USA > Vermont > The story of Vermont (1926) > Part 5
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After the War of 1812 Vermont was no longer a State for pioneers. These hardy peo- ple now turned to the vast country of the West. In 1816 almost all the crops in Ver- mont failed because of frosts every month. It was called the "Starvation Year." As a re- sult many Vermonters sold their farms, put all their household goods into covered wagons,
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and joined the ever-increasing caravan that carried settlers into all parts of the great West.
Under the influence of the tariff laws fac-
Concord Academy, 1825. First school in the United States for the training of teachers.
tories increased both in size and number. These factories were usually located in States that had large cities. Many Vermonters pre- ferred working in factories to farming and so still more people left the State for these man- ufacturing centres. Nevertheless, the popula-
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tion of Vermont grew, but not as rapidly as in former years.
Both in Vermont and in the nation political differences were being forgotten. New inven- tions made life easier and more interesting. The kitchen range took the place of the open fire, the steel plow replaced the old wooden one, and railroads did away with the slow, tire- some stage-coaches and the still slower wagons for hauling goods to and from other places.
More attention was given to education. The first academy for girls was opened at Middlebury, and Norwich College, the oldest military college in the United States outside of West Point, was established first at Norwich and later moved to Northfield.
The two problems that caused the most anxiety were intemperance at home and slav- ery in the South. In the old days when Gover- nor Chittenden ran a tavern, people did not think so much about the evils of too much drinking, but as civilization grew they began to realize that a master more brutal than the slave-driver in the South was intemperance in their own State. As a result we had the begin- ning of the crusade against alcoholic drinks which finally resulted in prohibition.
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As to slavery, the rapid settlement of the West brought this problem more and more to the front and caused bitter feeling to rise be- tween those of the North who held that slavery was wrong and those of the South who held that it was right.
In our next chapter we shall read how this difference over slavery caused a new political party to be formed, how the old question of the authority of the States and the authority of the federal government was argued again, how a number of States in the South tried to do what the New England States in the Hart- ford Convention declared that States could do, and how Vermonters were called upon to fight to save the Union.
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CHAPTER IX CIVIL WAR
If you had lived forty years ago you would have heard older people telling about how things were before the war. In the thirty years before the Civil War the people of the United States discovered that their country, instead of being a few States strung along the Atlantic Ocean, was a vast empire. Bold pioneers from Vermont and other eastern States loaded their children and household goods into covered wagons and crossed over the Appalachian Mountains to the broad fer- tile plains beyond. They crossed the Missis- sippi River and pushed on across the prairies to the high Rockies, then to the Sierras, and on to the Pacific Ocean. The vast territory of Texas became a part of the United States, and as a result of the Mexican War the great southwestern part of our country was added.
As the news from the pioneers was carried back to the East and across the Atlantic to Europe thousands of immigrants came to America and found homes in the West. Then in 1849 gold was discovered in California and
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there was a still greater rush of people for the far West. In those days if any person in the East didn't like his job he could go West and take land almost for the asking.
Of the working people who came to this great country, thousands found employment first in digging canals and later in laying rail- roads. Within thirty years America had changed from a weak nation that the nations of Europe insulted and laughed at to the fore- most power of the world, the promised land to millions in Europe. It is small wonder that Americans held their heads high and bragged about their country.
But in the midst of all this prosperity and pride there was one thing that troubled the more thoughtful statesmen; that was slavery. As new land was settled in the West, States were formed and, in time, they asked to be admitted as one of the United States. Every time such an application was made at Wash- ington the question came up: Shall slavery be allowed in the new State? The North said no. Vermont always said no; Vermonters declared time and again that slavery was an evil and must not be allowed to spread any further. The South said yes.
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Vermonters and the North were right, but perhaps if some leaders in the North had ap- preciated the southern side better, perhaps if travel between the North and South had been as common as now, the slaves would have been freed without the terrible Civil War. Anyway, during those glorious days when the country was growing in prosperity and size only a few people realized that this question of slavery was leading toward civil war.
One of the statesmen who did see the danger of war was born in Vermont, although he lived most of his life in Illinois. To-day Vermonters point with pride to the birthplace of Stephen A. Douglas, at Brandon, but in the latter days of his life I am afraid he was not very popular in the North. Douglas, like Clay and Webster, saw that the ill feeling between the North and the South over slavery was growing worse. They feared civil war and they tried to avoid it by compromises, but they only succeeded in postponing it a few years. Douglas and Webster lived long enough to be called traitors by the North and cowards by the South as a reward for their efforts.
In Vermont and the other New England States the old Federalist party had lived on
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The birthplace of Stephen A. Douglas, Brandon, Vermont. From Crockett's "History of Vermont," by courtesy of the author.
