USA > Vermont > Rutland County > Wallingford > People of Wallingford, a compilation > Part 21
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the Skirmish Line; but before I could get any men deployed, the Rebs were formed to make a charge and had already been ordered to advance. I assure you they gave us a hot fire. There was a com- mon board fence between us in front, and for this we both made. My men reached it first, and then commenced the fight.
I could distinctly see their lines of battle advancing, and we could all see that they were confident of breaking our lines. Oh, such a chance as our men had at them! Many a Johnnie fell com- ing across the field. I soon saw that my line must fall back to our General Line of battle or we should all be Gobbled up. So back we went and this was the time they made it uncomfortable for me. But I reached it in safety, and now came the grand crisis.
For nearly two hours we fought four times our numbers and repulsed charge after charge. Here for the first time this summer your humble servant tried his skill at shooting the D-Is and had the pleasure of being successful. All was going well when they massed a heavy force on our extreme right, which was held by new troops, and succeeded in breaking our lines. Then of course our game was up. We saw we must fall back or we should all be bagged.
Gradually they commenced falling back on the left of our Divi- sion, but contesting every inch of ground until they crossed the stream at the Junction. Long ere this the new troops on our right were picking out the shortest route for Baltimore, and they all knew the roads which led there.
My Co. was the 3rd from the extreme left of our General Line, and was stationed on a crossroads which it was ordered to hold till both of my flanks had fallen back. This was a bad fix for Gib, for when I ordered my men to fall back, we were almost entirely surrounded by them, and had a mile to make before crossing the stream. But back we went, beating a hasty retreat, under repeated cries from the Rebs to "Halt, Yanks, and Surrender!" But we could not see this, and finally reached and crossed the stream in safety.
At this time I had lost only 4 men wounded in my Co .; but the men were all very tired and the Rebs still continued to follow us very closely till we reached the Baltimore Pike via New Market. On we came till we reached Ellicutt's Mills. Here we took the cars for our present camp at the "Relay House." I have six men
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now missing from my Co., but am in hopes that some of them will come in yet.
Austin Wellman was slightly wounded in the arm and is in Baltimore all right. Chas. Hilliard is also there, but not wounded. Sergt. Adams is to be made Q.M. Serg't., so he is safe, of course. All the W. boys are well. So is friend Henry K.
The people here are much excited and well they may be. But I am in hopes that the worst of the raid is over and that the party will get severely punished before reaching their base of supplies, Richmond.
Now for a summing up of what we have done. Our Div. (Rick- ett's) numbers only about 4,000 men (and what little help we did have was worse than none). It fought the flower of Lee's Army, the Louisiana Tigers and other picked men under com- mand of Gen'ls Early, Ewell and Breckenridge. The lowest esti- mate of their forces is 30,000 men. We held them at bay until we could make a successful retreat, but not until we had punished them severely.
I saw the Medical Director of this Department who was on the field in Frederick City while it was in possession of the Rebels and after they left. This is his report:
Union Loss
Killed and left on the field 121
Wounded and taken to Hospital in Frederick 190
Prisoners Taken 400
Total 711
Rebel Loss
Killed in front of our lines 300
Wounded and in Hospital at Frederick 430
Now in our Possession
Total 730
He also stated that their loss in Officers was very heavy, and their wounded left behind were the worst cases-the ones that
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could not be transported. The Prisoners were nearly all foolishly paroled by improper authority.
Thus you see that we were only a handful of men compared to their forces, and yet we punished them severely.
Our Reg't lost no officers and our loss in killed and wounded will not exceed fifty or sixty men, I think. How long we shall re- main here is uncertain. I fear that we shall be obliged to join our Div. at Baltimore and thence to Petersburg in a few days. The post has been in command of our Col. Henry until today, when Gen. Tyler came and assumed command.
Please accept this rough history of our actions until you can get better.
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XII. WALLINGFORD IN THE 1870's
THIS chapter, quite different from all the others, will be an ac- count of the writer's personal recollections of people and events in Wallingford up to the time he was sent away to school.
