Category: People

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Dr. Gallup and the Vampire

Reprinted from the Summer 2008 Hartland Historical Society Newsletter From Joseph Citro’s Book “Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghouls & Unsolved Mysteries” we get this story. True? Or not? You decide.

… About 100 years later, the most famous- or at least the most long-lived and publicized- case of Vermont vampirism came to the public’s attention. It was reported in the Boston Transcript during the first week of October 1890. A more complete accounting of the remarkable events appeared as a one page story in Woodstock’s own newspaper, the Vermont Standard. Imagine seeing this headline while sipping your morning coffee: “Vampirism in Woodstock.”

The article recalled events that supposedly occurred in the 1830’s when a local man named Corwin died of consumption.

His body was buried in the Cushing Cemetery. A while later, his brother – presumably also named Corwin – began wasting away. Of course the living Corwin may have been showing symptoms of his dead brother’s disease. Or, as was the common wisdom, there might have been a more grisly alternative. Perhaps the dead Corwin had come back as a vampire, his spirit rising from the grave every night to feed on the blood of his living brother.

To find out for sure, the town fathers ordered the body disinterred. A horrifying discovery convinced them they were dealing with the supernatural. Dr. Joseph Gallup, the town’s leading physician and head of Vermont Medical College, observed that “the vampire’s heart contained its victim’s blood”

(though how he was able to determine that remains a mystery).

There was only one way to stop the spread of evil: concerned parties would assemble on Woodstock’s boat shaped green and perform an exorcism.

Predictably, most of the town’s population turned out for the event. Dr. Gallup and Woodstock’s other physicians built a fire in the middle of the green, heated up an iron pot and cooked the undecayed heart until it was reduced to ashes.

Then they buried the pot and ashes in a hole fifteen feet deep, covered it with a 7 ton slab of granite before refilling the hole, sprinkled everything with bull’s blood for purification.

Finally they forced the dying Corwin to swallow a ghastly medicine made of bull’s blood mixed with some of his brother’s ashes. They believed that this concoction would break the vampire’s curse and stop the victim’s body from wasting away.

Unfortunately, we never learn if Brother Corwin survived the disease, let alone the cure, but the town fathers were convinced they had rid Woodstock of vampirism forever

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Harold Goddard Rugg (1883-1957)

From Harold Goddard Rugg to Mrs Janet Blackford: (She was Janet Harding, grand daughter of Dr. John and grew up in Four Corners in the brick house now owned by Peter Gordon):

Where the town hall was given Mrs. Lamb fitted out a room for a historical room and I was asked to have charge of it. We have so far collected quite a number of things for the room, old furniture, china, portraits, etc.

and so we, the Hartland Historical Society, began.

Harold Goddard Rugg (1883-1957)

Harold was the son of David Fletcher and Julia Goddard Hager Rugg. His father was a Hartland Doctor who died when Harold was quite young. He graduated from Black River Academy in 1902 and Dartmouth in 1906.

 


Birthplace of Harold Goddard Rugg. Now home of Ron and Hylene DeVoyd.

 

For a closer look at this remarkable man, take a look at the Valley News of Feb. 21, 1957:

In Memoriam:Harold G. Rugg
The entire Upper Valley mourns the death of Mr. Rugg. Mr. Rugg held a unique place in the affections of many people in the area, for he was an “accessible professor”. Although he spent a lifetime of professional service at Dartmouth and although his reputation as an astute collector of rare books spread to the far corners of the globe, his interest in local projects and problems never flagged.

A native of Hartland and a keen student of Vermont history, Mr Rugg became an elder statesman of things historical and botanical. Many a garden club or struggling historical society turned to him for help and guidance. With calmness and gentleness he adjudicated many a historical dispute, and the phrase “Let’s ask Harold Rugg” heard often hereabouts testified to his neighbors trust in Mr Rugg’s judgment and their respect for his scholarship.

