PART THE FIRST
Karina and I accepted an invitation from Linda Hecker in early September to attend a meeting of the Guilford Conservation Commission. The Guilford Commission had extended the invitation as a part of their offer to mentor Vernon. During the course of their meeting, Guilford discussed the status of their trail upkeep and the impact that increased traffic would have on a historic site adjacent to the trail. It seems that a spontaneous spur from the trail to the site had resulted in loss of certain artifacts. They weighed the risk of establishing a formal trail to the site with educational signs requesting that nothing be removed against encouraging hikers to remain on the designated trail by not bringing more attention to the site.
Theirs was an interesting dilemma given that the state designates the powers and duties of municipal conservation commissions to in part "make and maintain an inventory of lands within the municipality which have historic, educational, cultural, scientific, architectural, or archaeological values which the public has an interest;"* All of this can be further complicated by the fact that many of these sites of local historical and educational value are located on private lands.
And so it was this week that Wayne and I were driving down Broad Brook Rd when I abruptly told him to stop the car. Coming around a bend in the road, I had eyed a tree in fall foliage arching over the sparkling waters and needed to take a picture of it. Wayne being a much less spontaneous driver than myself, continued on for some distance before coasting to a safe and responsible stop. Well that was as painter Bob Ross used to say, "a happy little accident." It was while I walked back and forth along that stretch of road trying to recreate the image, that I noticed what looked to be a stacked stone foundation on the opposite bank.
Curiosity along with spits and spats of stored information in my head began to circulate and soon a connection was attempting to be born. Fort Dummer State Park for example, is located not far from this site. Further up but still on this side of the I-91 bridge, there is a pull off were behind Jersey Barriers there is a trail to the book. Just on the other side of the brook is where a Fort Dummer trail ends. I know this because Wayne and I once hiked the FT Dummer trail and then this summer we finally stopped to check out what those barriers were all about on Broad Brook Rd.
Ft Dummer while intriguing, upon closer inspection it wouldn't be a connection as the park is not the actual site of the fort built 1724. The park instead overlooks where the fort once stood which has been under CT River waters since the Dam was built in 1908.** It was also while reviewing the above photograph from that day, that I noted that the brook stone is not of the same type used in the stacked stone structure.
On another note, I had included in my May 2020 blog, Vernon's Little River Wanasquatok, an excerpt from
History of Eastern VT that describes the settlement of Guilford, VT in 1761 by way of Vernon and along the Broad Brook. There is nothing quite so exciting as the process of narrowing down these sorts of things. What I had missed in this periodical however, was the part that read, "This road, although the only one by which the town then could be reached was impassable with teams, and the settlers for some time were compelled 'to either boil or pound their corn or go fifteen miles to mill with grist upon their backs'" There you have it, it was "for some time" after 1761 that the convenience of a mill eluded the settlers. This is significant because grist mills were often the first commercial buildings erected.
Brattleboro's first mill dates to 1762 and on modern roads, is only a few miles from Broad Brook. Vernon's Whitehead Mill was built in 1839 However, from where the settlers came, John Clary constructed a mill in Northfield MA in 1686. Could this is the mill in question?
Additionally, I found that Guilford has a Grist Mill Rd which lead me to discovering that their first mill, the
East Guilford Grist Mill was built in the 1790s Would it reasonable to assume that the Broad Brook structure wasn't a Grist Mill? One more building off the list and my impatience for this circular scavenger hunt was growing by the minute.
Locating places, dates and connections on the internet is one thing, but I'm the sort of person who needs to experience things for myself, and so I informed Wayne that he was to prepare the dogs for a ride. Now this came about because of the generous outreaching of Pearly, who let me know that she thought the structure in question was on Cersosimo's land. In turn, Martin messaged me suggesting that it might be land belonging to the Bailey house at the end of Ox Cart Road. Clearly, what I lack in logic, I over compensate for in curiosity, so once the dogs were loaded up I explained to Wayne that we were going to examine the length of Broad Brook Road; but first we needed to drive to the Bailey house on Ox Cart Road.
None of what I am going to say after this point is going to satisfy Martin Langeveld from whom I was now asking for help in untangling this mystery. Martin relies on research and hard evidence before saying that something is so. I must make him sigh at times for I am much like a dog who sees a squirrel and simply must chase it.
Finding that Ox Cart Road terminates at the doorstep of the Bailey house as it turns out wasn't nearly as interesting as discovering what appears to be an old stone quarry site at the base of the hill in the woods. There is a lovely waterfall flowing down to the site and someone has set up chairs there. This picture is taken from the road and doesn't show the full scope of the site.
