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 38
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UTILITIES
Manager Buzzell connecting towns east and west had been in suc- cessful operation, and its lines were absorbed in 1912 by the Passumpsic Company for $41,250, whose property then stood at a valuation of $336,217.87, on which there was earned the first year a net income of $11,163.09. Important and costly improvements were made the next year, including removal of the poles and laying an underground system of wires along the principal streets of the village. In 1914 there were 1553 telephones operating in the town.
WIRELESS The first wireless received in the town was a marconigram from John W. Titcomb to his wife dispatched June 7, 1904 in mid-ocean from the Red Star liner Vaterland. In November, 1910, Herbert Dean Pearl installed a wireless apparatus on a Park street house roof which has rendered messages from points as far distant as Key West and Colon; it also regularly records the noon hour from the government station at Arlington, Virginia. This instrument is 30 feet long and 75 feet from the ground. Leon Dimick, Corcell Stuart and others have similar lines of their own construction, and a more recent one owned by H. W. Randall is conspicuous on the roof of the brick block at the head of Eastern Avenue. Signals are now caught from ships far out at sea and by a system of relays contact will soon be made with the Pacific coast.
STREET LIGHTING
Hand lanterns did what they could to lighten the evening path for about ninety years. Originally these were of the punch- ed tin variety with a tallow dip inside and later a whale oil con- tainer; then came the kerosene oil lantern. In 1867, a street lan- tern mounted on a pole was set up by Richard Cook front of the express office near the head of Eastern Avenue. Then David Silsby erected one front of his clothing store on Railroad street, and soon after Howard and Rowell had one up at the corner of Main street and Eastern Avenue. These and possibly some others were after a while taken over by the village corporation, and others were added, till some time during the seventies there were 110 kerosene oil lights on the streets. The lamps were gauged
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
to run to a given hour and then die out; an exception would now and then occur, so that after some bright moonlight night a lamp or two might be seen resolutely delivering its illumination till the middle of the next forenoon. In 1880 the lamps were lighting fifteen streets running from the Advent church to the Fairbanks village school house and the ox barns on Danville road. This gave Uriah Elliott a seven-mile trip in two sections, one at candle- light to start the lamps, one at bed time to put them out. The expense that year was $447 ; in 1888 it was $695.35 of which $101 was for oil and the balance gave Levi Harlow, the lamplighter, consideration for the necessary tramping, trimming and care of the lamps.
That year electricity was introduced and in March, 1889, thirty-five poles were erected and the arc light system installed at the rate of $65 per year for each arc, burning till midnight. The expense of street lighting for the year 1889, three months oil and nine months voltaic arcs, was $1189.63, for 1890, arcs wholly, it was $2101.70. In 1912 there were 100 arc lights doing all night service at $60 each for the year. Both the East and Center Vil- lages and the main road to the latter are electric lighted.
FIRE ALARM AND TRUCKS
During the old-time fire engine period general alarms were rung from the belfries, engines were pulled up to position, attach- ment made to cisterns and inadequate fire streams pumped on to the blazing buildings. After the aqueduct mains had been laid with hydrants for heavier hose, a new bell of 2100 pounds weight was hung in the Methodist church tower on Central street. The village trustees paid $100 for the right to attach to this bell a fire alarm of modern construction with six alarm boxes. This was in 1875 and the next year seventy hydrants were set up on the vil- lage water system fed by the Flanders pump. That fire bell did service for twenty years, till in 1895 the Gamewell alarm system was installed with a heavy bell owned by the village in the Court House tower, and two smaller ones in Paddock and Fairbanks villages. There were 24 boxes and six gongs on the line; the expense was $2403.82.
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UTILITIES
TRUCKS The village trustees were empowered in January, 1912, after several years of fruitless agitation and debate, to ex- pend not exceeding $7500 for the purchase of a combination auto- matic fire-truck carrying chemicals. A central station which had also been authorized, was built on Eastern Avenue, and in Au- gust that year the new machine, American-LaFrance pattern, was installed. It was a seventy-horse-power truck carrying an equip- ment of two chemical tanks, total capacity of seventy gallons, 400 feet of chemical hose, extension and roof ladders, and 1000 feet of standard fire hose. Under the hand of demonstrator Ruggles of Elmira its clangorous racket, bright red dress and swift agile action made a sensation on the streets. It took 25 men across the Plain at 47 miles per hour, made the twist up Sand Hill at 12 miles and the slope of Eastern Avenue at 45 miles speed.
