The Cavendish Historical Society's accepts tax-deductible contributions to help preserve our history. You can reach us at margocaulfield@icloud.com 802-226-7807 or PO Box 472 Cavendish, VT 05142 The CHS Museum is located at 1958 Main Street (Route 131) in Cavendish.
Ninety years ago on Nov. 3, 1927, there was a heavy rain. At first, the inhabitants of Cavendish were not particularly concerned but the rain continued hour after hour. In an unusual weather pattern, two storms from different directions stalled over Vermont. Seven and one-half inches of rain fell in 24 hours on the Black River drainage area. From its source, north of Plymouth, the Black River gathered volume and force as it washed out the Plymouth roads; flooded the streets and basements of Ludlow; damaged the Rutland Railroad tracks, undermined foundations of several tenements, and flooded the finishing room of the Proctor Woolen Company in Proctorsville. The heaviest damage was reserved for Cavendish village. Instead of staying in its course down through the Cavendish Gorge, the Black River broke through the power company's pond dike above the gorge dam and by 9 pm, there were two feet of water in lower Main St. and four feet covering Depot St (now called Mill St.). The river then cut a deep and wide gully down through lower Main St, once part of an ancient river bed. The gully was one-quarter mile long, 100-600 feet wide, and 25-150 feet deep. Note that this was a similar path that took place during Irene in 2011. Swept away by the raging river were seven houses, ten barns, four garages, eight automobiles, land, trees, the lower part of Main St., and a section of the River Rd. The wreckage piled up in Whitesville, a mile downstream. The Duttonsville School ended up protruding over the edge of a
high sandbank. Redfield Proctor, former Vermont governor, offered $10,000 to
restore the schoolhouse. Olin Gay, Chairman of the School Board, proposed using
this gift to move the school to a new location. He also proposed that the town
raise an additional $5,000 by taxes to put in an auditorium basement, modernize
the heating system and install toilets. The school building was moved on big
rollers by oxen and horses 400 feet back to a safer location. It had much
better facilities than before the flood. A Vermont Standard School until 1928,
thanks to the renovations after the flood, Duttonsville was upgraded to a
“Superior School,” a status it retained until closing in 1971. The school building still stands and to today is the home and business of Dan Churchill.
President Calvin Coolidge telegraphed his cousin, Park Pollard, that he wanted to do whatever he could to help the town. He sent Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce, to visit the region and make recommendations. Tow Army engineers came to give technical help about relocating the state road.
Museum/Stone Church: Oct. 8
was the last day the Museum was opened for the season. While we are happy to
open it at other times, it’s awfully cold, as it’s not heated.
There
has been yet another delay on the doors. This time it was a fire marshal issue,
that’s since been resolved. However, our wonderful woodworker Dave Stern needs
wrist surgery and so the final installation will have to wait for spring. Dave
and Bob Naess have started preparing the area for the new doors.
Thanks
to Carl Leiner we have a much needed new sign for the Cavendish Stone Church.
If you are wondering what happened to the sign on the side of the museum, it
was destroyed when a trailer hit it. Carl is hard at work at replacing this
sign.
With
new signage and doors, the opening of the Museum in May 2018 is something to
look forward to.
Bruce McEnaney with students at Sturbridge
Carmine Guica Young Historians Program: What a
busy month. Thanks to Stein van Schaik’s endowment, the 4th grade
had a day long workshop with experimental archeologist Charlie Paquin where
they learned “roots” skills of the first peoples of Cavendish/VT-flint
knapping, pottery, rope making, atlatl throwing and much more. Check out the
Facebook album for lots of pictures.
Learning to flint knap
On Oct.
27, the endowment also covered the 4th and 5th graders
trip to Plimoth Plantation. The 6th graders spent that day at the
Sturbridge Museum, thanks to the Blueberry fund of Betty and Bruce McEnaney.
