Concord, NH to Rutland, VT (I-89 to Lebanon, Hwy 4 to Rutland)
Continuing west towards Vermont the highway weaves through the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The cuts in the mountains made to accommodate the highway clearly demonstrate why there is not a lot of large-scale agriculture in the state. Natives of New Hampshire often joke that the most successful crop in the state is rock. Not only is the land extremely rugged, it is essentially granite covered with a very thin layer of topsoil. The soil often looks like sand but a closer examination reveals that it is finely ground grains of granite.
Crossing the Connecticut River into Vermont, the mountains continue, lower but still rugged, the Green Mountains of Vermont. As the highway follows a small river through the forest, one of the iconic covered bridges of Vermont comes into view. The Taftsville Bridge was built in 1836 of local stone and wood and is the second longest and third oldest covered bridge in Vermont. It is still in use today.
Our next stop is the small village of Woodstock (not the Woodstock associated with the 1960’s, that’s in New York.) Woodstock is the classic small Vermont town that outsiders fantasize about when they’re humming “Moonlight in Vermont” (while reality is that most Vermont small towns are struggling, working-class communities.) The spire of the 1807 First Congregational Church, complete with a bell forged by Paul Revere, pierces the forest canopy that envelopes the village.
Most of the buildings in the center of the village date from the early 1800’s and have been carefully preserved and restored over the years. The area of the south bank of the Ottauquechee River was settled in 1768 and the power of the river was harnessed to power numerous mills after the Revolutionary War. Small factories made machines, guns, furniture, window sashes, leather goods, etc. The railroad arrived in 1875, opening the way to tourism which quickly became the dominate driver of the economy as the era of small factories waned with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the large cities the late 1800’s. Today the village is home to many second homes for wealthy people from Boston and New York. Property values are extremely high, with the side effect of driving native Vermonters out of the village. The village centers around “The Green”, an oblong central park bordered with historic buildings on all sides.
The south side of the square frames the historic Woodstock Inn, catering to wealthy tourists since 1892.
Fall tours of New England are very popular and there were four large tour buses in town when I visited. Just east of the town square is the small, compact commercial center of exclusive shops and restaurants.
Elm Street leads from the village center south and is lined with historic private homes, most built in the early 1800’s.
The story of early Woodstock is not complete without the contributions of two men, George Marsh and Frederick Billings, both of whom left a lasting impact on the United States.
Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Park and Billings Farm
George Marsh was born in Woodstock in 1801, served the federal government in various capacities and returned to Woodstock in 1854 to settle on a large farm across the river from the village. At that time logging was stripping the mountains of Vermont in a frenzy of activity supporting the expansion of the great cities of the east coast. By 1870 80% of Vermont’s native forest was gone. The environmental degradation left in its’ wake led to massive flooding and the consequential loss of the fisheries. Marsh began to practice land conservation and sustainability and spread the word of his belief in a series of books, “Man and Nature” (1864) and “The Earth as Modified by Human Action” (1874). He returned to government service as envoy to Italy and died in Rome in 1882. His legacy was picked up by another native of Vermont, Frederick Billings.
Billings was born in Royalton, Vermont in 1823 and became the first land claims lawyer in San Francisco at the beginning of the Gold Rush. Having made his fortune in California, Billings returned to Woodstock in 1864 and purchased the Marsh farm after Marsh moved to Italy. His business affairs flourished and Billings became president of the Northern Pacific Railroad during its’ period of westward expansion. My hometown of Billings, Montana, is named after Frederick Billings and the original library in Billings was named after his wife, Julia Parmly (lived there most of my life, spent many hours in the basement of that library during high school and never knew who it was named after!) Billings had read Marsh’s book and began to set into practice many of Marsh’s theories on conservation, including reforesting the naked mountains of Vermont. He also decided to create a model farm that would pioneer new agricultural techniques and promote sustainability. Laurance Rockefeller would later purchase the property and preserve Billings’ heritage in separate ways. The Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Park was created in 1992 when Laurance Rockefeller donated the mansion and surrounding lands to the federal government and just across the road, the Billings Farm & Museum was created in 1983 to preserve the character and heritage of rural Vermont.
Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Park
The original house was originally built by George Marsh in 1805 but the house as it is today was essentially created by major additions and remodeling completed by Frederick Billings in 1881. I did not know that one had to have a reservation to tour the mansion and on the day that I visited tours were all booked (only 12 people at a time can tour the mansion) so readers will have to be satisfied with a picture of the outside. The mansion sits on a hill overlooking the village to the south and farm to the west.
Billings Farm
Billings Farm is a working dairy farm, continuing to model sustainability and best practices with the goal of educating the public about Vermont’s agricultural heritage.
Depending on the day’s schedule, various activities are demonstrated. On the day that I visited several elementary school groups were on the property, and, given that I already know how to milk a cow, I passed on sitting in with the teeming masses of children! The focal point of the dairy business during Billings’ day was the manager’s house, which actually was built on top of the creamery.
