Bringing the Bank to Danville, Part one
A History of the Bank of Caledonia and Caledonia National Bank By Patty Conly, President of the Danville Historical Society Imagine what life must have been like for the early…
A Woman of Uncommon Generosity–Mary Elizabeth Goff Robinson
By Sharon Lakey, Danville Historical Society
“Until I began to compile lifelong information, I didn’t realize the full range of gifts Meg was giving to others throughout her life, without the slightest wish for praise.” Charles A. Robinson, 2013
On July 2, 2013, a mystery came to an end in Danville: our anonymous donor passed at 88 years of age in Pennsbury Township, Pennsylvania, and the requirement of her anonymity was lifted. It is with humility and pleasure that I relate some of what I have learned about this remarkable woman, Meg Robinson. Much of this knowledge comes to us through her husband, Charles, who has graciously answered questions and, as a good historian himself, provided documentation of the important events of her life.
Saving history, one building at a time
Masonic Hall Renovation Goes Forward on Danville Green
By Sharon Lakey
It takes a commitment to keep a town’s history alive, and Danville’s Masons of Washburn Lodge #92 appear to be in it for the long haul. The big, brick building on the Green has been their home since 1894, but it has been a graceful presence there since 1831.
At first glance, the building looks like a church, so it makes sense when one learns that the Calvinist Baptists, who formed in 1792, built it for their congregation at a cost of $3,100. One of the founding members in the Calvinist Baptist Church in Danville was Charles Sias, the first captain of the first military company in town. In our Society’s historical records, a note reads that in the church a “revival took place from 1833 to 1836” but also relates “the church disappears from the minutes of the Danville Association in 1852.” The building stood empty until the Washburn Lodge purchased it as their new home in 1894.
The Masons, of course, have their own interesting history that dovetails with the building. Just before the Baptists built their church on the Green, Danville became the hotbed of the Anti-Masonic movement, and the old North Star led the charge. Danville’s William Palmer, the first and only governor in the nation to run on the Anti-Masonic ticket, was elected Governor of Vermont in 1831, the same year the church was built.
Granite post to honor Thaddeus Stevens as part of the Green project
Andy Wasserman, the lead artist on the Danville Green project, was impressed by the movie Lincoln and the part Thaddeus Stevens played in the passage of the 13th Amendment that…
Thaddeus Stevens in the Limelight–Early Life in Danville
By Paul Chouinard
Thaddeus Stevens has recently been featured in Steven Spielberg’s, Lincoln, released nationwide on November 16, 2012, and was nominated for twelve Oscar nominations. In Spielberg’s film, based on American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Thaddeus Stevens is portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones. It is the first time since his death in 1868 that he has been portrayed in an objective, historically accurate manner.
For years Stevens’ reputation has suffered as a result of his portrayal of the thinly disguised character, Austin Stoneman, a fanatical villain in D.W. Griffith’s landmark silent film Birth of a Nation. During the 1940s, Stevens was portrayed as a villain in Tennessee Johnson, a biographical film about President Andrew Johnson. As the antagonist in both films, Stevens is portrayed as an unreasonable, hostile, adversarial individual who would let nothing stand in his way to meet his goal of punishing the South and insuring the rights of the freedmen through his vision of Reconstruction.
Spielberg’s Lincoln focuses on divisions within Lincoln’s cabinet and the acrimonious debate within Congress, during the last year of the war, over the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution freeing the slaves. The fear that the legality of the Emancipation Proclamation might be challenged by the southern states, once they were readmitted to the Union, made the passage of the 13th Amendment essential. While the Emancipation Proclamation had freed the slaves, the 13th Amendment made slavery illegal forever.
Public invitation from Danville Masons Sunday, April 7
Danville’s Masonic Hall receives historic preservation grant Washburn Masonic Lodge#92, located on beautiful Danville Green for the past 119 years, is pleased to announce a historical Preservation Grant made possible…
Aaron Hartshorn Grave Dedication held on July 29
At a lovely ceremony in the Danville Center Cemetery, located at the top of Danville on Dole Hill, two groups came together to honor one of Danville's founding families--Aaron and…
Margaret Springer honored in Danville
On June 2, 2012, Margaret C. Springer was honored at a service in Danville Green cemetery with a memorial reception following at the Danville Historical Society. In 1968, Margaret…
The Old Water Tower
By Betty Bolevic
Prior to Kate and Harold Beattie relocating our family to the farm in Danville, and when spending an occasional weekend with Grammy McDonald, I would often sit in her large green wicker rocker on the wraparound porch, contentedly drawing with my first box of crayons on the small blank sheets of paper secretly torn from the backs of books.
Years later, sitting in the same spot, I would now and then become momentarily startled, first by the whistle, then the cloud of smoke, and finally the familiar clickety-clack of the freight train gaining momentum as it wound its way toward St. Johnsbury after a stop at the Danville Station to unload goods – some for Delmer Smith’s Danville Grain Store.
I avidly watched the steam engine maneuvering its loaded cars slowly and effortlessly around the bend from the village and across the swampy field adjacent to the front of our house, always in anticipation that this would be one of the rare times it would squeal to a stop and take on water that ran from the spring in Will Findley’s field (currently Mt View Drive) and was stored in a tank within the gray cylindrical wooden tower to the right of the track — a somewhat raucous and lengthy process.