The superiority of this machine was soon and often tested, its prompt arrival and efficiency at the point of need has averted more than one impending disaster. In January, 1914, the village took additional measures for protection by voting $6000 for a hook and ladder automatic truck and $2500 for the establishment of a telegraph police and fire service. This new truck, the first motor-driven ladder truck in Vermont, takes the place of one which had done good old-fashioned service for twenty years. Like its mate, the chemical truck, it is at maximum a seventy horse-power machine, with rather more than twice its length of wheel base, viz., twenty feet five inches, entire length 42 feet. It carries eight ladders of 212 feet extension, also a forty gallon chemical tank and 220 feet of hose, a life net, and all modern appliances. Four men are housed at the Central station caring for the machines and ready on the instant of alarm to put them at work.
In 1895 the Center Village Fire District was incorporated and built the Firemen's Hall near the river ; the town the same year appropriated $200 toward the purchase of a new engine which was named the Torrent. Five years later the same amount was appropriated toward the equipment of a fire station and company at the East Village. At the present time the main reliance for protection is on the new trucks at the central fire station.
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
DIRECTORIES
The first village directory was published in 1875 by W. S. Webb of New York and was sold for half a dollar. There were 26 pages of names including Summerville. At that date there were no house numbers; an approximate designation was all that could be given, as :-
Poland Luke P
Prospect St off Main
Hall Emerson
Main St off Court House
Mackinnon Robert clerk Paddock John H
Main near Hotel
Church Cor Summer
Fairbanks Horace
W Ave opp Belvidere
The next directory was issued by the same publishers in 1881. By this time the telephone had obtained a residence in Bingham's drug store, and the names of 34 subscribers appear : the telephone rates were then from $20 to $30 a year.
The directory of 1883 was a home product, published by H. B. Davis and Jesse Gage of the Caledonian Press. House numbers had at this date been mounted on the principal streets, and this gave added value to the lists of residents. Names of all persons over ten years of age were given; of these some one in- terested in feminine names discovered that 215 were answering to the name of Mary. Summerville made a separate list.
Successive editions of this directory were issued from the same press in 1885-89-91-93-95-97 and in 1901 Dennis May pub- lished a village and town directory. The Union Publishing Com- pany of Boston in 1897 brought out a directory of this and five neighboring towns, and beginning with 1905 has issued a revised edition of the same every other year to the present time. This is a work of about 333 pages, the price of which is $2.50, and it includes the towns of St. Johnsbury, Barnet, Concord, Danville, Kirby, Lyndon, Waterford.
UNITED STATES FISHERIES STATION
"Master Corcuelo told me he had an excellent trout, but those who would eat him must pay for him-to which I made answer that the best fish would not be too good for the renowned Gil Blas of Santillane."
The Legislature of Vermont in 1890 appropriated funds for a state fish hatchery which in due time was established in the town
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FISHERIES
of Roxbury. Congress, recognizing the practical interest thus manifested by the state, followed it by an appropriation of $15,000 for a Government Fisheries Station. The inspection of various suggested sites resulted in the choice of St. Johnsbury, which had been warmly recommended by Congressman Grout. The spot selected was at the Emerson Falls where Sleeper's River comes foaming down the long rock ledge making in high water the finest cascade in the town. The dam diverting the water flow at the head of the falls was constructed in 1893, and during the following year buildings were erected on the reservation and the culture of lake trout was begun. John W. Titcomb who had been appointed superintendent of construction and of management continued in charge of the station nearly ten years, till his promo- tion in 1902 to the Bureau of Fisheries in Washington. His suc- cessor, Edgar N. Carter, was transferred in 1912 to a station in Georgia, and Albert H. Dinsmore, who had for several years been in charge of the government salmon fisheries of the Puget Sound region, was made superintendent of the St. Johnsbury Station. Subsidiary to this are two other stations, one at Swanton for propagating varieties of perch from Lake Champlain, one at Holden for trout, in charge of Miltimore E. Merrill who was fifteen years in this hatchery.
