In Search of House Roots–The Varney House

 By Mary Barlow

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.

The sales descrip­tion of our house was: “This 1789 house on the stage route in North Danville has a long his­to­ry of pro­vid­ing com­fort to the weary trav­el­er and young mar­ried cou­ples who were wait­ing to find a home of their own.” This was the begin­ning of our search for the his­to­ry of our house.

The pre­vi­ous own­ers, the Stew­arts, had spent many years cre­at­ing a Zen gar­den behind the house. The yard also has a small pond and is ter­raced down to the Sleep­ers Riv­er. The Remick fam­i­ly had lived there 17 years (1967 to 1984) and Gene had run an auto repair shop in the garage. Pri­or to that, the Daniel’s fam­i­ly lived and raised their chil­dren in the house. Grand­fa­ther had part of the down­stairs, and the garage was still a barn with chick­ens upstairs and hors­es below.

There are still a few folks around who remem­ber Net­tie Bur­bank, who rent­ed rooms to young mar­ried cou­ples and to some of the school teach­ers. She owned the house from 1922 to 1941. Lizzie Towne was the own­er for one year, 1921–1922, and Frank Emmons from 1909 to 1921.

From 1810 to 1909, the prop­er­ty was owned by mem­bers of the Var­ney fam­i­ly. Work­ing back­wards, we found: Kate (Var­ney) & Charles Green 1889 to 1909, George 1887 — 1889, his father, Charles 1847 — 1887, the wid­ow Han­nah Var­ney from 1833–1847, and Thomas Var­ney from 1810.

Thomas Var­ney died in 1825 and in Book 8 Page 605–7 in the Danville Land Records, we found Thomas Varney’s estate divid­ed among his heirs: Han­nah Var­ney, his wife, received the Widow’s Dow­er or one-third of the estate. Samuel was giv­en the grist­mill, and Charles the sawmill. The oth­er sev­en chil­dren were paid their por­tion by Samuel and Charles. Our house was in the Widow’s Dow­er. The Grand list of 1828 lists the Var­ney Estate as one house val­ued at $680 and two mills val­ued at $264, some live­stock (oxen, hors­es, cattle/cows, sheep), one clock(taxed at $3) plus 80 acres for a total tax of $187.93. The estate was set­tled in 1833 and the Grand List of 1848 shows Han­nah Var­ney owned one house and 75 acres val­ued at $1560.

Charles Var­ney, Thomas’s son, became the own­er when the prop­er­ty was signed over to him by Quit Claims from Hannah’s chil­dren and grand­chil­dren in 1847. On the Walling map of 1858 and the Beers map of 1875, our house is labeled C. Varney.

Try­ing to estab­lish the first own­er of the prop­er­ty, we looked at the five prop­er­ties pur­chased by Thomas Var­ney: March 31, 1810 Deed of Moses Clark to Thomas Var­ney “ in con­sid­er­a­tion of eleven hun­dred dol­lars “ a par­cel of land “con­tain­ing one hun­dred and forty acres” “bought of Daniel Gookins” “ with his grist mill and all build­ings thereon.”

From the North Star of 7 Sep­tem­ber 1811 (Notice)

The sub­scribers would inform the inhab­i­tants of Danville and its vicin­i­ty that they late­ly erect­ed a new grist mill and card­ing machine and cloth­ing works in the north part of Danville at the falls where Capt. Daniel Gookins late­ly car­ried on busi­ness. Signed by Thomas Var­ney and Samuel Long.”

August 15, 1817 Deed of William Cham­ber­lin to Thomas Var­ney “in con­sid­er­a­tion of the sum of sev­en­ty dol­lars” “about five acres and three fourths out of lot no nine­teen sec­ond Division”…”west of said Varney’s mill pond.”

July 3, 1821 Deed of William Cham­ber­lin to Thomas Var­ney “ in con­sid­er­a­tion of the sum of Thir­ty dol­lars “… “About two and one fourth acres of land of lot No nine­teen, sec­ond division.”

