USA > Vermont > Caledonia County > St Johnsbury > The town of St. Johnsbury, Vt. ; a review of one hundred twenty-five years to the anniversary pageant 1912 > Part 21
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EDUCATIONAL
building of wood, two stories, forty-eight by sixty feet, to be paid for by assessments on the Village Treasury of $500 a year till the debt should be liquidated. This proposition prevailed, and in 1856 the building was planted at the corner of Winter and Summer streets on the west end of the present boys' common. After serving its term as a school house this building was moved some distance up the street where it was converted into an armory, and later reconstructed into a two tenement building, number 57 Summer street.
The new Union School was opened Nov. 22, 1856, Andrew E. Rankin, Principal for three years; after him Charles D. Swazey, Edward T. Fairbanks, Henry C. Newell. There were three grades, primary, intermediate and high. The growing school came to need larger and better housing. A most favor- able site, the one still occupied, on the west side of Summer street, was donated by the Fairbanks Company, and the new brick Central School House, as it was then called, was built, having improved methods of furnace heating and ventilating and ample room to accommodate 400 pupils ; it was dedicated August 31, 1864, with an address by Supt. J. S. Adams of the State Board of Education. Maple Street School house was built the saine season.
At this time consolidation of the districts was effected. Hith- erto the Union School had merely brought together pupils from three districts each of which meantime retained its own directors. These three were now incorporated into district number one, and the title Village High School was adopted. George E. West was first Principal, C. Q. Terrill the second, Henry Galbraith the third, C. L. Clay the fourth. The new system was entered in to heartily and "without stint of reasonable expenditure." It worked satisfactorily until the expenditure began to appear unreasonable. In 1870 it was pointed out that, with an average attendance of twenty-seven at the High School, "the cost per pupil amounted to $70 a year; that is $1000 a year more to educate them in this school than to send them to the Academy." Arrangements were accordingly made, and in 1874 the High School was discontinued as such, and advanced pupils were sent to the Academy for a
254
TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
three-year course, the tuition at that time being $30. This left two grammar schools on the upper floor of the Central School House, one intermediate and two primary schools on the ground floor, two primary on Maple street, and one each at Fairbanks and at Paddock Villages; and the system of gradation was re- vised and perfected. Prior to 1870, the school age was from 4 to 18, after that date, from 5 to 20. By the destruction of the school records in the fire of Nov. 3, 1882, details of the doings of 26 years preceding were lost. The upper brick school house on Summer street was built in 1881.
Under the town school system, established by Legislature in 1892, the districts as independent organizations were abolished ; the town was constituted the sole district, with control and owner- ship of all public school property. The inventory of the property thus taken over by the town in 1893, aggregated $43,146.17-of which amount the valuation of the two Summer street buildings was $30,500, eighteen other school houses $17,388; miscellaneous, $5,258. By the new Act provision was made for the appointment by the town of school directors and a superintendent of public schools ; for transportation of pupils and a daily register of at- tendance, the school age being from five to fifteen; women en- titled to vote on all school matters. Under the required curric- ulum the first place was given to instruction in good behaviour. The new system went into operation in August 1893, Mrs. Belle F. Fletcher acting Superintendent, for seven months. There were then twelve schools outside the village. William P. Kelley, Superintendent three years 1894-1897, demonstrated the practical superiority of the town school system and carried it to a high point of efficiency. He published a valuable manual of nearly a hundred pages setting forth the courses of study and lists of sup- plementary reading. His successors were Herbert J. Jones, 1897- 1898; Clarence H. Dempsey, 1898-1908; Corwin F. Palmer, 1908. Prior to 1895 there were ten grades; since that time pupils who have completed the ninth grade in good standing are given four years at the Academy, making a consecutive course of thirteen years provided by the town. The average expense, 1912, is about $42,000 a year; of which $19,000 may be reckoned for
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EDUCATIONAL
superintendence and instruction in the schools ; $8,700 for Acad- emy tuition ; $3,400 for transportation ; $7,300 for care of build- ings, fuel, light, supplies, etc .; $3,600, repairs and general.
In 1895, and for some years thereafter, the Caledonia Nor- mal School for teachers was held under direction of Supt. Kelley ; the enrollment the first year was 135, larger than in any similar school in the state; receipts were $546, and expenses $506. The Woman's Club appropriated $150 for a six weeks' vocational school in August 1904, in which 104 pupils were enrolled. In- struction was given in woodwork, sloyd, basketry, chair-seating, weaving, cookery, needle work. The results were such that at the next March meeting $300 was voted by the town for a similar school that year. In April 1912, there were distributed among the school children 4370 packages of seeds for vegetable and flower gardens, which gave them out-door schooling that season.
