The Secret Room
A new Northeast Kingdom adventure book
By Sharon Lakey“Shawna and Thea are working together on a math project for their eighth-grade class. But the numbers don’t add up, and they make a startling discovery—the secret room in the basement of Thea’s house, an old Vermont inn.
The code on the walls makes the girls—and everyone in town—wonder why there was a secret room. Was it part of the Underground Railroad, or perhaps something less, well, heroic? Discovering the truth is harder than they would have thought, especially when the truth is not what you want to hear.”
On September 10, 2011, Northeast Kingdom author, Beth Kanell, will officially have her second novel released by her new publisher, St. Johnsbury-based Brigantine Media. When she told me about the release date, she looked at me mischievously and said, “9 10 11. Wouldn’t Shawna and Thea love that?”
Ahh, that’s right. Shawna and Thea, the two main characters in the story, do love numbers.
After reading a preliminary copy of the book, Beth and I arranged for an interview to begin in North Danville, the town that served as a muse for The Secret Room, which she sets in fictional North Upton. Beth shared that it was a request by her friend, Mary Prior, to set a novel there. Mary, who had grown up in the center of the village, recommended its strong spirit of place as a perfect setting to help work the magic of story.
Romance and Reality, Dissension and Dollars: The War News Trickles In
September of 1861, the Civil War was page two. It wasn’t all that unusual for the North Star to have no Civil War headlines on the front page.
There was one item with political repercussions nationally. A Union General had taken it upon himself to issue a proclamation about slavery. There was also a letter by a Vermont POW and a report about the Danville Company. That month, the reader could also learn about what volunteers were getting for pay.
North Star September 7, 1861The Vermont Prisoners at Richmond
Letter from Captain Drew Richmond, VA Aug 19, 1861 Editors of the Free Press:I am permitted by General Winders, the humane and obliging commander of this post to write you, giving a list of Vt boys confined here, and some information as to our capture. For several days before the battle, I had been sick and on “Sunday the 21st” [A reference to the Battle of Bull Run and its date July 21] was hardly able to move.
DHS Class of 1945
At Danville Fair, Patty Conly and I encouraged Danvillites to send in class photos. Look at this gem from 1945, sent to us by Joan (and Ted) Sargeant. I recognize…
August 28 Lamplight Service
To see a photo album of the Old Home Day service in July, click here. Photos by Paul Chouinard. August 28—LAMPLIGHT SERVICE AND HYMN SING Host Church: 1st Congregational Church, St. Johnsbury…
Project Show and Tell
By Patricia Houghton Conly Time is precious when it comes to preserving your family history and memories. Old photographs and documents provide clues about our past and what life was…
Born to Command
Addison W. Preston’s Call to Arms
By Mark R. Moore
Vermont Associate and archivist at the Danville VT Historical Society
How many times do we wish history would come alive for us? The sweat of bodies and horses, the ting, clink and clang of accouterments , the deep glow and scent of burnished leather, shining brass buttons, the glint of bullion gold braid on sleeves and shoulders in the bright sunlight, passing through a natural archway of fragrant lilac. Walt Whitman put observations like this into verse:
…the head of my cavalry parading on spirited horses, With sabres drawn and glistening, and carbines by their thighs, (ah, my brave horsemen! My handsome tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride, With all the perils were yours.)This was undoubtedly the spirit that then Captain Addison Webster Preston of Danville conveyed to starry-eyed new enlistees as he recruited them into Company D of the 1st Vermont Cavalry in 1862. Here at the Danville Historical Society we have Addison Preston’s blue wool dress uniform, his dress pants, his boots, cartridge box, horse’s halter, flask and McClellan saddle.
More importantly, I think, we have a photograph of him at around the age of 33 that conveys his image—his thinning hair is swept back, his mustache is fierce, his eyes are fiery and he grasps his sabre’s hilt as if ready to draw it and smite the enemy.
He was promoted to Lt. Colonel by 1863 and commanded the entire 1st Vermont Cavalry. Quoting from Joseph D. Collea, Jr’s book The First Vermont Cavalry in the Civil War, upon his death the Vermont Record wrote, “Colonel Preston was characterized by quickness of perception, thought and action which made him what he was as a soldier and an officer. He never found exactly his right place til he went into the army…Col. Preston might not have achieved so signal a success as he did in war. He was a born soldier, and found that out when the country sounded the call to arms.”
