Please note that any Vermont Covid requirements in place at the time of the event apply.
The Museum 1958 Main St, RT 131, is open from 2-4 pm for the season.
July 31 (Saturday): 11th Annual Cavendish Town Wide Tag Sale. The Cavendish Historical Society will be on the Proctorsville Green at the Gazebo. 9-2.
August 15 (Sunday): What’s in the CHS Medicine Cabinet? We’ve done a study of the potions, notions and medicines that have been in the Museum’s exhibit. Talk begins at 2 pm at the Museum and will feature Dan Churchill who worked at Pollard’s store as a teenage pharmacist.
September 12 (Sunday): Annual Phineas Gage Walk & Talk, meet at the CHS Museum at 2 pm. Walk portion is about a mile and a half and includes a visit to the site of the accident.
October 3 (Sunday): Fitton-the Mill, the Firebug, and Everything in Between. Starting at 2 pm at the Museum, there will be a talk on the Fitton (Spring Mill), the town that grew up around it-Fittonsville- and the man Robert “Firebug” Fitton who was responsible for its demise and lots of other property in the town of Cavendish. The talk will be following by a walk out to the site where the Mill, boarding house, and other structures once stood. Wear comfortable shoes and be prepared for walking on uneven terrain.
December
12 (Sunday):
Christmas Ghost Walk Proctorsville. 7 pm. Meet in front of the Proctorsville
War Memorial
JIM HASSON & MILLIE FITZGIBBONS
It is with sadness that we note the passing of two members of CHS, who have contributed both their time as well as items for the Museum
Jim (1926-2021) fell in love with Vermont after serving in WWII as a Seabee. Moving to Cavendish, he starting Town and Country Plumbing and Heating, which he owned and operated for 36 years. As a Seabee Reserve, Jim went on active duty in Bermuda, Guantanamo Bay when Castro shut the water off at the Naval Base, to Camp Lejeune as training officer and to Vietnam in 1968 as Assistant Bravo Company Commander and Base Operations Officer. After fulfilling many other assignments, he retired from the reserves as a Chief Warrant Officer Four, Civil Engineer Corps, USN with 42 years, 2 months and 5 days service on his 60th birthday.
After retirement, Jim volunteered at Billings Farm as a Historical Interpreter, the Old Constitution House, Calvin Coolidge Homestead and Spring Brook Farm with the Farm for City Kids program. He was a much loved speaker at Cavendish Town Elementary School (CTES), where he honestly answered every question the students asked him. Ten years ago, Jim was a guest of honor at Cavendish’s 250th anniversary celebration.
Jim was noted for his many off the cuff remarks so it’s hard to pick just one. However, at his 95th birthday parade held in March, he was overheard telling a reporter, “Live long enough and they make you a hero.”
Mildred (Millie) Fitzgibbon (1923-2021) began her life of service to her community in WWII as well. Along with her mother, she helped to staff the “spotter tower” with her mother near the Duttonsville School. She also worked at the machine tool shops in Springfield, Vt. as a billing clerk and secretary.
Millie worked for 10 years in banking as office manager at Vermont Occupational Training Center in Proctorsville and at Daken Company in Ludlow, Vt., from which she retired. After her retirement, she helped care for her elderly parents.
An active member of the Cavendish Baptist Church, she was also a musician and played the organ at various churches.
Millie was a wealth of knowledge about Cavendish history. No matter how many questions you asked, she had the answers. If she didn’t know them, often her husband Eddy did, or they knew who to call. When the Young Historians were doing a unit on WWII, she was able to describe in detail what it was like in a spotter tower, where they were located in town and why those areas were chosen. Consequently, the Young Historians’ “spotter tower” exercise is based on Millie’s experience.
Our condolences to their families and to their many friends.
HENRI VAN SCHEIK OLYMPIAN
With the Summer Games underway in Tokyo, we remember a Cavendish resident who won silver in the 1936 games for Holland in dressage. Henri van Schaik (1899-1991) was born in Holland at a time when horses were a part of everyday life, so it was natural for him to gravitate toward riding and eventually the Dutch reserve cavalry. As an officer, he had many years of experience in international jumping competition in the 1920s and 1930s.
