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PLANT
SALE
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| Craig Rankin's Plant List |
In spite of
incredibly nasty weather, the annual Cavendish Historical Society Plant Sale went
on as usual. A very special thank you to: the Tings of Moonlite Meadows for
once again supplying the best dirt ever; Svetlana and Kem Phillips, Lu Choiniere, Margo Caulfield, Pang Ting and
Pieter van Schaik for transplanting and caring for so many plants. Sale day,
though it was a wet and rainy mess, was greeted with a knowledgeable plant
sales team, particularly Svetlana and Pieter. Thanks Bob Naess for making
sandwiches and putting up a tent so everyone stayed dry.
Craig
Rankin would be thrilled to know that the sale continues and that plans are
already underway for next year-mock orange and dahlias.
IT’S BLUEBERRY TIME
For
the third straight year running, Bruce and Betty McEnaney have opened up their
amazing organic
blueberry farm for general picking ($3 a pound). Located off
Smokeshire at 354 Miner Rd, just over the Cavendish town line in Chester, it
offers some of the best views in VT. The money raised from the "pick your
own" is used to fund the Cavendish Town Elementary School (CTES) 6th grade
trip to Sturbridge Village. We have a big class this year, so we need lots of
picking if we're going to make this trip possible.
UPCOMING EVENTS
The Museum is open
on Sundays from 2-4 pm and other times by appointment. Activities are free and
open to the public.
August 20 (Sunday): Solar Eclipse Workshop. Make a pinhole
projector for safe viewing of the eclipse. 2pm at the Museum
August 21 (Monday): View the solar eclipse (it will be a partial eclipse)
starting at 1:30 pm at the Museum. Maximum viewing will be at 2:41 pm. We will
have a variety of devices for viewing. Please note that children 3 and under
will only be able to use a pinhole viewer.
Sept. 9 (Saturday): Honey Festival at the Golden Stage Inn, off Depot Street in
Proctorsville. CHS will once again provide an opportunity for visitors to make
hand dipped beeswax candles. The festival hours are 10-4
Sept. 10 (Sunday): Annual Phineas Gage Walk and Talk. CHS Museum, 2pm.
Oct. 8 (Sunday): Proctorsville Ghost Walk-meet in front of the Proctorsville War
Memorial, 2pm.
EVER WONDER WHAT THIS WAS?
If you travel along
route 131, you may have noticed a structure in Cavendish Village and wondered
what it might have been? Root cellar is a common thought.
It turns out that
this this was a burial vault constructed in 1828 by Jonathan Atherton Jr. Two
of the Athertons were buried there until they were reburied in the Cavendish
Village Cemetery on High Street.
A POLISH CHRISTMAS
Each year at Christmas time,
CHS celebrates the holiday by holding a daylong series of workshops at
Cavendish Elementary School based on the heritage of people who have settled in
Cavendish. This year we will be celebrating the Polish, many of whom came to
work at the Gay Brothers Mills.
“..In 1908 the mill at Cavendish needed more workers
than it was able to find roundabout. Some Polish people had drifted into
Springfield, Vermont, looking for jobs. But it was slack there. A power company
was building a dam in the Black River Gorge and the Poles heard that laborers
were being taken on, but by the time they got there the demand had ceased. As
long as they were in the neighborhood they thought they might as well inquire
at the mill in Cavendish, and there three of them were hired at once. They sent
word to friends, who came to join them.
At first there was some show of hostility in the town.
Vermont was for Vermonters, Americans, went the grumbling; no call for
Vermonters to put up with any foreigners coming in.
But the Poles showed themselves so quickly to be good-working
folk, diligent, thrifty and above all, clean, that people in the village soon
fell into the way of treating them just as neighbors. “Mornin’ Isaac,” they’d
say, casually, at the Post Office or the general store. And “That’s a fine rose
in your garden, Tony-don’t know’s I ever saw the variety hereabouts.”
In the mill the Poles took naturally to the work. Two
of those first Polish employees are bosses now, and good ones. Isaac, who
was among that first three, still works in the picker room. And when anyone in
town can’t get a lawn to grow just right under needle pines, or has trouble
with a mulch, usually it is Tony who comes along and helps to straighten things
out.
The Poles married in Cavendish and now a second
generation works for the Gays too. In school the children of Polish extraction
have continuously taken a lion’s share of prizes, which makes a bond between
them and the environment and way of life in New England. When you have lived
for years in a town, and your children have been born there, gone to school and
married there, it becomes though you had really never anywhere else. During the
World War period no one in Cavendish, ever had finer Victory gardens than the
Polish mill people, and that included the children and their school gardens.
And the Polish men, women and children have taken their fair share in social
and civic events. The celebration of a Liberty Loan quota oversubscribed; or a
Red Cross drive; ....
Hardly anyone in Cavendish remembers their Polish
neighbors without recalling the incident of Tony’s daughter, Mary.
It was before the first World War and Mary was just
beginning to learn to talk. Word came from her grandmother back in Vilna that
she would like to have Mary for a visit, so her parents sent her over with some
friends.
The war broke out and it was impossible to get Mary
back to American. Not until she was twelve or thirteen were her parents able to
arrange for her to come back. And even then there was an enormous amount of red
tape. Her parents were absolutely bewildered. They followed what amounts to an
informal village custom and took their problem to the Gays. Leon Gay decided
that the most effective way would be to work through the Red Cross, getting
passport, tickets, identification papers and so forth. For Mary’s people it all
became a dream, of the great day Mary would arrive.