Check out the Facebook Album for
these trips. Rounding out the month was a Proctorsville Ghost Walk for 5th
graders and a visit to the W. Haven archeological dig by the 4th
graders.
Students at Plimoth
Thank
you to the many volunteers that make this program possible- Bruce and Betty
McEnaney, Carolyn Solzhenitsyn, Pang Ting, Stein van Schaik and to the parents
who drove to Plimoth Plantation.
Researching Cavendish’s First People: CHS
provided a special post on
Oct. 9 in recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day, which has replaced Columbus
Day in Vermont.
Halloween: If you
missed CHS’s annual Cavendish Halloween post, check it out at the CHS blog.
WHAT’S
HAPPENING IN NOVEMBER?
On Nov. 1, the 5th grade will be
learning by doing with the annual Dia de los Muertos program. Visitors from
Russia will be here on Nov. 3 to see the Solzhenitsyn exhibit and on Nov. 8 is
the annual Fitton Mill Tour for the 6th grade will take place. While
a short month, preparations are underway for the school holiday program, this
year focusing on Poland. While we’ve been planning all year,, there is much to
do before January begins a year of various programs on Solzhenitsyn in honor of
his 100th birthday. 2018 is also the 170th anniversary of
Phineas Gage’s accident and various options are being considered. As always,
while planting season seems far off, we’re already discussing the 2018 plant
sale and when to start what plants.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
If you can help with
any of the following, please contact CHS margocaulfield@icloud.com; 802-226-7807 or PO Box 472, Cavendish, VT 05142
• Do you like to
paint? CHS has painting projects both at the Museum and at the Stone Church. We might just have a little bit of good weather
before snow flies to get in a project or two.
• Have Polish
traditions you’d like to share with the school children as part of the special
holiday program? We’re looking for craft ideas, foods etc.
• CHS is looking for
new board members as well as volunteers who can help with various activities.
Are there really haunted places in Cavendish?
According to last year’s 6th graders at the Cavendish Town
Elementary School, there are many places in town with unexplained and
mysterious things happening. Check out their video Cavendish Ghosts Stores.
At this year’s Cavendish Historical Society’s
Ghost Walk, an Abenaki tale was related in honor of the first peoples of
Cavendish.
For more “ghostly stories” of Cavendish, check
out
Why the change in a holiday
that began in 1937? Columbus Day was designed to celebrate Italian-American
culture and heritage. Starting in the 1970s, alternatives to the holiday emerged
as attention was called to the fact that Columbus and other Europeans
interactions with the indigenous peoples resulted in hundreds of years of
violence and slavery; forced assimilation and conversion to Christianity; and a
host of new diseases, e.g. small pox, that killed off over 90% of native
peoples within 150 years of Columbus's arrival. It was also noted that Columbus didn’t “discover” the Americas nor
prove the world was round, since that was already common knowledge. In fact, he
thought the world was pear shaped. Columbus’s voyage was economic in nature-a
better trade route to the east. Slave trading was a lucrative opportunity
and he captured natives for such purposes.
While
Columbus may have been a very brave and skillful sailor, he was also a deeply
flawed human who set the stage for the Spanish conquistadors who looted and
killed natives by the thousands. How Columbus Sailed into US History Thanks to Italians
Columbus
was also not the first European to reach America. Leif Ericksson arrived
well before Columbus in what is today Newfoundland and it’s very possible that
St. Brendan’s voyage from Ireland took place 500 years before Ericksson and
1,000 years before Columbus. However, all of them are “Johnny come latelies,”
as the Americas were occupied, possibly as early as 16,000 years ago.
To read more
on how the Americas were populated, check the following resources:
So what about Cavendish? The following information
is based on what is currently known
through archeology and other studies. As we learn more, we will continue to provide updates.
