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 37
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
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in on to the sleeping postmaster. The grapple that ensued was not lacking in energy ; Dimick never heard the last of his attempt at assorting the early male.
Dimick was not a success as postmaster. The whigs con- sidered him an undesirable choice for a democrat, and for some time they made Passumpsic their postoffice for outgoing and in- coming mail. This did not prove convenient. They finally got Dimick out and Landlord Hutchinson in, so for a time the mail distribution went back to the tavern as it was in the old days be- fore the advent of a postoffice.
But James K. Polk was still President and it was not long before George C. Barney, the most exuberant of democrats here- about had the office over in his shoe-shop in the building whose narrow gable still fronts the street just above Union Block. After Zachary Taylor's inauguration it went back across the street again to Ephraim Jewett, an equally bouyant and manifest whig. But Barney kept pegging away at his shoe bench and bided the time for his second innings which came to his entire satisfaction during the two administrations that preceded the civil war. Our war-time Postmasters were Col. Geo. A. Merrill and Emerson Hall, very efficient and popular officials, as were their immediate successors, H. W. Fleetwood, Charles P. Carpenter and N. P. Bowman.
For nearly 110 years the St. Johnsbury Postoffice has been on or near its present location. The new quarters in the brick block were first occupied January 7, 1870. The increase of population and business eastward has led to frequent petitions for the re- moval of the office to some more central point; it is not unlikely that the new federal building for which Congress has made ap- propriation will be on Eastern Avenue. In April, 1872, a branch accommodation office was opened in the Randall store on Rail- road street. In 1883, a similar branch office was established in Summerville ; H. V. Powers had it till 1888, and C. F. Weeks till August, 1891, when in view of the annexation then effected, it was discontinued, free delivery being thereafter in force for the entire village. Station one, for stamps and money orders is at Stiles' store on Railroad street, number two is at Renfrew's in
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
Summerville-from these stations $8,625 postage was sold in 1912, and 3505 money orders were issued.
St. Johnsbury was designated for a money office in 1865. No record of the earlier transactions is found. In 1880 the amount sent out of town on 1635 domestic money orders was $17,923.61, also $224.25 sent to Canada and $224.34 to Great Britain. The amount received on domestic orders was $23,583.48. In 1912 there were 10,008 domestic orders issued, carrying out $64,644.56, on which the fees aggregated $584.79. Besides these there were sent out $6,052.60 on foreign orders. The total money order transactions of the year exceeded a quarter of a million dol- lars. It should be remembered that this office is a business center for nearly forty smaller offices in this region.
Free delivery was granted October 1, 1889, under Major Bowman ; not because we had 10,000 inhabitants, but because the office showed receipts for 1888 of $12,000, which was $200 in ex- cess of the limit required for free delivery. At first there were two daily deliveries and one at 5 o'clock in the business sections. J. K. Bonett, J. A. Paddock and H. A. Holder were the carriers. The cost of free delivery in 1900, the first year, was $4,306.85, the largest in the state, due to the mileage covered. There are now two general and four business deliveries, and six carriers whose trips average twelve to fifteen miles daily.
Rural delivery began March 1, 1902, with two routes ; the first easterly 21 miles, serving an area of 15 square miles, 87 houses, and a population of 391, H. R. Chesley, carrier ; the second northwesterly 22 miles, area 15 square miles, houses 101, population 454, E. F. Sherburne, carrier. During the first year 48,731 pieces of mail were delivered. There are now four routes, one of which, Jason W. Carpenter carrier, reaches a maximum of 24 miles, including besides this town parts of Danville, Stannard and Wheelock.
POSTAL NOTES
Parcel Post. Forty countries had Parcel Post service before we did. It was needed here as long ago as April 1865, when $2.50 postage was paid on a pair of shoes mailed from our office to a
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soldier boy in New Orleans. Parcel Post was regularly estab- lished in January, 1913.
Round about route. Two letters in 1883 were dropped into the office together ; one was addressed to Chicago, the other to Fairbanks Village. The latter contained $25.00. It seems to have stuck to the Chicago letter and accompanied it to that city ; neither there nor in Milwaukee nor in Minneapolis to which points it was forwarded could any Fairbanks Village be found. Its next trip was to Fairbanks, Franklin Co., Maine, thence to the dead letter office. In due time it arrived and delivered its contents to the waiting recipient in Fairbanks Village on Sleeper's River.
Yielded up by the Sea. A letter addressed to St. Johnsbury and postmarked Constantinople, March 2, 1886, was sunk in the steamer Oregon at sea off Fire Island, N. Y. On the sixth day of May, it was received at this office having been recovered in the last mail pouch fished out from the wreck. Three weeks in salt water sufficed to dim but not obliterate the superscription.
