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PO Box 472 Cavendish, VT 05142
802-226-7807 margocaulfield@icloud.com
Fall 2026 Vol. 21, Issue 4
UPCOMING ACTIVITIES
Cavendish Historical Society (CHS) events are free, unless noted otherwise. Donations are always welcome and appreciated. In the event of last minute changes, due to weather or another issue, information will be posted to the Cavendish Facebook page [www.facebook.com/cavendishvt].
October-December: Aleksandr Solzhenitysn exhibit at the Cavendish Fletcher Memorial Library, 753 Main St. Proctorsville. Tues, Wed and Friday 9-6.
October 30 (Friday): Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) workshop 5/6th grades @ CTES
October 31 (Saturday): Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) community workshop at the Cavendish Library from 10-noon
November 15 (Sunday): Annual Proctorsville Ghost Walk. Meet at 2 pm in front of the Proctorsville War Memorial.
November 18 (Wednesday): Book Talk-Love the Revolution with Ignat Solzhenitsyn, 6 pm at the Cavendish Community Library
December 5 (Saturday): 10-noon Russian Tea and ornament making at the Cavendish Library.
CAVENDISH’S 265TH & VT’S 250th IN 27
In 1761 the Cavendish Charter was signed by King George III of England on Oct. 12. The area of land includes what is today, Cavendish and Proctorsville villages and Baltimore, VT. Cavendish’s first legal settlers were John and Susannah Coffeen in 1769.
In 2027, Vermont celebrates the 250th anniversary of becoming a republic. Because of land grants, battles were being fought over whether land belonged to New York or New Hampshire. To settle it, 28 delegates from 28 towns-John Coffeen represented Cavendish-met in Windsor VT and created the State of Vermont as an independent Republic This lasted from January 1777 to March 4, 1791, when Vermont became the 14th state to enter the union.
The sentiment of that time period was captured in John Greenleaf Whittier’s ballad The Song of the Vermonters, 1779, an excerpt appears as follows:
And ours are the mountains, which awfully rise Till they rest their green heads on the blue of the skies; And ours are the forests unwasted, unshorn, Save where the wild path of the tempest is torn.
And though savage and wild be this climate of ours, And brief be our season of fruits and of flowers, Far dearer the blast round our mountains which raves, Than the sweet summer zephyr, which breathes over slaves.
Hurra for Vermont! for the land which we till Must have sons to defend her from valley and hill; Leave the harvest to rot on the field where it grows, And the reaping of wheat for the reaping of foes.
From far Michiscoui's wild valley, to where Poosoomsuck steals down from his wood-circled lair, From Shocticook river to Lutterlock town,— Ho—all to the rescue! Vermonters, come down!
Come York or come Hampshire,—come traitors and knaves; If ye rule o'er our land, ye shall rule o'er our graves; Our vow is recorded—our banner unfurled; In the name of Vermont we defy all the world!
CELEBRATING SOLZHENITSYN’S ARRIVAL IN CAVENDISH
From now until December 5, CHS is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s arrival in Cavendish. The Soviet dissident and Nobel Prize winner in literature, lived in Cavendish 18 of the 20 years he was in exile from Russia.
Over the years, we’ve learned the many ways the Solzhenitsyn family shared their Russian heritage with the community. Dr. Bont’s family related how he would make a house call, and after seeing whatever child was sick, Natalya Solzhenitsyn and her mother would have prepared a tea for him. In the Autumn 1983 edition of Vermont Life, the reporter noted, ..a sign of the Solzhenitsyn’s hospitality, a freshly made Orekhovy torte (a Russian nut cake) waited to be served with espresso coffee. CHS continues the Solzhenitsyn’s gift of hospitality
• Exhibit: The Vermont Historical Society exhibit, “Solzhenitsyn in Vermont,” is at the Cavendish Library now until Dec. 5 (Saturday). The Library hours are 9-6, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. The Library is attached to the Cavendish Town Elementary School, 753 Main St. Proctorsville
• Book Talk-Love the Revolution: On November 17, for the first time, Solzhenitsyn’s unfinished novel “Love the Revolution” will be published in English by Harper Perennial. This is the same day that “One Day in the Life of Ivan Densovitch” was published in 1962. The date of the talk is November 18 at the Cavendish Community Library in Proctorsville and will feature his son Ignat, who is an internationally recognized pianist and conductor.