Lest we strike too parochial a note, it should be said that Harold Rugg’s interests were wide -ranging. He could enjoy gardening in Hanover where he became an expert on ferns and even discovered a new variety that bears his name. Simultaneously he could say” I have an insatiable desire for remote and lonely and queer places”. He knew from personal experience more diverse parts of the globe than is ordinarily given a dozen men to know. He knew Europe and the Near East. He climbed the Grand Tetons of Wyoming: but he also climbed the Pyrenees. He skated far up the Connecticut and was one of the first men to climb Mt. Washington on snowshoes: but he also knew the tiny nation of Andorra, the Gaspe, Mexico, and once in the company of hardy souls, he set sail from Spitzbergen, 360 miles north of Norway, to see how much farther north he could go before ice floes halted his progress.

He often had lunch with an undergraduate, but he also dined with Lord Dartmouth in England and took tea with Sir Winfred Grenfell in Labrador. He could become intrigued with the amateur history of some north country hill town or he could lose himself in a catalog of rare books. It was he who arranged Robert Frost’s first lecture at Dartmouth when the poet was struggling for recognition. Out of this grew his remarkable collection of Frostiana, now a part of the Baker Library. He also collected rare Bennington ware and books and manuscripts concerning Vermont that number into the thousands.

Perhaps more than anything else he treasured the honorary degree bestowed upon him by his alma mater, Dartmouth, in recognition of his many years of service to the college. Harold Rugg was a remarkable man. His ivory tower was the world. There is an oil painting by Paul Sample – Dartmouth 1920 hanging in the Baker Library.

Mr. Rugg was also the first President of the Hartland Historical Society in 1916 and a member, Vice – President, and Curator of the Vermont Historical Society. In 1955 Mr. Rugg was a speaker at a Hartland Historical Society meeting. Rugg spoke of his childhood and youth in Hartland before he left in 1896.

He remembered a tinsmith in the rear of the old hotel; the nearby harness shop of Jake Emerson, later used as the post office; of the “Pound” on the Quechee Road where stray animals were put; of events of the two churches in the village. He remembered looking across the road from his home and seeing white robed persons, accompanied by the minister, going to Lull Brook for a baptism by immersion.

Rugg said he attended a boarding school in South Woodstock conducted by Joseph Dunbar, a Hartland mathematician and author of textbooks.

During the log drives on the Connecticut River, he used to accompany his father, Dr. David F. Rugg, who was often called to attend to an injured river man.”

Reprinted from the Hartland Historical Society Newsletter, June 2005

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Daniel Willard – Time Magazine Cover Story


“Uncle Dan” Willard was born on a farm near North Hartland, Vt. during the first year of the Civil War. The first locomotive he saw ran by the farm on the old Central Vermont. Aged 16, he taught school for a spell. Aged 17, hi was sent to Massachusetts Agricultural College. Bad eyesight compelled him to give up his studies, get a job in a track gang. Three years later he was an engineer on the Connecticut & Passumpsic River, now a part of the Boston & Maine. Then he went West.

When next seen he was “hogging” (driving a locomotive), on the Lake Shore & Michigan with a pair of red mittens on his hands and a book or two under the cab seat. There is good reason for “Uncle Dan” to sympathize with the 500,000 men laid off railroads in the last two years. The business depression of 1883 took him out of his cab, put him to work as a conductor on the Soo. From conductor he started up the long grind of a railroad operating man’s career: trainmaster, assistant superintendent, superintendent.

When a railroad official gets a chance for a better position on another line, not infrequently he takes a subordinate or so along with him. When Frederick Douglass Underwood left the Soo to become general manager of the B & O. he took Superintendent Willard along as his assistant. That was in 1899. Two years later Mr. Underwood became president of the Erie, asked Mr. Willard to accompany him. “Uncle Dan” went along as general manager In 1910 he returned East to become president of the road he had left nine years before.

In 1910 the B.& O. was a great, rusty T-shaped giant. The top of the T ran from Philadelphia to Washington. The stem split, one line reaching out in Chicago, the other ending just over the Mississippi River at St. Louis. Corporate headquarters were at the top of the stem in Baltimore.

When he took charge, one of the first things President Willard did was cancel all advertising. “We’ll start again when we have something to advertise,” he said. Having spent nearly half a billion on his railroad in the past 20 years, “Uncle Dan” now has something to advertise. He has authorized copy written this way: “70,000 of us invite you to travel on the B. & 0.”