Resumption of specie payment. A letter to Postmaster Hazen in 1904 contained a quarter of a dollar. This was to pay the Railroad Company for a trip the sender had taken from the Center Village to this place 33 years before. The conductor had overlooked him.
Address List. The following persons were addressed as follows : Geo. May St. Johnsbury Darmont, Canada.
May 1884
San gOnsbury santr Mristr abal purs
(Abel Pierce, St. J. Center Sept. 18, 1868)
direCt thise liter to 9inty fore Portland Strete st. Gonsbery Vt.
Ples giv thise liter to yoUr sin in law and til him to giv it to his nerest nebor.
The nearest neighbor was duly found by John H. Moore, Carrier, February 1892.
Letters bearing 44 variant spellings were delivered to W. O. Rocheleau in 1902.
Letters addressed "Est odique" and "ipone" were forwarded from this office to East Hardwick and Island Pond, O. K.
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
Christmas. During Christmas week 1911, there were sold at this office, 31,000 one cent stamps and 22,000 two cent stamps; 50,000 picture post cards were handled. All packages were de- livered by horse teams and fifty mail sacks were dispatched on the night service in addition to the large number sent during the day. The stamp sales that week aggregated $1400.00.
Salaries. In 1830 Joseph P. Fairbanks, Postmaster, was allowed $50 salary ; some while after 1860 the salary had risen to $1000; subsequent to 1880 it became $2000; in 1890 it was $2200, prior to 1900 it rose to $2400; at this writing in 1912 it is $2700.
The gross receipts of the St. Johnsbury Plain office in the year 1912 were $30,665.83 which yielded a net revenue to the government of $11,598.36.
POSTMASTERS
ST. JOHNSBURY PLAIN
Joseph E. Dow
1803-1806
Ephraim Jewett
1849-1853
Barnabas Barker
1806-1807
Joseph C. Fuller
1853-1853
Amaziah D. Barber
1807-1815
Geo. C .. Barney 1853-1861
Ephraim Paddock
1815-1820
Geo. A. Merrill 1861-1862
Daniel Chamberlin
1820-1823
Emerson Hall 1862-1866
Reuben H. Deming
1823-1827
H. W. Fleetwood
1866-1875
Ephraim Paddock
1827-1829
Chas. P. Carpenter
1875-1887
Jos. P. Fairbanks
1829-1832
N. P. Bowman
1887-1892
Moses Kittredge
1832-1846
W. W. Sprague 1892-1894
Victor M. Dimick
1846-1847
F. G. Bundy
1894-1898
Joseph Hutchinson
1847-1847
L. D. Hazen
1898-1909
Geo. C. Barney
1847-1849
Arthur F. Stone
1909-1912
A. H. Gleason
1913
ST. JOHNSBURY CENTER
Ezra Sanger
Calvin Morrill
Horace Evans
David Goodall
Wm. P. Stoughton
Leon Goodall
Hiram Weeks
George B. Goodall
Edward M. Ide
Fernando Harrington
Byron Wright
Lewis W. Fisher
Truman Harriman
Roy E. Blodgett
Lester D. Stiles
George A. Dow
ST. JOHNSBURY EAST In part
John Bacon
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BANKING INSTITUTIONS
THE OLD PASSUMPSIC BANK, 1850 Considering the manu- facturing done and the amount of general business in the town, it seems today surprising that up to the year 1850 our fathers had to climb the hills to Danville for their banking privileges. There had been difficulties in procuring a charter ; the bill which finally chartered the Passumpsic Bank of St. Johnsbury, encountered serious obstacles put up by other banks, before arriving at its passage, on the 13th November, 1849. The authorized capital was $100,000, in shares of $50 each. Subscription books were opened and on February 1, 1850 there were 4357 subscribers who had taken 6926 shares ; these were mostly in Caledonia County, but with a considerable distribution thro six other counties. At a meeting of the stockholders to fix the location of the Bank there were 170 votes for the Center Village and 1650 for the Plain. A building was erected for a banking house, to be occupied in part by the family of the cashier ; that building, now owned by the Athenaeum, stands between the Art Gallery and the Berry-Ball store; the original site was on the edge of the sidewalk. Seven directors were appointed, viz: J. P. Fairbanks, Barron Moulton, John Bacon, Calvin Morrill, of St. Johnsbury, Henry Keyes of New- bury, E. B. Chase of Lyndon, Harry Baxter of Barton. Business was begun May 1, 1850.