The new brick school house in Summerville was opened in April 1900. In style and appointments it ranked any other in the town. The old wooden building was sold for $200, the new one cost $23,000. School bonds for $20,000 were issued by the town, maturing in four years, from 1911-1914. The entire issue was bought by the Brattleboro Savings Bank at a premium of $7.64 per thousand, regarded as a gratifying indication of the credit of St. Johnsbury town.
Our public schools have been maintained at a standard of superior excellence, and with continuous adoption of improved new methods and appliances. This in part explains the priority of Caledonia County at the opening of the twentieth century ; for while in other Vermont counties the percentage of illiterate voters was one in 14, 15, 16, 20, 26, 29, 34, 35, 37, 53, 55, 60, 67-in Cale- donia the percentage was one in 70.
That the process of lifting Caledonia to its front rank cost the boys and girls of this town some expenditure of brain appears in their efforts at word-construction. A word they were working on in 1891 appears to have reflected their mental attitude; they were anxious to do well and out of their anxiety they succeeded in evolving the following collection :-
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
anxious
ancios
anchious
anchons
anskus
anchios
angees
anzores
anxios
anxches
anchois
anchionsh
anches
anxcus
anish
enchanix
anxioux
ancher
antious
anguish
This last indicates a state of mind somewhat advanced from the anxious stage. .
While as a whole this was a performance quite creditable to our juvenile people, it falls far below the achievements of some of our ancestors. For in a recent work on The Romance of Words, an English scholar, Ernest Weekley, remarks that "about 400 variants of the word cushion have been traced in old English wills and inventories." With superior facilities for twentieth century education, our children may yet discover latent possibilities ag- gregating some 400 in the word anxious, which now stands on our town school records with only twenty variants.
Parochial schools are noted in the paragraph relating to Notre Dame parish to which they belong.
JUDGE PADDOCK JUDGE POLAND
PRINCIPAL COLBY JUDGE ROSS
XXI
EXPANSION
CANAL PROJECT-MODEL OF A RAILWAY-TOWN ACTION-C. AND P. R. R .- THE CARS ARRIVE-DEPOT GROUNDS-LOCAL AN- NOUNCEMENTS-NEW HOTELS-COUNTY BUILDINGS-TRANS- FER OF BURIAL GROUND-FIFTY MEN ON BOND-COURT HOUSE AND TOWN HALL-CATTLE FAIRS-CALEDONIA FAIR GROUNDS -NOTABLE FAIRS AND EXHIBITS.
THE PASSUMPSIC RAILROAD
"The fact is, people would as soon suffer themselves to be fired off like a Congreve Cannon Rocket, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going eighteen miles an hour on rails."
The British Quarterly, 1825.
"The project of a railroad from Boston to Albany is impracticable, and everybody of common sense knows it would be as useless as a railroad from Boston to the Moon." Boston Courier, Jan. 27, 1827.
Some while before railroads had been considered a possibili- ty up in this part of the world, serious talk was had of a canal that might connect Connecticut river with Lake Memphremagog via St. Johnsbury. In 1830 a meeting of citizens representing the Passumpsic Valley was held here in Rice's Hotel, the result of which was that investment in the stock of such an enterprise was regarded with approval. This sentiment was strengthened by the arrival the next year of a steamboat, the John Ledyard, from Hartford, Conn., at Wells River, and +
"They hailed the day when Captain Nutt Sailed up the fair Connecticut."
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
In 1829 a model of a railroad was put on exhibition over at the East Village in Hibbard's Hotel. His little girl was lifted into a car and told that some day she might ride to Boston in a train of cars drawn by steam. It required considerable imagina- tion and faith to accept such a prophecy, especially if one had happened to read the Boston Courier. But in 1832 a train of cars was really pulled by steam from Boston to Lowell, the first train in New England. A contemporary who saw it start recorded some remarks overheard while "the crowd was waiting at the deepot : "
"Say ! that injine cant never start all them cars !"
"She can too !"
"I tell you, she cant ! She'll break down and kill everybody !"
No such tragic event happened ; the trial trip was a triumph and thereafter the railroad proposition found favor, notwithstand- ing that "the horses would all have to be killed as being no longer of any use, and the farmers would be ruined having no market for hay and oats." The Boston and Lowell line was pushed on toward Albany. After a time it seemed not wholly improbable that a railroad might some day be seen creeping up the Connecti- cut valley.