A tangible improvement of the Willard administration was the acquisition of than any other man for the Eastern four-system unification plan. (sic) Under him Chicago & Alton was taken over as a western B. & O. link. Last week B. & O. began operating the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh as a division of its system.

The atmosphere of “we’re-all-B. & O.-men-together” is one President Willard likes to get into his bulletins. Sample: “No matter how hard we try, we cannot make the B..& O. the greatest, straightest or richest railroad, but we can, if we try hard enough, create for it the reputation of being the best railroad in the world from the point of service.” A prime Willard maxim: “Be a good neighbor.” Farmer boys and girls up and down his line get settings of eggs. Officials are sent to make friends with local shippers. And in 1927 “Uncle Dan” put on a 23-day pageant (”The Fair of the Iron Horse”) outside Baltimore to show what his road had accomplished in its century of existence.

It is generally agreed throughout the system that no one works harder on the B. & O. than President Willard. He gets up early, works late. Once he told Jim, porter of his office car, No. 99, to wake him at 5 a.m. As the dawn was breaking, the blackamoor felt a tug at his covers, looked up into “Uncle Dan’s” smiling face. “Wake up, Jim,” said President Willard. “It’s 5 o’clock.”

There is a good deal of confusion as to who has ridden on No. 99. The fact is that no one except President Willard and his officers ride on it. If they are important enough, celebrities traveling over the B. & O. are given the Maryland.

Just as no one rides on No. 99, few get inside “Uncle Dan’s” white stucco house, which hides behind trees in Baltimore’s smart Roland Park. There he lives with his wife and his two orphaned grandchildren, whose parents died in the influenza epidemic of 1918. He plays his violin occasionally, is a wretched golfer. Like many a railroad man, he goes to the office on Sundays. Like many railroad children, his grandsons like to go along, too. He owns the farm where he was born, farms it. He belongs to the Unitarian Church, drinks a little, smokes a little.

When he was on the Wartime Council of National Defense he saw a good deal of Walter Sherman Gifford. After the War, Mr. Gifford saw that Mr. Willard was made a director of American Telephone & Telegraph Co. Mr. Willard saw that Mr. Gifford was made a fellow trustee of Johns Hopkins University.

The typical railroad president is not always the typical railroad man. Often they come by their positions through the legal department. This month “Uncle Dan” completes the 71st year of his life, the 22nd of his presidency. This week he will be a principal figure in discussions involving the welfare of more than half the trackage on earth. He has health, the respect of his associates, a comfortable share of the world’s goods. More important to 1,250,000 rail employees who are also involved, is the fact that he is not just a railroad president. He is a railroad man.

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Daniel Willard

Portrait of Daniel Willard

Just 100 years ago, Jan. 28, 1861, there was born in North Hartland perhaps Hartland’s most famous son, Daniel Willard. He was a product of pioneer stock as his ancestors were here at the very birth of Hartland. The Hoyt house, the Phelps house, and the Potwin house were all Willard homes. Daniel Willard, the son of another Daniel grew up on the farm now owned by William Smith.

He went to the church now standing here and taught Sunday School. He went to school in a building on the green and at fifteen taught in a one room school. He met Mrs. Samuel Taylor, who was to influence his whole life. She taught him to love books and he was ever after an ardent lover of good books.

He attended a term and a half at Windsor High School. He wanted terribly to attend Dartmouth, but couldn’t afford it. He did attend the Mass State Agriculture College in Amherst for a time but had to give it up, because of poor eyesight.

Running through the family farm were the tracks of the Vermont Central railroad, and young Dan’s imagination was fired by the idea of piloting one of those shining, wood-burning engines, especially the old Governor Smith which he never ceased to love.

Montreal of the Connecticut & Passumpsic Railroad, 1872 (University of Connecticut) So at eighteen, Daniel Willard got his first job on the railroad on a section gang for 90 cents a day for 10 hours on the Vermont Central. He soon went to the Connecticut and Passumpsic where he was a fireman. He weighed only 125 lbs. but he managed to feed the old engine the 10 to 12 cords of wood she consumed in a long day. At eighteen, he was an engineer on the line, respected by the men he worked with for his burning ambition and keen mind. He always had a good book in his pocket.

