December, 2011 | Danville VT Historical Society

The Greenbank’s Hollow Historic Park Site Nears Completion

By Patty Conly December 28, 2011Historical events, Historical sites, South Danville

By Sharon Lakey

DSC_0134 - Copy — Hollis Prior and David Houston shepherded the project through seven years of work.

On a rainy October day, 2011, Dave Houston and Hollis Prior, committee heads for the Greenbank’s Hollow Historical Park, met a busload of Danville second graders at the covered bridge. The children lined both sides under cover of the bridge, eating bagged lunches, and listening to the constant rush of water rolling down Joe’s Brook. Afterwards, they trekked up the hill after David and Hollis to the old school site where the new kiosk stands.

One of the children exclaimed, “My daddy gave the wood for this.” The impressive structure was newly up by the efforts of the Danville road crew, the area groomed and landscaped, surrounded by the foundation stones of the old school. No information was on the kiosk yet, but the whole idea of group of children standing in the middle of the schoolhouse site was historic in itself. After some conversation and questions about its history, the group again fell in behind David and Hollis and moved down to the bridge. There they stood on the spot, imagining the huge five-story woolen mill that used to stand next to the little bridge.

Prognostications for the New Year–January 1862

By Patty Conly December 28, 2011From the archives, Historical events, Historical people

Prognostications for the New Year, Money Finds Its Way Back Home, and the Panorama of War Comes to Danville

By Gary Farrow, member of the Danville Historical Society

cpt lyon on horseback — Unionist Captain Lyon, who was in charge of guarding a US artillery station in the slave state of Missouri.

The troops settled in for the first full month of winter. Restricted movement meant that major battles in many parts of the country would have to wait for spring, so the news turned to the more mundane aspects of the war. And, as technological changes (such as the telegraph) sped news to Danville, the town would see and experience a new, richer and more vivid medium that told the story of their age.

Grandiose prognostications shortchange people and their stories. This was never truer than in the border states of Missouri and West Virginia, which were, in their own unique way, microcosms of the larger conflict.