About two million brook trout are handled here annually, and among other varieties of fish, the land-locked salmon and small- mouthed black bass. Distributions of eggs, fry and fingerlings up to two inches long, are made to all the New England states and New York. The latest yearly summary of fish raised and distributed under direction of the St. Johnsbury superintendent is as follows :
Species
Eggs
Fry
Fingerlings
Total
Brook Trout
205,000
1,548,707
384,318
2,138,025
Lake Trout
16,000
36,000
52,000
Steelhead Trout
80,860
80,860
Landlocked Salmon
21,525
21,525
Black Bass
33,000
3,150
36,150
Pike Perch
20,225,000
58,100,000
78,325 000
Yellow Perch
10,000,000
10,000,000
Total
90,653,560
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
The process and stages of fish culture are of special interest in the spring when the eggs are hatching and the fry are in the swimming school aspiring to become fingerlings ; visitors may see them any week day between eight and four o'clock. The es- tablishment is controlled by the National Bureau of Fisheries, department of commerce and labor.
MODERN CEMETERIES
MOUNT PLEASANT Some while before the question of a site for the Court House had arisen it was evident that the old grave yard of sixty years ago had reached the limit of its capacity and of its good standing in the community. The time had come for more suitable and spacious grounds and public sentiment was ripe for more adequate supervision than the town was was likely to render. Responsible persons accordingly secured an act of incorporation, and on May 20, 1851, the St. Johnsbury Cemetery Association was organized, James K. Colby, President, Ephraim Jewett, Secretary. The charter provided for an issue of 100 shares at $6 a share ; of these 97 shares were taken by 78 subscribers, including nearly all the principal citizens of the Plain and vicinity. The name adopted was Mount Pleasant Cemetery. The shares of original stock having been applied to starting the enterprise, no more were issued and since then there have been no stockholders.
In May, 1852, a tract of eight acres was purchased of Lam- bert Hastings for $450, which included the portion now lying nearest the gateway, and later the same season a strip was an- nexed from Ephraim Jewett's pasture adjoining the highway farther up. During the next summer additional land to the north- ward was acquired of Lambert Hastings. Seven men purchased lots appraised at $1814 and from that time on the increasing de- mand has necessitated successive enlargements of the grounds.
The situation was felicitious in every particular ; being ele- vated, dry, easily accessible; its slopes and levels adapted to artistic treatment, commanding wide and varied landscape views. In 1875, it was said by a writer in the Lowell Citizen that "Mount Pleasant Cemetery is among the best in New England
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CEMETERIES
outside suburban districts ; commanding hill and dale, lawn and woodland in happy combination, and has a natural observatory from the summit with charming outlook over the town, the river, the mountains and the verdant valley of the Passumpsic." The grounds were laid out under direction of J. H. Sackett, landscape architect, of Springfield, Mass., in the spring of 1853; the dedi- catory services were held on the second day of June that year, including scripture readings, prayer of dedication and address by Rev. W. B. Bond.
At the sale of lots in 1853 the first choice was bid by Ephraim Jewett and at his death in 1866 he left $100 for the perpetual care of his family lot. This suggested the desirability of a permanent fund for this purpose which it was hoped might reach $3000 or more. The next year $500 was offered by one of the Trustees for this fund ; before 1890 it had reached $3006 as originally hoped for ; in 1900 it was $5700 and in 1912 it had increased to $22,710 mostly in sums ranging from $50 to $200. The Trustees are obligated to apply the income from these sums to the perpetual care of the lots so endowed, keeping the principal intact and securely in- vested. The general expense of upkeep and improvement of the Cemetery is met by the sale of lots. The Association is com- posed of lot-owners who choose to be enrolled as members ; at the annual meeting in May seven Trustees are appointed who serve without remuneration, charged with the administration of funds, property and general management; there are no profits to any one.
The acreage was doubled in 1888 by the inclusion of the large tract north and east, in addition to the recently acquired pasture extending to the Hastings Hill road. Ten years later the Lodge was built as a residence for the Superintendent. A re- ceiving vault and pavilion was constructed by E. & T. Fairbanks & Co. in 1870 at an expense of $2955 ; an additional sum of $2200 was expended upon it in 1907, when it was rebuilt, enlarged and modernized, and later the steel fence on the highway was erected. William C. Arnold was Superintendent 15 years from 1856, Wil- liam Green 20 years from 1871, A. D. Nelson four years till his
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
death in 1896, Alfred Guild 13 years till 1911, and S. D. Atwood since that date.