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after it was dead in the other States. Presi- dent Andrew Jackson had made many power- ful enemies in his own party, and these men combined with the old Federalists to form a new party, called the Whig. In Vermont the Whig party was quite powerful up to 1854.
The leaders of both the Democrat and Whig parties were afraid to make slavery an issue. But in 1856 a new party, called the Republican, was formed, and this party came out flatly as opposed to allowing slavery in any more new States. In 1860 the Democratic party was split over the slavery question and the Re- publicans elected Abraham Lincoln.
Most people do not think beyond their own personal business or concerns. So, when in 1861 the news came to Vermont that the South had actually seceded from the Union and fired upon the American flag, Vermonters were greatly surprised. However, they were willing to fight for their principles and Ver- monters responded promptly to President Lincoln's call for volunteers to preserve the Union.
In those first months of the war Vermonters, in common with most people in the North, thought the war was largely a bluff on the
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part of the South and would not last more than a few months. But months passed into years and still there were no signs of peace. From all over the Green Mountains men and boys had gone South never to return and still the call was for more soldiers. Vermonters responded to each call. Before the end of the war one-tenth of the population of the State had enlisted.
When the lists of the killed and wounded from the first battles were known many people mourned for the boys who had fallen on both sides. They were all Americans; they were the innocent victims of a misunderstanding that had grown into war partly because of the influence of fanatics and people of narrow vi- sion. President Lincoln through all the years of the war kept this conviction; in one of his last speeches he pleaded for "charity toward all and malice toward none."
But as the years went by and still the burden grew heavier there came over the northern people a hatred for those in the South. They felt that the Southerners had brought on this terrible conflict merely because a party they did not like had won the election without first giving that party any chance to try what it
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could do. This hatred was destined to cause the South even more terrible suffering after
The life of a woman on a farm was hard work.
the war than the war itself. It was to last in the Green Mountains of Vermont for many, many years. Happily to-day it is fast disap- pearing.
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Except for the St. Albans raid there was no actual fighting in Vermont, but Vermonters were in all the important battles of the war. In the centre of almost every village you will find a monument erected in memory of soldiers who were in the Civil War, and around the base of these monuments you will find carved, "Bull Run, Chickamauga, Antietam, Wilder- ness, Gettysburg," etc., places where the boys from those towns fought.
In those days of few inventions the life of a woman on the farm was hard work from day- light to dark, with no vacation. Yet during the war these brave women somehow found time to do the men's work too and to make clothing for the boys in the South. I think they de- serve a monument quite as much as the sol- diers but I have never found one for them.
The St. Albans raid took place in October, 1864. In the days before the war slaves who had run away from cruel masters down South tried to get into Canada and, no doubt, many Vermonters helped them get there. Canada was a different country; its government did not believe that a human being, black or white, was any one's property and so the masters were unable to take a slave out of Canada.
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. During the Civil War many captured Con- federate soldiers escaped from northern prisons and made their way into Canada. The north- ern soldiers had no right to enter Canada to capture them again and so, although they were far from their southern homes, they were free.
By 1864 there were a large number of former Confederate soldiers in Canada. They knew that almost all the northern armies were in the South, and some of them thought that if they crossed from Canada into the United States and raided some towns along the border it would so frighten the people that some of the soldiers in the South would have to be sent back to protect these towns. This would mean fewer men to fight against their friends in the South.
St. Albans, in the northern part of Vermont, was one of the places selected. The Confed- erates had to keep their plans secret, for the government of Canada was neutral in the war. That meant that officially she did not favor either the South or the North and that neither side could use any of her land for military purposes. She did not regard escaped prison- ers of war as soldiers, but the moment any
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escaped prisoner tried to help his friends he was considered a soldier and could not remain in Canada. For this reason many of the Con- federates would not join the plan. They said: "We can't do any lasting good, we will be put out of Canada and that means we will be put back into northern prisons." However, one day in October, 1864, a number of former Confederate soldiers entered St. Albans on horseback disguised as visitors. At a signal they broke into the banks and several stores and with what booty they could collect rushed back to Canada.
There was quite a lot of excitement for a few days and all kinds of rumors about a Con- federate army coming from Canada. But in a few days people realized that this was im- possible, and the southerners who took part in the raid made more trouble for themselves than for any one else.
Then came the happy days of 1865, the war was over and the soldier boys were coming home. Alas! not all of them, for from every village there were some who had given their lives for the Union. Of the returning soldiers some wanted nothing better than to spend the rest of their days amid the mountains they
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loved; others did not feel that way. During the war they had seen much of the country and had met men from everywhere. Those who lived on isolated mountain farms realized that in some other parts of the country there were better chances to get ahead, to make money, than in Vermont. A few years after the war many of these left Vermont again, this time not to fight, but to seek new fortunes in the growing cities or in the undeveloped West.
