Ned, You Ought To Take Me in Your Auto

April 4, 2011Posted inDanville Green, From the archives

The story of the first automobile in Danville

Ned Pet­tengill’s lit­tle red car, the first in Danville, sits in front of the Bad­ger black­smith shop on what is now Route 2.

By Mark R. Moore

Ancient Roads. When I first heard of their exis­tence, I had visions of a myth­i­cal high­way hid­den under the soil and stones in some cor­ners of the Repub­lic of Ver­mont. Soon I learned it was a mat­ter of old, fad­ed charts and the rec­ol­lec­tions of long-time res­i­dents. But even the maps and mem­o­ries get fuzzy with the pas­sage of time. The roads become ruts, the ruts get filled in, and the road becomes not an obscure ram­ble through the forest.

Yet the doc­u­ments at the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety set me on a clear path where I met the image of the first car and first car own­er in Danville–the recent­ly mar­ried 24-year-old own­er of a red tour­ing auto­mo­bile, Ned Pet­tengill. But first, let’s review a bit of his­to­ry of the auto­mo­bile in Vermont.

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School on a Mission

March 30, 2011Posted inDanville Green

Danville School receives high national recognition

Meg Pow­den, Co-Prin­ci­pal of Danville School

By Sharon Lakey

8:00 on a Mon­day morn­ing, and the Danville School front desk was hop­ping. Three ele­men­tary school­girls, obvi­ous­ly excit­ed about some­thing, were wait­ing their turn to speak to one of the sec­re­taries. Tow­er­ing above them was a lanky high school boy, ask­ing about tick­ets to the boys’ bas­ket­ball semi-final game at the Aud. “All sold out,” the sec­re­tary said apolo­get­i­cal­ly, “but you can get them over there before the game.” It was pleas­ant, orga­nized-chaos that I remem­bered well from my own children’s school days in Danville. I was on a mis­sion, too, need­ing to sign in with the sec­re­tary before meet­ing with co-prin­ci­pal, Meg Powden.

 

The mis­sion: get the sto­ry behind Danville School’s nation­al recog­ni­tion as a best school. Sur­pris­ing­ly, it was an hon­or I had not read about in our own local media; instead, it was men­tioned in con­ver­sa­tions with peo­ple I had out­side of our area, both in and out of state. Hav­ing worked in a pub­lic school in Ver­mont dur­ing the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) high-stakes test­ing years, I knew this des­ig­na­tion was no small feat.

Meg arrived through the maze of stu­dents before a bell sound­ed and all moved off in the direc­tion of their assigned rooms. She escort­ed me up the ramp, past the lunch­room, and into her office in the upper hall. It was not an impos­ing office, look­ing like a small con­vert­ed class­room space. After explain­ing my mis­sion, she brought out her lap­top and locat­ed the sites where Danville is listed.

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Going to See the Elephant

March 30, 2011Posted inDanville Green, From the archives, Historical events, NSM articles
Harper’s Week­ly image of the fir­ing on Fort Sumter in April, 1861
By Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

 

April marks the begin­ning of the sesqui­cen­ten­ni­al obser­vance of the out­set of the Civ­il War with the fir­ing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Har­bor, April 12, 1861. For the next four years the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety will reprint excerpts of arti­cles pub­lished in the North Star from 1861 to 1865 focus­ing on Danville’s involve­ment in the Civ­il War.

“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.

Under the lead­er­ship of Gov­er­nor Eras­tus Fair­banks, Ver­mont respond­ed quick­ly to the call for men to join the Union forces. Dur­ing the Civ­il War, Ver­mont con­tributed more per capi­ta from its trea­sury and from its pop­u­la­tion of young men to the con­flict than any oth­er state in the Union. Danville’s finan­cial com­mit­ment of approx­i­mate­ly $36,000. to the war effort , as well as the num­ber of its enlist­ments was extraordinary.

In 1861, Danville had a pop­u­la­tion of about 2,500 con­sist­ing of about 350 men between the ages of 18 and 45. Out of this pool of men, from 1861 to 1865 Danville fur­nished 245 enlist­ments con­sist­ing of 194 dif­fer­ent men. The bal­ance was account­ed for by re-enlist­ments. By the end of the war, Danville had lost a total of 35 men. Twelve of those who lost their lives were killed in bat­tle and the rest died from expo­sure, star­va­tion, or sickness.

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Town Meeting, 2011

March 2, 2011Posted inTown business
Well, our first Town Meeting using Australian Ballot is over. Citizens explain their view of the new process, before and after the meeting. Click here for a 3+ minute video…

It Ain’t Necessarily So

February 27, 2011Posted inNorth Danville, NSM articles

…or How a Vermonter Brought His Girlfriend to a Minstrel Show

Locks of love and tick­et stubs
By Mark R. Moore, Ver­mont Asso­ciate at Danville His­tor­i­cal House
Beside the two tick­et stubs that lie before me on the desk are two locks of hair. One is longer, thick and satiny with a slight curl. The oth­er is wispy and of a rougher texture.

Like many things at His­tor­i­cal House, a glance at the sur­face of what one encoun­ters does not reveal the facts. Instead, these items are more like a mul­ti-faceted dia­mond, a kalei­do­scope of thoughts and con­clu­sions that change with the slight­est turn. The facts must be eval­u­at­ed against the par­tial evi­dence that we have before us as well as our knowl­edge of the past, placed in con­text of the present. Add to that the knowl­edge we gath­er from out­side sources, and it will bal­ance our first gut reactions.

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