USA > Vermont > Windsor County > Woodstock > The valley of the Kedron; the story of the South parish, Woodstock, Vermont > Part 10
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These boundaries for the animals and the fire depart- ment are difficult to locate these days, for so many of the farms have been sold and many of the names are now un- known. Only through an intensive study of the old deeds is it possible to locate these lines. The interesting thing to know, is that the South Parish had a volunteer fire de- partment and that sheep rams could not cavort at will among the flocks on those farms.
This Chapter would be incomplete without the delight- ful story of the marriage of Daniel Ransom and Lucy Edson Lake by the Rev. Jasper Hazen, on July 13th, 1835, at the home of the bride's parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Lake. Here's the report of the event written by the groom: "I paid the officiating clergyman a five dollar gold piece, which was a rare article in those days, silver being almost the only coin. We immediately started on our wedding tour and rode to the Green with E. S. Hayden and wife and
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George W. Dana and wife. Then went by stage to Rutland and Castleton, and then to Whitehall, New York. From Whitehall to Fort Edward in a canal packet boat and had dinner on board. Then by stage to Saratoga Springs. The rail-road from the Springs to Schenectady and Albany had just been built. The cars were of the English Compart- ment kind. They ran two trains a day, one was drawn by horses, the other by a locomotive engine, that had not much power, the head winds made slow time. Wife stayed in Saratoga, while I was gone a few days to New York City and Newark New Jersey, where an old schoolmate, Dan Moore, was at work in a carriage factory. Upon finding him, he dropped his work for the day and we went into New York to the theater, and the next day I returned to Saratoga. In going up and down the Hudson, the fare was twelve and a half cents each way. The rail road from Albany to Schenectady was quite straight and near Schenec- tady ran down a steep hill. On the top of the hill was a stationary engine, to regulate the hauling up and letting down the cars, always when one car went up, another went down on another track. After our visit at the Springs was finished, we took the stage for home via, Manchester, Chester, Springfield, having been gone two weeks at a cost of about eighty dollars. At Saratoga, wife had selected a nice handsome straw bonnet which I paid for, it being the first article of her apparel, I paid for. It became her then as much as a good one does now, and I don't see but that she is as handsome today, baring the wrinkles that eighty years of age will bring, as she was then at twenty- two."
Gallant Man! To see the beauty in the devoted wife of
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the long years of wedded life. She certainly was due that straw bonnet as compensation for spending those days of their honeymoon alone, while he went ambling off down the Hudson. Why did he not tell what he saw played at the theater in New York? Mr. and Mrs. Ransom lived for a time with his parents in the South Village. In 1849, they moved to the Green, but before that they managed the tavern, now known as the Kedron. Living at the Green, they kept the Eagle Tavern, now the Woodstock Inn, for one year, and then came the call of the West and they went to Wisconsin. He wrote this Memoir in 1894. In it he says he had never returned to Vermont, but that his wife and children had done so. The grand-children found their homes in New England.
"South Woodstock, Vermont, March 11, 1903. On Jan. 15 last, Joseph Slayton Holt and Miranda N. Holt cele- brated the 66th anniversary of their marriage at the Kedron Tavern, of which their son, Melvin J. Holt, is proprietor. Mr. Joseph Slayton was born June 9, 1815. Mrs. Holt was born Feb. 10, 1818, in Elmore, Vt. Her maiden name was Miranda N. Rood. She was the daughter of Henry and Betsy Keith Rood. Her Great-great-grand- mother was Catherine Wolfe, sister of the intrepid young General James Wolfe, who against great odds led his forces successfully against Quebec, which was gallantly defended by the French General Montcalm. Her grandfather was Thomas Park Rood, one of the very earliest settlers of Hartland, Vt. Coming up the Connecticut River in his canoe, he put in at Lull Brook, where he located his farm, and it is said he built the second frame barn in the town. This farm is now called Reindeer Farm and is in posses-
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sion of the great-grandson, Melvin J. Holt. On the old slate-stone slab marking the grave of Thomas Rood is this quaint inscription :- 'In memory of Thomas Park Rood, who died Oct. 10, 1795. Age 63. He moved to Hartland in 1762, one of the first settlers, bore the brunt of a new uncultivated wilderness, lived to see five of his tender off-spring taken by death, one only left to set this stone.' Mr. and Mrs. Holt have been industrious farmer people, hard-working, but with time to be neighborly and to form the righteous purposes which controlled their lives. There were born to them seven children, but of these only one is living, Melvin J. Holt. An accident befell Mrs. Holt about four years ago, since which time she has been un- able to walk, yet aside from this both Mr. and Mrs. Holt are in the enjoyment of good health and continue life's way with much of the spirit and good cheer of youth." This item was written for the Vermont Standard by N. Wood. We, the Canfields, attended this 66th wedding anni- versary. It was quite a thrilling event to see a couple who had been married so many years and whose minds were so keen and active. Russell Streeter, the well known Univer- salist Minister of the Woodstock Parishes, married them at the bride's home.