July 13, 1821 Deed of Samuel Sias to Thomas Var­ney “ in con­sid­er­a­tion of the sum of three hun­dred dol­lars” “about thir­ty acres and 144 rods of land being part of lot No 19 in the sec­ond Divi­sion in Danville”.. “bound­ed north of Jos Till­sons land, east on the road & west on the mill pond and Thomas Varney’s land.”

Sep­tem­ber 23, 1823 Deed of Joseph Craven to Thomas Var­ney “ in con­sid­er­a­tion of Fifty dol­lars” “a cer­tain piece of land”… “lying on the north­east side of the road lead­ing from Joseph Pope’s to said Varney’s now dwelling on the May farm”… “ sup­posed to be about four acres.”

Try­ing to go back­wards in time to the own­ers before Thomas Var­ney, we encoun­tered dif­fi­cul­ties due to the mul­ti­ple land trans­fers both before and after the sec­ond divi­sion of land in the Danville Char­ter. We decid­ed to start at the ear­li­est divi­sion of land and work for­ward as it was dif­fi­cult to deter­mine exact­ly where each piece of prop­er­ty pur­chased by Thomas Var­ney was located.

From the Lot­ting maps cre­at­ed for the Char­ter of Danville, sec­ond divi­sion, which was signed by Gov­er­nor Isaac Tich­nor on Novem­ber 12, 1802, North Danville is in lots 12, 16, 17 and 19. Jesse Leav­en­worth was giv­en lots 12 and 16, William Cham­ber­lin — lot 17, and Moses Lit­tle- lot 19.

  • Deed 1‑Jesse Leav­en­worth sold Lots 12 and 16 to James Perkins of Boston 9/17/1790.
  • Deed 2‑James Perkins sold Lots 12 and 16 to Samuel Cham­ber­lin 4/11/ 1792.
  • Deed 3‑Samuel Cham­ber­lin of Danville sold a piece of land to Daniel Clark except for grist mill with the right to build an addi­tion­al fulling mill below the grist mill for 35 pounds 10 shillings on 8/9/ 1793.
  • Deed 4‑Daniel Clark sold to Daniel Gookins one-half of a sawmill, half the iron works stand­ing on a dam near Samuel Chamberlin’s corn mill and the priv­i­lege of “draw­ing water when there was suf­fi­cient water to car­ry both mills or when the corn mill has not any work to grind “… ”if there is not water to car­ry both mills the saw mill must stop” signed 12/23/1787.
  • Deed 5‑Daniel Clark sold to Daniel Gookins a house & barn with a fulling mill, cloth­iers, tools and 71 acres signed 12/ 7/1797.
  • These two deeds (Daniel Clark to Daniel Gookins) were record­ed 3/3/1798.
  • The Grand list of 1799, Daniel Goo­gin (Gookins?) owned a house and a mill and some livestock.
  • Deed 6- Daniel Gookins sold to Moses Clark all the land, grist mill and build­ings he had pur­chased from Daniel Clark for twelve hun­dred dol­lars on 3/8/1808.

Was our house the one ref­er­enced in the Deed 5 from Daniel Clark to Daniel Gookins? If so then it would have been built before 1797. On the James Whitelaw map of 1796, only Chamberlin’s mills are shown for North Danville. If not, the house must have been built after Thomas Var­ney came here in 1810.

The search has been a learn­ing expe­ri­ence trac­ing the prop­er­ty from the lot­ting of the land, to the form­ing of Cale­do­nia Coun­ty, the growth of indus­try, the divi­sion and val­ue of prop­er­ty, the rights of the widow’s dow­er, even the change of cur­ren­cy from pounds and shillings to dol­lars. It has spurred our research into the Var­ney fam­i­ly and will be the basis for anoth­er arti­cle on the his­to­ry of North Danville.

It’s a jour­ney that began 2005 and end­ed in 1790–or vice versa.

 

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