Soon after this he was lured to the level track and higher pay of a western road, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway.

This proved temporary and he went to the Minneapolis and Sault St. Marie which was being built. Here he became trainmaster, and in fourteen years was superintendent.

From here he went to the Baltimore and Ohio, then to the Erie, then operating VP of the Burlington and Quincy then back to the B&O as president, a job he kept from then on.

He had grown up with the railroads and knew every problem. He threw himself wholeheartedly into the job of building tracks and bridges, straightening lines, bucking the constant politics, both among the railroads themselves and government.

He understood the problems of the workers and fought for their interests. Against the desires of many another President he helped to get the 8 hour day. He remembered only too well the times he had fallen asleep and bumped a train in front of him when he had been forced to operate a train beyond the limit of human endurance.

Besides President of the B&O, he became Chairman of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense in WW I. It was made up of distinguished men such as Bernard Baruch and others well known, and the War Industries Board.

He fought off a serious strike and organized the RR Presidents to try to fight off government ownerships which worked for a while. President Wilson did not take over while Willard continued his war job.

At the end of the War, the B&O had to be built up again from near bankruptcy and later fought through the great depression. He was no longer a young man, but took on such jobs as member of the Board of Trustees of John Hopkins University and this self educated man finally became president of the board.

In 1937, the B&O held the Fair of the Iron Horse, a great entertainment and show of railroading past and present. That kept Willard from accepting an invitation to speak at the Hartland celebration of the Sesquicentennial of Vermont but he had not forgotten Hartland. In his last years, he visited the Smiths at his old home, and asked to see the old steep back stairs he had remembered from early boyhood.

He died in 1942, and rests in Hartland soil.

He left his library to the three Hartland libraries and the quality of those books reflect the great intelligence and keen mind of this son of Hartland.

Found in the Hartland Historical Society archives – author unknown, but I suspect it was a speech. C.Y.M.

Reprinted from The Hartland Historical Society Newsletter, Spring 2003.

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Benjamin Livermore, Inventor

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

“The following was taken from the Woodstock Standard:”

Benjamin Livermore

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)

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William Emerson Damon

We are all familiar with Damon Hall, situated in the center of Hartland Three Corners, but what do we know about the Damons for whom it was named? Bev chanced upon an article that whetted our interest and so we pursued it further and found a most fascinating man and family. As I’ve noted before;, Hartland is full of them!

As this building, Damon Hall, which we dedicate today is a memorial to Luther and Betsy Thayer Damon and to their children, and especially to their son, William Emerson Damon, through whose generosity the gift of this building has been made possible, a short sketch of Luther Damon and his son William E. Damon would seem appropriate. Luther Damon, son of Aaron and Lucy Emerson Damon was born in Reading, Mass. Dec. 17 1795. When 10 years old he came to Vermont to settle on the farm now known as the Damon Farm. He was married to Betsy Thayer of Braintree, Mass Nov. 15, 1819.  (He sold the Hartland farm and moved to Windsor but after a few years he became homesick for the old farm and bought it back, never to leave it gain. He built the present Damon house about 1845.) Ten children were born to the couple.