The Vermont Standard announced that on "Friday De- cember 9, 1863, the horse trainers, Van Olinda and Wilder will be in South Woodstock and give instructions on feed- ing, training and driving. They will demonstrate driving without harness, the only control being a whip." Along in these years, droves of cattle, sometimes numbering 200, passed through the village, to be sold or swapped.
As the old records are read, one is impressed with the
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freedom exercised in spelling names and the use or omis- sion of capital letters. Sterling is Starlin, Kendall is Kin- dall, Ansel is Ancil, Hoadley is Hodly, Alonzo is Lonso; the list can be extended. Every man adopted his own method of spelling. Capitals appear on common nouns and surnames begin with small letters, all of which adds to the interest of reading these early reports.
CHAPTER VIII
South Parish Schools
COMMON SCHOOLS
AT THE TOWN MEETING of 1779, it was voted to divide the town into "destricts for the advantage of schooling." An- other vote declared that there should be five of them and a committee of five was appointed to make the divisions. Jabez Cottle and Oliver Farnsworth were the South Parish members of this committee. They also voted to raise money for schooling by putting a tax of four pence on each pound on the Grand List. This was not done. At the meet- ing in 1782, it was voted to build a schoolhouse in or near the center of the town where it shall be most convenient. The Selectmen were ordered "To fetch a plan for Sd house and see that it is done." Dana's History says that this building probably was not erected. At this same meeting it was voted that if any money was left after building the schoolhouse, it should be used to build a bridge over the Quechee.
In 1787, a further division was made for school dis- tricts and there were then six. This process went on as the population increased till the number had reached eighteen. In the earliest years the districts were named for
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their location in the town in such fashion as this-the Middle District north of the river. This proved to be too clumsy and in 1824, they were all numbered, but that method is now obsolete.
A state law in 1827 provided that school committees should be chosen in each town to manage all the affairs of their own schools. Woodstock on February 1, 1828, re- ported that a committee of seven had been appointed. This act was repealed in 1833 and each school district was again a law unto itself and the Freemen could do what they pleased with their individual schools. They were the supreme masters in their own districts and there were none to dispute them, except as they disputed with each other.
All these years there was no state provision to help sup- port the schools. Each district had to meet its own expenses for teachers, buildings and any other expense connected with the upkeep of the schools. In the year 1797 a statute was enacted by the Legislature, giving the towns permis- sion to assess a tax on the Grand List for school mainte- nance. The struggle for sufficient money to support the schools is an ever present problem. I wonder what would happen to those men of the years preceding 1842, were they to come to earth now and see the increased facilities for the schools, the increasing costs. They would be so shocked,-those men of frugal minds and frugal habits- they would no doubt have immediate heart attacks and retire into the quiet of their graves. They could not real- ize the changing times, the greater demands, the ever in- creasing needs for broad and generous "schooling."
It is the purpose of this book to try to save the brief
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records of the early days of our South Parish but so much of interest and importance have been lost by all the meth- ods of destruction which go on through house cleanings and fires that it is most difficult to get information. The people who had definite memories of events and inhabi- tants of even the middle of the last century are all dead. And so we struggle almost vainly to rescue the remnants. Only one school district has preserved any sort of com- plete records. They are most valuable and give a clear pic- ture of the school maintained for many years.