Following WWII, with six children and an American wife, Mary Mattison van Scheik, it was decided that America offered more a future than Holland, and the family moved in 1953. Settling in the old Wilcox estate on the corner of Tarbell Hill and Chambers Rd, in Cavendish, Henri would start a riding school across the street, where he became quite well known for training dressage riders.
In 1986, his book “Misconceptions and Simple Truths in Dressage,” was published and is still in print and available from Amazon.
As one of his former students and a well published author, trainer and dressage instructor, Paul Belasik wrote, “Dr. van Schaik made understanding classical dressage a life’s work and passion. He lived in a modest house in Vermont, and the wind blew snow through the boards of the barn. He shoveled snow all the time. He lived a simple life but was not a simple man. If I earned it, he treated me as an equal, which was a very important thing for me, an honor, and I try to re-create that kind of relationship with my students today. We had a very collegial rapport and enjoyed many dinners centered over deep discussions. But our job as a student is to find our own journey. Henri van Schaik was there when I was ready to ask questions about taking the next step, but you don’t rely on someone else telling you what to do. The true student is motivated by intrinsic rewards, not extrinsic rewards. Henri van Schaik was always interested in learning; he had ‘the beginner’s mind.’ Mastery isn’t obscure and elite. The approach to mastery is through your own process.”
POLLARDS STORE/PHARMACY
In 1863, Don Pollard moved his store from Plymouth Notch to Cavendish, in order to be near the railroad. He and Fletcher Sherwin opened “Pollard and Sherwin” on the corner of what is today Depot Street and Route 131. Don Pollard’s son, Fred, took over operation of the store in 1880 and it became Moore and Pollard in 1883 when Fred formed a mercantile partnership with Frank C. Moore. In 1889, Fred Pollard brought in his brother Park Hiram to form the Pollard Brothers firm.
In 1895, a fire caused the Federalist brick building to be replaced with a three story wood frame structure with a flat roof, clapboarded exterior, and stone foundation. The main block has extensive Italianate styling, including a bracketed cornice, paneled corner pilasters, and course of dentil molding above the second and third floors. This building was home to the village general store for 70 years and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Pollard family business was a general store, which sold a wide variety of products, including window shades, glazed windows, tobacco, sugar, medicines, footwear, shawls, rope, carpets, petroleum products, and food products.
Dan Churchill, the owner of “Commercial Radio,” wanted to be a pharmacist as a kid. Around the age of 12-13, he started hanging out at Pollard’s Store, which included a compounding pharmacy that prepared customized medications for patients as well as animals. He worked in the pharmacy through high school, training under Park Pollard, who Churchill thinks trained under Dr. Greven.
The longer Dan worked for Pollard, the more he turned over the day to day operations of the pharmacy to him.
When asked what he did when it was a complex compound, Dan said he’d ask Dr. Greven for help
In 1922, Dr. H.J.Greven joined Dr.
Buxton in Proctorsville and became the
sole physician in the village when Buxton died in 1930. Greven served the town
of Proctorsville until his death in 1956 at the age of 70. His office/home was
the white house adjacent to route 103 on Greven Rd.
And yes, if you are wondering about Greven Field, where today’s youth play sports, that was deeded by Dr. Greven to the Proctorsville Fire Department in 1948 for use as a recreational area.
Pollard was a prominent Vermont State Democrat, a candidate for Governor in 1930 and 1942 and US Senator (1923), chairman of the VT State Democratic committee for 35 years and represented Cavendish in the state legislature in 1917, 1921, 1923, and 1933. He also held a variety of positions within VT, Windsor county and Cavendish.
It’s interesting to speculate how Pollard added “pharmacist” to all his other activities. However, at the time he began operating the store, 1889-1955, pharmacy education was based on the apprenticeship model, where physicians provided a shop practice with an employee apothecary and/or apprentice, that lasted on average about four years. It’s very possible that Pollard had begun his pharmacy practice under Dr. Darwin Story, the Proctorsville physician in the late 19th century, and who sold his practice to Dr. George Buxton.