It was to consider such a possibility that a convention was called to meet at Windsor, January 20, 1836. A special town meeting was held here at which a delegation was appointed to represent St. Johnsbury at that railroad convention. The dele- gates were Erastus Fairbanks, Huxham Paddock, Abel Butler, Luther Jewett, Ephraim Paddock. The chairman of this delega- tion was an active promoter of the project, and was made the first President of the road that finally came through. At the March meeting that year the local interest took form in the fol- lowing action :-
"Resolved, that the inhabitants of St. Johnsbury regard with lively in- terest the efforts now making to have a railroad constructed from the Tide Water at New Haven to the Canada line through the vallies of the Connecti- cut and Passumpsic rivers. Resolved, that this Town does hereby pledge itself to defray its just proportion, with other towns concerned, in the ex- pense of surveying the above railroad route."
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EXPANSION
Seven years later the General Assembly on Oct. 31, 1843, chartered a railroad that should start from the Massachusetts line running up the Connecticut and Passumpsic rivers to the Canada line at Newport or Derby. In 1845 the right was secured to divide the line at the mouth of the White River, north of which should be the CONNECTICUT and PASSUMPSIC RIVERS RAILROAD.
The organization of this road was effected at Wells River Jan. 15, 1846, with Erastus Fairbanks, President. The section from White River to Wells River was opened for traffic Nov. 6, 1849. Trains were run as far as McIndoes Oct. 7, 1850. On the 18th of November the same year the whistle of a locomotive was heard in this town and the small construction engine Plymouth, popu- larly denominated the Quill Wheel, rounded the point below the Fair Grounds. Ten days later the first train from Boston pulled in to this station, Nov. 28, 1850. The next issue of the Cale- donian contained this announcement :-
THE CARS HAVE COME !
"Last Thursday, at about half past four o'clock the first reg- ular train of Passenger Cars came in to town. It was a cheering sight especially for those who have labored so long and diligently to extend the Passumpsic Railroad to this place. There was no formal opening of the Road, but many people were present and a little extemporaneous enthusiasm was exhibited. The arrival was greeted by the ringing of bells, firing of cannon, and the cheers of the people assembled upon the station grounds."
The contracts for grading and masonry from Wells River to St. Johnsbury, 2072 miles, were made Dec. 10, 1849. The work was begun Jan. 23, 1850 and completed Nov. 23, 1850. There were 45,000 cubic yards of rock blasted out, and a million cubic yards of earth excavation. The entire cost of construction was met by the proceeds of bonds negotiated at par. In 1850, a New York newspaper said-"in the darkest hour of the Boston money market, by the efforts of and confidence reposed in Mr. Addison Gilmore and Mr. Erastus Fairbanks, the bonds of the Passumpsic Railroad Company were negotiated at par to such an extent as to
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
allow the continuation of the road from Wells River to St. Johns- bury, thus accomplishing a great step in the progress toward Montreal." The stock of this road sold readily and uniformly paid six per cent dividends. The business done fully realized the expectation of its projectors. There were four locomotives in the regular service, bearing the names Caledonia, Orange, Orleans, Green Mountain Boy.
DEPOT GROUNDS AND BUILDINGS
The grounds comprised thirteen acres lying one hundred feet below the Plain level, and east of the village burial ground. Three new roads were built to the station. One from the Plain down directly north of the burial ground (Eastern Avenue); one from Dea. Luther Clark's house, (Maple street); one from the bridge at Paddock Village. The buildings erected by the Rail- road Company were, Passenger Station 75x30 ft .; Freight Build- ing, 50x250, fifty feet at south end being property of E. and T. Fairbanks and Co. for scales ; Car House 40x100 ft .; Repair Shop 40x100 ft .; Repair Shop 40x125; Wood House 40x100 ft .; Engine House, semi circular, 52x130 on rear, with pits for five engines ; three double dwelling houses. The Repair Shops after being burned in 1866 were rebuilt in Lyndonville. North of the Pas -. senger Station the wholesale store of Chamberlin and Fletcher was erected in 1851, where the Swift building now is. On the site of the Avenue House, Russell Hallett built a spacious hotel. The first dwelling house on Railroad street was built March 1850, by Amos Morrill. At that date there had been neither road nor building east of Main street except the little farm house lower down where the first pitch had been made in Nov. 1786. In 1870 there were more than 200 buildings of from $1000 to $30,000 value each, standing on the nine new streets.