District 17 was the Slayton-Ralph neighborhood. Elias Smith in his little book of memories tells about teaching there in the winter of 1788. The school was held in a new dwelling house which was in quite an unfinished state, the windows had oiled paper to give light which was largely darkness. For many years a brick building served this district but it is fast crumbling into a complete ruin. It was built in 1827. In 1797 John Simonds was the teacher and he must have been fairly well equipped and have had some vision of education for he assisted James Slayton that year in organizing the Social Library of the South Parish and he was the first Secretary. In February 1844, this school held public exercises. Jabez Crooker was the teacher. The following citizens attended these exercises :- Galo Ralph and wife, Seth Brewster and wife, O. Forbush, C. N. Kittredge, Gardner Windslow, Jr., I. F. Fullerton, Augustus Parker, Joseph Wardner, Sylvanus Hale, Norman Smith, Frank Standish, Jerome Kingsley, J. V. Crooker, Luetta Taylor. The exercises went off so grandly, teacher and pupils were encouraged to give another performance on March 2nd when declamations were given by Aurelius
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Ralph, Abiah Slayton, Silas Bordo, Florantina Ralph, Quincy Benjamin, Orlanda Benjamin, Elbridge Swain, Edward Ralph, Sylvester Holt, Lucy Ann Holt. Composi- sitions were read by Truman Slayton, Elbridge Swain, Elizabeth W. Brewster, Florantina Ralph, Albert Hoadly, Orlanda Benjamin, Quincy Benjamin, Abba Slayton, Lucy Ann Holt, James H. S. Slayton, Louisa M. Bridge, Lavina A. Benjamin, Malvina S. Holt, Sylvester N. Holt, Sarah B. Slayton, Marilla C. Slayton, Hannah D. Jewell. A Dialogue was given by Edwin C. Hoadly, Quincy Ben- jamin and Truman Slayton. Original Declamations were given by James H. S. Slayton, Hannah I. Jewell, Sarah B. Slayton and Malvina S. Holt. Some of these youngsters were put through their paces, performing various parts. Where all of the guests were stowed away on this occasion leaves even the imagination appalled. The visitors present were :- Paul Brewster, Jonathan Ralph and wife, Jonathan Ralph, Jr., and wife, Amos Ralph, Daniel Lake and wife, Lemuel Benjamin and wife, James C. Slayton and wife, Melvin Holt and wife, Mrs. Susan Bridge, Seth. Brewster, Abner Hemenway, Joseph Holt, Oliver Bridge, Abel Holt, Hiram Fales, Fred'k Kendall, Samuel C. Taylor, Jacob Holt, James Fletcher, Augustus Page, Charles Rood, Joseph O. Crooker, James Taylor, Dwight Cabot, C. V. N. Kittredge, Sanford Wilder, Mr. Rodgers, Mr. Jewell, A. Lamson, Mary Ann Wilder, Jane Cabot, Elizabeth Shedd, Lucy Kendall, Alvina Lamson, Nancy Fay. Some of these people came across the town line. These Shedds and Lam- sons lived in Sheddsville. This neighborhood was famous. Children filled the homes and the school flourished.
The Pelton School district is Number 9. The first school-
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house was built of logs and the children went to a spring west of the building for their drinking water. The build- ing was heated with an open fireplace. Of course every- thing was crude and primitive. The log building burned in 1822 and a frame one was erected on the site and a great innovation in the shape of a stove was put in the house to give warmth. This district embraced all the families on those hill roads. Some of the roads still exist and some have passed away as have many of the homes. Nathan Thomas taught in this school district in 1822-3.
District No. 14, known as New Boston, had its first log schoolhouse in 1797. It stood about forty rods west of the present brick building. In 1802, Jonathan Wait gave the district twelve rods of land for a school and a frame build- ing was put up in 1803 and the log building became Mr. Wait's blacksmith shop. This schoolhouse burned in 1812 and for three years the district had no place for its school but it was kept in various homes. In 1815, the little brick building was erected. It has been abandoned as a school for some years. Some of the teachers in No. 14 were Jonathan Kingsley, Jr., Celinda Thaxter, Mayhew Safford, Lucy Sterling, John Hayes, Jr., Billy Kingsley, Sarepta Emmons and Miss Palmer. This is the neighbor- hood mentioned in another chapter which was famous for its Lyceum. Could those brick walls talk, what interesting things we would hear. The winter terms were the times when the big boys attended school and men were the teach- ers. It was the notion then prevailing that only men could meet the problems arising from unruly youth .- Some of the winter terms in this district were attended by seventy
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pupils, only then they were always called scholars, even if they knew but little.
District 15 embraced what is now the village of South Woodstock. There was at first a log building and then a frame one. It stood near the Cottle Mills. In 1790 the Warning had an article "To see if the town will vote to hold the town meetings in the future half at the court house, the other half at the school house near Esq. Cottles Mills." It was never done. The brick schoolhouse now owned by Orion Grange was built in 1825 and used for school purposes till the erection of the present frame build- ing in 1903. Mrs. Elisha Perkins while still Abbie Abbot taught in the village the summer and fall terms of 1876. James Cutler taught school in the village in 1809 and 10.
