Oh hey Vernon, here is the situation: I was writing this blog and it seemed to be headed down boring avenue and that caused me to ask Wayne what he thought of it. Now as any of you guys out there know, when your partner asks questions along the lines of "what do you think?" it's probably a good idea to answer them with a clarifying question something along the lines of, "I'm not sure, where are you going with this?" The reason for this is because the person posing the question probably already has the answer in mind.
So it was with this suddenly unconventional blog, that I decided with Wayne's answer, that there were plenty of better technical writers out there and maybe I shouldn't attempt to add to their work. Basically this introduction is "take two" with my original attempt being the meat of the sandwich for those who like that sort of thing. Keeping in mind that when questions are asked its wise to keep an open mind to the answer, I give you a stream of thought on the pool and our seemingly shrunken Lily Pond.
The first slice of bread:
When I read that Lily Pond used to be one hundred acres large and that Vernon used to have a healing pool, I couldn't help but ask, "What happened? Do things like this just vanish like Harry Potter characters flushing themselves down toilets? What the heck did Vernon do with sixty acres of pond and a spa? The periodical that I read, rather casually and in a single paragraph mentioned the pool. It had been tested and found to have a variety of substances that supported a claim that it was healing. It was mentioned as if everyone was aware of the pool in 1891 in the same way that we are aware of the Vernon pool on Pond Road today. Doesn't every town have a pool without a more formal name attached? Well what I want to know is, who pulled the plug on that 1891 pool?
My error was that I immediately had mid winter dreams of swimming in the geothermal mineral springs of Colorado when the sulfur springs of Saratoga are closer to Vernon. Imagine my disappointment after relaxing in the hot springs of CO as a teenager and then discovering upon moving to Gansvoort, NY as an adult, that the spa in nearby Saratoga Springs was nothing more than bathtubs filled with natural sulfur water. What could be worse? How about being new to town and convinced by locals to drink it!
As promised, here is the meat of this sandwich:
According to the Bureau of Reclamation* 3% of the Earth's water is fresh, of that 2.5% for various reasons is unavailable and .5% is available fresh water. In TX, a natural disaster has reminded the nation what a valuable commodity water truly is as residents wait in long lines to receive it in bottled form. In The US, bottled water consumption is expected to grow by 8% annually with this years projected sales to reach almost 71 billion dollars!** I don't even want to try and imagine how much plastic waste ends up in our oceans from such consumption.
I'm sure that readers remember well August of 2011, when Hurricane Irene bestowed upon Vermont more water than we could possibly handle. My mother in law Janice likely quipped, "Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink." Vernon however was unscathed by VT's largest flood since 1938, but poor Rutland reached 8.21 feet above flood stage.
In June of 2016 VT experienced it's longest drought since the U.S. Drought Monitor began in 2000. The 2016 drought lasted forty five weeks ending in April of 2017. Our most intense drought in 2020, though shorter in duration, affected 29% of VT land. It seems that though we escaped the great record western fires of 2020, we had our own situation going on here. Lily Pond was lower than I had ever seen it last summer, though I remember that in the 2017- 18 drought new wells being drilled throughout town.
It's fairly easy to sit comfortably in my living room picking facts off of the internet that support the notion that a precarious balance of available fresh water exists. With so much information at our fingertips and with fresh water being so valuable, it's more difficult to think that we would lose track of where water once was in VT. But with filling in wetlands being incentivized into the 1950s, that is the case. It's estimated that thirty five percent of Vermont's wetlands have disappeared since European colonization.*** I asked Wayne if he thought that any of this was interesting and he replied, "Not really, I never think of wetlands being in VT." Yet four percent of Vermont land is wetlands.**** Now that's something to think about in my estimation.
Below is the bottom slice of bread:
Mysteries still abound even here in Vernon; but mysteries aren't exactly conducive to a good nights sleep, so I needed more than supporting facts about the state of water in our state.