William Emerson Damon, the youngest son was born in Windsor in 1838. He was educated in the public schools and at Kimball Union Academy. Feb 14 1865 he married Alma Otis of Windsor. For many years Mr. Damon was superintendent of the credit department of Tiffany’s, New York City.  Largely through his efforts the New York aquarium was established and Mr. Damon came to be considered an authority on matters pertaining to aquaria. His interest in the New York aquarium is referred to as follows in “Bermuda, Past and Present” by Walter Brownell Hayward.  No less a personage than Phineas T. Barnum was the first to introduce Bermuda fishes to the New York  aquarium public. Barnum, ever on the alert for new thrills, conceived the idea of bringing live specimens from tropical waters, and sent out two expeditions, one to Honduras, the other to Bermuda. Both returned without their fish, all having died in transit. Barnum was disappointed but was prevailed upon by one of his assistants, W.E. Damon, to fit out the well-smack Pacific which sailed to Bermuda in the summer of 1863. These being the days of blockade runners, all Northerners were regarded with suspicion and soon it was rumored that Mr. Damon in his frequent trips across the bays was taking soundings, not fish. Finally a peremptory order from the authorities halted his work and it was not until the American Consul had intervened on his behalf was Mr. Damon allowed to resume his harmless occupation. His party caught 600 fish, all of which were successfully transported to the greater glory and profit of Barnum and the pleasure of his patrons of the Ann Street museum Mr Damon’s “Ocean  wonders” was published in 1879, was one of the first books to popularize life at the seashore. This book contains besides descriptions of various kinds of marine life, a chapter on marine and fresh water aquaria. All of Mr. Damon’s sisters were interested in natural history but he says in his preface to “Ocean Wonders” that it was his dear and honored sister, Elizabeth with her suggestive spirit and practical example who awakened in his mind a love for nature. He also acknowledges his indebtedness to the intelligent and sympathetic interest of his wife in his favorite study. Because of Mrs. Damon’s interest in her husbands avocation she has become interested in the Hartland Nature Club and has felt it a pleasure to contribute towards this building… Mr Damon never held public office …  He died on the home farm in 1911.

From a speech by Harold Rugg at the dedication of Damon Hall on Dec. 2, 1916, reported in The Vermont Standard.

Reprinted from the December 2006 Hartland Historical Society Newsletter

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The Damon Family – Assorted Bits From Our Files

 

 

 

Mrs. Alma C. (Otis) Damon, daughter of Mr. And Mrs Timothy Otis, was born in Windsor, Vt.,July 30,1841, and died in Hartland, Nov. 7, 1928, On Feb. 14 1865, she was married to William E.Damon, who for many years prior to his death in 1911, was identified with Tiffany and Co. of New York and maintained a summer residence at what has long been known as the Damon Farm in Hartland. … Mrs. Damon was a great lover of nature, and during her life in New York, she and her husband were identified with several societies offering opportunity for the study of trees, plants, flowers, and especially of marine life. Since her husband’s death, Mrs. Damon has spent a part of every summer at the farm where she could enjoy to better advantage the natural beauties which the country affords. Her funeral was held at her late home on Friday afternoon, at 2 0’clock, Rev. E.L.M. Barnes of Brownsville officiating.

Although Barnum had aquatic mammals and native freshwater fishes on exhibit in the American Museum in New York City, this was nothing new since The Boston Aquarial Gardens had such exhibits before the museum did. Damon convinced Barnum that what the museum needed was a collection of colorful saltwater fishes and so Barnum financed Damon’s famous( and hazardous) trip to Bermuda in 1863, the source of the shells in the Hartland Nature Club. He and Albert Bickmore who accompanied him (Bickmore at the time was a young student of Louis Agassiz and was later to become the primary founder of The American Museum of Natural History) were the first two to bring tropical marine fishes into this country. Those shells in the Hartland Nature Club are, therefore, of considerable historical interest and should not be viewed simply as shells from Bermuda. My research on Mr. Damon centers around his scientific endeavors and aquatic research. Mr. Damon was a much more learned and scientific individual than
most people realize. He was a member of the New York Microscopical Society, The Royal Microscopical Society of London, the New York Micrological Club, the Scientific Alliance of New York, the New York Naturalists Club, and the New York Zoological Society If it wasn’t for his impressive success as the credit manager for Tiffany’s in New York City, he undoubtedly would have become a well known figure in the scientific world. Mr. Damon was also very important in the establishment of the Boston Aquarial and Zoological Gardens, as well as persuading P.T.Barnum to add an aquarium department to the American Museum. Mr. Damon was also consulted when the Battery Park Aquarium was established in New York.

In 1861 the Boston Aquarial and Zoological Gardens secured a white beluga whale and brought it to Boston. It was kept alive for about one year and, although Barnum displayed several white whales, contrary to what has been written, the Boston whale was on exhibit before those in the American Museum in New York. The whale was placed under William Damon’s care while he was at the Gardens so he was the first one in this country to tend to a whale in captivity!!

