Ned, You Ought To Take Me in Your Auto

April 4, 2011Posted inDanville Green, From the archives

The story of the first automobile in Danville

Ned Pet­tengill’s lit­tle red car, the first in Danville, sits in front of the Bad­ger black­smith shop on what is now Route 2.

By Mark R. Moore

Ancient Roads. When I first heard of their exis­tence, I had visions of a myth­i­cal high­way hid­den under the soil and stones in some cor­ners of the Repub­lic of Ver­mont. Soon I learned it was a mat­ter of old, fad­ed charts and the rec­ol­lec­tions of long-time res­i­dents. But even the maps and mem­o­ries get fuzzy with the pas­sage of time. The roads become ruts, the ruts get filled in, and the road becomes not an obscure ram­ble through the forest.

Yet the doc­u­ments at the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety set me on a clear path where I met the image of the first car and first car own­er in Danville–the recent­ly mar­ried 24-year-old own­er of a red tour­ing auto­mo­bile, Ned Pet­tengill. But first, let’s review a bit of his­to­ry of the auto­mo­bile in Vermont.

School on a Mission

March 30, 2011Posted inDanville Green

Danville School receives high national recognition

Meg Pow­den, Co-Prin­ci­pal of Danville School

By Sharon Lakey

8:00 on a Mon­day morn­ing, and the Danville School front desk was hop­ping. Three ele­men­tary school­girls, obvi­ous­ly excit­ed about some­thing, were wait­ing their turn to speak to one of the sec­re­taries. Tow­er­ing above them was a lanky high school boy, ask­ing about tick­ets to the boys’ bas­ket­ball semi-final game at the Aud. “All sold out,” the sec­re­tary said apolo­get­i­cal­ly, “but you can get them over there before the game.” It was pleas­ant, orga­nized-chaos that I remem­bered well from my own children’s school days in Danville. I was on a mis­sion, too, need­ing to sign in with the sec­re­tary before meet­ing with co-prin­ci­pal, Meg Powden.

 

The mis­sion: get the sto­ry behind Danville School’s nation­al recog­ni­tion as a best school. Sur­pris­ing­ly, it was an hon­or I had not read about in our own local media; instead, it was men­tioned in con­ver­sa­tions with peo­ple I had out­side of our area, both in and out of state. Hav­ing worked in a pub­lic school in Ver­mont dur­ing the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) high-stakes test­ing years, I knew this des­ig­na­tion was no small feat.

Meg arrived through the maze of stu­dents before a bell sound­ed and all moved off in the direc­tion of their assigned rooms. She escort­ed me up the ramp, past the lunch­room, and into her office in the upper hall. It was not an impos­ing office, look­ing like a small con­vert­ed class­room space. After explain­ing my mis­sion, she brought out her lap­top and locat­ed the sites where Danville is listed.

Going to See the Elephant

March 30, 2011Posted inDanville Green, From the archives, Historical events, NSM articles
Harper’s Week­ly image of the fir­ing on Fort Sumter in April, 1861
By Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

 

April marks the begin­ning of the sesqui­cen­ten­ni­al obser­vance of the out­set of the Civ­il War with the fir­ing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Har­bor, April 12, 1861. For the next four years the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety will reprint excerpts of arti­cles pub­lished in the North Star from 1861 to 1865 focus­ing on Danville’s involve­ment in the Civ­il War.

“Going To See The Ele­phant” was an expres­sion used by enlis­tees in the Union Army describ­ing the expe­ri­ence of coun­try boys going off to war where they would expe­ri­ence life in ways they could not have imagined.

Under the lead­er­ship of Gov­er­nor Eras­tus Fair­banks, Ver­mont respond­ed quick­ly to the call for men to join the Union forces. Dur­ing the Civ­il War, Ver­mont con­tributed more per capi­ta from its trea­sury and from its pop­u­la­tion of young men to the con­flict than any oth­er state in the Union. Danville’s finan­cial com­mit­ment of approx­i­mate­ly $36,000. to the war effort , as well as the num­ber of its enlist­ments was extraordinary.

In 1861, Danville had a pop­u­la­tion of about 2,500 con­sist­ing of about 350 men between the ages of 18 and 45. Out of this pool of men, from 1861 to 1865 Danville fur­nished 245 enlist­ments con­sist­ing of 194 dif­fer­ent men. The bal­ance was account­ed for by re-enlist­ments. By the end of the war, Danville had lost a total of 35 men. Twelve of those who lost their lives were killed in bat­tle and the rest died from expo­sure, star­va­tion, or sickness.