In 1851 Alonzo Stebbins had the water from the pool analyzed. The document states that he had purchased the land that the pool was located on from Samuel Stratton. I spent a lot of time trying to locate another mention of the pool without success. Then it occurred to me that my friend Cheryl responded to my email today about a map, "Did you notice in the business directory, just about every business was farming? I love that about this town." Cheryl was referring to the 1869 map of Vernon posted on the town website. Sure enough I found him there, "Alonzo Stebbins Farmer District Number 3" I was able to locate J&A Stebbins but no A. Stebbins. It's between "Family Cemetery" and Island Meadow Brook. A 2018 Water Resources Map shows that where the Island Meadow Brook intersects Stebbins Road, there is what looks to be a swelling of the brook. Could this be the pool? If not, there is also a wetland in the area with a larger pool within it. I don't even want to consider the possibility that there were more than one Alonzo Stebbins between 1851 and 1869!
I wonder if the town has land records that show that there was once another pool in the area or maybe the exact boundaries of the parcel owned by Stebbins? If the pool no longer exists, could there be other mineral rich waters in Vernon yet to be rediscovered?
One online search for mention of Island Meadow Brook brought me to the 1914 publication Industrial Vermont: The Mineral and Water resources of the Green Mountain State. It was here that I found what seems to be a confirmation on the size of Lily Pond, "Lily Pond, in the western part of town, has 100 acres." I had been warned by Martin to not trust old maps for accurate information on the pond. I had questioned the pond's boundaries as drawn on the 1869 map because I had previously found the 1891 publication The towns of Windham County which too claimed Lily Pond to be 100 acres. Could it just be a compounded error?
Clearly if the pond were once bigger it wouldn't have been towards the west which is a steep bank. On the eastern shore there is a more gradual slope and an area that is flooded annually in the spring filling the lowlands east of the raised parking lot and to the south of the parking area across a narrow path. Is it probable that the lot itself was at one point created with fill? Similarly, on the southern end of the pond there are swampy areas where tributaries and a distributary meet the pond. How were these areas accounted for in old papers versus in the 2018 town plan? Could this account for the "missing" sixty acres? To the North of the pond there is another wetlands basin on the edge of Silver Lane that also annually fills with water in the spring. Between this area and the pond is a brook and Lily Pond Road. The area spanning the basin beyond the bridge over the brook to the pond is posted and so I have not ventured across there. Some maps however, do show the connection. Are these the 60 acres included in the old papers? I have contacted the Vernon Historical Society for more information.
Maybe my sandwich comes with chips on the side:
I must take pause from this investigation to speak to the Descendants of William Scott. (pp 39). This paper states: 26- Jonathan Scott, Abigail dau. of Joseph and Ann (Bottom) Safford. He d. Nov 13 1784; she d. Oct 16. 1806. Abigail was granddaughter of Thomas Safford, who emigrated from England and settled in Ipswich Mass in 1641.
This information relates to Lily Pond because the farm around Lily Pond in Vernon was deeded to Eben'r Scott on Dec. 30, 1784 (pp33). I would guess that Scott Road is named for Eben'r?
What readers do not know is that my maiden name is Safford and I only discovered today of a possible connection to the Scott family of the farm around Lily Pond. I too am a descendant of a Thomas Safford from England who settled in Ipswich MA around that date, through my grandfather Whitney D Safford born in Essex New York and died in Burlington, VT. What that connection is I do not exactly know. And so it seems that the more questions that I ask, the more questions that I have -Norma Manning
*Water Facts-Worldwide Water Supply, Bureau of Reclamation
**Consumer Markets Bottled Water, Statista
***Restore, Department of Environmental Conservation
****Wetlands 101, VT Wetlands program
A copy of the 1869 map showing Lily Pond in District 5 and the Stebbins land in District 3 hangs in Cold Brook Store in Vernon
A pool where Island Meadow intersects with Stebbins Road
This pool is created by a dam
View from Stebbins Road looking East
Following Island Meadow Brook
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