Vermont: A Study of Independence

by Rowland Evans Robinson

The sonorous call of the moose echoed now only in the gloom of the northeastern wilderness, but the deer still homed in the mountains, often coming down to feed with domestic cattle in the hillside pastures. The ruffed grouse strutted and drummed in every wood, copse, and cobble. Every spring, great flights of wild pigeons clouded the sky, as they flocked to their summer encampment; and in autumn, such innumerable hordes of wild fowl crowded the marshes that the roar of their startled simultaneous uprising was like dull thunder. These the farmer hunted in his stealthy Indian way, and after New England fashion,—the fox on foot, with hound and gun; and so, too, the raccoon that pillaged his cornfields when the ears were in the milk. When a wolf came down from the mountain fastnesses, or crossed the frozen lake from the Adirondack wilds, to ravage the folds, every arms-bearer turned hunter. The marauder was surrounded in the wood where he had made his latest lair; the circle, bristling with guns, slowly closed in upon him; and as he dashed wildly around it in search of some loophole of escape, he fell to rifle-ball or charge of buckshot, if he did not break through the line at a point weakly guarded by a timid or flurried hunter. His death was celebrated at the nearest store or tavern with a feast of crackers and cheese,—a droughty banquet, moistened with copious draughts of cider, beer, or more potent liquors, and the bounty paid the reckoning. The bounty, and the value of the skins and grease of bears were added incentives to the taking off of these pests, which was frequently accomplished by trap and spring-gun.

Many farmers made a considerable addition to their income by trapping the fur-bearers, for though the beaver had been driven from all but the wildest streams, and the otter was an infrequent visitor of his old haunts, their little cousins, the muskrat and mink, held their own in force on every stream and marsh; and the greater and lesser martins, known to their trappers as fisher and sable, still found home and range on the unshorn mountains. A few men yet followed for their livelihood the hunter's and trapper's life of laziness and hardship, for the most part unthrifty, and poor in everything but shiftless contentment and the wisdom of woodcraft. There were exceptions in this class: at least one mighty hunter laid the foundation of a fortune when he set his traps. When the trapping season was ended, he sold his peltry in Montreal, bought goods there, and peddled them through his State till the falling leaves again called him to the woods. He gained wealth and a seat in Congress, but neither is likely to be the reward of one who now follows such a vocation in Vermont.

The annual election of legislators, justices, judges, state officers, and members of Congress, which falls on the first Tuesday of September, had then other than political excitement to enliven the day in the wrestling matches and feats of strength that were interludes of the balloting. In one instance the name of a town was decided by the result of a wrestling match on election day. One figure constant at the elections of the first half of this century, and by far the most attractive one to the unfledged voters who never failed in attendance, was he who dispensed, from his booth or stand, pies, cakes, crackers, cheese, and spruce beer to the hungry and thirsty. When the result of the election was announced, the successful candidate for representative bought out the remaining stock of the victualer, and invited his friends to help themselves, which they did with little ceremony. Nothing less than a reception given at the house of the representative-elect will satisfy the mixed multitude in these progressive times. The once familiar booth and its occupant have drifted into the past with the wrestlers, the jumpers, and pullers of the stick.

Gradually the primitive ways of life, the earliest industries, and the ruder methods of labor gave way to more luxurious living, new industries, and labor-saving machinery.