But this does not mean he failed to attend to the needs of his men or their families. The record is replete with letters written by him to widows and the Government Pension Board detailing a trooper’s last illness or his heroism in battle. His after-battle reports are succinct in contrast to the dramatic accounts he sent back to the papers in Vermont.
His personal letters to his younger brother, William Henry Preston (future Principal- 1867–1870- of Danville Academy), shows he also continued to be attentive to matters at home. In letters housed at the Kitchel Center, Fairbanks Museum, and transcribed by Lynn Bonfield, the reader witnesses his direct and commanding style.
“Henry
“I have written to B. N Davis to day and I wish you to keep your eye out for Col Sawyer and also one Sgt Mitchel of Co D when he took home with him. Say to Esq Davis to look sharp for the Col. I fear he will try to injure me in Vt if you hear of it let me know. Are you going to teach this winter or study a profession?
“How much did you make last fall…
“Remember Energy is what can grow. I will write you often on this subject…
Addison”
A Visit to Aspet
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, sometimes known as the American Michelangelo, was among the foremost sculptors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He arrived in Cornish in 1885. He rented an old inn for the summer and over time he adapted the house to his needs and converted the barn into a studio. He ultimately purchased the property and continued to summer there until 1892, when it became his year-round home. Over the years he transformed the property into a center for artists and intellectuals of the period, who formed what has become known as the “Cornish Colony.” The Colony included: painters Maxfield Parrish, Thomas Dewing, George de Forest Bush, Lucia Fuller, and Kenyon Cox; dramatist Percy Mac-Kaye; American novelist Winston Churchill; architect Charles Platt; and sculptors Paul Manship, Herbert Adams, and Louis Saint- Gaudens, brother of Augustus. They created a dynamic social environment, centered around Saint-Gaudens.
All Hell Breaks Loose: Vermonters Get Down to the Business
By Gary Farrow, Member of the Danville VT Historical Society
One hundred and fifty years ago this month saw the Union reeling from the first major battle of the Civil War; rioting over secessionists in New England; and a spate of activity in Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom devoted to marshaling the troops.
The outcome of Bull Run, fought Sunday July 21, shook everyone from their naive slumber. General McDowell’s 30,000 Union troops marched the 30 miles west of Washington DC to attack an equal number of Confederate troops. Some government dignitaries decided to make a day of it and go and see the battle for themselves.
Through A Glass Darkly
How glass plate technology met high Tech
By Mark R. Moore
History in Danville is more than smelly, mildewed books full of dates and records of live birth and dead moldering bones. Most people in the United States live in sleek, shiny, modern connected metropolises where the pejorative phrase “What have you done for me lately?” symbolizes both the immediate lack of caring and superficial connections as opposed to what we have here in Danville. It’s what I would call “wearable history” here. Your best friend might be related to the street you live on (was be a Brainerd, it might be Greenbank Hollow, the residence you live in might have been known for a hundred years as Dr. Smith’s House or, possibly, the Pettengill farm. The hill you can see might be Roy Mountain and you find there’s an eighteen year old Roy on Facebook. Strangest of all, that person, by and large, can, if asked, quickly trace their lineage directly back to why that house, hill or road was named for a person in their family, not because the fact was drilled into them at school, but because they have a reticent Northeast Kingdom nobless oblige (broadly defined-deferring to a person because of their family’s past history past)and simply grew up with a story in their past and is left for you, the present, to discover how the past appellation became attached to the house or hollow. Recently, I was presented with a group of different sized, dark, apparently smoky glass photographic negatives that had been in encased a shoebox in a cellar for nearly hundred years before they saw the light of day and asked to discover what relation, if any they have to Danville.
The box of glass negatives was brought to me by Historical Harriet. Harriet is always going through our store of artifacts and likes to surprise me with her latest discovery and see what I will do with it. Before wanting to delve into the box and see how Historical Harriet would adapt available modern technology to solve to solve the problem of getting a picture from an old, dark chemically coated negative I did some research on the history of glass plates. Shortly after Louis Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot pioneered the daguerreotype in 1839 which were printed on silver-plated copper or brass. Frederick Scott Archer, an English sculptor, expanded their discoveries the discoveries of Daguerre and Talbot and came out with the wet glass plate know as the wet collodion negative. Because it was coated glass and not paper the wet glass negatives created a sharper, more detailed negative and could produce more than one print from a negative but this had to be done within five minutes.