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Joseph Call also known as “The Modern Hercules”, “The Lewis Giant”, “Big Joe”, “Stout Joe” and “The Paul Bunyan of the East”.

Joe Call was one of the fabulous strong men and wrestlers around whom a whole saga of myths and legends have grown. He has often been referred to as the Paul Bunyan of the East, but, unlike Paul who was created by the advertising department of a lumber company, Joe was an actual person and a highly respected citizen of Lewis, Essex, NY. Essex County mythology is enriched by many a story about the strength of Joe Call.

There have been many articles and a book written about our ancestor Joseph Call. Joe Call was born on the old Cushing farm two miles north of Woodstock, Vermont on March 31, 1781. His fathers name was James Call and was called “The Prince of Wanderers” because he apparently moved seven or eight times before settling in Woodstock. At the age of fifty, the father married for the third time and this wife was 15 year-old Anne Powers. Joe was the second son of this marriage and one of seventeen Call children from all marriages.

Joe was reportedly 6′ 3″ tall, thick set and stronger than he looked. Some conservative estimates credit him with the strength of 3 men. He was also described as “above medium height, large without being excessively fat, compactly built, as spry as a cat and of jovial disposition.(Hall) One other description says “Joe was characterized as being tall, straight and broad shouldered, principally bone and muscle, a gentle man at all times, there being none of the bravado about him and a man who used but little liquor in his career.”

Within his family, Joe was the largest and strongest of his generation, but his uncle Nathan was also ‘immense and powerfully built.’ Joe’s older brother Jesse, known as Tip, was also said to be very strong. There is even a story about a powerful Call sister who would wrestle with challengers when Joe was away.(Hall)

We don’t know much about Joe Call as a youth other than that he was a ‘leader and champion’ of the local youth. One story from his school days says that Joe, being guilty of some infraction of rules or misconduct, was called to the front of the class to be punished. Joe strode to the teacher, ‘took hold and tossed him out the window, to the delight of his companions.’ (Hall)

As he grew older, his sense of humor was apparent as he displayed his physical superiority. ‘At one get together he hefted a barrel of cider to his mouth and, after slacking his own thirst, gravely offered to pass it around the rest of the company.’ (De Sormo) As a youth Joe matched his strength against anybody who claimed any strength of their own. Joe’s fame as a wrestler spread locally. Joe traveled abroad and won a wrestling match in Scotland spreading his fame overseas.

Joe worked variously as a logger/lumberer, teamster, farmer, sawmill operator, and mill wright. He served in the militia, ran a store and served as a postmaster, town assessor, auditor, and Justice of the Peace. While working as a teamster, ‘whenever he happened to bog down in a mud hole, he crawled under the wagon, made himself into a human jack and lifted it to dry land.’ (Hall) One noted event occurred while Joe was a teamster. At a tavern Joe overheard one of the crowd bragging how he had thrown Joe Call. (Joe’s reputation was already wide spread.) Joe had not seen this man before and was somewhat startled by the declaration. Joe responded that he too had wrassled Joe Call and knew all his holds and tricks, and challenged the man to a round or two. One version of the story has Joe lifting the stranger off the floor, holding him at arm’s length and saying “now wrassle!” When the victim asked “Who the devil are you?” Joe answered “The man you threw, Joe Call at your service.” (De Sormo)

One story has a ‘champion wrestler’ from overseas who came to American specifically to wrestle Call seeking Joe out on his Lewis farm, where Joe was in the field plowing. Not recognizing Joe, the stranger asked directions to Joe Call’s house. Guessing the purpose of this visit, Joe lifted his plow in one hand and silently pointed to the nearest farm house. The stranger then left without challenging Call. (De Sormo) Like all able bodied men of the time, Joe served in the militia for the war of 1812. Two notable events occurred during this time. The first event has Joe and another soldier, Abraham Chase, ‘celebrating’ a minor victory together in a tavern. After a few drinks Chase challenged Call to a match saying “I feel good enough to throw you.” and proceeded to do just that without very much effort. The story states that Joe had either been soldiering or celebrating too hard! In any case, Chase claimed from then on to be the only man to ever throw Joe Call, and in fact has that statement engraved on his tombstone in Memorial Cemetery, Willsboro, NY. (De Sormo)

Another wrestling match occurred while Joe Call was still in the militia. For some reason, “Joe went to the British camp on an errand where the British had their own champion, a mean brute who had never met his equal in a match. Several of the English officers, on learning that the celebrated American wrestler was in their midst, realized that the situation was a natural for a match, but Joe refused to fight. Finally, the English Bully made some slurring remark about the Yankees, which enraged Joe. At the first onset Joe was brought to his knees. Joe had often said he never could discover any difference in the strength of men, but that now he felt he must exert all his power. Seizing hold of his antagonist he bowed himself with all his strength and gradually squeezed the boaster to his breast. The Englishman gave one shriek,….and when Joe released him from his grasp, the bully fell…dead at his feet! As Joe later said, “It was either his life of mine!”- a fight to the death.” (De Sormo)

Joe Call continued to be popular at barn raisings where he could haul large foundation stones and timbers single handedly. Joe and his boys were involved in logging and sawmill operation on the Saranac River, near Loon Lake, however, in the summer of 1835, Joe developed a carbuncle on his neck and returned home to Westport. A doctor was sent for on August 23rd but he became progressively worse and died on the morning of September 20th, 1835. He is buried in the Westport Cemetery, Essex County, New York.