CHAPTER X THE GREEN MOUNTAINS
Let us make believe that we are walking along the bank of one of the rivers in Vermont in the spring, when the water is high because of the melting snow up in the Green Moun- tains. In the summer this water will be so clear that in quiet places you can see the grass and trees on the bank reflected in it, but now it is a dirty brown color and runs by so fast that when we stand still and look at it steadily we feel that we and the ground we are standing on are rushing up-stream at great speed.
As we continue our walk we come by and by to a little pocket or bay cut in the side of the bank. In this bay the water is calm and a number of bits of driftwood float leisurely around on its surface. Once in a while one of these pieces floats too near the main current and is carried off down-stream.
This quiet bay represents the story of Ver- mont in the years following the Civil War, and the rushing river represents the rest of the
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country. The bits of driftwood that are car- ried out of the bay represent the men and women who left Vermont for other parts of the country.
First let us take a brief look at the other parts of our country. We think first of the South because there the war was fought. People who had been used to comfortable homes with colored slaves to wait on them, now found that they had almost nothing left. Worse than that, the ignorant slaves had just been made free, and many of them, under the leadership of dishonest men from the North, controlled the legislatures of the States. They spent in all kinds of foolish and dishonest ways · more money in a year than the States had spent in twenty-five years before the war, and they put heavy taxes on the former soldiers and their families to raise this money. It was many years before life in the South became peaceful again.
Out in the far West a new country was being settled, new mines of gold and silver and other valuable metals were being discovered, and thousands of miles of railroad were being laid. Cowboys, miners, foreign laborers, speculators, gamblers, rum-sellers, and the steady stream
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of new-comers in search of a fortune made life there exciting enough.
In the East, north of the southern States, new factories were opened, country towns grew into cities, and a few men were building up immense fortunes, not always honestly. As a result the laboring people began to strike for a fairer share of the country's wealth. The rich men brought over from countries of southern Europe shiploads of laborers to take the places of the strikers. The strikers refused to allow them to work and oftentimes bitter fights occurred.
But up in Vermont life went on much as it had before the war. Most of the people were farmers and many who lived up in the moun- tains hardly knew what was going on in the rest of the country. In the spring when the bluebirds came back it was time to make maple sugar. They trudged through the melt- ing snow to tap the maple trees. Large cans were put on a sort of flat-bottomed boat and pulled from tree to tree by the patient oxen until they were filled with sap and hauled to the sugar-houses. At the sugar-house a fire was kept going day and night under a large vat to boil the sap down to maple syrup and
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sugar. Warm, clear days and freezing nights made ideal sap weather.
When little green buds appeared on the
In the spring it was time to make maple sugar.
branches of the trees the sugar season was over. Then there were pasture fences to be fixed up for the cows and sheep and after that the hard work of plowing and planting.
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In those days of but crude farm machinery it was hard labor from sunrise to sunset all through the summer and early autumn.
When the first snow came the farmer might take a few days off for hunting. In the winter, in addition to the never ceasing chores, there was wood to be cut and, when sleighing was good, logs to be hauled to the nearest sawmill or firewood to the village.
Here and there, usually at crossroads, a church and schoolhouse were built, then a country store would open, and gradually some of the older people would leave the isolated farms, buy a little land and build homes near the church and school. These little ham- lets, hardly large enough to be called villages, were the centres for the surrounding farmers. Here they came together on Sunday for church, and here their children came to the little one- room schoolhouses.
At the store butter and eggs were exchanged for dry goods and groceries, and in the winter the farmers would gather around the stove to hear some one read the newspaper and to talk politics.
Usually there were several of these hamlets in a township. At one of them would be built the town hall and it became the centre
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of the town government. Here every March all the voters would come together for town meeting. They elected town officers, decided how much of the town's money should be spent for schools, how much for roads, etc. Every other year they elected one of their townsmen to go to the legislature, at Montpelier.
To go to the legislature was a great event. It was and, to a large extent, still is customary to appoint a different person each time so that as many as possible may have the plea- sure. There are counties in Vermont, but most of the government is in the hands of town or State officials.
These Vermont farmers were good neigh- bors. Sometimes people called them close but that was because they had little money. If a farmer was sick neighbors would help on his farm; they were always willing to give liberally of their farm products to church socials, to visitors, or to the sick. In the little school- house or the town hall they used to put on simple plays, tableaux and other entertain- ments. In some sections there were debates. They were not ignorant people and in prep- aration for their debates they would study the best books.