There
is archaeological evidence at Jackson Gore, Ludlow, VT that dates back 11,000
years, shortly after ice age ended. Judging from the tools uncovered, these
hunter/gatherers were highly skilled craftsmen who traveled far and
included trading with other groups, as a high percentage of the stone used for
the tools came from Maine. Cavendish would have had Indians traveling through
the area via the Black River and/or what became known as the Crown Point Rd. The
Paleo-Indians would have fished and hunted game depending on the time of
year, and may have spent days or weeks here depending on whether food was
plentiful.
The most practical group
size was large enough to hunt cooperatively butsmall enough to be self-sufficient andmobile. It was probably an extendedfamily of men, women, and childrentotaling 10 to 25 people. The humanpopulation in this part of the world at that time was low, and the
territory thata few dozen groups like
this shared mayhave included hundreds
or even thousands of square miles. At times several groups probably gathered
together to hunt or fish; to exchange information, goods, and stories; to
celebrate, to make friends, to resolve conflicts; and to meet potential
spouses. Links were formed among the groups through these activities and
through family ties. History & Culture Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center
Tools
used about 5,000-7,000 years ago, called the Archaic period, have been found in
Cavendish fields, indicating there might have been an Indian settlement away
from the river. Just 37 miles to the South of Cavendish in Keene, NH there is
evidence of a winter settlement that is over 12,000 years old. Even closer is
Bellows Falls, where petroglyphs can be found.
Bellows Falls Petrogylphs
Since
the first settlements in Bellows Falls, numerous Indian graves have been
inadvertently dug up throughout the village and near the falls. There is
a tradition among longtime residents that the section of town located on the
west side of Main Street, across from the Square, was once an Indian burial
mound (Hayes 1907:29). Additionally, two centuries of excavations for roads and
building construction near the petroglyphs have uncovered numerous skeletal
remains throughout the village and on the island leading to the bridge that
crosses the Connecticut River. Lyman Hayes interviewed the late Dr. S.M. Blake
who indicated to him that “the whole distance across the island had, in a much
earlier period, been used for an Indian burial-ground. The bodies were
uncovered sitting upright, having been buried in a sitting posture with the
knees drawn up to the chin, in a circular hole dug deep enough so that the top
of the heads came within a foot or two of the surface of the ground” (Hayes
1907:29). Even the mound just
to the west of the petroglyphs, where a power substation is located today, was
once an Abenakis burial mound. It would seem that the village was erected upon
what could be one of the largest burial sites in all of Vermont, and perhaps in
all of New England. This was and still is a very sacred place to the
Abenakis. The Abenaki and the Bellows Falls (VT) Petroglyphs
The Abenaki Native
Americans have been living in the same region for 10,000 years. Today, this
area comprises Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and southern Quebec. The Abenaki
Alliance in Vermont and New Hampshire consists of four tribal bands, much like
America is divided into states. These tribal bands include the Missisquoi (St.
Francis/Sokoki) [Swanton], the Elnu [southern Vt], the Nulhegan [Northeast
Kingdom] and the Koasek [central] . Each individual tribal band is governed
by a Chief and a Tribal Council, yet they are all part of the Abenaki
Alliance....
Historians have often
confused which band or tribe some of the eastern Indians were from. If they saw
an Indian in one location, they assumed that person was a member of the local
tribal band. Many historians have called all Abenaki “St. Francis Indians.”
Other historians have used that term just to refer to the Abenaki of Odanak,
who reside in Southern Quebec. This has often led to confusion about the
history of the Abenaki people.”...
Hollywood moves have
portrayed all Native Americans as having copper skin, dark brown eyes, and long
black hair. This is far from the way the eastern tribal people looked. In 1542,
sieur e Roverval, Governor General of New France, described the appearance of
the Abenaki people in his letters. He wrote, “They are a people of goodly
stature and well made; they are very white, but they are all naked, and if they
were appareled as the French are, they would be as white and as fair, but they
paint themselves for fear of heat and sun burning.” In 1637, Thomas Morton of
Massachusetts wrote, “Their infants are borne with hair on their heads and are
of complexion as white as our nation: but their mother in their infancy make a
bath of walnut leaves, husks of walnuts, and such things as will stain their
skin forever, wherein they dip and wash them to make them tawny.”