Bibliography:
Joe Call, The Lewis Giant: by Maitland De Sormo, 1981 New York Folklore Quarterly, Spring 1953
Eleanor Hall Besboro, A History of Westport
Newspaper clippings (unidentified)

Reprinted from the Hartland Historical Society Newsletter

Reprinted from the Summer 2008 Hartland Historical Society Newsletter

The Gallup family is one of the most remarkable to be found anywhere. Hartland was most fortunate to have many of its members settle here. One branch settled in the Weed District and we have a Gallup cemetery in that area and, at one time, there was a Gallup School. Another branch settled on what is now Rte. 5, where the Whites Dairy Supply is now located. The cemetery on the west side of Rte 5 is also a Gallup Cemetery, sometimes referred to as the Dunbar or Wyman Cemetery. Dr. Gallup was raised in a house that stood on the White land. Quoting from May Roger’s work done in 1963 we learn the following.

Joseph Gallup, born in Stonington, Conn., March 20, 1759, was about six years old when his father brought his family to Hartland. The means of his early education is not known but it included a command of good English, some Latin and Greek and the ability to read French. In 1787, when he was 18, he began his study of medicine under a “preceptor”, the method of instruction in this profession prevailing at that time. This supplemented by the required number of lectures qualified him to begin practice when he reached his 21st birthday Mar. 30, 1790, the earliest age when such practice could be legal. This practice began in Hartland and the neighboring towns of Bethel and Woodstock. In 1791 he bought property in Bethel and was established there in 1793. In May of 1792, by an appointment dated and signed by his uncle, Col. George Dennison, he became surgeon of the militia. In Sept. of that year, he married Abigail Willard of the Hartland’s Willard families, and their first child was born there in May 1793. For better location and a wider field of activity, he moved to Woodstock in 1800. He received the degree of Bachelor of Medicine in 1798, the first to receive an earned medical degree from Dartmouth as distinguished from the honorary degree which he had received earlier. He received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1814. Middlebury College conferred the degree of Master of Arts in 1823.
In these years, medical societies were beginning to be formed and a charter was granted to the Vermont Medical Society of Castleton, Vt. In Oct, 1813 Dr. Gallup was elected it’s president for ten successful terms until he refused in 1829. He was already a teacher and lecturer of high repute and a writer on medical subjects, being deemed the most prominent man in the profession in New England.
Progressively welcoming all advances in medical practice, he was first in the use of the new vaccination for small pox, a great scourge in those days. Upon the discovery in 1796, by Edward Jenner, an Englishman, of the much greater effectiveness of cow pox in the inoculations for this dread disease, it was tried, tested and established by Dec 16, 1804. Already, Dr. Gallup had advertized in the Vermont Journal of Windsor, issue of Jan. 11, 1803, that he was prepared to vaccinate with cow pox. A book written by Dr. Gallup on the subject was current in 1798.
Dr. Gallup’s election to the presidency of the Vermont Medical Society of Castleton occurred on Dec. 10, 1820. He held all the official positions by Jan. 1821, continued teaching there for 3 years but resigned in Jan. 1824. Dr. Gallup had long had dreams of a school of medicine and these were brought to fruition by the founding of the Medical College in Woodstock which he achieved in 1826, and of which he was the sole owner and supporter during its difficult early years, at times at considerable financial loss. The first session of the Clinical School of Medicine (the name adopted) was from March to late May of 1827. Midway in this session Dr. Gallup bought of Abraham Stearns about 3/4 of an acre of land in the western part of the village of Woodstock. He paid $325 for this plot of land and here he erected a building, still at his own expense, for the purpose of holding lectures in 1828. This fine brick building of 7 rooms and basement story was the home of this medical school until1839, when the larger building was erected on College Hill. The original building was remodeled for residential purposes (still a home in 1969).
A difference of opinion arose between Dr. Gallup and two ambitious young medics, Drs Palmer and Parker. These men wanted to do outside teaching for the larger income. Dr. Gallup did not favor peripatetic professors as he felt it lessened allegiance to his College and also interfered with his cherished plan for continuous instruction throughout the calendar year. Bitterness mounted. The arrogant effrontery and caustic criticism of Dr. Gallup by these men who had been professors on his teaching staff and received of his beneficence evoked his decision to resign. This so stirred the people of Woodstock that a meeting was called. A large gathering on the stormy evening of Jan. 6 1834, unanimously passed resolutions commending Dr. Gallup and saying that it was generally known and admitted that the Clinical School of Medicine of this place was projected and carried into successful operation by the exertions of Dr. Joseph Gallup, – “Resolved, that it is the wish of this meeting that Dr. Gallup would continue his efforts and use such means as he may think proper to continue the school and in so doing we will give him our support and influence.” Dr. Palmer was not deterred by this. He usurped all prerogatives. Dr. Gallup resigned and severed all connection to the institution. Save for a few years in Boston, he continued to live in Woodstock, dying there on Oct. 12, 1849, concluding nearly 50 years of respected and highly esteemed citizenship. He and his wife are buried in the Wyman Cemetery in North Hartland.

