Pittsford Historical Society, Inc.
PO Box 423
Pittsford VT 05763 www.pittsfordhistorical.com
802-483-2040
A 501(c) organization since 1961
Winter 2021-22
** PLEASE NOTE! **
Given the preventive measures against
Covid-19 currently in force, all scheduled events, including the opening
hours of Eaton Hall, are subject to change. We shall do our best to provide
a two-week notice of any changed dates.
Winter Newsletter
Museum Notes
The Museum ended its regular visiting hours after Veterans’ Day, and
will remain closed, probably until April, although visits may be arranged
with advanced notice, to ensure a host to unlock the building and also that
the thermostat has been turned up a bit. The volunteer crew still turns up
on Tuesdays
Annual Meeting
We had some 25 member present for the supper and meeting. Reports were
presented and an election was held, with two changes: Tamara Hitchcock
becomes Vice-President, and Barb Willis becomes a Trustee.
Tom Browe then made a presentation on the ‘Marble Industry in
Florence.’ He started with a questionable etymology for Florence, alleging
that in the 1600s an Italian of the name of Bro wandered New England and
came to a part of what is now Vermont on the west bank of what is now known
as the Otter Creek, and was so struck by its resemblance to his home region
in Italy that he exclaimed, repeatedly, ‘Florence.’ The Native Americans
among whom he lived preserved this name (the Italian name of Florence is
actually Firenze). Tom offered no proof that an Italian Bro was the source
of the name (he also short-changed the Fowler who was involved with the
marble industry in Florence ca. 1900, thanks to whom the area was known for
a while as Fowlerville. Cf. Grangerville, near the Pittsford Furnace).
He was better supported with evidence for the rest of his presentation,
thanks largely to the mastery of digital imagery (not CGI) of Bill Powers,
and so described a series of small (might we say originally artisanal?)
quarries through the Florence region that eventually were subsumed by larger
marble companies. He and Bill tramped for hours through the woods of
Florence, seeking old quarries (but not falling in, thank goodness) and are
still unsure of what they saw and what they missed. Back in the day, workers
were brought in (many from Italy) to work the quarries. He described the
machinations of Redfield Proctor, first of a Vermont dynasty, to take
control of the industry and to stifle worker unrest. At one point in time,
the Hollister Quarry – now a forgotten spot on a side-road – had
state-of-the-art set of equipment, and ran deeper than any other quarry. It
was an enthusiastic, informative, and entertaining presentation. The Society
has a sound-recording of the event, and the slide-presentation prepared by
Bill Powers.
President’s Report:
Bill Powers offers a succint account of the Society’s various
activities and thanked the volunteers involved.
Curator’s report by Anne Pelkey
I would first like to thank all the volunteers who give up their
Tuesdays to assist me at Eaton Hall. Without the help of Rebecca Davenport,
Ivy Dixon, Barb Willis, Elizabeth Simpson, Tammy Hitchcock, and Tom Browe,
there’s no question that the museum could operate as efficiently as it does.
Artifacts need accessioning, visitors need greeting, researchers need help
in looking up their Pittsford roots, newspaper clippings need to be copied
and filed. This group performs these tasks very efficiently. Requests for
genealogy are answered either on line or in person by President Bill Powers.
This year, he has helped descendants of the Matson, Phillips, Gibbs, & Rich
families find answers to some, if not all of their questions. Bill is very
thorough in his research, and I know how much time he spends on these
queries, which in many cases, leads him to the Pittsford Town Office
researching old deeds.
We continue to learn about Pittsford’ss rich history through the
donations we receive throughout the year. The following donors have
contributed to the Museum’s archival collections:
Sarah Dopp donated two vintage celluloid ‘art deco’ crown style hair
combs from the 1920's that had belonged to Joyce Bates Daniels. Joyce, who
passed away in 2018, was the daughter of Doug & Anna Bates and they lived at
the end of Blackberry Lane in Pittsford. When originally produced, such
combs were meant to take the expensive and elaborate combs of the rich and
famous and make them available to the lower class. This was done by
utilizing a new invention: celluloid, an early form of plastic. Ours are
amber in color and have birds and flowers in the design.