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However, it was a hard, lonely life on these mountain farms - probably harder for the · women folk than for the men - and the re-
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Copyright by Underwood & Underwood.
President Coolidge.
ward was just a living. As a result many of the younger people would leave the quiet bay and go out into other parts of the country.
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President Coolidge is a typical example of this. Plymouth, his birthplace and boyhood home, is a crossroads settlement: a church, schoolhouse, store, and few houses. When he grew old enough for high school his father sent him to the nearest village, Ludlow. From there, after a year at the academy in St. Johnsbury, he went to college. There was not much future for a brilliant college gradu- ate in his home settlement and so, like hun- dreds of other Vermonters, he went to the larger towns.
But if Plymouth could not offer President Coolidge much after he left college it had given him a great deal. In the first place it had taught him self-reliance. When the children in places like Plymouth wanted a plaything they didn't go to a store and buy it; instead, they went to the barn and made it. When they grew up it was the same way; almost every- thing they owned they had made. This gave them a sense of self-confidence, of indepen- dence, the courage to follow their own convic- tions without fear of what some one else might do.
In a simple hard-working community like Plymouth no one had any use for a lazy or
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dishonest person. Their simple but sincere religion, their hard but honest toil, and, per- haps most of all, the beautiful mountains on all sides of them developed a deep love of home and of loyalty.
Sometimes people say that these Vermont farmers were not progressive, that they lived in a rut. There is some truth in this, but it is a result of their love of home. One old farmer returned home from a few days' visit to find that his daughter-in-law had had a new win- dow cut in the kitchen to make it lighter. It was weeks before he could get used to it. He used to say: "It ain't like the old home."
These people lived so much by themselves and did so much for themselves that they were apt to be distrustful of things that they could not understand. One old farmer, and not an ignorant man either, once said to the writer: "When I went to school they used to try to tell me that the sun didn't go round the earth every day. There are a few things I see, and ever since I was a baby I have seen the sun come up over the mountains in the east, go across the sky, and go down in the west, and no one can ever make me believe that it doesn't."
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But if for a time things did not change much in Vermont, things were happening in the rest of the world that were bound to bring changes. The vast plains of the West could raise grain cheaper than the hills of Vermont. Sheep- raising, once the farmers' best standby, be- came less profitable. Railroads made the sup- ply of milk to the growing cities a big source of profit. But milk must be shipped every day and the out-of-the-way mountain farmers could not get milk to the railroad stations every day without using up most of the day in going back and forth.
In Philadelphia a great world's fair was held in 1876. It was called the Centennial because it was one hundred years after the Declara- tion of Independence. At this fair, Americans saw models of European buildings far more beautiful than any in this country, and there came about a desire for beautiful buildings. This led to a larger demand for marble and granite, and nowhere else in the country were there such fine marble and granite as in Ver- mont.
Things like these influenced the younger people to leave the mountain farms and to take up land in the fertile river valleys where
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Lake Willoughby, Vermont.
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thousands of cows could pasture and where fodder for winter could be raised and kept in silos and where it was easy to get to the rail- roads. Others went to the towns and worked in the growing industries. As a result the mountain farms began to be deserted and many little crossroads settlements like Plym- outh grew even smaller. Up in the moun- tains of Vermont to-day you may see houses and barns gradually going to ruin.
These mountain farms were isolated and it was hard to make any money on them, but one thing they did have beyond any other place, and that was beauty. From them you could look down a valley to a clear mountain brook and beyond that to the wooded hills and mountains. For every season of the year there was a magnificent view that made one's heart cry out with the prophet of old: "I will look unto the hills from whence my strength cometh." This is the reason why, in spite of its hardships and small rewards in money, many Vermonters still cling to their mountain homes.
Then there came an invention that to-day is causing a big change in the mountains of Ver- mont; old houses are being restored, other
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houses are being enlarged, and modern con- veniences added. That invention is the auto- mobile. The old roads, where during a part of the year it was almost impossible for a horse to get through, are disappearing and in their places are hard-surfaced modern roads. These roads usually follow close by a mountain brook and about every quarter-mile reveals to the traveller a pleasing surprise. Here a forest closes him in and a little way beyond up a grade, around a curve, he sees before him a glorious panorama of mountains and below in the distance a plain with its herd of grazing cattle. A little way more and he is beside a mountain lake surrounded by hills and woods where white birches admire their graceful curves reflected in the clear water and again he enters a deep cut between two hills where he expects every minute the road will end at the foot of a steep cliff, but, turning this way and that, it goes on to other beautiful views beyond. The most delightful experience of all awaits those who are hardy enough to leave their car at an inn and follow the trails that lead over the mountain peaks and sleep in the huts that have been built along the mountain path. The Green Mountain Trail
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