Thaddeus Stevens: “Old Commoner”

October 9, 2011Posted inDanville Green, Historical events, Historical people
The his­tor­i­cal mark­er on Danville Green has been Ver­mon­t’s only pub­lic acknowl­edge­ment of Thad­deus Stevens. Stevens was born in Danville and edu­cat­ed in Peacham.

By Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

On Sun­day Octo­ber 30, The Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and the Danville Cham­ber of Com­merce will hon­or Thad­deus Stevens in a cer­e­mo­ny for the unveil­ing of an etch­ing of his por­trait that is being pre­sent­ed to the Ver­mont State­house. The cer­e­mo­ny will be held at the Danville Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church and begin at 2:00 PM to be fol­lowed by a recep­tion in the Church din­ing room.

Jan­u­ary 10, 2010, Ver­mont Civ­il War His­to­ri­an, Howard Cof­fin, addressed the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety at its Annu­al Meet­ing, focus­ing on Danville’s involve­ment in the Civ­il War. Fol­low­ing deliv­ery of his address, Mr. Cof­fin sug­gest­ed that he felt it would be a most appro­pri­ate sesqui­cen­ten­ni­al project for the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety to coor­di­nate an effort to raise funds for com­mis­sion­ing a por­trait of Thad­deus Stevens to be pre­sent­ed to the State­house for inclu­sion in its col­lec­tion of por­traits of promi­nent Vermonters.

It is iron­ic that in the 219 years since the birth of Thad­deus Stevens that the only memo­r­i­al in Ver­mont to his lega­cy as one of America’s great civ­il rights advo­cates is a State Depart­ment of His­toric Sites mark­er on Danville Green indi­cat­ing Danville as the place of his birth. There has nev­er been any pub­lic por­trait or piece of sculp­ture hon­or­ing the enor­mous con­tri­bu­tions he made on the nation­al lev­el to affect the eman­ci­pa­tion of the slaves and to grant them civ­il rights.

Janet’s new calendar

September 24, 2011Posted inUncategorized
A Local's Perspective By Sharon Lakey Last year, Janet Carson, one of Danville's excellent photographers, put out her first calendar. For everyone that was lucky enough to get one, they…

Worth the Wait?

September 24, 2011Posted inDanville Green, Historical events, NSM articles

Route 2: Pain now–Payback later

The green is a con­fus­ing mess at the moment.

By Sharon Lakey

Sen­a­tor Jane Kitchel was quot­ed in the Cale­don­ian-Record on July 1, 2011, at a meet­ing between the Ver­mont Agency of Trans­porta­tion and Danville res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers. “Maybe this project is a lot like hav­ing a baby. When we get done we’ll be pleased with what we have, hopefully.”

There’s no doubt about the pain. Any­one try­ing to make it through and around Danville this sum­mer has expe­ri­enced it. Frus­tra­tion has some­times been high, but late­ly it seems peo­ple, at least local­ly, are wait­ing for the baby with more sto­icism. And while wel’re wait­ing, there is renewed inter­est in what the final prod­uct is going to look like. Over the past 20-plus years, the col­lec­tive mem­o­ry of how this project evolved has dimmed; per­haps a review of how we got here from there is use­ful. So, a lit­tle history…

The Secret Room

September 23, 2011Posted inNorth Danville
Shirley Blod­gett Lang­maid, left, shares writ­ings of Ten­nie Touis­sant from the North Danville cook­book. On the right is Eliz­a­beth Syman­ick, the Brain­erd Memo­r­i­al librar­i­an, who served as a mod­el for Mrs. Touis­sant in the book.

A new Northeast Kingdom adventure book

By Sharon Lakey

“Shaw­na and Thea are work­ing togeth­er on a math project for their eighth-grade class. But the num­bers don’t add up, and they make a star­tling discovery—the secret room in the base­ment of Thea’s house, an old Ver­mont inn.

The code on the walls makes the girls—and every­one in town—wonder why there was a secret room. Was it part of the Under­ground Rail­road, or per­haps some­thing less, well, hero­ic? Dis­cov­er­ing the truth is hard­er than they would have thought, espe­cial­ly when the truth is not what you want to hear.”

On Sep­tem­ber 10, 2011, North­east King­dom author, Beth Kanell, will offi­cial­ly have her sec­ond nov­el released by her new pub­lish­er, St. Johns­bury-based Brig­an­tine Media. When she told me about the release date, she looked at me mis­chie­vous­ly and said, “9 10 11. Wouldn’t Shaw­na and Thea love that?”

Ahh, that’s right. Shaw­na and Thea, the two main char­ac­ters in the sto­ry, do love numbers.

After read­ing a pre­lim­i­nary copy of the book, Beth and I arranged for an inter­view to begin in North Danville, the town that served as a muse for The Secret Room, which she sets in fic­tion­al North Upton. Beth shared that it was a request by her friend, Mary Pri­or, to set a nov­el there. Mary, who had grown up in the cen­ter of the vil­lage, rec­om­mend­ed its strong spir­it of place as a per­fect set­ting to help work the mag­ic of story.

Romance and Reality, Dissension and Dollars: The War News Trickles In

September 23, 2011Posted inFrom the archives, Historical events
A pho­to of a Civ­il War ambu­lance crew.
By Gary Far­row, Mem­ber of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

 

Sep­tem­ber of 1861, the Civ­il War was page two. It wasn’t all that unusu­al for the North Star to have no Civ­il War head­lines on the front page.

There was one item with polit­i­cal reper­cus­sions nation­al­ly. A Union Gen­er­al had tak­en it upon him­self to issue a procla­ma­tion about slav­ery. There was also a let­ter by a Ver­mont POW and a report about the Danville Com­pa­ny. That month, the read­er could also learn about what vol­un­teers were get­ting for pay.

North Star Sep­tem­ber 7, 1861

The Vermont Prisoners at Richmond

Let­ter from Cap­tain Drew
Rich­mond, VA Aug 19, 1861
 Edi­tors of the Free Press:

I am per­mit­ted by Gen­er­al Winders, the humane and oblig­ing com­man­der of this post to write you, giv­ing a list of Vt boys con­fined here, and some infor­ma­tion as to our cap­ture. For sev­er­al days before the bat­tle, I had been sick and on “Sun­day the 21st” [A ref­er­ence to the Bat­tle of Bull Run and its date July 21] was hard­ly able to move.

Project Show and Tell

August 16, 2011Posted inOral History
By Patricia Houghton Conly Time is precious when it comes to preserving your family history and memories. Old photographs and documents provide clues about our past and what life was…