• Russian Tea and Ornament Workshop: On Saturday, December 5, CHS will offer a free bird ornament making workshop -Solzhenitsyn loved birds- accompanied by a Tea featuring the family’s nut cake recipe. This will be at the Cavendish Library from 10-noon.
DMITRI SOLZHENITSYN
The grandson of A. Solzhenitsyn, Dmitri is the author of Reuniting Rome with the Orthodox, forthcoming from Creed & Culture published this fall. Dmtri attended Cavendish Town Elementary School, Green Mountain Union High School and graduated from St. Paul’s School and Harvard College, where he studied philosophy and mathematics and was named a John Harvard Scholar. The founder of Paulie Prep, an educational admissions consulting firm, Dmitri previously served as a senior business analyst at McKinsey & Company. His articles have appeared in The Catholic Herald, National Review Online, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and he has translated or edited several of his grandfather Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s texts, including The Calf Who Butted the Oak and the forthcoming Diary of a Red Wheel. Solzhenitsyn primarily resides in Texas (along with his wife and daughter) and serves in the choir at St. Vladimir’s Russian Orthodox Church.
CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION IN CAVENDISH IN 1923
The following article appeared in the December 28, 1923 edition of the Vermont Tribune.
The Cavendish celebration started on Friday evening with the community Christmas at the Town Hall, which was tastefully rimmed with evergreen boughs and red paper poinsettias. It also contained, which was of most interest to the children, 2 large trees bearing gay tinsel, colored lights and presents for every child in the village. The program, furnished by the school children, consisted of three little plays, which were so well presented that they reflect credit on the children and their instructors.
On Sunday morning at the Baptist Church there was a community service with a sermon by Rev/ R. M. Allen, who in addition to his carefully prepared discourse, had decorated the church in a very artistic manner. At the background was a scene of the town and adjacent country of Bethlehem with 2 large pillars in the foreground. Wreaths and boughs with red poinsettia completed the decoration. In the evening, the choir of the Baptist Church, assisted by Miss Marion Vail of Ludlow, contralto, with Miss Vernice Gay of New York City at the organ, gave the cantata, “Adoration,” by George Neven. Miss Gay also rendered several organ selections before the cantata.
Monday evening the Universalist Church held, for the first time a candle light song service.
Once more the electrician ransacked the attic, and found an old star cut in a square wooden box, which had been used in the church many years ago at Christmas time. It used to sit at the east end of the gallery with a candle and later a kerosene lamp burning behind it, but this year it was fitted out with another side so that it held two stars swinging aloft in the church belfry with an electric lamp inside. There it burned all through the night, “the night before Christmas and the next night.”
The church, whose colonial lines lend themselves to dignity and beauty, was decorated with wreaths and candles. The pulpit, with trailing evergreens, and on the table in front a small Christmas tree lighted with an electric lighting outfit. Each person arriving was handed a candle.
Upon the ring of the last bell, all electrics in the church except those upon the little tree were extinguished. Will Bartlett and Will Butler lighted first the candles in the windows, then the candles carried by the congregation, while Mrs. Carrie Spafford lighted the candles across the gallery. This was followed by a half hour of singing Christmas hymns by the community led by Mrs. Spafford, with Harold Whitcomb at the organ. The singing was most ably assisted by George Smith of Proctorsville, who played the airs of all songs on his cornet. At the close of the service al were dismissed with “God bless us everyone.” Then the singers went about the village streets and sang a few carols, Mr. Smith and his cornet in attendance. A new snow and a full moon, which was ordered especially for the occasion were delivered promptly on time.
On Christmas evening also the municipal tree in the park was lighted. Cavendish is the only one of the three villages, Ludlow, Proctorsville and Cavendish, to have this most beautiful part of Christmas this year.
The week’s festivities closed on Thursday evening with a moving picture of Dicken’s Christmas Carol at the Baptist Church.
CAVENDISH CHRISTMAS TRADITION
On Christmas Eve 2025, Peggy Svec shared the following story about her husband, Rich, who was town manager of Cavendish for almost 30 years.