But, instead, a dreadful thing happened. Instead of a
little girl being met by her parents and their friends at a certain train,
there came a telegram, which said, “Mary dead Tuesday.”
Mary’s parents were simply beside themselves. But to
Leon Gay it seemed that there was something queer about all this. A healthy
child does not just die without warning. While he set in motion ways of
checking every step of Mary’s journey from Vilna, he instructed the telegraph
people to verify the message.
A few hours later a telegraph company clerk reported
sheepishly, “There was an error in transmission-the message reads ‘Mary
arriving Tuesday.’ “ Excerpt from
“Neither Wealth Nor Poverty: The History
of the Woolen Mills of Gay Brothers 1869-1944,” by Janet Mabie pages 85-87
While we are assembling
various projects for the students to do, if you have Polish Christmas
traditions you’d like to share with the students-such as recipes, crafts, gifts
etc.-please forward them using the contact information at the beginning of the
newsletter.
ENDOWMENT OF CGYHP
Thanks to a generous donation
from Stein (Ernestine) van Schaik, the Carmine Guica Young Historians Program
is off to an incredible start.
Stein came to Cavendish as an
eight year old from Holland. The youngest of a large family, she grew up on
Chambers Rd in Cavendish. In making her bequest, Stein explained that the Cavendish
schools were her introduction to America and in turn she hoped that the
endowment would help to launch today’s schoolchildren in becoming the life long
learner and educator that she has become.
Having lived on six of the
seven continents, Stein now lives in Florida, but spends a portion of the
summer here. Having been a teacher and a principal, as well as being bilingual
in Spanish, Stein has been incredibly helpful in planning some of the “hands
on” activities that CHS provides as a way of teaching history. This summer
we’ve had lots of interesting conversations about immigration as well as some
new ideas for the 5th graders Dias de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)
annual workshop.
Thank you Stein for making
such a difference in our kids’ education as well as helping to keep alive the
memory of Carmine Guica who would be thrilled.
REDFIELD PROCTOR: A CANNABIS
COMPANY?
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| Redfield Proctor |
The name Redfield
Proctor is well known in Cavendish. Born
in Proctorsville in 1831, Redfield Proctor married Emily Jane Dutton, ending
the feud between the Proctors and the Duttons of Duttonsville (today Cavendish
village). His achievements were considerable, 37th US Secretary of
War, US Senator from VT, 37th Governor of VT to name a few.
So why would a new cannabis venture name itself after Redfield
Proctor, who was a well-known conservative in his day? Could it be that the
president Stephen Martin of Quechee, VT, who also runs ABVaporizers, is naming
the company after Proctor’s son Redfield Proctor, Jr?
 |
| Redfield Proctor, Jr. |
Like his father, Redfield Jr. served as Governor of VT as
well as in the Vermont House and Senate. A graduate of MIT in mechanical
engineering he was a prominent business man- executive at Vermont Marble
Company, president of the Clarendon and Pittsford Railroad and served on the
board of directors for various groups including Boston’s Shawmut Bank and the
United States Chamber of
Commerce. Could his civic work as a member of the Vermont Sanitarium Board,
which took care of people with tuberculosis, be responsible?
The company “Redfield Proctor” has been awarded funding as a
“start-up in stealth mode focused on efficiency in the cannabis industry.” So were one or both of the Proctors secretive in their business dealings?
Or could it simply be that Redfield Proctor is a well-known name in Vermont?
Don’t have an answer but when you
hear Redfield Proctor in the future it may not be the former Governors of VT.
100TH BIRTHDAY PLANNING
CHS is working with various groups in Vermont-Historical Society,
Humanities, and the Russian Department at the University of Vermont-to plan
activities throughout 2018 as a celebration of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s 100th
birthday on December 11, 2018. Among the activities planned include a special
proclamation signed by the Governor in January/February made possible by our
local state representative Annmarie Christensen and our state senators-Nikitka,
McCormick and Clarkson.
There will be an exhibit at the
Vermont Historical Society Museum in Montpelier, which will focus on his time
spent in Cavendish, where he was writing “The Red Wheel.” Various lectures,
book discussions groups and more will be taking place in Cavendish and
throughout the state.
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.
Name: _______________________________________
Address:
_______________________________________________
Phone Number: _____________________ E-Mail:
____________________________
Membership
Level
__
Individual Member $10 ___ Senior Member
65+ $5 ___ Sustaining Member $500
Volunteer
___
I would be interested in serving, as a volunteer .I would be interested in
serving on the following committee(s):__ Program Planning __ Fundraising
__ Building (Museum)
__Archives _ Budget –– Cemetery __ Carmine Guica Young Historians
Donations are always welcome and can be designated as
follows:
__
Archeological Activities _ Museum & Archival __ Special Events
__
Rankin Fund __
Williams Fund __ Solzhenitsyn Project
__
Other (please specify) __ Cemetery Restoration __ Preservation Projects
Sept: 10 (Sunday): Annual Phineas Gage Talk & Walk-Met at the Museum at 2 pm. Wear
comfortable walking shoes for walking. The accident site is a little over ¾ of
a mile from the Museum. 