One of my earliest recollections is the flood that occurred Octo- ber 4, 1869. Someone may ask my age and question my ability to remember so remote an event. I may as well say at the beginning that I was born April 16, 1865. We then lived in the first house from the railway station on Depot Street. Fortunately I have a photograph of the house which is reproduced facing page 272. I sat at the west parlor window and saw the rushing waters of Roaring Brook that had left their proper channel and were flow- ing down the street between our house and the station with a depth of perhaps two feet. The water had risen to the window sills on the little white house which is still standing on the west side of the railway tracks. The railway bridge over Roaring Brook was then a wooden lattice structure. The railway section men were hard at work trying to save the bridge from the flood waters that piled up against it. As I watched them the south end of the bridge went first; the bridge swung around and disappeared down the stream.
While I sat watching, Dr. Hitt appeared on the scene, riding a horse. He rode through the swirling water across the railway
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to the little white house. An Irish family by the name of Coleman lived there. In a few moments the grandmother of the family, with a large white bundle that looked like a feather bed, was helped on to the Doctor's horse. She sat behind the Doctor to whom she clung while he directed the horse through the water to the depot and there discharged his passenger.
The land on the south side of Depot Street, opposite our house, where several houses now stand, was then the garden of a family named Caplais, living in the small house still standing close beside the brook. The brook broke across the garden, cover- ing it with boulders, gravel and debris of all sorts, making it look after the flood as if nothing would ever grow there again. I be- lieve the wooden bridge over the brook on Main Street, and many bridges on the Creek, were carried away.
I did not get far from home in those early days of my life but was much interested in all that went on in the neighborhood. There were the trains and the railway station that had a fascina- tion. Mr. Pooler was the first station master I knew, but he did not hold the position long after I knew him. He was afflicted with St. Vitus Dance, was in a very nervous condition and, as he worked at his desk, was in constant motion. He was succeeded by Mr. Harland Morgan who held the position for a number of years. Mr. Morgan constructed an apartment in the station-two rooms on the ground floor and one on the second floor-where he lived with his wife as long as he was station master. The old style telegraph instrument that embossed the message on a long strip of paper always fascinated me. My natural taste for things mechanical was gratified by noticing the construction of the loco- motives in use at this time. The fuel was wood and the trains fre- quently stopped at South Wallingford, where a large quantity was stored, to take on a supply. The engineer, fireman, and brake- man all took part in throwing wood on to the tender. The locomo- tives had large flaring smokestacks to arrest the sparks that other-
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wise would have been scattered to the wind by the forced draught. Frequently they did get by the arrester and set fire to dry grass and fences along the track. The locomotives were small compared with those in use today and the trains were much lighter. Fortu- nately I have a photograph showing one of these trains standing at the station, which is shown opposite page 273. The rails on which the trains ran did not weigh more than half as much as rails of today. They were not joined together with fishplates and bolts but instead the ends rested on cast iron chairs and they were held in place only by spikes driven into the crossties.
There was a water tank in a house that stood on the west side of the track, just north of the station, from which the locomotives drew their supply of water. The elevated tank was kept filled with water from the millpond by means of a hand pump inside the tank house. This pump was operated by two men who pumped long hours every day in the dark house, for there were no win- dows. It was a spooky kind of place into which I sometimes ven- tured with fear and trembling and could barely see the two men, who looked like ghosts at work with their pump until the tank was filled. I spent very little time there after my curiosity was satisfied.
In the rear of our house on Depot Street my father had two fish ponds consisting of wooden tubs, about ten feet in di- ameter and two feet deep, set in the ground. A fountain played in the center of one, thereby keeping the water fresh. The ponds were stocked with native speckled trout which were such canni- bals that the larger fish were put in one pond and the smaller in the other. It was great fun to feed them. When bits of raw meat were tossed to them they would often jump up and catch the food before it even touched the water. One afternoon I was sup- posed to be asleep in my mother's bedroom, but, as a matter of fact, I was quite wide awake and amused myself by rummaging. I found mother's pocketbook containing several greenbacks
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which I removed, then slipped out of the house and threw them to the fish. I do not remember that the trout showed any evidence of appreciation of the expensive food but my mother undoubtedly made it plain to me that pleasure must not be gotten in that way.