Diana (Dickerman) Masserenti (in Washington state) is the great-great
granddaughter of Rollin Smith. Rollin was a Pittsford farmer, school and
music teacher and at one time school superintendent. Diana sent a beautiful
raised beaded watch pocket made by the Tuscarora Indian Tribe, part of the
Iroquois League. It would be hung on the wall beside the bed for a man to
put his pocket watch in at night. The Tuscarora beadwork was made between
1850 and 1920 and sold to tourists who visited Niagara Falls. Diana isn’t
sure which member of her Vermont family owned the watch pocket, but we are
very grateful to have this beautiful example
Mary Anderson stopped in the museum last month to give us a ladies
parasol that belonged to her great aunt Ada Potter. Ada’s mother was Agnes
Belle Cooley, a descendant of Caleb Cooley, brother to Benjamin, one of the
first settlers in Pittsford.
Rebecca Davenport gave two dolls, a Raggedy Ann & Andy, made by her mother
Hila for Rebecca in the late 1940s. Hila made the dolls from scraps of cloth
left from clothes she made for her family and sold them in the Mahler’s
Store that later became the Crimson Buggy. The dolls sold for $3.50 each.
The museum also has an upside-down doll that Hila made which sold for $3.00
each in the store. Hila would give these dolls as gifts to family and
friends. Rebecca also gave us a family photo album that has a dear baby
picture of Rebecca’s grandmother, Ida Heath Mahler in it.
Dave & Steve Hammond, sons of Emil and Anne (Bogue) Hammond, donated a
chair believed to be over 200 years old. Taped to the bottom of the chair is
its provenance which reads: ‘this chair left in house on Parsons Farm at
Pittsford, Vt. by Elder William Harrington when he sold farm to Thomas Fitch
Bogue early 1820.’ When Thomas Bogue’s daughters, Sarah and Jane sold the
farm, they built the Victorian Home on Elm St. in 1890; Emil and Anne
inherited the estate in 1967. Steve remembers the chair always being in the
Hammond house.
Our treasurer, Terri Davis, gave several pieces of ‘bank memorabilia’ from
her many years working at what in 1994 was a branch of the First Brandon
National Bank, then the Lake Sunapee Bank (a New Hampshire connection) and
now the Bar Harbour Bank (Maine). Barb and Ivy mounted a very nice exhibit
on the history of the bank displaying the mugs, pens, mouse pads, hats,
desks signs, etc. that Terri collected.
The Crown Point Road Marker
The Crown Point Road was laid out during the French-and-Indian Wars of
the 1760s, and crosses Vermont diagonally from Brattleboro up to southern
Lake Champlain. The Crown Point Road Association is devoted to documenting,
and on occasion retracing, the course of that road. Over the years, they
have placed markers on the course of the road. One such marker was
misplaced, on Depot Hill Rd., and has just been removed. It was delivered to
the back yard of Eaton Hall along with its concrete base; Jim Rowe and Bill
Powers have applied effort and powerful machinery (multiple drilling holes)
to strip off the concrete base. The marker will be repositioned along
Whipple Hollow Rd. The last newsletter neglected to report the heroically
destructive efforts put forth by Bill Powers and Tom Rowe.
Town Notes
Energy Projects and Construction
The Oct. 6 Select Board meeting was heated and ran long. Two
energy-related projects were presented, followed by discussion of the
proposed rearrangement of the junction of Rte. 7 and Rte. 3.
A. A proposal by Grandpa’s Knob Community Wind (represented by Sam
Carlson, but also linked with a commercial enterprise run by David
Blittersdorf) for a commemorative windmill on Grandpa’s Knob, just below the
communication tower, where in 1941 Palmer Putnam erected what may have been
the first electricity-generating windmill connected to the grip. Mr. Carlson
claimed that as there was an existing maintenance road for the communication
tower, the environmental impact would be minimal. But they could not answer
questions about the extent of groundwork needed for the foundation of the
proposed windmill, claiming that they had not yet conducted the surveys for
that information. They wanted to bring the idea before the towns before
proceeding.
As background, some ten years ago there was a proposal for a chain of
20 windmills along the mountain ridge from Grandpa’s Knob to the South that
brought immediate, fierce, and successful opposition. In response to the
proposal, many of the towns in the area rewrote their development plans to
exclude windmills on mountain-tops.
