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Twin Danvilles to Celebrate Another 50-year Anniversary

February 28, 2010
Deux Danvilles Jumelées Célèbrent Un Autre 50e Anniversaire

By Sharon Lakey 
Regi­nald Smith, Town Mod­er­a­tor in 1960, gave offi­cial warn­ing for the inhab­i­tants of the Town of Danville, Ver­mont, who were legal vot­ers in Town Meet­ing “to meet at the City Hall in Danville, Que­bec, Domin­ion of Cana­da, on Sat­ur­day, July 30, 1960, at 4:00 p.m., to trans­act the fol­low­ing business: 
  1.         To see if the Town will vote to elect Hon­orary Town offi­cers from among the cit­i­zens of Danville, Province of Que­bec, Cana­da to be named to com­pa­ra­ble offices in Danville, Ver­mont, Unit­ed States of America
  2.         To estab­lish a per­ma­nent record of the kind invi­ta­tion of the cit­i­zens of Danville, Cana­da, to the cit­i­zens of Danville, Ver­mont, and to extend expres­sions of appre­ci­a­tion therefore.
  3.         To trans­act any oth­er busi­ness that may come before said meet­ing. Dat­ed at Danville, Ver­mont, this 18th day of July, A.D. 1960.
Signed:
Harold W. Beattie
War­ren C. Church
Howard G. Calkins
Board of Selectman” 

So began the offi­cial twin­ning of the two Danvilles, one that the Cana­di­ans at the offi­cial cer­e­mo­ny claimed was “the first time in the annuls of the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed Sates of Amer­i­ca that a Town Meet­ing has been autho­rized and car­ried beyond the bor­ders of the States.”

It was a con­nec­tion that began in the ear­ly 1800s, when a group of New Eng­lan­ders from Danville, Ver­mont were enticed to make the 130+ mile trek north in wag­ons to reset­tle in Cana­da. Some of the immi­grants may have been Amer­i­can Loy­al­ists, who were unhap­py about out­come of the rev­o­lu­tion. How­ev­er, most of the immi­gra­tion is attrib­uted to the fact that Cana­da was offer­ing 200 acres per per­son for mak­ing the change. The immi­grants, miss­ing their New Eng­land home, began refer­ring to their new one as Danville, and it stuck. (Immi­gra­tion wasn’t always a one-way trip, either. Roland Perkins, of Danville, Ver­mont, was born in Kingsey, five miles from Danville, Quebec.) 

Sime­on Flint, a set­tler who arrived in 1806 from Ver­mont, was the first Gov­er­nor of the new Danville. He bought land around beau­ti­ful Bur­bank Pond and sold it to oth­er Danville immi­grants.  Accord­ing to the Danville Times month­ly newslet­ter pub­lished between 2004 and 2007, “Our Danville coat-of-arms has the stag from the coat-of-arms of Ver­mont, remind­ing us that our town takes its name from Danville, Ver­mont.”  From the same arti­cle it is stat­ed, “By 1812 chil­dren were being taught school in his house and in 1817 he con­tributed mon­ey to build Danville’s first school, reput­ed­ly on the site of today’s Carmelite Monastery.” Danville was offi­cial­ly rec­og­nized as a town in 1860. 

The offer of free land was giv­en as an entice­ment to Eng­lish-speak­ing set­tlers to what is known as the Cana­di­an East­ern Provinces, and it remained the preva­lent lan­guage until the mid-1970s. At that time, a migra­tion of the younger pop­u­la­tion to Eng­lish-speak­ing Cana­da and Mon­tre­al con­tributed to a rever­sal of the promi­nent lan­guage to French. How­ev­er, the New Eng­land roots of Danville are still apparent. 

In 2004, three artists from our area accept­ed an invi­ta­tion to take part in the annu­al Artists Sym­po­sium held in Danville. Jeff Gold, a wood block artist from Walden, took part in the event for sev­er­al years. “We had a spe­cial invi­ta­tion,” remem­bers Gold. “The town want­ed to reestab­lish the ‘twin­ning’ between the two towns.” He reports that they were treat­ed like roy­al­ty, and he thor­ough­ly enjoyed the four-day event. “About 50 artists are scat­tered through­out the town and are actu­al­ly work­ing on pieces while res­i­dents and tourists watch,” said Gold. Dur­ing that event he cre­at­ed an inter­est­ing wood block print that depicts a farm in the area.