By the early 1900’s various pharmacy schools had opened, merged or closed throughout the country. There were two, three or four year programs with day and night programs available. There were little to no educational requirements to attend pharmacy college. However, in 1948, the American Council on Education declared that the pharmacy degree should be a 6-year program, provoking colleges of pharmacy throughout the United States to begin implementing PharmD programs.
The apprentice model was pretty much coming to an end by the time Dan started working for Pollard. Dan noted that his parents couldn’t afford to send him to college to become a pharmacist and so his college career took a very different path.
Churchill recalls that a common complaint was “the itch.” Medications commonly formulated to treat this malady included Hawthorne Berry (also used for coughs); diluted tincture of iodine; and Ointment of Mercury. Horses were routinely given arsenic, that was thought to aid the heart.
On Sunday, August 15 at 2 pm, Dan will be speaking at the CHS Museum about his experience being a teenage pharmacist at Pollard’s store. This program is free and open to the public.
FIRE BUG FITTON
When he died in 1902, the Bennington Reformer said of Robert Fitton, “at one time one of the leading and most influential citizens of Windsor County and afterward descending to be perhaps Vermont's most famous crook and swindler, died recently in New York."
We’ve been pondering the story of Robert Fitton this summer, and as Linda Welch, author of the “Families of Cavendish” Volumes 1-4 notes, That Fitton thing turns up more questions the more you dig--but one has to remember that we're dealing with our greatest outlaw--a well-financed one who when he made mistakes they were stupid and public ones--but there was probably a lot more that he got away with than people realize.
Robert Fitton was born in 1850 in Woonsocket, RI. His father, James Fitton, held various patents pertain to the woolen mill industry, moved to Cavendish and started the Spring Mill (known as Fitton’s Mill) in 1865.
Fittonsville, as the area became known, would be one of the largest employers in town and had boarding houses as well as its own school. However, it came to a halt when it was burned to the ground in1875, at the hands of Robert Fitton.
This was by no means Robert’s first fire or his last, as he seemed to think a quick way to solve financial problems was to set a fire and collect the insurance. The number of buildings he ultimately destroyed was heading into the double digits when he finally started being arrested for his crimes.
On June 10, 1887, the papers reported, “Deputy Sheriff Perry of Walpole, NH, Sat. a.m. arrested Robert Fitton, on a charge of perjury, forgery, and contempt of court and surrendered him to Deputy Sheriff Lovell of Windham County and Sheriff Gardner Wallace of Windsor County….
Fitton has been notorious through his many litigations with insurance companies and suspicious of incendiarism have rested upon him. He recently testified before a US Court that nine different buildings owned by him or members of his family, had been burned within a few years, and a careful estimate of the amounts of insurance paid under these fires, placed the mounts at between $90,000 and $100,000.
For years, insurance companies have refused to insure him, but by strategy and in various ways, he succeeded in getting his risks taken and the property burned. A number of these fires have been in woolen mills and store-houses, the latest one being the Cambridgeport, Vt. woolen mill, burned in August, 1883.
In this case, the fire took place the same night that the contract of insurance was taken by Fitton with the agent and the loss, amounting with interest and costs to about $16,500, was paid last year, after having been resisted by companies until compelled by the courts to pay, they being unable to prove fraud.”
“Firebug Fitton,” Robert was in and out of court like a revolving door. The list of his legal dealings from 1890 onward were extensive. He was being sued, charged with forgery, using aliases, fleeing to Canada-returning periodically, public intoxication, jumping bail twice etc. In 1891, he tried to start a bank in Ludlow.. A letter to the Tribune from a Proctorsville citizen states: “.... if he [Fitton] is to start a bank, as he advertises, or anything else, let it be at Ludlow rather than Proctorsville, for we shall fear that, like his other business ventures, it would ‘go up in smoke.’”
Learn more about Fitton and tour the site of the Mill and boarding house on Sunday, Oct. 3. The tour begins at 2 pm in front of the Museum.
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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