Hartland News, Vermont Journal, Windsor, Vermont June 3, 1905

“The following was taken from the Woodstock Standard:”

A little pamphlet of sixteen pages; issued by Benjamin Livermore of Hartland and printed at the Vermont Chronicle office, Windsor in 1857, in possession of Henry Harding shows Mr. Livermore to have been a pioneer in the invention of the typewriter.

It’s object was to introduce “Livermore’s Permutation Typograph” or “Pocket Printing Machine” which had just been invented. “It contains a cut of the little machine, which in size is about four inches long,
two and a quarter inches wide and one inch thick. It has six keys placed in one end. Within are the moveable parts, operated by the keys, and the type, ink and paper.

A strip of paper twenty feet long may be put in and printed over without further attention. The twenty six letters of the alphabet, punctuation marks and the numerals are all formed by the operation of the six keys. The pamphlet contains many testimonials from distinguished people. President Lord of Dartmouth College, Alonzo Jackson, M.A. Norwich University; Honorable Edmund Burke, late commissioner of patents; William Lloyd Garrison and many others.

Among many press notices is the following from the Spirit of the Age, Woodstock: “We have examined the little printing apparatus invented by Mr. Livermore of Hartland, and certainly it is one of the new things under the sun, that Solomon never dreamed of. It is a very ingenious article, and no doubt would under a thousand circumstances be useful as well as convenient…

Mrs. A. A. Sturtevant of this village remembers distinctly seeing Mr. Livermore exhibit this writing machine at the Woodstock Fair, and it was so small that he worked it with the fingers of the hand with which he held it. The letters were script.

From Howland Atwood: “Ernest and Analdo English told me that their uncle, Benjamin Livermore once lived on the Max Crosby place (Mrs. Lyle Horton’s) (farm on right when traveling west on Rt. 12, just before entering Hartland Four Corners. Where the Morgan horses are . C.Y.M.) in the original Judge Elihu Luce house.

Byron P. Ruggles built the present house in the 1880’s. Afterwards he took down the old Luce house which had stood in back of his new house. Benjamin Livermore died April 4, 1871 AE 52 yrs. Almira E., wife of B.L. Livermore, died Aug 22, 1846 AE 24. They are buried in the cemetery on the Plain. They had no children.

From Livermore family papers by Eunice Lyman, “The machine was worked by six keys placed at one end of the box and pressed down after the manner of piano keys. He would print with it in the dark. He usually carried it in his pocket and could print it there, placing his hand in such a position that his fingers rested on the keys. After taking down the conversation of those he met, he placed it under his pillow at night to catch any stray thoughts, as he termed it. He took out letters of patent in England and America in 1863. It never was in public use as he died before it was introduced to the public.”

The Livermore’s were very early settlers in Hartland. William who was born in 1752 in Leicester, Mass. died in 1806 in Hartland. All except his first child were born in Hartland, starting with Phebe in 1775. Benjamin’s father, Joseph was born in 1789. He settled on a farm on what is now Rt 5 No. of Hartland village. There Benjamin was born in 1818.

The typograph (which, by the way , can be seen in a case not far from the door by which one enters the main hall of the Patent Office in Washington) was not his only invention. He was part of a family of very busy inventors. His sister, Emily married into the English family.
They all lived very close to each other and in some cases shared inventions.

Benjamin was also responsible for inventing the machine by which cement pipes could be formed. Not surprising, cement water pipes didn’t do as well in Vermont as they did in Rome. I would have expected him to figure that out ahead of time. We have some sections of these cement pipes here at the Historical Society.

Other inventions that Benjamin can take credit for are a boot crimp in 1849 and an instrument for lasting boots in 1852. He had many outstanding ancestors. Maybe that’s why there are seven towns in the U.S. named Livermore.

Reprinted from the Hartland Historical Society Newsletter

The Vermont Historical Society has a collection called the
English-Livermore collection consisting of the miscellaneous papers of Eli English (1789-1852), of Norwich, Vermont, Eli’s son, Nathan Frederick English (1822-1902), and Eli’s son-in-law, Benjamin Livermore (1829-1871), both of Hartland, Vermont. (BHH)