This new proposal also brought fierce and heated opposition. One line
of argument was that a monument to Palmer Putnam should be placed at the
bottom of the hill, with informational material and perhaps a scale-model of
the original windmill. The second was that this proposal is an attempt to
eviscerate the town plans: if one windmill gets approved, arguments against
others then collapse. The second argument seems stronger. The organizers did
not first approach the towns to discuss how to commemorate Palmer Putnam and
his achievement. They first approached the State to obtain a guaranteed
price that would make the windmill profitable.
Such conduct on the part of David Blittersdorf, whose mother Lois was a
mainstay, and past President, of the Pittsford Historical Society, seems
disappointing.
B. The Select Board then heard a Zoom presentation by George Yan of DG
Vermont Solar for a solar array on meadows above Adams Rd., in the area
through which the ‘Split Rock Trail’ passes. This proposal has now been
complicated by the fact that the owner has put the property up for sale.
C. The Select Board then briefly discussed the revised plans for the
intersection of Rtes. 3 and
7. The bridge over Furnace Brook is to be rebuilt; there will a
temporary bridge and reconfiguration of traffic. In 2015, the AOT offered a
plan by which after the bridge is rebuilt, traffic will return to the old
configuration with a Y-junction onto Rte. 3for the south-bound traffic on
Rte. 7. The new plan calls for a turning lane with a right turn, eliminating
the little green triangle on which – many years back – there was a kiosk.
The Select Board, and many town citizens, oppose this revised plan.
The Second Annual Tractor Parade, 23 Oct. 2021
48 tractors participated in the parade. They gathered at the Village
Farm and then, as in the first parade, proceeded down Arch St., up Pleasant
St., on to Rte. 7 for 100 yds, and then up onto Furnace Rd. and then to
Plains Rd. For some reason, there was no traffic control, and so the
south-bound tractors were interspersed with cars. There were no monsters,
like last year’s Krone behemoth, but there was a wide range of sizes, ages,
and makes (Deere, Oliver, Cockshutt, Farmall, Case International, and others
unnamed). The end of the parade brought floats in tow: Halloween- or
harvest- themed, one with inflated animals (pig and chicken and cow) that
apparently also contained humans, and in a valiant challenge to Macy’s
parade, Mr. and Mrs. Claus. The parade was led by the Fire Department’s
Boomobile and closed by the Pittsford Ladder 1 truck, flashing its lights.
The Halloween Trunk or Treat
The weather that weekend was wet, and Rutland called off their Saturday
night parade. Pittsford still held a Trunk-or-Treat at the Town offices,
rearranging the displays from the past drive-through format and placing them
in the Town Office parking lots to allow foot travel. There were perhaps a
dozen trunks open, displaying many skeletons of many species. Visitors
included a number of dinosaurs, horses, and unicorns (many of these the
newly-devised inflatable costumes, that had the added advantage of being
water-proof). Many spacemen, princesses, ghosts, witches of all size and
coloring visited. Informed (=younger) observers explained that many of the
costumes were modeled on ‘Minecraft,’(an on-line game). At least the Star
Wars characters were recognizable. There were also several Little Red Riding
Hoods, marking a revival (? is there a movie we haven’t heard about?) of
older figures.
Veterans’ Day
Clement weather brought a crowd to the observances. Joel Tate, whose
Methodist congregation has now resumed occupancy in the former Methodist
Church on Rte. 7, offered the prayers. Lori Keith, of the Navy, offered
impassioned advocacy of support for the constitution. Lothrop singers led
the attendance in patriotic songs. The weather was mild enough that coffee
and snacks were offered in the parking lot.
Memberships
Membership in the Society extends over a calendar year. Your dues support
the annual operating expenses of Eaton Hall. Please send your check, payable
to Pittsford Historical Society to: (Welcome to the new Membership Chairman)
Stephen P. Belcher IV. Send dues to
Stephen P. Belcher IV
PO Box 423
Pittsford, VT 05763
We thank you for your continued support.
Name(s)
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Street/Apt. #
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Town, State and Zip
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Please check amount enclosed:
Single $15_____ Family $20 _____ Contributing $25_____
Sponsor $50_____ Life Member $200 (per person) _____
A 501(c)(3) organization
since 1960
Museum Hours:
