WALKING TOUR: PROCTORSVILLE VILLAGE

In 1782, Capt. Leonard Proctor, a Revolutionary War veteran, moved his family to Vermont. With his two sons (Jabez and John) he built a “shunpike” to the village of Gassetts in nearby Chester to avoid paying the tolls of the Green Mountain Turnpike. Salmon Dutton, who came to Cavendish around the same time, had helped to build the Green Mountain Turnpike, which ran from Bellows Falls to Rutland, bringing Boston coaches north up the Duttonsville Gulf to the village and then west along the present RT 131 through Proctorsville. The “shunpike” being toll free resulted in North bound traffic from Boston coming directly to Proctorsville and bypassing Duttonsville. Because of the road, the Dutton and Proctor families, as well as the villages of Duttonsville and Proctorsville, feuded for 75 years.

The marriage of Redfield Proctor and Emily Dutton in 1858 joined the leading families of the two villages and promised to put an end to the former rivalry. As Redfield said of his first son, Fletcher Dutton Proctor, "if the old names and blood had the old inclination left to stir up strife, it would have created a fearful internal commotion." In fact, the merger of these families proved to be a propitious event for Vermont, since three governors and a United States Senator came from this Dutton-Proctor line.

In February 20, 1907, Proctorsville formally gave notice to the Town of Cavendish that it wished to be incorporated. Today Proctorsville is a village within the township of Cavendish.

                        Begin your tour at the Proctorsville Green facing the War Memorial.

Proctorsville War Memorial: On November 12, 1923, the American Legion, school children and various members of the community, including Civil War veterans, participated in an Armistice Day ceremony to dedicate the WWI monument. The monument was given by Redfield Proctor, Jr. All of the veterans of WWI were inscribed. Plaques have been placed for veterans of subsequent wars and military actions.

To the east of the War Memorial and on the same side of the street:

 Fraternal Building (now the Village Clipper and pictured above): Originally the Eagle Hotel, Jabez Proctor built it. As many as 50 guests and nearly 100 horses would stop for the night on the stagecoach route. The hotel ceased in 1896. The porches and chimneys were torn down and the livery stable dismantled. It became a very ordinary building. In 1900 the building was sold to Proctorsville Fraternal Society, which became the home of the Masons, Odd Fellows and Rebekahs. The first floor was used by businesses. The building became home to Lawrence’s Lunch, Mae’s Lunch, various barbers and the Proctorsville Post Office. Today the building is owned by Art and Jo Frye and houses apartments as well as The Village Clipper and Black River Tax and Business Services.

Continuing on Main Street towards Cavendish, past the Elementary School, go to the second house before Maple Street:

Sunset Tavern: “Town House” or the “Jenny House,” was built in 1787 by Captain Leonard Proctor, the second home he built in Proctorsville. He and his wife Mary Proctor, lived in this house over 30 years and died there in 1827. The house, built of wood, is famous for its fancy hand-carved decorations around the roofline, on the corner posts and around the center doorway.

Across the street from the Cavendish Town Elementary School to the left of St. James Church

Page House: In 1782, Leonard Proctor built a log cabin and in the spring of 1783, he constructed the first house or tavern beside the cabin near where the Methodist church now stands. The house stood where the present highway runs. Part of the house was moved, and then torn down to make way for the elementary school. The remaining part of the house was moved to the current location and became known as the Page House.   

St. James Church: Built in 1882 to replace the old church. A Hamill pipe organ was installed in 1886.

 Continue to the corners of Main and Depot Street

Pollard’s Block (Proctorsville Post Office and Six Loose Ladies): In 1863, Don C. Pollard opened a general store on the corner of Depot and Main Streets. When a fire destroyed the brick building in 1895, it was replaced with a wooden structure known as the Pollard Block. The store included a pharmacy service, as Fred Pollard learned to fill prescriptions from the local doctor, Dr. Darwin Story. Various members of the Pollard family ran the store until it closed in 1964. Since then the building has served many purposes including a bar, Baba Lou’s Bakery and Crows Corner Bakery.