LOCAL ANNOUNCEMENTS ON ARRIVAL OF THE TRAINS
Nov. 1850. Ladies and gentlemen visiting the Depot at St. Johnsbury, are invited as they arrive at the new and splendid Depot Hotel and wishing to take a view of the scenery around in the promenade upon the piazza, to ascend the stairs at the northeast end of said piazza, where they shall find
,
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EXPANSION
their old friend Aaron Farnham who will show them in his spacious ware rooms the most splendid assortment of FURNITURE ever exhibited in Cale- donia Connty.
And should you want to make a bed, With pillows for your weary head- He's live goose feathers, good and light, As ever mortal graced at night And these he'll sell so very cheap That with him no one can compete.
He will also conduct his friends to the pleasant upper Piazza-where they can have a fine view of the Depot and the cars as they arrive from the South and the scenery around.
"Look out for the engine while the bell rings!" W. T. Burnham's Fur Store, St. Johnsbury.
Accommodation Stage from St. Johnsbury to Stanstead. The People's Line ; Stage leaves after arrival of the cars. Hawes, Chamberlin & Co.
Ephraim Jewett. The most commodious store in northern Vermont ; and every grade of goods needed to clothe the body from head to foot, and also to furnish the house from cellar to garret.
Musical Instruments. Aeolians, Seraphines, Melodeons, etc. Jefferson Butler, Center Village.
Box and cooking stoves at Paddock's Furnace. Fresh Fish and Oysters. C. Ramsey. Fashionable Taylor, J. Bowles.
John Bacon has just purchased the Center Village Farmer's and Me- chanics Co. Store, and offers a large stock for sale.
Look! Look! E. Hall and Co. Dress goods, Carpetings, West India Goods and groceries. S. W. Slade, Attorney and Counsellor at Law.
Daguerreotype Car! skylighted, just come from Boston. Newton Brooks.
Doctors Calvin and Fayette Jewett. First door north of the Academy. Dr. Kilbourne, Dentist.
J. C. Bingham, Drugs, Medicines and Musical Instruments.
New goods brought in on the Cars! S. Jewett, just north of the Passen- ger Depot, St. Johnsbury.
Ramsey's Blinds ! painted and hung to order; so that they who will not be blinded are blind to their own interests. C. F. Ramsey and Com- pany, Paddock Village.
Two years after the Passumpsic road reached this place, Robert B. Hale the Superintendent, took a position on the Hudson
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
River railroad. His successor was Col. George A. Merrill, a man of superior and varied abilities, held in high esteem as a public spirited citizen ; he was town representative in 1857-58 ; Secretary of civil and military affairs under Governor Fairbanks at outbreak of the war; he built the brick octagon on Eastern Avenue ; in 1866 he became Superintendent of the Rutland railroad.
The Boston, Concord and Montreal road which had stoutly opposed the construction of the Passumpsic line, laid its rails to Woodsville and ultimately became tributary to it; the air-line train, so called, between Boston and Montreal via Plymouth, was put on in 1874, and remains to this day the most important pas- senger train that pulls in to our station, which is the midway point between the two cities.
In the spring of 1883, six years after the opening of the Lake road, a new union station was built of brick ; in 1900, exten- sive improvements in and around the station were made, includ- ing new tracks and covered ways, and gates at the Portland street crossing.
The Passumpsic road was leased to the Boston and Lowell road, January 1, 1887; in October of that year the Boston and Maine took it over on a lease of ninety-nine years.
St. Johnsbury became the Vermont terminus of the Maine Central in 1912, thro the purchase by that road of the 23-mile link : this side the Connecticut river.
THE NEW HOTELS OF 1850
"Trust me, Sir, you have excellent fine lodging here, very neat and private."
Ben Jonson.
The opening of the railroad caused a demand for better hotel accommodations, and in 1850 the St. Johnsbury House was erect- ed on the Plain, and the Passumpsic House near the Depot.
THE ST. JOHNSBURY HOUSE, built by a syndicate, had 150 rooms, could provide for 200 guests, was neatly furnished and ranked at that time among the best in the State. A. C. Jennings conducted it to the entire satisfaction of all his patrons from 1851 to 1853. His successor, Col. Carter, remained only two years, but they were years of popular favor. A newspaper correspondent
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EXPANSION
wrote-"Pleasure seeking travelers to the White Mountains will of course take in St. Johnsbury on their way, if only for the purpose of enjoying the comfort of a few days under the Colonel's hospitable roof. The house is new, spacious, conveniently arranged, nicely furnished ; and, what is quite as much to the purpose, is conduct- ed by its experienced and accomplished host in a manner to se- cure the approbation of all." A. M. Watson bought the house in 1854 and conducted it equally well for eight years ; he made many friends amongst the traveling public who were always glad to come to St. Johnsbury, and his courtesy and personal character won the high regard of his townsmen.