The bills issued by the new Bank were regarded with interest in this town; the three dollar one would be a curiosity today ; they presented cuts of the farming and mechanical industries ; withal it was a new and pleasing thing to see the name St. Johns- bury on a bank note. Nearly forty years later a writer said: “I have before me one of the original Passumpsic Bank Bills, worth much more to me than any one dollar it promises to pay-because of the two strong, well rounded signatures with which it is graced: viz : J. P. Fairbanks, President and E. C. Redington, Cashier- men of great transparency and simplicity of character, of incor- ruptible integrity and fine generosity, whose memories are still gratefully cherished."
Under the National Banking Act of February 25, 1863, it be- came necessary to re-organize, and the result was the establish-
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
ment of the First National Bank. Cashier Redington and Jona- than Ross took in hand the assets of the old Passumpsic ; after all bills had been redeemed and outstanding debts paid, the stock- holders received the face value of their shares plus $4.01, that is $54.01. The affairs of the Bank were satisfactorily wound up August 2, 1864, about three months after the opening of the First National, which bought the property.
In October 1864, "a great loss of property by fire" was re- ported on the street. It proved to be $55,000, of Passumpsic Bank bills burned by order of the Directors ; $6,600 had been previously incinerated.
When the Bank Commissioners, bearers of specie, were here to arrange for the opening of the Bank, May 1, 1850, a stranger appeared whose movements occasioned suspicion. It came out afterward that this was the notorious convict, Bristol Bill, who on the 21st of June struck down State's Attorney Bliss N. Davis in the Danville Court House. His next stopping place was at Windsor.
PASSUMPSIC SAVINGS BANK, 1853 Under charter of October 1852, this first Savings Bank was organized at the St. Johnsbury House January 26, 1853, with Barron Moulton, President, and E. C. Redington, Treasurer. It appeared as an adjunct of the old Pas- sumpsic Bank, in the rooms of which its business was transacted for six years. In 1858 it was transferred to the store of Boynton and Deming in the Union Block. Three years later Jonathan Ross succeeded Deming as Treasurer and his office on the east side of the street became headquarters. In 1869 it was taken back to Union Block, David Boynton being Treasurer. For the next ten years its business had steady growth and in 1879 it set up an establishment of its own over the Bingham drug store, where it prospered till in 1885 it erected for its use the commod- ious and tasteful Passumpsic Bank Block, at an expense of $15,000, including the site.
In June 1877, William S. Boynton was appointed to succeed his father as Treasurer; he retained the position 35 years, and was at his desk as usual on the day of his sudden death, April 9, 1912. The treasurership was then conferred on Richard C. Baker
UTILITIES 457
who had at that time been in the service of the Bank 24 years. Passumpsic Savings Bank ended its first year with $34,838.99 de- posits ; it opened its sixty-first year with deposits of $2,812, 550.53 ; the number of depositors being 7025. All the assets and property of this Bank belong to the depositors; there are no other stockholders. Dividends to the amount of $2,178,595.10 have been distributed to the depositors.
FIRST NATIONAL BANK On the ninth of May, 1864, this Bank was organized with a capital of $100,000. This was increas- ed in 1865 to $250,000, in 1869 to $450,000, in 1873 to $500,000. For twenty years it remained at that figure; during this time two other banks were established and doing good business ; the capital of the First National was reduced in 1893 to $400,000, in 1901 to $300,000, in 1905 to $200,000, at which it stands today. It has paid in dividends $1,236,000, which is a little over three times its average capital of $400,000. During the panicky year of 1873, "notwithstanding its tottering condition," its net earnings were $65,000, of which $50,000 were applied to dividends, $15,000 to surplus. In 1912 the surplus and undivided profits were $62,679.61. The valuation of the banking house erected in 1869 is $16,000. In 1895 extensive improvements were made and a new safety vault installed; this has outer and inner walls of brick and granite, 16 and 18 inches thick, separated by a five inch air space ; and a steel lining of welded iron and steel, considered proof against drilling or sledging. The outer door of six inch solid steel is automatic in action, when closed it throws and bolts the locks, which are released by chronometer device. The weight of this door is three tons.
Presidents of the First National: Luke P. Poland, 1864; Horace Fairbanks, 1887; Franklin Fairbanks, 1888; Angus H. McLeod, 1895. Cashiers, George May, 1864; John C. Clark, 1883; Homer E. Smith, 1893.
"In February 1886, the Steamer W. R. Carter blew up and burned and sank in the Mississippi River. Three years later wreckage was recovered from the bottom of the river. On March 20, 1869, the First National Bank of St. Johnsbury, Vt.,
3
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
George May Cashier, redeemed twenty-one $5.00 bills taken from that wreck. In some of the bills the figures were identified only as blackened cinders pasted on the paper.
MERCHANTS NATIONAL BANK The increasing importance of Railroad Street as a business center led to the organization of the Merchants National Bank, which began business September 20, 1875, with a capital of $300,000. This was increased in 1883 to $400,000; in 1888, a reduction was made to $300,000, and in 1905 a further reduction to $150,000, at which the capital stock now stands. The first President was Col. Frederick Fletcher, 1875; his successors were William E. Peck, 1885; L. D. Hazen, 1894; H. H. Powers, 1896; Elmore T. Ide, 1897; Cashiers, Wil- liam E. Hazen, William S. Streeter, H. W. Allen, Chas. W. Ruiter.
Business was begun in the block which the Bank soon after purchased; the disastrous fire of October 1892 took this building in its sweep; the next day all that was seen was the bank vault, which stood erect and uninjured amidst the blackened ruins. This was a Morris and Ireland Vault with double granite walls and a time lock, installed at an expense of $6000-the contents suffered no injury whatever from the fire. An expert was brought from Boston who undertook to move this vault to a more desir- able position ; its weight was roughly estimated at 5000 tons ; he lifted it bodily from its bed, moved it thirty feet south then thirty feet east to where it now stands ; and over it was erected the new Merchants Bank Block, sixty by seventy-five feet dimensions, with large well furnished rooms for its increasing business. The Banking house property stands at $30,000 valuation ; surplus and undivided profits at $85,729.38. Since 1895 a savings bank department has been in operation.
CITIZENS SAVINGS BANK In a small room on the east side of the Avenue House Block, the Citizens Savings Bank and Trust Company began business February 1, 1887, John T. Ritchie, Treasurer. The capital stock, $50,000, was increased January 1, 1904, by a stock dividend of 100 per cent to $100,000 ; again by a similar dividend May 1, 1911, to $200,000, at which time there
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was also a surplus and profits of $80,000. In 1893 this Bank purchased the Ward block site on the east corner of the Avenue, 4400 square feet for $12,000; the highest price per foot ever paid for land in the town. Additional land to constitute a lot of 7000 square feet was acquired and thereon was erected the large and sightly Citizens Bank Block, 75 by 90 feet ground dimen- sions, four and five stories high, the finest business block in the town. The Banking Rooms were considered the best in the state, spacious, well lighted and richly furnished.
This building was gutted by fire in the early morning of October 30, 1909. The outer walls stood uninjured ; the vault was opened the same day and everything in it came to light as if nothing had happened. Reconstruction was immediately begun, with improvements and safety devices that make the new better than the old. The block is valued at about $60,000. The Citi- zens Bank has had but one Treasurer, John T. Ritchie, during its quarter century of business ; Presidents, J. G. Hovey, C. M. Chase, A. L. Bailey. Deposits at the end of the first year's busi- ness, $127,697.61, at the present writing, $3,322,161.66. Surplus and undivided profits, $117,504.31.
THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH
"We had letters to send. Couriers could not go fast enough, nor far enough-broke their wagons, foundered their horses ; bad roads in spring ; snow drifts in winter, heat in summer-could not get their horses out of a walk. But we found that the air and the earth were full of electricity, and always going our way, just the way we wanted to send. Would he take a message for us? Just as lief as not, had nothing else to do, would carry it for us in no time." Emerson
In 1851, within a year after the opening of the Passumpsic Railroad, telegraph wires were strung into the town by the Boston and Vermont Telegraph Company. This was about nine years after Morse had succeeded in sending messages between Washington and Baltimore, and it was during this year of 1851 that a convention of deputies from different nations adopted at Vienna the Morse system as international. The terminus of the line in this town was at the railroad station and here among the
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
first dispatches received wasthe announcement that Franklin Pierce had been elected President. This bit of news had a bad effect on Dr. Calvin Jewett, a whig of tremendous convictions, who was seen stalking by with forceful stride, smiting the ground with his staff as if to stamp out the dangerous principles of the democratic party in its alliance with slavery.
The next year a telegraph office was opened on the Plain in the old Dr. Stevens house where the brick block now is; Camp's grocery was then in the basement. At that date there were only two lines in the state, one from Boston via White River and Bur- lington to Montreal, the other to St. Johnsbury. Col. J. W. Robinson, who kept a hat store, was the first operator on the Plain. At that time there was great enthusiasm over Louis Kossuth's recent arrival in this country and among the interesting things at the hat-store-telegraph-office were the popular Kossuth hats decorated with plumes, the first one of which was promptly mounted by Henry L. Clapp, who thereby became a hero in the eyes of the younger boys. Robinson had an unconscious way of humming tunes while at his work without much regard to melody or tune ; in the midst of which one Sunday morning a friend re- minded him that he ought not to be sawing wood on Sunday.
The Bain system of telegraphy was the one in use at that time, messages being rendered by a scheme of dots on a circular disk. There was a fairly good opportunity for variation in the recording of messages. Among the early ones sent from this office was an order for a keg of tripe; as taken at the Boston office it read cag up trip. This was interpreted to mean-send a cage on the up-trip; accordingly the bird cage arrived on the next day by Cheney and Company express, up-trip.
Major Edward D. Redington of Chicago when introducing a . speaker on wireless telegraphy not long ago, commented on the surprising progress made, and remarked that when a boy he had learned the wonderful art as then practised in the little office at St. Johnsbury, Vt .- his first duty each morning being to go to the basement and charge the battery. "Where," said the speaker of the evening jocosely, "we will suppose Major Redington first won his military title by a successful charge of his battery."
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Telegraphy proved a boon to one man in the town. H. W. Brickett lost his right arm ; he readily mastered the art of oper- ating the instrument with his left fingers, and a year or two later came into charge of the office and continued in it till promoted to a position in the city of Lowell. In 1856 this line went into the hands of the Western Union.
Coincident with the construction of the Portland and Ogdens- burg R. R. was the formation in this town, 1869, of an independ- ent telegraph company known as the Vermont International, Franklin Fairbanks, President. This new line was intended to serve the new road and the region traversed by it; the towns fur- nished and set the poles, the company strung the wires. Pending the completion of the railroad and its stations the offices were for several years set up in stores or houses in charge of anyone who would attend properly to the business. In Bakersfield a woman of seventy years learned to operate and had the office in a small sleeping room adjoining her kitchen.
In 1876 this company extended its lines either way from here to Wells River and from Swanton to Canada line in order to operate through business with the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, which, the very next year was absorbed by the Wes- tern Union. Since that date while retaining its independent organization, it has operated under identical rules and tariff with the Western Union, having headquarters at its St. Johnsbury office. For thirty-one years, since 1883, E. A. Silsby has been Superintendent.
THE TELEPHONE
"Theodore N. Vail persisted in spite of considerable ridicule in main- taining that the telephone was destined to connect cities and nations as well as individuals. When the Bell Company refused to build a line from Boston to Providence, he himself picked up the risk and set off with it alone; owing to some failure at first it went by the name of Vail's Folly."
H. H. Casson
+ Early in 1877 it was reported that A. C. Harvey, Superintend- ent of the International Telegraph Company, was going to intro- duce to St. Johnsbury the wonderful new invention by which people could talk over electric wires. On the twentieth of July
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
that year announcement was made in The Caledonian : "The wonderful telephone has come; wires are stretched between C. C. Bingham's house and drug store, and conversation is going on. This is a curiosity that will repay investigation." Nine months later connection was made between the drug store and doctors' offices and real business began to be done over the tele- phone, tho at an expense above the reach of the general public.
In November, 1879, a transmitter made by S. H. Brackett of the science department of the Academy was mounted on the desk of the South Church pulpit, thro which the entire service, vocal and musical, was distinctly rendered in the pastor's house on Park street. It happened that the sermon that morning was on the theme of new heavens and a new earth, and occasional references to the graphic imagery of the Apocalypse coming over the wire with a weird and far-off effect seemed like new announcements sounding down from another world. This conveyance of a church service over telephone wires attracted wide attention; it was re- ported by the press all over the country, and gave to St. Johns- bury apparent priority in this particular application of the won- derful new invention. The Brackett telephone however was adjudged an infringement on the Bell patent and was thereafter withdrawn.
A telephone exchange was installed in 1880 by C. C. Bing- ham in the corner of his office, which he operated under the original Bell Telephone Company ; he held the rights for Cale- donia county. Prominent citizens at that time doubted its prac- ticability and were slow to take it up, but its value to the doctors was so evident that by the second year there were 35 patrons on the exchange, the annual expense at that date being $25 to each subscriber. Mr. Bingham constructed a line.to Newport, another to Bradford and operated the entire system for some years under the New England Telephone Company ; it was not very long be- fore he was talking with Montpelier, Burlington, Sherbrooke, Concord, N. H. On the first day of May, 1907, the Passumpsic Telephone Company was organized and took over property valued at $150,000 which yielded $4514.98 net earnings the first year. Meantime the Citizens Company organized in 1900 by
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