" Every Christmas Eve at around nine o’clock, he’d put on his Santa hat, grab his Czechoslovakian grandfather’s sleigh bells and climb into his pickup truck. Then for the next few hours, he’d drive through our two villages of Proctorsville and Cavendish and out along our winding, rural back roads. Throughout his travels, he’d ring those sleigh bells out the driver’s side window, no matter how cold it was, bellowing, “HO, HO, HO”, all along the way.
The endearing motivation for his Christmas Eve tradition was to give doubting youngsters one more year of believing and precious childhood, hopeful anticipation, as they nodded off to sleep. He also felt our “oldsters” might smile, remembering back to their youth when they believed and were filled with wide eyed wonder, innocent anticipation and childhood joy!
TWENTY MILE STREAM GRAVE ROBBERY
In keeping with Halloween, below is one of the stories from “Cemeteries of Cavendish, Vermont 1776-1976 Bicentennial Project” by Mary Churchill.
Oliver Whitney, Sr., lived on a farm northwest of the so-called Bates Farm on Twenty Mile Steam. Part of the farm was in Ludlow and part was in Cavendish. It is now included in the Bates farm.
Sometime in the early 1800’s, perhaps 1820 or so, James Whitney, son of Oliver, was ill from a cause doctors were unable to diagnose. The boy became morbid and seemed to have an overpowering presentiment that “the doctors” as he expressed it, would endeavor to possess his body after his decease because they could not determine the cause of his illness. He knew there was a Medical College in Woodstock and also knew medical students that had to rob graves in order to get their cadavers. He begged his brother, Oliver, Jr, to solemnly promise he’d guard his grave for as long a time as he felt it necessary. Oliver, to allay his brother’s fears, promised, altho’ he hardly believed there was any danger.
James died on Saturday in July and was buried in the Twenty Mile Stream cemetery near some Whitneys. They were Oliver, who died 10-3-1865 aged 75 years and 11 months, Mehitable d 5-31-1863 aged 75 yrs and Sarah who d 12-9-1843 yrs aged 57 yrs.. Perhaps they were James grandparents. That night his brother, Oliver, accompanied by Robert Barrett, a next door neighbor’s boy who lived on the Ashton Spaulding farm just west of the Bates’ Mansion (now known as Mad Wives Stables) [today its known as Bates Mansion again] stationed themselves on the west side of the road from the cemetery (on what is now the Churchill farm) and where they could look across to the top of the hilly part of the cemetery where James was buried. As time passed by, the boys became drowsy and dozed off but were soon awakened by the sound of shovels removing gravel. They could see the outline of two forms near the grave. Quickly they searched for and collected all the cobblestones within their reach and carefully ascended the hill. When nearly to the top, they rushed at the robbers and sent a volley of cobblestones while shouting at the “top of their lungs” at the same time.
The grave robbers rushed down the backside of the hill toward the brook. They landed in a jungle of blackberry bushes, coming out into a meadow and soon pitched headlong into a bog hole, filled with slimy water and frog spittle, which from that day to this, has been known as “The Doctors Hole.” It is exactly on the line between the Churchill and Spaulding farm.
The robbers had left their horse and carriage near the old cheese factory, which stood a little below William Spaulding’s stone house. (now James Spaulding’s). They finally made their get-away.
Going back to the grave, the boys found a rope with a slip-noose, two shovels, a hammer and a key-hole saw. On the handle of the hammer was the name of a well-known physician in Woodstock, who, when the hammer was shown to him, acknowledged it was his, but had no idea how it got there!
How did the medical student know the Whitney boy had died? Is seems one of the College students had taught school in an adjoining district and somehow word had been sent to Woodstock.
James Whitney’s body was removed from the cemetery and interred near his home just over the town line in Cavendish and some claim his parents were buried beside him and also, some others who had died from the “spotted-fever” epidemic.
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
__ Household Member $15 ___ Contributing Member $250
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:
__ For general purposes __ Young Historians __Publications
__ Archaeological Activities _ Museum & Archival __ Special Events
__ Rankin Fund __ Williams Fund __ Solzhenitsyn Project
__ Other (please specify) __ Cemetery Restoration __ Preservation Projects
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