Continuing on the East side of Depot Street towards 103

Gethsemane Episcopal Church: Construction on the church began in 1889 on land left for this purpose by Sally Parker. Prior to her death, Parker had a small chapel on her property where Episcopalians could worship. Consecration of the church took place in December 1890. The Parish Hall was built in 1956. Behind the church are community and memorial gardens.

Continuing towards Route 103

Opera House (now Crows Bakery and Opera House Café): Built in 1907-1908 by Will Adams, postmaster. The first floor housed a hardware store, library and post office. The second floor contained a stage and a hall. The third floor had a larger meeting hall and a kitchen. In 1919, the building was purchased as part of the Murdock Mill. In 1921, Cavendish Grange 275 moved to the Opera House. The building has been sold and resold over the years. In 1930’s, the building had a pool table and two bowling lanes and a boxing ring. In 1941, it was sold to the Proctorsville Library and in 1946 the American Legion purchased the building for the returning veterans of WWII. The building was open 24 hours a day, six days a week. Over the years, the building has been a hub of activity for the town, providing a place for plays, school functions, movies and even a 5 & 10 ¢ Store. The building continues to serve the community as a gathering space.

Bridge: At one time a covered bridge, this bridge has been replaced many times.

Just after the Bridge

Cottage Hotel-The first building after crossing the bridge. This building was converted from a frame house to Hotel around 1902 and was run by C. W. Carpenter. The rates were a dollar a day and up. The hotel went by many names- Proctor-Piper, Riverside Inn Hotel, Proctorsville Inn and Allen Inn. It is now a private residence but rooms are let at various times of the year.

Continuing towards 103

Golden Stage Inn: Originally the home of the Skinner Family, it was converted to an inn. Otis Skinner, a famous actor in the late 1800’s, was a frequent guest at the Inn. It’s believed to be haunted by young man that has been nicknamed George.

Across route 103 and up Bailey Hill Road

Hillcrest Cemetery: The land for this cemetery was obtained from the Proctors. The earliest burial was in 1828. Veterans include at least 16 who served in the Civil War. Just before the entrance of the cemetery there is an area that was known as a “potter’s field.” This area was destroyed when it was dug up and used to plant potatoes during the Depression. Only three graves remain.

Returning to Depot Street, heading towards Route 131 just before the train tracks

Dr. William’s House Location: Dr. William was an engineer, who went to medical school when ill health kept him from working outside. He was the first doctor to care for Phineas Gage when the tamping rod went through his skull (1845). Not long after the incident, Williams returned to engineering full time and started the oldest engineering society in the United States, Tau Beta Pi. (A “Phineas Gage Walking Tour” is available from the Cavendish Historical Society.

Just after the tracks, look for the stone house that has a “vault alarm on the front.

Bank: Built in 1845 of snecked ashlar stone, it was known as the Black River Bank. In 1865, it became the National Black River Bank and changed names again in 1932, when it became part of the Windsor County National Bank. Merging with Vermont National Bank in 1964, the bank was closed in 1972. The building is now a private home.

Bordering the Proctorsville Green

Proctorsville Woolen Manufacturing Company: This mill was started by Jabez Proctor in 1836 and was reorganized in 1878, to become the second largest mill in Vermont. Reflecting changes in ownership, the Mill was known as the Murdock’s Mill, Crescent Woolen Mill, Proctor Mill and the Black Bear Woolen Mill. The Mill building was purchased by the Town in 1938. Proctor Reels used the building to make furniture as well as reels. Acousti-Phase Company replaced Proctor Reels until 1982 when the building was burned. Wild Bill’s Discounts occupied one of the remaining buildings. The Building was purchased from the Town in 200 and was being renovated for the production of tiles. The structure is currently for sale. 

Cross Route 131 and head west (towards Ludlow)

Proctor Cemetery: Located between two houses, look for the Cemetery sign. The earliest burial was in 1816. The Proctors gave the land for the cemetery. Among the veterans buried here is at least one who served in the Revolutionary War, Capt. Leonard Proctor, the founder of Proctorsville, two in the Civil War and one each in The War of 1812 and in the Spanish American War. 

