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.
By Mark R. Moore
A fine lady in a hat out for a drive.
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.
In 2005 we decided to move to Vermont. We started looking in our price range in many towns from Randolph to Barton but finally settled on Danville as a friendly, beautiful place to concentrate our efforts. After looking at 40 houses–some new, some old, some renovated, some not so good–we recognized that we wanted a house that was old, with good “bones,”and affordable for us to renovate/restore and make our own. On December 16, 2005, in one of the biggest snows of the winter, we bought our house in North Danville village and began the process of fixing it up.
Our first visitor was our neighbor from across the road, Gerard Lamothe, who welcomed us and told us about the community organizations: the Community Club, the School Association and the Historical Society, all housed in the old North Danville School just up the road. We joined the Community Club and soon heard about the Old House Committee. Here we learned the basics of property research.
The approach normally used is to work backwards from the current owner to the one prior and so forth. The Danville Town Clerk’s office has a card file that cross references Grantor (seller) and Grantee (buyer) with the book and page number where the deed is filed. The books with all the deeds, quit claims, mortgages and probate court documents from Danville going back to before the charter of Danville (which was signed in 1802) are there for your research.
As one follows the ownership back in time, properties were divided, joined, and descriptions are not easily recognized (using stake and stone markers, trees, and fences, etc ). If property was inherited and the probate was not filed in Danville, further research may take you to St Johnsbury or to old Orange County records. Faded ink, centuries old writing and no longer used words made for time-consuming reading and sometimes required the use of a magnifying glass.
By Paul Chouinard, President of the Danville Historical Society
Editor’s Note: “Going to see the elephant” was an expression used by enlistees to 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.With the Capitol at Washington under threat of invasion by the Confederate Army, Union soldiers transport the United States Government’s standard weights and measures to St. Johnsbury for safekeeping. Caption and illustration from the book Pioneers In Industry Fairbanks, Morse & Co.July of 1861 marked a turning point. War became a grim reality with major battles fought, resulting in serious injuries and loss of life. Men returned home bearing the physical and psychological scars of war. Generally, the reality of war did not hit home until news of local casualties arrived. The first Danville casualty was Charles D. Cook, who was just seventeen years old when he died in the hospital at Camp Griffin, Virginia, of typhoid fever in November of 1861. The optimism which had prevailed at the outset of the war, regarding the fact that union forces would quickly triumph, began to fade.
According to Susannah Clifford in Village In the Hills: “There was at least one family in Danville that had relatives fighting on both sides of the battle lines, but in this particular case kinship proved stronger than patriotism. James Davis, son of Bliss Davis, was the only known Danville soldier to see the war from the Confederate side. James went west at age eighteen to live with his uncle in Ohio and then moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to study medicine. When the war broke out in 1861, he joined the Confederate service as an assistant surgeon of the Seventh Louisiana Regiment and later became full surgeon. He served throughout the war and was present at all the major battles in northern Virginia. James cousin, Alexander, who was with the Union army, was wounded at the battle at Savage’s Station, captured by the Confederate army and sent to Andersonville Prison. While in prison, Alexander learned that his cousin was in Richmond, and he wrote to James to let him know of his situation. James immediately set to getting Alexander exchanged and even furnished him with transportation back to his regiment.”
On the home front, local farmers and horse breeders in Danville helped furnish the cavalry with fine horses. Danville’s Merino Sheep and Greenbank’s woolen mill contributed to the war effort, as did most other textile mills in New England, by providing woolen broadcloth for the production of blankets and uniforms. In the autumn of 1861, Greenbank’s mill received federal contracts to manufacture woolen broadcloth for uniforms.
A pair of stirrups made in Fairbanks factory for use by Union cavalrymen in the Civil War. Caption and photograph from Pioneers in Industry Fairbanks, Morse & Co.
Early in 1861, with the city of Washington in grave danger, the official standard weights of the United States Government were moved to St. Johnsbury for safekeeping. E. and T. Fairbanks and Co. began the manufacture of brass stirrups and brass trimmings for the Northern cavalry, as well as of artillery harness irons and curb bits. In addition the officials of the New York branch of E. and T. Fairbanks helped Governor Erastus Fairbanks secure supplies for both infantry and cavalry of the Vermont regiments.
THENORTHSTAR, July 13, 1861
THEPRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
It recommends that Congress provide, by legal means, for “making this contest a short and decisive one;” and the President asks that body to pass an act to raise 400,000 men, and $400,000,000. to prosecute the work. Should Congress grant it, we trust the great power thus conferred, will be wisely used, in crushing rebellion, and giving to this mighty conflict a strictly national and Union-restoring character.
For two days, the Vermont Civil War Hemlocks encamped in Danville during the 2011 Memorial Day weekend. Many attended both the encampment and the Memorial Service held at the Methodist…
The Battle of Big Bethel was a failure for Federal troops. The Vermont Civil War Hemlocks have raised funds to raise a seven foot monument made of Barre granite at the battle site.
By Paul Chouinard, President of the Danville Historical Society
“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.
At the outset of the Civil War the stated objective of the North was to maintain the Union. The Confederate States identified “states rights” as their major objective which would give them the right to function independently. Mainstream historians have commonly agreed that: “Everything stemmed from the slavery issue,” as stated by Professor James McPherson, whose book Battle Cry of Freedom is widely judged to be the authoritative one-volume history of the Civil War.
It was not until September 22, 1862, following the bloody Battle of Antietam that Lincoln issued a preliminary Proclamation of Emancipation, which declared that all slaves in states or parts of states still fighting against the United States on January 1, 1863 would from that time on be forever emancipated. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued his final Emancipation Proclamation. However, it did not free slaves in states then in the Union, the Border States, nor certain parts of Virginia and Louisiana that were under Union control. The Emancipation Proclamation did have the effect of clearly identifying slavery as a vital issue of the war for both citizens of the United States and for its allies.
THENORTHSTAR
JUNE 8, 1861
From Fortress Monroe
Great activity is perceived at Fortress Monroe. Troops and ammunition are constantly arriving, the garrison now amounting to thirteen thousand men, and large bodies were moving into the interior, it was thought, with the intention of making for Norfolk by a circuitous route. Up to Thursday evening, slaves were still flocking to the fort. It was discovered that thirty of the slaves belonged to one man in Richmond. He obtained permission to visit the fort to confer with General Butler on the subject of getting his live property back. The General said they came there of their own accord, and could go back with him if they desired it. They were asked if they desired to return with their master. They quickly decided that they preferred to remain with the soldiers in the fort…
An American Flag, flown over the United States Capitol and presented to the Danville Historical Society by Senator Patrick Leahy, flies over the Victorian fountain in Danville Green Cemetery honoring…