The Fletcher school district is number 16 on the map of 1832, also on the map of 1869 which is in the Windsor County Atlas. The schoolhouse in 1832 stood not quite half way from the present school and the Erwin Fullerton farm and on the left side of the road going towards that farm. The land for the present school was given in the 1870's by Rinaldo Hopkins. Changing the location caused much discussion and excitement and decided opposition on the part of some of the people. But there was an earlier school in this region; it was down near the foot of Fletcher hill in the midst of the Scotch settlers who owned those farms. Mrs. R. H. Kingsley's mother who was born in 1812, had her first schooling there.
In 1872 on February 13, the Fletcher School held public exercises. Rev. Eli Ballou and Prof. W. M. Wright were speakers. A large number of the parents and friends as- sembled. The children presented to their teacher, who
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had then taught four terms there, a set of jewelry and a gold bracelet. Mary Fletcher made the speech of presenta- tion. Abbie Abbot, later Mrs. Elisha Perkins, taught the summer and fall terms for 1874 and 1875. At the closing of her engagement, a little mahogany writing box was given her by the following pupils: Ellis Eaton, Ralph Jaquith, Walter Hoisington, Jane, Lucinda and Addie Jaquith. Their names are on a slip pasted in the lid of the box. Mrs. Perkins has treasured this gift all of her days.
The school in the Crooker district has no mention at all in the town history, but the map of 1832 shows it to be located on the road going north between the Crooker farm and that of Windslow Phelps. The trifling bit of informa- tion which I have dug up concerning it has a most romantic sound. It was called the Wigwam and it was on a bluff on that road. Why Wigwam, no one knows. The name sug- gests so many things. Elvira Melissa Kingsley taught this school in 1820 when she was sixteen years old. When Carlos Adams' father moved into this district in 1845, school was held for several years in the basement of his house which stood on a bank and the rear of the house was two stories high. The basement was built of brick and was entirely above ground. This room was equipped with the necessary school furniture of that time. Mrs. Adams taught several terms. Miss Lattimere who afterwards taught at the Green was one of the teachers of this base- ment school. Other teachers were Benjamin F. Bement, Sarah A. Mack and M. M. Farnsworth. Maria Pelton from District 9 taught the Crooker school in the early 1850's. She was young and as was the custom of the times, she had to board round. She was desperately home-sick. The
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lilacs were blooming wherever she stayed, so the odor of lilacs all the rest of her days was associated with that home-sickness and she loathed their odor to the very last. Later on a school building was erected below the Phelps farm on the road to Bridgewater. The Wigwam! Why was it abandoned, and why was it so named? The silence answers not.
In 1785 the people who lived near the South meeting house hired Elder Elisha Ransom to teach a winter term. In 1796 a group of the South Parish, consisting of Jabez Cottle, David Bailey, Jonathan Crooker, Wm. Ellis, Wm. Wyllys, Nathaniel Hammond, Warren Cottle, Daniel Perry, Stephen Farnsworth, Abraham Kendall, Eleazer Parker, John Hammond, Daniel Perkins, Mehitabath Phelps, Isaac Kendall, Lyonel Ransom and James Covel signed an agreement with Jabez Hammond to teach their youngsters who were called Skollars. There were signatures for twenty nine whole ones. Abraham Kendall had one and one half skollars. Isaac Kendall one third. Lyonel Ransom two thirds and Daniel Perkins one and a half. Just how one third or one half of a child could be sent to school is a puzzle which I am unable to solve. Some of these men failed to pay their part of the tuition and Jabez left his bills with the law office of Charles Marsh for col- lection.