Gold describes the scenery as “more flat, but rur­al like Ver­mont.” He remarked on the archi­tec­ture, which he says is, “much like here–New Eng­land style.”  That is cor­rob­o­rat­ed by the Danville Times which describes their Green on one of their arti­cles. “The Square still ful­fills its tra­di­tion­al role pro­vid­ing us with a diverse range of goods and ser­vices such as; the bak­ery, butch­er shop, drugs store, hard­ware store, bistro, bar­ber­shop, beau­ty salons, sev­er­al restau­rants, pet sup­plies, and insur­ance and real estate offices.”

One of the most strik­ing things encoun­tered dur­ing this research was the feel of sim­i­lar­i­ty between the two Danvilles. Our Cana­da twin was built on a major road, the Chemin Craig, a road built in the 19th cen­tu­ry con­nect­ing Que­bec to New Eng­land.  Like US Route 2, this high­way now brings speed as well as com­merce.  The Danville Times report­ed that the town had its own high­way project to enhance the town: “Water Street was nar­rowed in order to slow down traf­fic at this strate­gic entry point to town. A side­walk was added, and a lane reserved for cyclists. This stretch of Water Street is bor­dered by the ADS ele­men­tary school, Hôtel-dev­ille, Bur­bank Pond, the Fleu­ron seniors’ res­i­dence, and Reine-de-la-Patate  with its mini-put and play­ground. The improve­ments make Water Street safer for pedes­tri­ans and cyclists, and far more attrac­tive. Oak trees have been plant­ed, thanks to the gen­eros­i­ty of coop forestière de l’Estrie. The trees will pro­vide wel­come shade in years to come.”

Here are a few of the con­cerns cov­ered in the Danville Times that sound famil­iar: a strong effort to recy­cle, wor­ry about a down­turn in the econ­o­my, a Cham­ber of Com­merce that urges sup­port of local busi­ness, an encour­age­ment of tourism and treat­ing tourists in a friend­ly man­ner, advice on how to pro­tect your deb­it card, cau­tion about the use of alco­hol and dri­ving, denounc­ing of van­dal­ism, and the pro­mo­tion of democ­ra­cy by advo­cat­ing cit­i­zen involve­ment in the polit­i­cal process.

The cel­e­bra­tion of the con­nec­tion between the two Danvilles 50 years ago was a great suc­cess. Accord­ing to the Cana­di­an reports, “A cav­al­cade of over a hun­dred cars left the Town prop­er and tour­ing by Route 5, approached the Town by Acad­e­my Street where the offi­cial cer­e­mo­ny of ‘Open­ing the Doors,’ took place.” After­wards, a parade formed and dig­ni­taries from both Danvilles were seat­ed upon a float and tak­en to the Town Hall. Filled to capac­i­ty, many had to sit in their cars and lis­ten to the pro­ceed­ings over a loud speak­er sys­tem. “It was so crowd­ed,” reports Kate Beat­tie, “that no one noticed the pick pock­et that cleaned out sev­er­al of our lead­ing citizens.” 

In spite of that unfor­tu­nate event, every one attend­ing had a great time. We rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed with an hon­or­ing of Danville, Que­bec, at the fair lat­er that sum­mer. Most remark­able was a chuck­wag­on and team that was shipped to Ver­mont for Her­tel and Mar­got Boisvert and their two chil­dren, Chantel and Jean-Louis, to dri­ve back, fol­low­ing the orig­i­nal route tak­en by their forefathers—all 134 miles of it.  “At three-and‑a half miles an hour, it took ten days,” report­ed the Boisvert’s.

Now, 50 years lat­er, it is time to renew our vows of friend­ship and coop­er­a­tion. On July 3, we are plan­ning to send a bus­load of well-wish­ers and dig­ni­taries to par­tic­i­pate in the cer­e­monies in Danville, Que­bec. A rec­i­p­ro­cal hon­or­ing of our twin town will occur, once again, on Danville Fair Day.
French trans­la­tion of head­line by Wayne Majuri
This arti­cle was first pub­lished in the March, 2010, edi­tion of The North Star Month­ly 
To view more pho­tos relat­ed to this arti­cle, click here
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