The thought struck me that another member of the Damon family has another claim to fame. Damon gave the following account of early American aquarium activity in his “Ocean Wonders” book “In this country I believe the writer was one of the very first to be inoculated with the aquarial passion – a passion that has grown with time, and has a deeper hold today than even in the first period of magnificent visions.

So far as I have been able to ascertain, the pioneer inductor of the private aquarium in this country was Miss Elizabeth Emerson Damon, of Windsor, Vt.; and her first essays were made with the simple apparatus of a two-quart glass jar, with a few fish, some tadpoles and snails, and some Potamogeton (common pond weed): but so perfectly balanced was this young aquarium with animal and vegetable life, that I fell in love with it at first sight; and never since, among all the aquarial curiosities which I have possessed, and the thousands I have seen, has there been a collection nearer perfection than that contained in the poor old two quart jar.” Albert J. Klee, Ph.D.

The New York Sun of May 9 ( 1899) says “W.E. Damon read on Friday evening before the New York Microscopical society a paper on the seahorse, the wonderful little marine animal with a head and neck bearing a strong resemblance to those of a horse, while its tail is prehensile like that of a monkey. Mr. Damon exhibited a photograph of a seahorse which he had kept alive in his own aquarium for over a year. This seahorse was very tame, and would readily take food from its owner’s hand. The paper from which the above is taken contains a full and interesting synopsis of the lecture on this marine animal. No one in this section need be told who Wm. E. Damon is and our only regret is that our space will admit of no further quotation”.

Other Notes From our Files

Luther Damon lived on the farm that bounded on the Hartland Windsor town line. He was born Dec. 17, 1795 and died Nov. 28, 1872. Buried in the Old South Cemetery in Windsor Village.      –Howland Atwood.

Letter March 26 1823 from James B. Sumner (brother of David of Hartland) Dalton, N.H. to Nathanial Page (Hartland) “We are in great want of good settlers. If you see Luther Damon tell him I had expected he would have been up here before this . We want a real Teamster”

Mr. Luther Damon had a beautiful farm on the opposite side of the town near Windsor. He made many trips to Boston with produce, and the garden kept by Mrs. Damon and her descendants is one of the loveliest of it’s kind.    –Nancy Darling

On Jan 11, 1845 Mr. Leonard H. Hamilton of New York City wrote to Luther Damon, Esq. ” I was very glad to hear a good account of my stock I do not care how much they eat as long as they do not waste. “     –Nancy Darling

I hope you agree that these little peeps into lives lived so long ago serve to broaden and enrich our lives today.                                                   C.Y.M.

Reprinted from the December 2006 Hartland Historical Society Newsletter

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Naming of the Brook, poem by Daniel Cady, 1929

NAMING OF THE BROOK
” Good evening, Sister Brook, yon island is your care,
But I prefer your banks, I’ll build my mansion there;
I guess we’ll get along, if both of us play fair.

“This lady is my wife and these my children four;
They’re all I have just now although I’ve asked for more;
I hope they’ll all grow up to sail a boat like Noah.

“Miss Brook, you have no name? That’s stingy, I declare!!
I’ll give you part of mine, I have a piece to spare;
There’s no grand reeve to mind’ no constable to care.

“Wife, fetch that bottle here, that old junk jug of glass,
I want Miss Brook to be no nameless sort of lass’
But on the other hand, first water and first class.

“I ask the wilderness to listen now and look;
“Bottle, I break your head with this my boating hook;
Miss Brook, from this hour forth your name is mine-Lull Brook ”

 

Poem by Daniel Cady written in 1929

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Hartland’s Family of Flowers

There is an intersection in Hartland of the roads Weed and Flower. Now this is a bit different than Maple and Oak as there really were families with the surname of Weed and of Flower. It is the Flower family that we plan to visit today.

“The Flowers came from Hartford, Conn. at the early settlement of the town, in exactly what year is not known. They made their first pitch on what was afterward the Parson Breck farm. (This house is gone but was on the Center of Town Road), subsequently exchanging with someone who desired “improved” land, for the land now (published in 1914) occupied by W.E. Davis .  (This house is standing on the left side of Rte 12 as you head west).