The house was built for George Aitken, the foreman of the farm whom Billings hired to put his theories into practice, and demonstrated the most current technology available of the day. The large kitchen was the center of the house then as it usually is today, and I happened to be able to tour between demonstrations. The house had hot and cold running water, fed by a cistern on the roof. The pump on the right edge of the sink was used every morning to fill the large cistern on the roof and gravity did the work of running water through the pipes. The large copper tank to the right of the wood stove was for the hot water.
The large pantry is equipped with kitchen items of the day.
The dining room is heated by a particularly ornate coal stove.
A precursor of today’s housing design, the house contained a small formal parlor and a large family room. Note the hose running from the chandelier to the lamp on the table in the formal parlor, that’s how gas flame was able to be used as the source of light in a table lamp.
The main floor master bedroom contained two luxuries of the day, unheard of in most homes, a large closet and a private bathroom.
The basement housed the creamery where the farm’s prized butter was produced. The swinging churn on the left was actually powered by a small water wheel.
After the cream was churned and separated the butter was moved to the next room where it was pressed and packaged. Because the farm was so far from the markets in Boston and New York, salt was added to help preserve the butter during the time it took for shipping.
At the time, Billings butter sold for 50 cents per pound, the equivalent of a half-day’s pay. Clearly butter was one of the luxuries of the late 1800’s. The Billings Farm excels at what it does and the hordes of children were having a good time learning about the various tasks of a working dairy farm.
Continuing west through the mountains of Vermont I nearly pass on a small, rather unassuming museum on the edge of the town of Rutland and then decide to stop. Wow, was I glad I did, this turned out to be one of the most interesting stops of the trip!
Norman Rockwell Museum
Norman Rockwell was one of the most iconic American artists of the 20th Century, most popularly known through his series of covers illustrating life in America for the Saturday Evening Post, a stable of American houses through the early 1960’s. Rockwell’s first Saturday Evening Post was published in 1916 and his association with the magazine ended in 1963. The Norman Rockwell Museum is in a rather unassuming building outside of Rutland, Vermont and is currently for sale if you’re looking for a business opportunity! The collection of over 2,000 artifacts is housed in the section of the complex on the far left of the house.
The collection is organized by decade and many entries are accompanied by anecdotes clearly typed with loving care by the owners. The fluorescent lighting often made taking a clear photograph difficult…
Rockwell’s first cover for the Saturday Evening Post was published on May 20, 1916. He was paid $75.
He often poked fun at the current fads of the day. In the 1920’s an interest in the occult was all the rage and Rockwell published a cover showing a couple over a Ouija board, with the man more interested in rubbing knees than talking to the spirits.
Rockwell quickly became a voice for America, especially during World War II. The public was intensely interested in life in the military yet photographs were often prohibited due to security concerns. Rockwell documented life on a troop train in sketches that helped educate the public about the unknown world of their sons going off to war.
On January 6, 1941, President Roosevelt closed his State of the Union Speech with his vision for a better life through the Four Freedoms. A couple of years later Rockwell created a series of paintings entitled the “Four Freedoms” that circulated around the United States as part of a very successful effort to raise money for the war effort.
The four freedoms were Freedom of Speech, Freedom from Want, Freedom to Worship and Freedom from Fear.
Freedom of Speech
Freedom from Want
Freedom to Worship
Freedom from Fear
One of the highlights of the museum’s collection is a signed print of one of Rockwell’s most famous paintings, “Rosie the Riveter.” The painting celebrated the contribution of women to the war effort, but Rockwell noted that while the face was faithful to his model (Mary Doyle Keefe), he felt that he had to use the body on Michelangelo’s Isaiah from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in order to show the strength of the women’s efforts.
After the war Rockwell increasingly used his art to tell stories about life in the magazines of the day. This series, “All Kinds of Love” was published in the October 24, 1954 issue of American Weekly.
The advent of television contributed to the decline of the great American magazines. The Saturday Evening Post changed its format to more of a gossip magazine with disastrous results and in 1963 Rockwell ended his association with the struggling publications. The Post was briefly resurrected in the 1970’s and published a memorial cover to honor Norman Rockwell after his death in 1978.
Truly an interesting little home-grown museum honoring an iconic artist in the history of the American 20th Century. Just beyond the museum lies the town of Rutland, Vermont.
Rutland, VT
Rutland is the third largest city in Vermont with about 17,000 people in the area. Founded along Otter Creek in 1761 the small hamlet suddenly grew in the 1850’s with the development of marble quarries in the vicinity. At the same time the fabled marble quarries of Carrara, Italy, were becoming too deep to mine with the technology of the day and Rutland became the center of one of the leading marble producing regions in the world. The small city center along Merchant’s Row (the main street) was developed in the late 1800’s.
To the west the lush forest continues to blanket the landscape.
Next up: Adirondack Park
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