My father was desirous of re-stocking the ponds with trout and with that end in view purchased a seine-a net, perhaps two hundred feet long and five feet wide, provided with wood floats on one edge and lead weights on the other to make it stand ver- tical in the water. He arranged with some of the men at the fork factory to help him draw it. The place selected was in the Creek a little way below the milldam, not quite down to the highway bridge, where there was a pool about four or five feet deep. The seine, reeled on a pole, was taken to the bank of the Creek just above the pool; then one of the men took the end of it and pro- ceeded to wade across the Creek dragging the seine after him as other men on the bank unreeled it. When he reached the far bank he proceeded down stream, several men being stationed in the water to hold the seine in place and drag it along. When the first man had gotten below the pool with the leading end of the seine he proceeded to wade back to the bank of the Creek from whence he started. Finally the two ends of the seine were brought to- gether and the pool, where the fish were supposed to be, was sur- rounded by the net, kept vertical by the floats and lead weights and held in place by the men who stood waist deep in the water. Slowly the seine was drawn in by the men on the bank, with the assistance of those in the water. The net enclosure grew gradu- ally smaller and the fish inside became alarmed and struggled to get out but there was no way of escape for one edge of the seine was on the bottom of the pool and the other at the surface of the water. Not only the fish but the men were getting somewhat ex- cited. Finally the entire seine was drawn up on the bank with a mass of struggling fish. One at a time they were taken out of the net and put into large wooden tubs filled with water and covered
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with a net to keep them from jumping out. It was very exciting to see the large trout taken unharmed in this way. I do not know how many trout were secured but will venture to say fifteen or twenty and most of them fully grown. Taking fish in that way is now prohibited by law, for the streams no longer contain the abundance of fish that they did then.
The tubs were quickly transported to the ponds in our yard and the trout were established in their new home where they lived and were well cared for. Many visitors came to the ponds and the trout lost much of their natural timidity.
At this time I heard much talk about the new road to Rutland that had just been completed on the west side of the Creek. For many years there had been a road in Clarendon from the four- corners north. Our town records show that in May, 1805, a road was surveyed northerly from Douglass' Mill to the Clarendon line. Douglass' Mill was on the site of Batcheller & Sons hammer shop beside the Creek, which justifies the conclusion that this survey was along River Street northward to the farm now owned by Aldace Newton. The road from Wallingford to Rutland west of the Creek was completed by building a section in Clarendon from the four-corners south to the Wallingford-Clarendon town line, a distance of about a mile and a half, but requiring a rock cut and some filling across a swamp.
The people of Wallingford were pleased to have the new road which was much more nearly level than the old road through Clarendon Flats, and most of the traffic thereafter went that way. We then owned a chestnut Morgan horse of sterling quali- ties but so gentle that even my mother had no fear in driving him. He was called "Old Zeb" and was well known by everyone in town. My father allowed the horse one hour and fifteen minutes to cover the distance between Wallingford and Rutland by the new road, but I will venture to say Old Zeb made better time
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coming home, for as soon as his head was turned homeward he showed his spirit.
The real estate promoter, Frank Post by name, son of Deacon Post, a resident of the village, had organized a company to manu- facture pitchforks in competition with Batcheller & Sons. A fac- tory was built beside the railroad at the north end of the village. Water from the Creek to drive turbines was turned under the fac- tory by a dam and canal; a row of small houses for employees was built on both sides of River Street; new streets were laid out, one named Franklin Street after the promoter, another Maple Street, all of which caused quite a commotion in the community. Mr. Post proposed that the railway station be relocated at the north end and talked about building a hotel there. In fact that was to be the center of village activity in his imagination. The factory was completed, having a length of about three hundred feet along the railroad and three wings extending westward; an imposing struc- ture in a small village.