Having our bearings about us, we crept along Broad Brook Road looking for additional clues. It was Wayne who I believe cracked the case. First he noticed that across the brook yet beyond the Bailey house, there appeared to be a leveling of the land which he thought might be an abandoned road. This brought us to what looked to be an excavated foundation site.
the flattened area continued beyond the foundation and we found additional areas of stacked stone on the brook side of the flattened land. Are the stones part of a road or is this natural rock formation?
We stopped to chat with the owners of a house across from one such stacked area. They said that they didn't know anything about the stacked stone. The flattened area ended at a steep hillside and more stacked stone.
Truthfully, it wasn't until the day after our field trip that I connected the idea that Ox Cart Road might have at one time been a trail upon which oxen were driven. Could Ox Cart Rd have been used to move timber from the hill or foundation rocks from the quarry?
At this juncture, I'm going to turn the mystery over to Martin, having determined to my mind what the structure wasn't (a grist mill) and narrowing down the time of when it was constructed to being less than 260 years old.
Good luck Martin - Norma Manning
PART THE SECOND
Thanks to Norma for allowing me to augment this post with some further speculation, based on research I’ve done into maps, deeds, and newspaper articles related to this particular stretch of Vernon.
My first thought was that this dry-stone foundation was likely built for a less-important structure, like a shed or a barn, and not for something like a dam or a mill which would have required a more substantial footing. Also, the vertical drop of the brook in that area looks to be insufficient to power a mill.
I looked at the title history of properties in the area to see who the owners were, back in the early 1900s or 1800s when this type of foundation might have been built. (Vernon land records can be fairly easily researched, free,
here online.)
It turned out most of the land on the south side of the brook was owned in the early 1900s by Jason Bushnell, a Brattleboro entrepreneur who also owned a museum of curiosities located in “The Old Red Mill” at the site of the present post office complex in Vernon. The mill, and all its contents, burned in 1962; the present mill building on that site, except for the old water wheel, is a reconstruction.
You can read more about Bushnell and his museum here.
Digging further back in the chain of ownership, I came upon the names of Isaac and Lucy Eddy, who farmed nearby, and whose estate sold the land in 1908. Isaac was living in Newfane in 1843 when he married Lucy Pratt, a daughter of Joel and Tirzah Pratt of Vernon. Lucy was born in Hinsdale, N. H., but when she was at an early age (in the 1820s), the family acquired a farm in Vernon located near the intersection of what is now Route 142 and Broad Brook Road. When Joel died in 1861, Isaac and Lucy came from Newfane to Vernon and took over the farm. (This Isaac was only very distantly related to another Isaac Eddy who was a pioneering printer in Weathersfield, Vermont, in the early 1800s, known for printing the first Bible in Vermont.)
The Eddy farmhouse was located near the railroad tracks, in back of what is now the Renaud Brothers construction yard. It’s quite possible the foundation is still there. The
1869 De Beers map of Vernon shows the Eddy farm, and another farm nearby owned by one A. Newton (probably Alonzo Newton).
Here's a topographical map of approximately the same area today:
Lucy and Isaac farmed the property for nearly 40 years, and then died four days apart in April, 1900 of a "grip" or flu that was going around. Their descendants carried on, but sold the land in 1908. Why? Because at that time, the Vernon Hydroelectric Dam was under construction, and in 1909 the rising water permanently flooded most of the best land of the Eddy farm, as well other farms along the Connecticut and West Rivers. Compare the two maps above to see the effect of that flooding.
Here are the obituaries of Lucy and Isaac from the Phoenix:
With all of that in mind, let's go back to the stone works up the Broad Brook. Here’s my theory: During the time the Eddy farm was thriving (1861-1900), the Eddy’s used the “quarry” described and pictured by Norma, as a source of stone for their farm, and perhaps for sale to others. To extract that stone and bring it to the main road, they would have used oxen, so an ox cart path extended from the present Route 142, along the Broad Brook, to the quarry area. Back there, they built a shed or barn, perhaps for the oxen, or for some other purpose. Norma's foundation stones are the remnants of that structure. As noted, in 1908 the land was sold, and eventually Jason Bushnell sold off parcels along the ox cart path as house lots. The residents improved the path into road, which is still called Ox Cart Road (and is still a private road). Again, that’s all speculation on my part, but I’m sticking with it.
As a final side note, in 1894 Isaac’s daughter, Nellie Tirza Eddy, produced a booklet entitled “Along Thy Banks, Fair River.” The Vermont Phoenix described it as being a description of a day's drive from Brattleboro through Vernon to Northfield with descriptions of scenery and historic events along the way. I’d love to see a copy of it; if anyone possesses one that I could look at, please let me know!
— Martin Langeveld
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