tables, made alike so they would fit together well, stretched the length of the room and were covered by a fine linen cloth, seven yards in length, woven with an elaborate peacock design for the center decoration. Grandfather wrote to Ellen:
"Ma says to tell you about Thanksgiving. Well, we kept Thanks- giving all alone with a good chicken, pudding and pumpkin pie, of course. The public, that is everybody, went in the evening to A. L. Hydes for an oyster supper ha! ha! and the young folks assisted by those who wished to do so finished the evening and night with fiddling and dancing. Huldah (Martindale) says they had a fine time of it, but she did not stay to the after part, and says she has cried for three days thinking about it. We were invited to the party, but thinking that our own home was about as good as others, we concluded to be thankful at home."
About this time grandfather writes Ellen about train service from Troy to Wallingford (more convenient then than it is to-
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THE BUTTONS, THE JACKSONS AND THE MILLERS day, 1937!) and warns her "we have not killed the fatted calf, but the pig, so that we can give you a dish of soup, or a dish of pork and beans." Grandfather depended much at this time for his supplies from the Sugar Hill Farm, cared for by a Mr. Weston.
Much of the time there were guests in the home-one or more of the numerous nephews and nieces, or a Miller brother or sister. Nothing, I believe, reveals so fully the "plain living, high think- ing" aim of the household as this letter that follows. It is from a brother of Sarah, Samuel Miller, a man of wealth , who wished his daughter to profit by an absence from a more luxurious life. The Julia of this letter became one of Albany's well known women, very active in social and charitable organizations.
Albany February 28th 1851
"My dear Sister-Julia is a thoughtless child living entirely in the present and always excited about the pleasure of the moment. She does not seem capable of appreciating the anxiety of her parents and will not put forth any industry or self-denial if she can avoid it. It is therefore our study to prevent her from avoiding by any possibility the duties we think best to put upon her. Now I would recommend that when Saturday arrives she be al- lowed no pleasure or occupation of any sort until she has written a letter to her mother which is satisfactory to you for the care and neatness with which it is written-and a like strict rule you will find necessary with regard to all other of your require- ments. *
This letter is very suggestive of those of Epaphras of the previ- ous generation. Such ideas set one to thinking in these days when all attempts at education must be made so attractive as to be play, and discipline is taboo.
The following letter of grandfather's is a very characteristic mixture of seriousness and humor:
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Wallingford, Vt. January 21 1853
"Miss Ellen: We have on the whole quite a time here at home-all the children gone but Emma, and Pa gone more or less-say two days or more in a week-so that those of us at home have not much to do but eat oysters and take care of ourselves. This is quite enough if we keep ourselves as we should do, that is from all appearance (and in fact) of evil-for you know that evil communications corrupt good manners and a person is known by the company he keeps-that where the carcass is, that there the vultures &c &c will gather themselves together. A specimen is seen almost daily on almost our very threshold. Only think there was a Ball at Mr. Hydes last night and what a collec- tion of all the gentility of this town and county, you must guess, for I was not there and so can't tell. I called in today (Friday) and just took a look round about and could give something of a guess whether any well bred lady or gentleman would be like to attend more than once at such a place, though I don't intend to slander my neighbors-all very nice I presume for such as like such proceedings-but who that has any capacity for mental enjoyment can like such parties? But enough, as I did not intend to write much and that for Bunkum. Now in earnest, be ever careful and watchful over all your conduct and be sure that you are in the right way, and then go ahead."
In the late fifties Harvey (he was never called William) de- cided on college-Middlebury. George preferred to go into busi- ness and therefore started west to make his fortune. He was twenty-two at the time of his departure in 1858. Everywhere he went he was either near or with relatives or other Vermonters trying to gain a foothold in the West.
George's letters are interesting for they show just the condi- tions of today, the almost hopeless effort at finding openings for useful and profitable service.
The family circle, with atlas close at hand, followed the son through Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. He questioned seriously buying a farm in Wisconsin. About this time grand- father wrote him:
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"You find yourself I suppose among strangers mostly all of them in pursuit of something. Some perhaps for wealth and otherwise for what they call honor, or happiness. You, "I suppose, observe them all and will learn what you can"
Father went on down the Mississippi. He liked the south, and almost decided to stay there. But the hills of Vermont called him home.