Following A. M. Watson after 1862, came a succession of owners and proprietors : Hiram Hill, E. A. Parks, Emery Thayer, Gilmore, Jerry Drew, Geo. B. Walker, E. E. Bedell, S. B. Krogman, Landlord Chase, B. G. Howe and others. Hiram Hill bought of Watson in 1862 for $6500, and sold in 1871 to Gil- more for $20,000. In 1875 Parks and Thayer paid $19,500, for it, minus furniture ; Bedell paid Jerry Drew $23,000, in the trade of 1884, backed by a syndicate of 20 men, seventeen of whom, in the hope of securing high class management, had signed a promis- sory note for $8000, deposited in the First National Bank, to complete the purchase price of $26,300. Bedell who had been recommended from Jefferson, N. H., proved to be a failure and a scamp; after a year's time he had paid nothing on the note, tho the contract called for $100 a month and interest. Then suddenly he was missing, leaving the property with a mortgage of $18,300 on it plus the $8,000 note.
A. G. Tolman and William Little were engaged to run the hotel so as to win patronage, which they did; setting a superior table at prices that did not cover costs. Extensive improvements were made with a view to effecting a sale. Then it was discov- ered that outside parties had been maligning the house amongst the traveling public along the whole line of the railroad. A sale was rendered impossible, tho Bedell had at one time had an offer from Hugh Moore of $31,000 for it. Meantime the expense in- curred and interest accrued brought the indebtedness up to $11,288, and on the 15th of Jan. 1887, the seventeen signers of
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
the note were obliged to pay cash down $660.47 each, and the property was left standing in the name of the Bank, which held the mortgage till about 1900. From this disaster the old St. Johnsbury House never recovered; its former prestige was gone ; it passed from hand to hand with varying fortunes; at times it was well conducted, but the building continued to deteriorate and finally the ownership of it passed out of the town. In 1913 a syndicate organized in the Commercial Club bought the property ; enlarged, remodeled and entirely rebuilt the house, converting it into a new hotel of modern style and equipment on the old tavern site at the Bend.
THE PASSUMPSIC HOUSE was built by Russell Hallett at the corner of Railroad street and Eastern avenue, costing about $4000, and opened in 1850. Horace Evans of Danville bought it in 1854 after several years' successful conduct of a temperance hotel in that town. Clough and Downing took it in 1856, and from 1860 to 1862 Col. O. G. Harvey was proprietor. Then came S. K. Remick of Hardwick ; the house was not in good condition and he bought it for $3800. He made extensive additions and improvements, and finished off stores that rented for $860 a year. Remick began with furnishing liquor which he considered a nec- essary item in a good hotel. It did not prove profitable finan- cially ; after losing more than $1000 in payment of fines and facing liability of a lodging in jail for the next offence, he closed out liquor dealing entirely, conducted a strictly temperance house and made $20,000. From this time on he stoutly challenged the popular saying that a hotel could not be made to pay without rum. In 1867 he sold the Passumpsic House to Jonathan Farr of Water- ford for $12,000. This was considered at the time a notably profitable deal in real estate. Bela S. Hastings was installed pro- prietor, after him O. G. Hale, who paid $15,000 and remained from 1869 to 1875. He enlarged the building four stories high to 168 feet on Railroad street and 400 feet on the Avenue, putting in stores and offices that brought rentals of $1512 a year. Morri- son and Howe bought the property in 1875 for $24,000, and from this time it was called THE AVENUE HOUSE. B. G. Howe be- came sole proprietor, and held it for about 22 years. In 1891 he
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EXPANSION
built the fine structure known as Howe's Opera House, connected with the Hotel. In 1896 the Avenue House was burned, involv- ing a loss of $60,000. It was immediately rebuilt by Mr. Howe, making with the Opera House a substantial brick block at this conspicuous corner of Eastern avenue. The next year Manager Doyle took $31,642 cash from patrons, plus $400 book accounts. He paid for meat exclusive of fish and game, $3699; for heating $250 a month in the winter, for light $65 a month. The manage- ment went into the hands of a syndicate for some years ; mortgages on the property accumulated amounting to $68,672; in March 1901, it was sold to Matthew Caldbeck for $70,000. Somewhile later the Opera House was dismantled and converted into apart- ments for rental.
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