When manufacturing began, Mr. Gale Batcheller was em- ployed and the name given the company was The Batcheller Manufacturing Company, evidently an attempt to do a little busi- ness on the reputation of the Batcheller name. As a result a trade- mark suit was in the offing but never came to trial for, at the end of three years, the operations of the company came to an end and Mr. Post left Wallingford, never residing here afterward. For a time the factory was idle, with only a watchman walking its floors, until Henry Cole and John D. Miller used a part of the building in the manufacture of oxbows.
The old sawmill stood just across the road from the finishing shop of Batcheller & Sons where it had stood since Asahel and Jedediah Jackson built the dam across the Creek in 1788. Prob- ably its roof had been reshingled during the eighty-odd years of its existence but no doubt in other respects it had undergone little alteration. The mill was constructed of timber and, like most saw-
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mills, was open on one side where logs were rolled in and lumber was taken out. It was a typical example of early sawmills in which the saw moved up and down, driven by the power of a water wheel in the pit beneath. It operated like a handsaw, pulled and pushed by the energy of falling water in place of human muscle. A log to be sawed was placed on a long wooden carriage that slid back and forth on a wooden track, while the saw, stretched in a wooden frame, moved up and down, slicing the log into boards or lumber of desired dimensions. The carriage was moved slowly forward by ratchet mechanism while sawing took place, then it was brought quickly back by a simple auxiliary water wheel con- trolled in operation by the man who operated the mill. This aux- iliary water wheel consisted of a vertical wooden shaft extending down into the canal beneath the flume, with radial blades on its lower end. By opening a gate in the flume water was allowed to impinge upon the blades and thus rotate the shaft which, by means of a rack and pinion, moved the carriage. The mill operator controlled these movements by two levers, one to open the gate in the flume, the other to engage the pinion with the teeth of the rack on the side of the carriage.
The saw and its frame slid up and down on guides which were fastened to two substantial pillars forming a part of the building. The saw advanced a little in its downward cutting stroke and re- ceded in its upward stroke, which allowed the carriage and log to be moved forward when the saw was not cutting. The saw frame was moved up and down by means of a crank and connecting rod, called a pitman, beneath the floor of the mill, the crank being turned by a water wheel. Sawing was necessarily slow compared with a modern mill, several minutes being required to cut the length of a log.
This somewhat technical description of an early sawmill is given to show the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the early set- tlers with the material at hand-mostly timber. This old sawmill
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FIRST RESIDENCE OF JUSTIN BATCHELLER
RAILWAY TRAIN AT WALLINGFORD DEPOT Left to right: A. G. Stone; Miss Mattie Adair; Arnold Nicholson; Harland Morgan, Station Agent; Simpson, News Agent; and the train Conductor.
WALLINGFORD IN THE 1870's
and the finishing shop back of it are shown opposite page 64. Both were destroyed by fire in 1924.
The space in front of the sawmill was often occupied by a pile of spruce logs which we boys examined for seams in the bark that contained gum. Our search was frequently rewarded by lumps that had been exuded as a semifluid and then hardened. Spruce gum was commonly chewed and was in considerable demand be- fore chicle was imported, and men made a business of collecting it in the forest.
The year 1871 marks an epoch in the lives of more than one Wallingford boy. The public school was becoming crowded and it was decided by the School Committee to establish a primary school for beginners in the old town house which then stood on the site of the present town hall. The front of the building can be seen in the view of School Street facing page 17. It was moved back and converted into a fire house when the new building was erected. The old building had but one room which occupied the entire ground floor and was used once a year for town meeting. It was a vast, cheerless place for little children to sit in and get their first impressions of school life, but there appears to have been no other place, so half a dozen long settees were placed one be- hind another in the southeast corner of the big room with a teacher's chair and table in front of them. The settees were of the same pattern as those used in the brick chapel when prayer meet- ings were held there, and occasionally one may be discovered to- day, put to some useful purpose. Since the school was for begin- ners, most of the children were about six years old. Three children sat on each settee, one at each end and one in the middle. The writer happened to occupy one end of a settee. His memory is so clear on this point that he can say it was the west end. It is remark- able that so many boys in Wallingford, not to mention girls-for they made no impression on my memory-should have arrived at their sixth birthday that year. I can mention several names. They
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include "Art" Waldo, Henry Ballou, "Sherry" Congdon, and "Dave" Kelley. They were all there to be educated. The name of the teacher has not been etched upon my memory, for she was a stranger to me, but I distinctly remember that she was a young woman and that she made us stand up in a row in front of her table, but for what purpose I have forgotten. There were neither desks nor blackboards, so I cannot now imagine how we were taught.