In '61 grandfather himself went to Iowa, evidently another of his western visits combining a sight-seeing tour and a visiting of relatives. He evidently saw his nieces at this time, daughters of Content Button Wylie. One of the letters written to him while away from home came back with him and was tucked away in the linen bag. The letter says that Harvey talks of enlisting in the war as a three months' volunteer.
In '62 he joined the 12th Vt. Regiment, Co. K., a company in which many of his college friends and other Vermont college men enlisted as volunteers.
A large pile of letters written to various members of the fam- ily, all carefully saved, tell the story repeated in many similar col- lections of Civil War letters.
There was scarcely a house in Wallingford, my Aunt Ellen told me, where there were not anxious people watching for news from someone at the front. With fear, every morning, the list of dead or wounded was read in the Rutland Herald. Women gathered to scrape linen for lint to be used in hospitals, and to make band- ages, tasks suggestive to us of the work we did in the World War, and of the work women will do as long as war is allowed. And always we will cry out, "It could have been prevented!"
The sending of postage stamps, stationery, clothing, and pro- visions, was a vent for imprisoned emotions. My uncle fared well, for he speaks often of preserved pears, maple sugar, pickles, cake, and other good things that made their way to camp.
The receiving and sending of letters was a blessing.
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In 1875, at seventy-five years of age, grandfather had seen many changes. The little house of the thirties was now a roomy rambling structure, heated by stoves below, and by little wood stoves in every bedroom.
As in the fifties and in the sixties, many guests still came and went. None were more welcome than his little grandsons Fred- erick and William, sons of Harvey. As years went on, these lads became a part of Wallingford life as every vacation was spent at grandfather's. They later were of the famous group-the Paul Harris, Percy Williams, Birney Batcheller clan, of whose exploits there should be an authorized version-otherwise some day the tales we hear will be augmented beyond belief!
I have searched grandfather's diaries for the last ten years of his life-1875-1885. They reveal nothing of his personal feelings. The weather, the text of the Sunday morning sermon, the pros- pect for crops and the like-little more.
One can judge only from the atmosphere of the home to the last, that he never regretted his early planned course and that he would say with Benjamin Franklin that he would be willing to run the same course again.
At eighty he knew he was considered a successful lawyer. Many of his cases had been taken to the Supreme Court of the State and were even in his life-time considered as precedent cases.
But it is chiefly as Judge of Probate of Rutland County for over twenty years that he became a familiar figure in Rutland County. In later years he wore a high silk hat, a dark grey wool shawl, and carried a cane or umbrellas as the weather dictated.
Some still recall that it was considered something of a joke to ask him at the railroad station, "Going to Rutland today, Judge?" "I intend to do so, if the train goes."
Caution seems to have been both inherent and cultivated in grandfather. In money matters he was most discreet. His invest- ments were in mortgages chiefly-investments he could watch.
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To the entreaties of his sons, first George suggesting get-rich- quick through loans for 25 to 30% in the late fifties in the west, and again from Harvey five years later, who was confident all Wallingford would grow wealthy were the rich dwellers of Otter Valley to invest in western enterprises, grandfather turned a deaf ear. I fancy he was interested in the enthusiasm of youth, but for himself, he preferred to play safe.
As he saw the needs of his children, all of whom called for his financial assistance, I wonder if he felt differently regarding his 1835 opinions of the seeking for wealth. In 1880 he estimated in his yearly inventory, his estate as worth a little over $10,000. He had sufficient for his needs and some to spare. Thus he was ful- filling his own vision.
To his second wife, Sarah Miller, he owed much as a most com- petent household manager. To her little granddaughter, she showed a little less discipline than that given to her niece, Julia, back in 1851.
"Drink your milk, Nellie. The cream on it is excellent for you." "I can't drink it, grandma, if I see the cream on it." A long wait. Nellie does not drink the milk. Grandmother eventually takes the tumbler away, skims off the cream, or stirs it into the milk and returns with the desired change.
This daughter of Loraine Jackson, the first white child born in Wallingford, was a handsome woman to her last days. Delicate in features, dainty in dress, she was an excellent example of the New England gentlewoman, who read intelligently, enjoyed cultured people, and yet spent many hours in her kitchen, superintending a large household, aided by more or less incompetent help.
If wishes were horses, I should have again the setting of the Button cottage as it was fifty years ago. Above the wall that holds the front terraced ground was a white fence made of boards that overlapped as do the clapboards of the house. The fence was about three feet high and was topped by beveled boards laid flat
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along its length. This top was about eight inches wide, just wide enough to tempt a little girl to run its course. One of the few memory pictures I have of grandfather is his lifting me from this fence, and placing me on the ground. "Nellie might fall and hurt herself!"