Phineas Gage Walking Tour

Start tour at the Phineas Gage Memorial  on the Cavendish Town Green (High Street & 131)

Location of Accident: While a precise location is not known, the alleged site of the accident took place 0.75 miles south of Cavendish along the track of the Old Rutland and Burlington Rail Road. Take Mill Street, by Mack Molding,  the first left from the Town Green, heading west on Route 131. Go through the underpass and take an immediate left on to the Cavendish Gulf Rd. When you come to the marked railroad track crossing, approximately 200 yards, look to the right along the tracks from the crossing, and you will notice a major cut in the rocks. The approximate site of the accident is somewhere between this cut and the “lime kiln” area. Please stay off the track. This is an active railroad. Continuing on the Cavendish Gulf Road, approximately 300 yards from the white house just past (east) the railroad crossing. On the right hand side, is a small driveway that crosses the tracks. There is a 21.7 marker on tracks, which can be seen from the road. If you look across the tracks, you will see the remains of a limekiln. In 1936, Walton H. Green relayed information given to him 30 years prior by Christopher Goodrich, the ox-cart driver who drove Gage to his boarding house. Goodrich was 82 at the time. Green said, “The accident took place at the second cut south of Cavendish …near where Roswell Downer built his lime kiln later.”  Please stay off the railroad tracks.

Boarding House: From the Town Green, walk west on Main Street. Standing by the War Memorial in front of the CHS Museum, the building was located across the street from the Memorial.

Carpenter’s House: Immediately after the Museum, same side of the street, is the area where the Carpenter’s shop would have been located. It currently is the Town Garage.

Dr. Harlow’s House and Surgery: Dr. Harlow’s house, on Main Street but east of the town green, was located next to the Stone Church. All that remains is the cellar hole.

Dr. William’s House: Dr. William was an engineer, who went to medical school when ill health kept him from working outside. Since he did not have a busy medical practice, Williams spent considerable time in various forms of engineering. In fact, he knew Gage prior to his accident. He was the first doctor on the scene but would have differed to Dr. Harlow as he was a surgeon. Not long after the incident, Williams returned to engineering full time and started the oldest engineering society in the United States, Tau Beta Pi. His home was located on Depot Street in Proctorsville. The house would have been on the right hand side of the road, as you head from Route 131 to Route 103,  just after crossing the railroad tracks. 

Scribbler II: Spring 2013

In keeping with Memorial Day, this is a special issue of “The Scribbler,” as we celebrate our towns’ surviving WWII veterans-Russell Fitzgibbons, Carmine Guica, Jim Hasson, Edward Kolenda, Dr. Seymour Leven and Kenneth Winot, as well as WWII vets from Cavendish who now reside elsewhere: Paul Ahonen, Jr. , Glendon Bemis; Gordon Durand; Vincent Guica; Antoni Janowski; and Wyeth Tiemann. Edwin Farrar lives part of the year in Cavendish and winters in Florida.

The Cavendish Historical Society (CHS) is currently compiling a list of Cavendish WWII veterans, which will include those who enlisted while living in Cavendish and those who relocated here after the war. If you have any information on these veterans, please e-mail to margoc@tds.net, mail to PO Box 472 Cavendish VT 05142 or call 802-226-7807.

During WWII, 168 men from Cavendish went to war, serving in every branch of the armed services and in nearly every area where American soldiers, sailors and flyers were sent. Six men were killed in action and several were wounded.  Imogene Baxendale, the only woman to serve, was an Army nurse.

Over the years, a number of veterans moved to town and helped to shape its future. Among them was Art Briggs who became the fire chief of District #2 (Cavendish). Having extensive experience fighting fires in the Army Air Force, he organized the volunteer fire fighters and help to see that CFD became legally incorporated.

This spring the CHS’s Hands on History program has been working on a WWII unit with children who are being home schooled as well as the 6^th grade at Cavendish Town Elementary School. As part of the 6^th grade program, three of Cavendish’s surviving WWII veterans met with the students telling them of their war experiences and answering their questions. Robin Bebo-Long the sixth grade teacher, video-taped their presentations, which is available on-line. 

Jim Hasson started school at the age of four. When Pearl Harbor occurred in 1941, his high school class quickly emptied, but he was too young to enlist. In 1943, he was leaving the post office and noticed a poster showing a Seabee jumping off a road grader with a Thompson Machine Gun. He said, “that’s the job for me.”

He enlisted as a Seabee at the age of 17 and he remained one until he was 60 years old, when he retired. More than 325,000 men served with the Seabees in WWII fighting and building on six continents and more than 300 islands. In the Pacific, where most of the construction work was needed, the Seabees landed soon after the Marines and built major airstrips, bridges, roads, gasoline storage tanks, and Quonset huts for warehouses, hospitals and housing.

Jim was first assigned to Pearl Harbor, where he built timber rafts for airplanes. He then was sent to Quam. After the war, Jim became a plumber, but continued with the Seabees. He was 41 when he went to Vietnam and also served in Cuba during the Castro years. He particularly liked his stint in Bermuda, since he wasn’t being shot at.

Another Seabee veteran, who is well known to CHS, was Craig Rankin. A landscape architect, his skills were needed both in Europe and the Pacific. He had a number of “war” stories he wrote and talked about. In one, he describes how he was responsible, for escorting the heavy weight champion, Gene Tunney,  around the New London Submarine Base. Tunney’s job was to inspect physical fitness programs of Naval posts and bases. “After lunch, we visited the diving tower in which every submariner is trained in the use of the Momsen Lung, an escape technique. The tower consisted of a huge cylinder of water 100 feet high, with an attached airtight room at its base. Trainees sat on benches in the room while air-pressure would be gradually increased to equal the pressure of water at the bottom of the tank. Putting on the Momsen Lung, you then pass through doors into the bottom of the water tower and climb up hand over hand along a rope in the center of the tank.... Tunney was introduced to the two tank officers...The tank officers asked Tunney if he would to go through this tank. Tunney politely refused, offering some excuse, but the young officers were determined parties. After about ten minutes of this, Tunney turned and walked away. Then he stopped and confided in me, “I just cannot go into that tank. All my life I’ve had a fear of water. I hope some day to overcome this fear.” He spoke so humbly, it sounded like a different person. “

Carmine Guica and his two brothers, Vincent and Frank,  enlisted and were stationed in the Pacific. Carmine was stationed in some of the highest attacked areas-Guam, Philippines, Okinawa and Iwo Jima. He described how they lived two to a Foxhole, taking turns staying up at night. As he wrote in his autobiography, “We were on the beaches where we set up our anti-air craft guns. Most of the fighting was back in the hills. The action we saw most was firing at the Jap planes. They never bombed us too much as their greatest target would be the ships. When we had an alert, all personal were called-cooks, clerks, and KPs. [Carmine was a cook.]. ...We used to go on the hill where the refuges were and talk to them. They spoke English well and they used to tell us how strict they had to live under the Japanese rule. I did get very sick there for a few days. Just about every one was affected. They said it was Dengue Fever or something like that. The Engineers made fresh water for us from the salty ocean water. There sure was a lot of deep mud on Guam. After we got our kitchen set up the engineers also made ice that they delivered to us every day. We did get a lot of Spam. There were so many ways we served it....For fresh meat we had a lot of goat meat from Australia.”

The constant bombing Carmine was exposed to resulted in major hearing loss. He would eventually return to Cavendish, where he worked for GE until his retirement. Like many of the other veterans, he was in the reserves after the war.