Elisha Flower was in Captain Benjamin Wait’s Windsor company of rangers. He was the first settler and built the large two-story house now the home of W.E.Davis.

William Flower, a cousin of Elisha, served in the Revolutionary War as a
Captain’s waiter. He never was regularly enlisted but it is said that Judge Elihu Luce was on the point of securing a pension for him when he died.” ( From “Hartland in the Revolutionary War – with Associated History, written by Dennis Flower and printed on the Solitarian Press ,Hartland, Vermont on December 2, 1914 – price 50c)

“Elisha Flower – Rev. War soldier died in 1812 at the age of 55. His daughter,
Elizabeth was 3 when she died in 1796.

“Rest here sweet child among the dust
Til Christ shall come and raise the just”

Susanna Flower who was 30 when she dies gets this, less than comforting epitaph:

“A heap of dust alone remains of thee’
Tis all thou art and proud shall be”

I find that one of the best ways to get a feel for a person and the times through reading news clips. These are the real stuff, the every day coming and and so I would like to share a few that appeared in our local newspapers. They give you a feel for this ordinary and at the same time, extraordinary family.

1901″ D. Flower and W.E. Jenne built a chimney for J.H. Emerson at the Three Corners Saturday.”

“Florence Flower, who has been working at Dr. Harlows in Windsor since the New Years, is at home with her mother.”

“The Y.P.C.U. will be held next Sunday evening by Lucy M. Flower. This being Prison Sunday, the topic for discussion is “The Social Ideal”

“Mrs. Nellie Flower, one of many who in 1899 were “The committee from the Universalist Society to take entire charge of the food supplies and management of the tables for Memorial Day at the Town Hall ” [This would be the large white building on the left after crossing the intersection in 4 Corners, heading west.]

“Miss Viola Flower of Vershire is visiting her mother, Mrs Nellie Flower.”

1906 “Revs Howard and Don Flower have gone to Indiana and Illinois”
“Frank Miller and Ahira Flower are in Lexington, Mass.”

“Our masons, D.Flower and W.E.Jenne, their helpers and assistants, have commenced their spring journeyings to Windsor and Cornish, N.H.. They go and return each day, but have found “Jordon a hard road to travel.”

“Hartlands Revolutionary Soldiers, Dennis Flower and J.F. Colston
recently revisited Hartland’s cemeteries to get the names and dates of the death of the soldiers of the Revolutionary War. The following list was secured.” [From this came Dennis’s publication . What a huge contribution this was to the history of Hartland.]

1900 “Don M. Flower, who during the vacation weeks of St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y. has been preaching successfully in that state, is home with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. D (Dennis) Flower. He returns in a couple of weeks to the University.”

“Don M. Flower, accompanied by his brother Howard, returned to St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y.”

1900 “The brothers, Don M. and Howard J. Flower, reached here by way of White River Jct. Sunday from Canton, N.Y. to attend their sister’s funeral Monday.” [This would be Lucy who died at the young age of 25.]

“D.Flower, who was at work on a sugar arch at Old Watson’s last week Thursday, on going to the barn for his team was met by Mr. Watson’s dog, who decidedly objected to his taking it, giving him a severe bite in the calf of the leg. Dr. Morris, whose heroic treatment in such cases is well known, cauterized the wound, and it is doing as well as is possible. The incident created quite a discussion here, it is said, as to which is the best meat for dogs, mutton or veal. Mr. Marcy, who owns a fine cosset, would rather have a dog bite him than his sheep. “Dan” however, thinks he would rather supply them with mutton, especially if the veal has to be furnished from the calf of his own leg. The opinions of Messrs. Williams and Bagley, who have recently paid a fabulous sum for mutton for their dogs, haven’t been secured at this writing.”

Speaking of dogs, this is from Analdo and Ernest English, written by Howland Atwood.