District 18 is the only one which has preserved the records of its separate organization. It is described "As bounded on the North by the South lines of Samuel Royces land, the old Field farm, Caleb Stows land Oliver Kendalls farm and land owned by Chester Royce East by Daniel Lake William Bridge and Lemuel Benjamin's
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South by Reading line West by Jacob Holt's Titus Lull's David Kendall's and Oliver Bailey's land also the old Davis and Mitchell Pope's farm annexed by the town of Reading." The petition for organization is dated May 11, 1829, and is signed by "Noah Cady, David Mack Jr., John Fullerton and Wm. Wood. They ask the Selectmen to call a meeting of all the legal voters in the district to assemble. John A. Pratt and Jason Kendall, Selectmen, proceed to do this. They met on June 15 at one P.M. when John An- thony was chosen Moderator and John W. Standish Clerk, and they organized a standing committee consisting of Noah Cady, John Standish and Wm. Wood and with A. B. Rice Collector." This precious old record book closes its reports in 1893 though the year is not given, only the day of the week and month. The Otis Wood family of this dis- trict have preserved this record. The first school in this district was located by the Darling farm on the edge of Long Hill. By 1832 another one had been built which stood on a bluff along the brook just above the Otis Wood house. Later a building was erected down that hill road and back some feet from the Woodstock-Reading road. Year after year the "votable inhabitants" are warned to appear at the school meetings to determine whether there shall be both winter and summer terms and the length of them, wood must be provided for the cold weather, ar- rangements must be made for the boarding round of the teachers, repairs have to be made on the building. It is always a complete record of responsibility and planning. At the meeting of 1829 they discuss the subject of build- ing a new schoolhouse, and they own some sort of a heat-
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South Parish Schools
ing stove. By 1840 all of these districts are getting a little state money.
That "boarding round" for the teachers must have been more or less ghastly. District 18 sold the board out to the lowest bidders; one bid which was accepted, was $1.20 a week for summer and $1.33 for winter. In 1849 the district voted "that Mrs. Susan Kendall be discharged from board- ing the teacher that summer." Sometimes children who lived outside the limits of this District attended this school and their parents in 1838 paid one shilling a week tuition. Each year they discussed having a new schoolhouse. In the fall of 1840 they voted to build one the next spring but they did not do so. The next year they voted to build one south of the old house, about half way between the bridge and the gate. A special committee was appointed "to sit" with the regular committee. Charles Washburn and James Anthony were to do the "sitting." The new school was to be 261/2 feet by 26 feet and the old house should be sold and the money used in the building of the new one. The Warning for the meeting of May 2nd, 1842, called a meet- ing to be held in the new schoolhouse.
At the meeting in 1841, they voted to abate John Darl- ing's school tax and in 1842 they did the same for Reuben Washburn. Along about 1856 they thought that the school should be more centrally located, and they voted to ap- point a committee "to apprize" the damage of moving and the costs of repairs. In 1855 they bought a lock for the door and voted that the house must be locked except for school, public meetings and religious services. The teach- ers' names never got into this book. From other sources I have learned that E. S. Holt taught in 1858. Otis Wood
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taught in this school as did his son Noah and Julia Holt who later became Mrs. Noah Wood.
As late as 1865 the warning said, "To see whether the District will direct the committee to procure Teachers and board as best maybe or sell it at auction one or two weeks at a time or the whole at once." The sentence is a bit in- volved, but we can guess at its meaning. At the meeting of March 28, 1876, "It was voted to engage the rate of the tuition of such scholars at the Academy as may wish to attend from this district during the school year and also to present the bills for the attendance of such scholars to the parents of the same for payment into the District treasury, giving orders there to the principal of the Academy to pay for said attendance." This plan was fol- lowed for several years. These records give the names of various families who lived in this district but of whom no mention is made at all in the Town history.
The American Whig dated Woodstock, Tuesday, May 2, 1834, contains this interesting advertizement; "Miss Gardner's School. (For Young Ladies in South Woodstock.) The summer term of this school will commence on Mon- day May 12th and the fall term August 18th and continue 12 weeks each. The course of study pursued here is de- signed to give Young Ladies who complete it, a thorough and extensive English Education. The following are among the principle branches taught, Reading, Spelling, Defining, Chirography, Composition, Mental and Written Arithmetic, Ancient and Modern Geography, History, Grammar, Natural Philosophy, Rhetoric, Logic, Chemistry, Botany, Astronomy, Intellectual Philosophy, and Geom- etry. Tuition $3.00. Drawing and Painting in connexion
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with the above branches, $4.00 per term. Board may be obtained in the village from $1.00 to $1.25 per week, in- cluding washing. References given by David Pierce, Esq., Dr. J. Burnell, Mr. Charles Dana, Woodstock Green, Richard Ransom, Esq., Dr. W. Bowman, Bailey and Morse, South Woodstock. This school was held in the Ransom house on the hill where Mrs. Paul Kendall lives. It must have been of short duration for no other notice of it has been found.
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