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.

After hop­ping down from the side of the train, a crew mem­ber would begin the climb up the lad­der attached to the side of the tow­er, scur­ry to the top, unhinge, release, and unfold the large hol­low and rust­ing met­al water pipe. Unmind­ful of the protest­ing groans, creaks, and clang­ing, he would quick­ly (and with seem­ing­ly lit­tle exer­tion) low­er and attach it to the appro­pri­ate place in the engine.

Once filled, the process would be reversed, and amid the oblit­er­at­ing ten­drils of steam, the loco­mo­tive con­tin­ued its jour­ney — the clack­ing from met­al wheels on iron rails even­tu­al­ly ebbing away to still­ness as it labored along tracks that snaked up the slope, into the woods, and out of sight.

Kate McDon­ald Beat­tie remem­bers a poignant and mov­ing sto­ry con­nect­ed with cre­at­ing the rail­road, told by her father, Plynn Har­vey McDon­ald, who was a next door neigh­bor and long time good friend of the hard­work­ing Crane fam­i­ly. It is a sto­ry about the time Cal­ista Jane Crane fell in love. The Civ­il War had end­ed, and, with­in a few years, con­struc­tion of the St. Johns­bury and Lake Cham­plain Rail­road (lat­er renamed St. Johns­bury and Lam­oille Coun­ty Railroad–St J & LC) was in full swing. Some­time dur­ing a ten year build­ing peri­od, the tracks were laid through Danville, and the water tow­er was erected.

The sec­ond old­est of Charles and Mary’s eight chil­dren, Cal­ista was born in Danville on Decem­ber 3, 1844, and lived with her fam­i­ly at their Wood­side House across Route 2 from the field where much of the build­ing was tak­ing place. In time, she and one of the young men on the work crew, hav­ing met and fall­en in love, decid­ed to mar­ry and duti­ful­ly pre­sent­ed this desire to her par­ents for their approval and blessing.

Alas, Mary and Charles adamant­ly for­bid it. Clear­ly dis­traught, Cal­ista spent the rest of her life mourn­ing the loss, nev­er speak­ing to any­one or step­ping out­side the house, except to go to the out­house that was locat­ed close to the back of the house in win­ter, and fur­ther back dur­ing the sum­mer. She was called “Step Aside Cal­ista” by oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers, a name derived from the fact they had to maneu­ver around their silent rel­a­tive as they went about their dai­ly busy lives. I nev­er heard that sto­ry until I returned to Danville to live a few years ago and ques­tioned Kate about what had hap­pened to the water tower.

Kate explained it was dis­man­tled in the late 1950s. Once diesel engines were devel­oped, the tow­er was no longer need­ed. The rails even­tu­al­ly were removed, as well, leav­ing a void in a place that so many loco­mo­tive engi­neers had relied upon for water for their steam engines, and where 100 years of his­to­ry had tak­en place.

Today, when­ev­er I see one of the snow machines go rac­ing along the old rail bed, it brings back one of my favorite mem­o­ries of the old tow­er. It was dur­ing the Kore­an Con­flict when a troop train stopped for water just at twi­light. The bored sol­diers spied my lit­tle sis­ter, Alice, and me as we stood across the road from our house. Laugh­ter, and a few words were exchanged across the dis­tance, and we waved to them. In response, with heads pok­ing out of open win­dows, they doffed their uni­form hats, excit­ed­ly wav­ing them back and forth.