The Old Water Tower

April 12, 2012Posted inDanville Green, From the archives, Historical people

By Bet­ty Bolevic

The old water tow­er in Danville, built with­in a ten year peri­od after the Civ­il War.

Pri­or to Kate and Harold Beat­tie relo­cat­ing our fam­i­ly to the farm in Danville, and when spend­ing an occa­sion­al week­end with Gram­my McDon­ald, I would often sit in her large green wick­er rock­er on the wrap­around porch, con­tent­ed­ly draw­ing with my first box of crayons on the small blank sheets of paper secret­ly torn from the backs of books.

Years lat­er, sit­ting in the same spot, I would now and then become momen­tar­i­ly star­tled, first by the whis­tle, then the cloud of smoke, and final­ly the famil­iar click­ety-clack of the freight train gain­ing momen­tum as it wound its way toward St. Johns­bury after a stop at the Danville Sta­tion to unload goods – some for Delmer Smith’s Danville Grain Store.

I avid­ly watched the steam engine maneu­ver­ing its loaded cars slow­ly and effort­less­ly around the bend from the vil­lage and across the swampy field adja­cent to the front of our house, always in antic­i­pa­tion that this would be one of the rare times it would squeal to a stop and take on water that ran from the spring in Will Findley’s field (cur­rent­ly Mt View Dri­ve) and was stored in a tank with­in the gray cylin­dri­cal wood­en tow­er to the right of the track — a some­what rau­cous and lengthy process.

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Lincoln Proposes Compensated Emancipation and Grant’s Fortunes Take an Ominous Turn

April 12, 2012Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, NSM articles
An exam­ple of a peti­tion for eman­ci­pa­tion from Wash­ing­ton D.C. Lin­coln float­ed the idea of com­pen­sat­ing slave own­ers in return for free­dom grant­ed in March. The act was in effect as of April 1862. In this case, a slave named Sophia was peti­tioned for release.

By Gary Far­row, mem­ber of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Grant’s vic­to­ries at Fort Hen­ry and Donel­son dark­ens fes­tiv­i­ties in the south­ern cap­i­tal. The War Depart­ment sees peace dawn over Ten­nessee. Lin­coln floats the idea of com­pen­sat­ed eman­ci­pa­tion. The First Ver­mont Cal­vary was itch’n to fight. And despite his suc­cess in the field, Grant lands in hot water.

North Star 1 March

Gen­er­al News Items

Jef­fer­son Davis was offi­cial­ly inauger­at­ed in Rich­mond as Pres­i­dent of the South­ern Confederacy.

Jeff Davis, Pres­i­dent of the bogus South­ern Con­fed­er­a­cy, was inau­gu­rat­ed at Rich­mond, last Sat­ur­day. Col Wood (one of the recent­ly returned fed­er­al pris­on­ers) was present and says there was no enthu­si­asm what­ev­er. Not a cheer to be raised.

****

Accord­ing to the eye­wit­ness, the cer­e­mo­ny went flat while a lead­ing south­ern paper sound­ed an even dark­er note.

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Raising Israel Randall

April 12, 2012Posted inHistorical people, Historical sites, North Danville, Uncategorized

Local historian conjectures a life not found in the history book

Lance Com­fort holds the Israel Ran­dall deed that he bought on Ebay.

By Sharon Lakey

“The ide­al his­to­ri­an goes to the mouth of the tomb, cries: “Lazarus, come forth!” and sets him that was dead for ages, blink­ing and pas­sion­ate, in the sun.”

AUSTIN O’MALLEY, Key­stones of Thought

Lance Comfort’s Lazarus is Israel Ran­dall of North Danville, and his attempt to raise him start­ed with a deed he bought on Ebay.

The deed, a time-weath­ered doc­u­ment, begins with “Know all men by these presents that I Jesse Leav­en­worth of Danville in the Coun­ty of Orange and State of Ver­mont for and in con­sid­er­a­tion of the sum of thir­ty pounds law­ful mon­ey to men in hand paid before the deliv­ery here­of by Israel Ran­dal of Danville…” The deed is dat­ed Novem­ber 30, 1791.

With deed in hand, Lance began his own his­tor­i­cal mys­tery tour with a series of ques­tions that devel­oped into a con­jec­tured under­stand­ing of Israel Randall’s life in Danville. “His­to­ry is writ­ten by the sur­vivors, the win­ners, those who passed their his­to­ry for­ward. If a fam­i­ly didn’t stick around, they do not appear in the his­to­ry book,” said Lance, point­ing to Vil­lage in the Hills a his­to­ry of Danville, Ver­mont that lay on the table in front of us. A quick check of the index in the book shows no Israel Randall.