Between
1500-1609, it’s estimated that there was a minimum of 10,000 Abenaki in VT.
With the arrival of the Europeans, by 1760, the population in VT and Southern
PQ had dropped to 1,200. Reasons included disease, the Europeans pitting one tribe
against the other, involvement in various wars, and movement into Quebec. The Abenaki
were a peaceful people and were not well suited to war.
During
the American Revolution, Abenaki ranger units and warriors fought on the
American side. By 1840 there were confirmed 1,000 Abenaki in northwestern VT
and 1,500 by 1910. Totals in other parts of the state for this time period are
unknown. In 2006, the VT Legislature recognizes the Abenaki people and created
the VT Commission on Native American Affairs. The 2000 US Census shows 2,460
Indian people and 3,976 who cited “Indian” as one of two or more races in VT
for a total of 6,396 focused in northern and central VT.
So why aren’t these people
readily known? Vermont has a very dark history when it comes to its native
peoples.With the arrival of the
Europeans, life changed dramatically for the Indians. They lost their land,
were persecuted, and/or died from diseases they had no immunity to.Consequently, those of Abenaki descent would
be known as “dark” or “colored” French or gypsies. Many would have changed
their name and it was very common for parents not to tell their children of
their Indian heritage until they were adults.
Along
with French Canadians, poor people and those with disabilities, the Abenaki
were coerced into sterilization. In 1931, Vermont passed the eugenic sterilization law, "A Law for Human Betterment
by Voluntary Sterilization." Vermont's eugenic solutions -- in the form of
identification, registration, intervention in families with problem or backward
children, and sterilization of those deemed unfit to conceive future
Vermonters-was in effect until 1957, though the majority of sterilizations
-200- took place between 1931 and 1941. A total of 253 people were sterilized,
80% of whom were women. However, though the sterilization was reported to end
in 1957, the Abenakis continued to be sterilized in the United States,
including Vermont
As
recently as 2002, the Vermont Attorney General’s office said the Abenaki didn’t
have a “continuous presence” in Vermont as they all migrated to Canada. Not
only was this incorrect, but starting in 2011, there is state recognition of
We
have confirmed one former Cavendish resident, Gratia Denny, as being of
Abenaki dissent. Her Grandmother Gratia Belle Ellis, born 1843, was an Abenaki
Indian and spoke Algonquian. It is expected there are others in town who share
similar heritage, some of whom may not be aware of it.
Learn
More About the Abenaki at the websites listed above, as well as the following
resources:
• Malian’s Song: The book, Malian’s Song, is based on an eyewitness Abenaki
account of Robert Rogers’ 1759 raid on the Abenaki village of St. Francis. For
many years the only information about the raid included in history textbooks
was based on Robert Rogers’official report. In 1959 ethnologist Gordon Day
recorded Elvine Obomsawin Royce telling a very different story of the raid that
had been passed down in her family for generations. Here Jeanne Brink,
granddaughter of Elvine, reads an English translation of her grandmother’s
story
Please also check the Cavendish VT Facebook page for photo albums of various CHS activities.
WHAT’S
HAPPENING
Museum: The last day the Museum will be open is Oct.
8. While we are happy to open it at other times, it’s awfully cold in there as
it’s not heated.
RiverSweep 2017
Carmine
Guica Young Historians Program: Once again the 6th grade
participated in RiverSweep. The walk to Greven Field was a good opportunity to
explain who Dr. Greven was, why he donated the property and where his office
was on Greven Rd. This is a great activity to teach the importance of
stewardship along with town history.
Charlie Paquin looking for artifact.