Seymour Leven, originally from Grand Rapids, MI, had several reasons for enlisting: to keep up with his older brother; his dislike of school (he had already finished two years of college) and most important, he had family in Lithuania who were forced into the concentration camps. Seymour thought that Hitler was evil and needed to be stopped. Initially in officer’s training school, he was moved into gunnery and bombardier training. Instead of going to Europe, he was sent to the Pacific as a tail gunner on a B-29 bomber. At one point, Seymour’s crew was sent stateside for additional training. While it was top secret at the time, it later became apparent that his flight crew was among those that would be the back up for the Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Completing 23 aerial combat missions, Seymour’s division, located on Saipan was featured in the War Department’s film The Last Bomb-1945 U.S. Army Air Forces Bombing Japan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-zvatnERuA

After the war, Seymour took advantage of the GI bill to complete college and medical school. He would eventually work with post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and has worked with combat veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cavendish is unique in that in also had a Russian WWII veteran. Nobel prize winner and Soviet dissident, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote. In 1941, a few days before the beginning of the war, I graduated from the physics and math program of Rostov University. With the war’s outbreak,  because of restrictions due to health, I became driver of a wagon train and with it spent the winter of 1941-2. Only later-again thanks to mathematics-was I transferred to artillery school, where I completed the accelerated course by November 1942.  At that time I was appointed commander of a reconnaissance artillery battery and uninterruptedly held that position during my military service, never leaving the front, until my arrest in February 1945... I was arrested on the basis of censored extracts from my correspondence with a school friend in 1944-5, basically for disrespectful remarks about Stalin, although we referred to him by a pseudonym. [the mustached one]” Aleksandr was to be in prison for eight years and then was sent into exile for three more years. These experiences were reflected in his books “The First Circle” and “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch.” In 1974, when “The Gulag Archipelago” was published to universal acclaim, Aleksandr was once again exiled from his homeland. The result was that he lived 18 of  his 20 years in exile in Cavendish, VT.

Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices. President Harry S. Truman

To all of our Cavendish veterans, and those who continue to serve, thank you for a job well done.

Upcoming CHS Events

June 2 (Sunday): CHS Museum Opens for the Season 2-4 pm

June: A tour of the Cavendish Power Plant and the site of the Fitton Mill. The tour is being planned with Green Mountain Power. The event is scheduled for June.

July 6 (Saturday): CHS’s Annual Summer Fest and Plant sale, starting at 8:30 at the CHS Museum. The Cavendish Stone Church will be open from 10-2 pm

July 27 (Saturday): Cavendish town wide tag sale. The Cavendish Stone Church will be open from 10-2pm.

Consider a 181^st Poem

The Vermont Humanities Council is launching it’s Vermont Reads 2013-Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, the Cavendish Historical Society is encouraging readers to explore the poetry of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who lived in Cavendish from 1976-1994.

In Twilight

I well remember the very widespread custom, back in the South, of “twilighting.” Carried over from before the Revolution, it might have also been fortified by the meager, perilous years of the Civil War. Yet this practice had come about much earlier. Was it born of the months-long warmness of the Southern dusk? Many became accustomed never to rush lighting their lamps; yet, having completed their chores (or tended to the livestock) before nightfall, they were in no hurry to get to bed. Instead, they emerged outside to sit on dirt ledges, or benches, or just lounged inside with the windows wide open—no light to draw in bugs. One after another they would sit softly down, as if lost in thought. And long remained silent.

If someone did speak, it was quietly, delicately, unobtrusively. Somehow, in those exchanges, no one got fired up to argue, or to reproach spitefully, or to quarrel. Faces could barely be made out, then not at all; and, lo, one began to discern in them, and their voices, something unfamiliar, something one failed to observe through the prior course of years. 

A feeling would take hold of everyone, of something impalpable and unseen that descended gently from the dimming after-sunset sky, dissolved in the air, streamed in through the windows: that profound seriousness of life, its unfragmented meaning, that goes ignored in the bustle of day. Our brush with the enigma that we let flit away.

Cavendish Historical Society Board

Dan Churchill

Jen Harper

Gloria Leven

Bruce McEnaney

Mike Pember

Gail Woods

BECOME A MEMBER, RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP, DONATE

 If you have not joined the Cavendish Historical Society, need to renew your membership, and/or would like to be a volunteer, please complete the form below and sending a check, payable to CHS, to CHS, PO Box 472, Cavendish, VT 05142. All contributions are tax deductible.

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