Between the house and office was a fence five feet high that shut off the sight of the garden from the street. Large gates, that hung on hinges, shut off the driveway.
The garden was a delight, with almost every foot of ground put to some use. Back of his office building was a long row of bee hives, which he tended himself with much pleasure. Apples, early summer, fall and winter varieties; five varieties of pear trees ; sev- eral cherry trees; plum trees; grape vines, growing on trellises; currants, raspberries, and gooseberries; and an excellent vege- table garden-all these were a source of pleasure and profit. He liked to try the unusual. One year he raised sweet potatoes suc- cessfully ; another a small crop of peanuts.
The kitchen chamber-an unfinished room over the kitchen- was a pleasant place in late fall with its large trays of drying peas, and beans, and shelled corn. From the rafters hung bunches of sage, corn left on the cob, tansy, peppermint, and other herbs gathered in the fields and woods. A vinegar barrel in the corner was always filled each season at the cider mill. Pumpkin and squash, vegetable oysters, beets and carrots packed in sand, were stored away in the cellar. There also a long hanging shelf and a wall cupboard each fall season were loaded with glass jars filled with friut grown on the place.
Each autumn, too, large boxes of honey were stored away, after one of the best boxes had been taken to the parsonage. Even to the last, work in the garden, the care of his hens and of his bees, gave him pleasure.
In these days of whirlwind living, it is hard to estimate such a life, lived in the middle years between the days of the earliest
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THE BUTTONS, THE JACKSONS AND THE MILLERS
settlers and our present day. A study of successive generations is interesting, but a paper of this length permits only the giving of suggestive ideas.
Grandsire Capt. Matthias might have returned to England, with the coming of the Commonwealth, and lived with compara- tive ease on ancestral lands. Instead he cast his lot after 1644 with the settlers of Haverhill, where he ended his days. His choice of Haverhill is significant. In spite of the changes following the coming of Winthrop, Haverhill had kept for some time some of the aims of the men who came with the little ship, Abigail. I wonder if any of his many descendants have ever known keener disappointment than he, for he lived to see the aims of that brave company of the Abigail, lost in the greed of trade, and saw the ideas of his own group overshadowed by aims of the Pilgrims, who had from the first desired separation from the Church of England and its more liberal religious views.
In the life of his great-grandson, we find a parallel situation. Each held to what he considered right. Charles Button's adher- ance to Tory principles in 1772-3 was criticized by those who followed his age, but time has shown the wisdom of his faith in established law and order and the danger of mob violence. Like his grandsire, Capt. Matthias, he stayed with the country of his choice. When many settlers in this sections of the Otter River fled after the Battle of Hubbardton, the Buttons stayed on their land.
In 1820-1880 it was still Tory conservatism that showed in much that grandfather did. In politics, as such, he took no inter- est. He voted always the Republican ticket, the outgrowth of the Tory party.
Buttons, Millers, Jacksons, similar in taste and sentiments, every one of them delighted in our beautiful Wallingford valley. All were concerned, too, with its best welfare, and it is good that so many of their dreams have come true. May there ever dwell here "men to match our mountains."
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V. THE BALLOUS AND THE ANDREWS
By REV. WILLIAM JOHN BALLOU
HE Ballou family in Wallingford had its beginning in this country in Rhode Island where Maturin Ballou bought a farm from Roger Williams. Some of the family moved from Rhode Island to Richmond, N. H. From there John, the son of Seth, came to Shrewsbury, Vt., before the year 1800; and from Shrewsbury he moved to Wallingford where he settled on a farm about a mile north of the village on the road to East Clarendon, and this became the old Ballou homestead.
The first Ballou to enter Vermont was Seth Ballou of Rich- mond, N. H. He was a member of a large reception committee which the people of New Hampshire got up to welcome General Burgoyne and his Indians at Fort Ticonderoga when they came down from Canada in 1777. The reception was not a success from the American point of view, so Seth went home to Richmond where he died the next year; and about twenty years later his son John came up to Vermont and stayed.
John's great-granddaughter was Ella M. Ballou, who was the first woman court stenographer in this country. For many years she was the court reporter for Rutland and Addison Counties. At the time of the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 a book was pub- lished telling of the different lines of work in which women had
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