Ahira Flower and John Barrell were great cronies – also great fox hunters. They had been hunting somewhere and their jug was empty. They came home late at night and having a thirst got Murphy or Durphy ( who lived with them) out to come down to the 4 Corners and get the jugs filled up at the hotel. There was some grumbling from the hotel people at being disturbed at such an hour but he got his 2 jugs filled and headed back up the turnpike. He got up to where there were 2 or 3 trees standing on a hillock near the road and something in one of the trees jumped back and forth and screamed and scared him terribly, but he didn’t drop the jugs and ran home as fast as he could. Flower and Barrell got the dogs and came back and the thing jumped out into the meadow and the dogs took after it. One dog never came back and the other was pretty chewed up.

 

                          Across Rte. 12 from the Ladies Aid building is the Flowers brick cape.

Perhaps the most colorful member of the Flower family would be Howard. I am quoting from “ In Sight of Ye Great River”.

The Flower family was eccentric. J. Howard, the patriarch, wore sandals, his hair and beard hanging long and white over a flowing red tie. He prohibited the family from cutting their hair, even the boys wore it long, which caused consternation when the boys had to travel outside Hartland. On the kitchen wall a poem exclaimed:

The men on this mundane sod
That hack the hair all off the head
And call it pretty ‘Oh my God’

The Flowers were vegetarians. The eight boys and girls were educated at home until the 5th grade. Fellow children in the village always had to wait until he had read to the children in the evening before they could come out to play.

J. Howard made his living as a poet. He sold his poems and journals door to door. He operated a foot-press, which was hand fed and published “The Free Soul: A Pioneer of Personal Liberation and Eternal Youth, Printed in Our Corner of the Universe at Erratic Intervals of Eternity”  —The Flowers were Democrats. — When Cleveland won the Presidency of the Union in 1892, the Flowers fired crackers, sang campaign songs and marched along a few village streets. At that time Hartland as a whole was as Republican as the state of Vermont. However, the Four Corners was a little pocket of Democratic activity.”

The children were all highly intelligent, highly educated and went beyond Four Corners to make their marks in the world.

A Poem by J. Howard Flower


ASCUTNEY over vales that shut
Looks down a few miles yonder;
At east, the blue Connecticut
Draws down Lull Brook to wander
And wind, fulfilled by crystal rills,
Thru Hartland shrined among the hills.Above our heads a high blue dome
Bends round our hills from Heaven;
From wooded banks about our home
We hear at moonlit even
A vesper plaint of whippoorwills
At summer Hartland shrined in hills.
When whetstone, scythe, and mower clink
Thru open doors of morning’
The matin of the Bobolink
Hails dandelions adorning
The meadows of the morn and trills
At summer Hartland shrined in hills.

Midst Christmas snows, tho mercury goes
Below to ten or twenty,
Still in our households summer glows;
And homelike hearts wish plenty
Of cheer and all the good you want
From winter Hartland in Vermont.

 

Reprinted from the June 2007 Hartland Historical Society Newsletter.

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Maple Parfait

Maple season is here. Give this a try. I made a bowl full and have found it to be especially good when more maple syrup is poured over it and some nuts are sprinkled on top.


Della M. Dunsmoor Merritt (1883-1982) was Henry Merritt’s mother. This recipe was found in an autograph book. The owner of the book and the date are unknown but the owner chose to have her friends write recipes instead of the usual poem or other sentiment.

In case you have difficulty reading the original:

Maple Parfait

4 eggs
1 cup maple syrup
1 pint sweet cream
Beat eggs slightly. Pour on slowly the hot syrup. Cook in double boiler until very thick, stirring constantly.

Strain, cool and add the cream, beaten stiff. Would pack in ice with salt. Let stand 3 hours.                            Della M. D. Merritt

Undated News Clipping

It is safe to say that our western friends, who for many years have depended on this town for their maple sugar, will look in vain for it this year. A large number of the maple orchards have been ruined by the forest caterpillars, and been cut into stove wood. Farmers, who have had in years gone by from one to two tons of sugar, or its equivalent in syrup, for New England and western friends, will have little, if any, for their own use. More than this, the season for sugar making is getting late, and still the snow’s reported from 3 to 4 feet deep in the woods. We doubt very much if there will be honest syrup made to run the usual number of church socials. The truth is, sugar-making has become a lost art, where, a few years ago, it furnished our farmers with a source of no inconsiderable income.

Reprinted from the March 2007 Hartland Historical Society Newsletter