Plimoth Plantation
October is going to be a very busy month. We
are thrilled to have the archeologist Charlie Paquin spending the day on Oct. 2
with the 4th graders. He will demonstrate flint knapping (stone tool
making), host an atlatl contest and prepare them for their field trip to the
SCHEP dig site on Oct. 13. Friday, Oct. 27 the 4th and 5th
grades will be visiting Plimoth Plantation and the 6th graders will
be going to Sturbridge Village.
Also scheduled for the 5th grade is
the Proctorsville Village Ghost walk on Oct. 23. A very special thanks to:
Stein van Schaik for making Charlie Paquin’s visit and the Plimoth Plantation
trip possible and to the Blueberry Fund of Bruce and Betty McEnaney, who
sponsor the yearly 6th grader excursion to Sturbridge. Thanks also
to our incredible volunteers-Pang Ting, Doris Eddy, Bruce McEnaney and special
appreciation to town manager Brendan McNamara for stopping by RiverSweep and
helping with the clean up.
Abenaki Indians
Researching
Cavendish’s First People: With the Governor declaring Oct. 9
Indigenous Peoples Day, CHS is looking
for artifact from the 1st peoples that lived here. Carmine Guica reported that
while he was exploring cellar holes he came across a variety of arrow heads or
projectile points. Have you found such items in Cavendish? Have you found
unusual rocks or stones that appear to be "worked?" They could have
been used for grinding corn or acorns. Does your family lore contain stories of
Indians, gypsies or "dark French?" If you have any information, please contact
CHS at margocaulfield@icloud.com or 802/226-7807, CHS, PO Box 472, Cavendish VT
05142 or stop by the Museum on Sunday, Oct. 1 from 2-4.
Solzhenitsyn
100th Birthday: CHS is working with the Vermont Historical
Society and the Russian
Department of the University of Vermont on various
activities for 2018, which is the 100th birthday of Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn. Not only has language been finalized for a proclamation by the
Vermont Legislature-this will take place in January or February in
Montpelier-but VHS is submitting a grant application to the VT Humanities
Council for an exhibit. The
Vermont Historical Society (VHS) is excited to partner with the Cavendish
Historical Society (CHS) and the University of Vermont (UVM) to celebrate the
life and work of writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in honor of his 100th
birthday.We will provide two community
lectures on Solzhenitsyn through the Vermont Historical Society’s Third
Thursday Program Series, taking place in Montpelier and Burlington,
respectively, and will create a panel exhibit to be displayed at the Vermont
History Museum in Montpelier.The main
goal of the project is to share and celebrate Solzhenitsyn’s life and work with
the broader Vermont community.Specific
goals of the project include:
1.Disseminate information on an important
20th century writer, his influence on Vermont, and Vermont’s
influence on his writings, to a broad audience through VHS’s Third Thursday
Program Series and a panel exhibition.
2.Create the panel exhibition in a way that
will ultimately be adaptable to travel to local historical societies and other
cultural organizations throughout Vermont.This will bring information on Solzhenitsyn to an even wider audience,
and provide more opportunities for community programming.
3.To honor Solzhenitsyn and his work during
his 100th year.
Gage 170th Anniversary in 2018:
In presenting the annual Phineas Gage Walk and Talk in September, we were
reminded that 2018 will be the 170th anniversary of his famous
accident. We’re open to ideas and suggestions about how to celebrate this
event.
SAVE
THE DATE
Oct
8 (Sunday): Ghost Walk in Proctorsville. Meet, 2pm at
the War Memorial in Proctorsville, which is on Route 131 (Main Street) close to
the Proctorsville Fire Department and Village Clippers
HOW YOU CAN HELP
If you can help with any of the following, please
contact CHS margocaulfield@icloud.com; 802-226-7807 or PO
Box 472, Cavendish, VT 05142
• Do you like to paint? CHS has painting projects both
at the Museum and at the Stone Church. Fall is a good time to get outside and take
advantage of the good weather.
• CHS is looking for new board members as well as
volunteers who can help with various activities.