The log-house, that was reared amid its brotherhood of stumps, decayed with them, and was superseded by a more pretentious frame-house, whose best apartment, known as the "square room," came to know the luxury of a rag carpet, or at least a painted floor, that heretofore had been only sanded, and a Franklin stove, a meagre apology for the generous breadth of the great fireplace whose place it took. There was yet a fireplace in the kitchen, down whose wide-throated chimney the stars might shine upon the seething samp-pot swinging on the trammel and the bake-kettle embedded and covered in embers. Great joints of meat were roasted before it on the spit, biscuits baked in a tin oven, and Johnny-cakes tilted on oaken boards. Around this glowing centre the family gathered in the evening, the always busy womenfolk sewing, knitting, and carding wool; the men fashioning axe-helves and ox-bows, the children popping corn on a hot shovel, or conning their next day's lessons; while all listened to the grandsire's stories of war and pioneer life, or to the schoolmaster's reading of some book seasoned with age, or of the latest news, fresh from the pages of a paper only a fortnight old. The fire gave better light for reading and work than the tallow dips, to whose manufacture of a year's supply one day was devoted, marked in the calendar by greasy discomfort. For the illumination of the square room on grand occasions, there were mould candles held in brass sticks, while these and the dips were attended by the now obsolete snuffers and extinguisher. Close by the kitchen fireplace, and part of the massive chimney stack, whose foundations filled many cubic yards of the cellar, the brick oven held its cavernous place, and was heated on baking days with wood specially prepared for it. Oven and fireplace gave away after a time to the sombre but more convenient cook-stove, and with them many time-honored utensils and modes of cookery fell into disuse.

Wool-carding machines were erected at convenient points, and hand-carding made no longer necessary. Presently arose factories which performed all the work of cloth-making (carding, spinning, weaving, and finishing), so that housewife, daughter, and hired girl were relieved of all these labors, and the use of the spinning-wheel and hand-loom became lost arts. When it became cheaper to buy linen than to make it, the growing of flax and all the labors of its preparation were abandoned by the farmer. As wood grew scarcer and more valuable than its ashes, the once universal and important manufacture of pot and pearl ashes was gradually discontinued; and as the hemlock forests dwindled away, the frequent tannery, where the farmers' hides were tanned on shares, fell into disuse and decay.

Early in this century the dull thunder of the forge hammer resounded, and the furnace fire glared upon the environing forest, busily working up ore, brought some from the inferior mines of Vermont, but for the most part from the iron mines of the New York shore. This industry became unprofitable many years ago, and one by one the fires of forge and furnace went out. With the decline of this industry, the charcoal pit and its grimy attendants became infrequent in the new clearings, though for many years later there was a considerable demand for charcoal by blacksmiths. Of these there were many more then than now, for the scope of the smith's craft was far broader in the days when he forged many of the household utensils and farming tools that, except such as have gone out of use, are now wholly supplied by the hardware dealer. A common appurtenance of the smithy, when every farmer used oxen, was the "ox-frame," wherein those animals, who in the endurance of shoeing belie their proverbial patience, were hoisted clear of the ground, and their feet made fast while the operation was performed. The blacksmith's shop was also next in importance, as a gossiping place, to the tavern bar-room and the store. At the store dry-goods, groceries, and hardware were dealt out in exchange for butter, cheese, dried apples, grain, peltry, and all such barter, and generous seating conveniences and potations free to all customers invited no end of loungers.

The merchant's goods were brought to him by teams from ports on Lake Champlain and the Connecticut, and from Troy, Albany, and Boston, whither by the same slow conveyance went the product of the farms,—the wool, grain, pork, maple sugar, cheese, butter, and all marketable products except beef, which was driven on the hoof in great droves to a market in Boston and Albany.

Daily stage-coaches traversed the main thoroughfares, carrying the mails and such travelers as went by public conveyance, to whom, journeying together day after day, were given great opportunities for gossip and acquaintance. There was much journeying on horseback. Families going on distant visits went with their own teams in the farm wagon, whose jolting over the rough roads was relieved only by the "spring of the axletree" and the splint bottoms of the double-armed wagon chairs. They often carried their own provisions for the journey, to the disgust of the innkeepers, and this was known as traveling "tuckanuck," a name and custom that savors of Indian origin.

Such were the means of interstate commerce, mail-carriage, and travel until two long-talked-of railroad lines were completed in 1849, running lengthwise of the State, east and west of the mountain range. The new and rapid means of transportation which now brought the State into direct communication with the great cities wrought great changes in trade, in modes of life, and in social traits.