How­ev­er, Randall’s name does appear once in the book—page 24 on the map that is cap­tioned: “Final divi­sion of land under Danville’s sec­ond char­ter in 1802 fol­low­ing set­tle­ment with New York for ’30,000 rights.’” There, in the tini­est of print, is a plot with­out a num­ber read­ing “200A Israel Ran­dall.” The first town char­ter was grant­ed under New York with the name of Hills­bor­ough; the sec­ond char­ter was grant­ed under Ver­mont with the name Danville. Vil­lage in the Hills describes this con­fus­ing process in detail in chap­ter two. It was a process that Lance believes affect­ed Ran­dall as well as and oth­er ear­li­er set­tlers. Could Ran­dall have set­tled first under the Hills­bor­ough char­ter, then lat­er be made to com­ply with the sec­ond? Lance believes this is likely.

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February 1862, Forts Fall, Rumsellers Revolt, and Grant Earns His Nickname

February 27, 2012Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, NSM articles
Ulysses S. Grant, the “butch­er”

By Gary Far­row, Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

The North Star report­ed that things were look­ing up for the North. The Union Navy secured anoth­er vic­to­ry and a beard­ed, soft-spo­ken small man from the West appeared on the scene to accom­plish what elud­ed the Union gen­er­als who came before. In addi­tion there is a sto­ry of “boys being boys” in Brat­tle­boro and Cap­tain R. W. Laird mak­ing a trip back home to Danville.

North Star February 1. 1862

Sword Pre­sen­ta­tion

Capt. R. W. Laird of Com­pa­ny H., 4th Reg­i­ment Ver­mont Vol­un­teers, was pre­sent­ed with a splen­did sword, at Camp Grif­fin, VA on Jan 20th, as a slight token of high esteem in which he is held by the men of his com­mand, for his ener­gy and untir­ing zeal in their behalf.

Cap­tain Laird returned to his home in West Danville, last week Thurs­day. We under­stand that he has returned with recruit­ing orders, and will enlist recruits for the Ver­mont Brigade.

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The Greenbank’s Hollow Historic Park Site Nears Completion

December 28, 2011Posted inHistorical events, Historical sites, South Danville

By Sharon Lakey

Hol­lis Pri­or and David Hous­ton shep­herd­ed the project through sev­en years of work.

On a rainy Octo­ber day, 2011, Dave Hous­ton and Hol­lis Pri­or, com­mit­tee heads for the Greenbank’s Hol­low His­tor­i­cal Park, met a bus­load of Danville sec­ond graders at the cov­ered bridge. The chil­dren lined both sides under cov­er of the bridge, eat­ing bagged lunch­es, and lis­ten­ing to the con­stant rush of water rolling down Joe’s Brook. After­wards, they trekked up the hill after David and Hol­lis to the old school site where the new kiosk stands.

One of the chil­dren exclaimed, “My dad­dy gave the wood for this.” The impres­sive struc­ture was new­ly up by the efforts of the Danville road crew, the area groomed and land­scaped, sur­round­ed by the foun­da­tion stones of the old school. No infor­ma­tion was on the kiosk yet, but the whole idea of group of chil­dren stand­ing in the mid­dle of the school­house site was his­toric in itself. After some con­ver­sa­tion and ques­tions about its his­to­ry, the group again fell in behind David and Hol­lis and moved down to the bridge. There they stood on the spot, imag­in­ing the huge five-sto­ry woolen mill that used to stand next to the lit­tle bridge.

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Prognostications for the New Year–January 1862

December 28, 2011Posted inFrom the archives, Historical events, Historical people

Prognostications for the New Year, Money Finds Its Way Back Home, and the Panorama of War Comes to Danville

By Gary Far­row, mem­ber of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Union­ist Cap­tain Lyon, who was in charge of guard­ing a US artillery sta­tion in the slave state of Missouri.

The troops set­tled in for the first full month of win­ter. Restrict­ed move­ment meant that major bat­tles in many parts of the coun­try would have to wait for spring, so the news turned to the more mun­dane aspects of the war. And, as tech­no­log­i­cal changes (such as the tele­graph) sped news to Danville, the town would see and expe­ri­ence a new, rich­er and more vivid medi­um that told the sto­ry of their age.

Grandiose prog­nos­ti­ca­tions short­change peo­ple and their sto­ries. This was nev­er truer than in the bor­der states of Mis­souri and West Vir­ginia, which were, in their own unique way, micro­cosms of the larg­er conflict.

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