Not long after the opening of Mount Pleasant two of the active incorporators were carried to their burial, Dr. Calvin Jewett and Joseph P. Fairbanks ; the shapely marble block at the grave of the latter was a noticeable variation on the old uniform style of upright headstones. Near by is the rocky knoll sug- gestive of the ancient Machpelah, where Thaddeus Fairbanks, the patriarch of the town, received burial in 1887, after many years of valuable service to the cemetery as its president. Near the center of the original grounds is the granite shaft raised by the trustees and alumni of the Academy to the honored memory of Principal Colby. A massive block of granite near the west highway marks the lot of Judge Poland; a few steps above it is the upright marble stone that carries the name of Jonathan Arnold ; the height of land is crowned with a group of artistic monuments and sculptured figures. The most conspicuous object in the cemetery is the granite obelisk of the Ide family erected in 1893, a mono- lith of 35 tons that rises 32 feet from its base. Near this is the lot presented by the Association in 1886 to the Grand Army vet- erans, who placed upon it the figure of the soldier with his rifle. Along the entire stretch of this newer part of the cemetery are sunny terraces adorned with shrubbery and stones of tasteful design and finish.
FOREST GROVE, EAST VILLAGE This property is held by the Association of that name, organized in 1857. The trustees purchased the grounds for $600 giving their personal notes there- for. The old burial ground was on the slope of the hill as one enters the village from the west ; removals from this spot to the new grounds were immediately made, a receiving vault was con- structed and $300 expended for a village hearse. Family monu- ments costing ten to fifteen hundred dollars have been erected ; there is a good water supply brought down 194 rods from a clear spring. The location is well chosen, near the town line adjoining Kirby, overlooking Moose River with glimpses of the village lower down.
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CEMETERIES
ST. JOHNSBURY CENTER CEMETERY Under this name the Association was formed in 1864, empowered to hold nine acres. The Act was amended in 1906 allowing ownership of fifty acres and other property to the amount of $20,000. It was also made possible to assess a lot tax not exceeding $3 any one year upon lot proprietors for the purchase of additional grounds, improving and embellishing the same and defraying necessary expense of care and management. A receiving vault was constructed, and there were some removals from the old church yard. This ceme- tery is well cared for and is finely situated half a mile above the village on a pleasant slope looking down on the valley of the Pas- sumpsic.
MOUNT CALVARY CEMETERY The first Catholic burial place was on the steep hillside between Caledonia street and the river. In 1863, a stranger standing on the platform of the passenger station remarked on the pleasing appearance of the spot, the ter- races, with green fronts rising one above another on which were the beds where sleep the dead. The place however was too con- tracted and otherwise not suitable. The site for a new cemetery was accordingly secured, including most of the old Fair Grounds of 1855, on the plain above Paddock Village. To this place in October, 1876, went a procession of 1500 people from Notre Dame church, led by the cross bearer, acolytes and school children for the dedication service. The address in French was given by Rev. C. A. Beaudien of Montreal, in English by Rev. Father Boisson- nault. To the memory of the latter, revered for his 35 years' ministry in Notre Dame parish, a memorial was erected in the center of the grounds in 1911. A group of figures represents the Virgin Mother and St. John with the kneeling Magdalene, above which rises to a height of 22 feet the figure of the Saviour on the cross. The service of dedication was impressive, held on Mem- orial Day in the presence of 2000 people. The bronze figures were brought from France.
Of the fifteen revolutionary soldiers who were among the early settlers of the town, one lies in Forest Grove, four in the enclosure above Goss Hollow, five in the two Center Village
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
grounds, six in Mount Pleasant. In 1910 the number buried in this town who had participated in the five several wars was 204; of whom 118 were in the armies of the civil war. The graves of all alike are marked with flags and with the special honors of Dec- oration Day.
The area of Mount Pleasant Cemetery grounds at the pres- ent time is about fifty acres.
CEMETERY
The word is significant and historically interesting. The early Christians were accustomed to think of death as a sleep and of the place of burial as a coemeterium, that is a place of sleep, of repose and rest in God. It was brightened with in- scriptions of hope and cheer from the New Testament. The cemeterial cels of the ancient Christians, said Sir Thomas Browne, were filled with draughts of Scripture. This, as well as the for- mal dedication and the memory of sainted lives combined to make the place of burial hallowed in popular thought and in literature.