I do not think the school in the town house lasted many weeks for my next recollection finds me in the primary room at the school house where we had regulation school seats and desks. The public school in the days following had three divisions in three rooms with three teachers, designated primary, intermedi- ate, and high school. The first two were on the ground floor, and the high school, in the large room on the second floor, was reached by two winding stairways in the lobby. The school house of this period is shown facing page 289. The school had just been graded but, using readers from first to sixth, we designated our position on the educational ladder by the reader we were "in" in- stead of by the grade.
The primary and intermediate rooms were heated by rectangu- lar wood-burning stoves, large enough to receive chunks of wood. Much of the firing was done by the pupils, and the tem- perature of the rooms varied considerably. When I was a pupil in the intermediate room one of the larger boys was sent by the teacher for an armful of wood with instructions to put some in the stove. The teacher, occupied with a class, did not notice that he filled the stove full. In a short time the stove was red-hot and there was no convenient way of cooling it, so the teacher, as pun- ishment, made the boy who had filled the stove sit beside it.
The Principal, who taught in the high school during the early part of the 1870's, and the first whom I remember, was Prof. Otis S. Johnson, a tall thin man, with an expression that would
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frighten a small child and that gave all of us the feeling that he was constantly on the lookout for a boy he could punish. He had thin pointed features and piercing, sharp eyes. I am sure we were all afraid of him and some had good cause to be. We had a derog- atory rhyme that we frequently repeated when he was out of sight.
Corporal punishment was considered necessary for the proper training of boys in those days and we saw more or less of it. I had progressed to the intermediate room where I saw a boy whipped in a manner that left a life long impression on my mind. The boy was Nathan Rounds who had the reputation of being difficult to manage. He had done something-I do not remember what-for which he expected to be punished and the boys said that he had worn two pairs of pants for several days as some protection against the sting of the whip. For a few days nothing happened but Principal Johnson did not forget him, and one day, during school hours, he appeared in our room and called Nate out on to the floor. Three whips-limbs cut from some tree-were stand- ing just outside the door. Calling Nate to stand on the floor he opened the door and reached for a whip, then took a position about three feet from the culprit and swung the whip with both arms across Nate's legs in a determined and cruel way; first to left and then to right until the whip was broken. This was not the end. He went to the door and reached for another whip which he applied in the same way until it was broken. In this manner he broke three whips and I sat at one of the desks witnessing the pun- ishment, tears running down my cheeks. It seemed as if I could not endure the sight of it. Not fear but hatred was engendered and I doubt that Nathan received any benefit from his punish- ment.
It was not uncommon for pupils to be struck severe blows across the palm of the hand with a ruler administered by women teachers.
There was one boy who gave his teacher more or less trouble.
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He frequently got into scrapes; went as far as he dared in annoy- ing the teacher. It was his way of having fun. His name was Ed Barber, a son of Heman Barber, a carpenter who built his house on School Street; the fourth east of the school house. The teacher in the intermediate department where Ed was a pupil was Miss Crowley, who shortly afterward married Danforth Hulett, then engaged in mercantile business: a successor to Edwin Martindale. The story goes, Ed had done something which demanded a rep- rimand or punishment, but instead his teacher decided to have a serious talk with him after school and make an appeal to his bet- ter nature. She told him to remain and when school was dismissed took the matter in hand. In substance she said, do you want to grow up to be a good citizen, or a man that no one will respect? He replied, "I want to be just like Dannie." How much farther the interview went is not recorded.
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