"In the holie grounds called the Semitory
Hard by the place where Kynge Arthur was founde."
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XXXIV
BUSINESS NOTES
Brief notes are here given relating to industry and trade subsequent to the period covered by the earlier narrative ; it is not possible to include all that might well merit attention ; space is given to some that have attained long standing or considerable proportions or a bit of novelty.
HOES AND FORKS The Moose River Works, so called, estab- lished in 1848 by Geo. W. Ely, were founded on the earlier manufacture of hoes and forks by the Fairbanks Brothers prior to 1830, when such articles were hammered out by hand on the anvil. The business as carried on and perfected by the Ely family has had an honorable history of 66 years and its products are widely distributed throughout the country. Garden and farm implements of many varieties are brought out thro a process of trip-hammering, rolling, plating, tempering, grinding, polishing, mounting. Formerly two car-loads a year of Nova Scotia grind- stones were used up in the works, these have been superseded by a new process of forging developed in this factory and now gen- erally adopted elsewhere. As many as a thousand tools may be produced in a day, they are noted for shapeliness and durability and have won many premiums. In 1868 they were awarded first prizes at the state fairs of Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri; at the latter tests were made that called out the following paragraph in the Daily Herald:
+ "We do not know but St. Johnsbury will become as famous for its hoes and forks as for its platform scales. In Agricultural Hall we saw the exhibit- or of the Ely forks stick the tines into a board and literally twist them one over the other like a string, as soon as released they would fly back to the
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TOWN OF ST. JOHNSBURY
original position. He also put the tines under heavy weights to straighten them out, after which they instantly came back to their correct curve. Hoes were tested in the same way, sticking the blade into a board and bending it back almost to a semi-circle but without the least injury. These are without exception the best articles of the kind we have ever seen; they are the con- stant wonder and admiration of the crowds who gather to see them tested."
The principal distribution has been in New England and vi- cinity, but in remote parts of this country as well as in Europe, South America and other foreign lands these St. Johnsbury im- plements are doing their good share of the world's work. Fire destroyed the factory in 1859, again in 1895, but new and better buildings were immediately erected. In 1893, the power was re- inforced by a new dam and steam engine of fifty-horse power, and in 1905 an electric current of a hundred-horse power was in- stalled. The Ely company, of which Henry G. Ely has been for 35 years president, was taken over in 1902 by the American Fork and Hoe company with principal offices at Cleveland, Ohio. This corporation has a capital of $4,800,000, it embraces a dozen dif- ferent factories and controls a considerable part of the present output in the country.
GRAIN AND MILLING BUSINESS The McLeod Mills On the spot where Jonathan Arnold put up the first grist mill in 1787, was the old brown mill built by Capt. James Ramsey in 1817 and rebuilt in 1842, subsequently owned and operated by W. D. Rob- inson, and finally purchased in 187] by Angus H. McLeod of Ottawa. He increased the plant from three to six run of stones and the storage capacity from 2000 to 20,000 bushels, erecting new buildings with modern machinery and fixtures. Within ten years the annual business rose to $70,000 with an annual freight expense of $18,000; the facilities were such that a car-load of grain could be unloaded, ground and reloaded in half a day. At that time the grinding and marketing of western corn and wheat was the principal feature of the business; owing to new pro- cesses adopted in the western mills this was finally discontinued and entire attention given to the manufacture of feeds.
The McLeod Milling Company, incorporated 1893 with capital of $55,000, was purchased by the Brooks Brothers in 1910, Jonas
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BUSINESS NOTES
H. Brooks, president; there is an annual marketing of feeds amounting to 40,000 tons. Elevator A has four floors of 60 by 102 feet with capacity for 25,000 bushels of grain ; there are five grinding rolls fed by water from a nine-foot head which will grind 2000 bushels a day. Elevator B has a floor space of 29,000 square feet and will accommodate 135 carloads of grain, about 2000 tons; the flag staff carries the flag 95 feet from the ground. This es- tablishment has an element of interest as showing on the identi- cal spot the evolution of the first mill that ground corn in the town a century and a quarter ago.
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