Pittsford Historical Society, Inc.
PO Box 423
Pittsford VT 05763 www.pittsfordhistorical.com
802-483-2040
A 501(c) organization since 1961
Winter 2021
** 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.
The Museum: Eaton Hall
The Museum has closed down for the winter. Volunteers
will probably continue to gather, once the holiday season is over, to
continue work on the collections, and visitors can be received by
arrangement (contact the Curator, Anne Pelkey, or Steve Belcher). With
masks, of course; Vermont has strict guidelines.
President’s Report
The COVID 19 virus has affected everything we do for
the past few months, including the goings-on at PHS.
All planned programming was disrupted, including town-wide events
like the Memorial Day parade and celebration as well as the Pittsford Day
gathering at the Fire Station.
In spite of this, Eaton Hall has been open and humming
with historic preservation activity thanks to our volunteers.
Early July brought an unscheduled Tag Sale with a generous donation
of items from Adrian Oulette.
This sale netted over $1400 for the Society.
In addition, our annual Tag and Bake sale was held July 25th.
We thank all who donated items for this successful event, which
garnered over $1000. The people
who attended these sales were asked to maintain 6 foot personal distances
and to wear masks.
On Sunday, September 20th, the Historical Society
celebrated its 60th anniversary.
Exhibits were prepared which documented the Society’s history.
The weather was beautiful and the attendees were many.
Copies of Pittsford’s Second
Century were offered free of charge.
Owing to the COVID virus, masks were required and much of the
activity was held outdoors.
Curator Anne Pelkey led visitors through the exhibits at our museum 4 at a
time. An excellent article
about the Historical Society’s celebration was featured in the September
16th issue of The Brandon/Pittsford
Reporter.
On the next Sunday, Sept. 27, Steve Belcher opened his
ancestral home to the public so they could view the interesting interior as
well as paintings by artist Martha Wood Belcher and her daughter Hilda, also
an artist. Again, small groups
of guests were taken through the house in observance of not spreading the
virus. The house has been in
Steve’s family since Martha built it
in 1880. We thank Steve
for his effort and his hospitality.
The PHS Annual Members’ meeting was held on October;
per our by-laws, this is the occasion on which we vote on a slate of
Officers and Trustees for the coming year.
Ernie Clerihew will be stepping down as President.
Past President Bill Powers is slated to be our new President.
At this time we need to thank longtime Recording Secretary Rebecca
Davenport and Past President (and current Trustee) Bob Welch for their many
years of service to the Historical Society.
Rebecca’s seat will be vacant until filled, but she will act as a
substitute until a replacement is found.
Bob Welch is retiring from his Trustee’s position to be replaced by
Ivy Dixon.
Curator’s Report
There’s no
doubt that 2020 has presented a set of challenges to historical societies
and museums both big and small throughout Vermont.
Even though our membership meetings had to be cancelled or
rescheduled and participation in Town Events was put on hold, still, when it
was safe to do so, the core of faithful Eaton Hall volunteers showed up
eager and ready to work. A
sincere thank you goes out to Rebecca Davenport, Ivy Dixon, Barb Willis, Tom
Browe, Tammy Hitchcock, Elisabeth Simpson, & Steve Belcher.
Bill Powers continues to research family queries that come in through
our website.
We are extremely grateful for the very generous donations from the
trust of Norma and Ralph Hathaway, and from New Hampshire resident Betty
Emerson in memory of her grandmother Sarah (Loveland) Seward. Norma passed
away in 2017 and was a Pittsford Historical Society life member.
In the 1990's she videotaped many PHS events and these tapes, located
at Eaton Hall, can still be played on our VHS machine! She and Ralph owned
Hathaway Sand & Gravel, and Norma was the bookkeeper.
Ralph, who passed away in May of this year, was a milk tester in his
teens, operated a construction & excavation business from 1952-1968,
produced maple syrup, operated a garage in Pittsford, and donated both time
& equipment in building the Pittsford Recreation Area.
Betty’s grandmother, Sara, (1877-1966) was the daughter of Robert and
Emily Loveland of Pittsford.
She raised Betty for 14 years, and Betty told me hardly a day goes by when
she doesn’t ‘talk’ to her beloved grandmother. Betty’s grandfather, Rollin
E. Seward (1872-1926) along with Rollin’s brother Walter, both served from
Pittsford in the Spanish American War. Thanks to Betty, we have several
Loveland/Seward photos and family genealogy.
We continue to learn about Pittsford’s rich history through the
donations we receive throughout the year, and I would like to acknowledge
and thank the following donors:
* The burial flag that draped the coffin of Dr. Harry
Leslie Frost at his funeral in 1943 was given by Bill Gladski.
Dr. Frost served as a Captain in the U.S. Medical Corp in WW1.
The flag had considerable mold on it and was brought to Paul’s
Cleaners in Rutland where it was beautifully cleaned at no charge.
* From the home of Elizabeth Frost we received a WWII
German helmet brought back from the war by Elizabeth’s uncle Malcolm Frost.
Malcolm served in the US Army Air Corps from 1942-1945.
Also acquired was a walking cane from the 1939 New York World’s Fair
which belonged to Christine Gulick Frost, wife of Dr. Frost.
* From the estate of Peg Armitage who passed away in
2019 we received an antique bed warmer and a mahogany two drawer drop leaf
side table. Both pieces had been in Peg’s family for several generations.
The table belonged to her great grandparents, Sophia and John Randolph
Hutchinson.
* Tom Brown, owner of Tom’s Treasures in Pittsford,
donated a digitally reproduced fine art framed print of Frederic Edwin
Church’s “View of Pittsford.” Church was an eminent
American Landscape Artist and the PHS was given permission in 1996 to
reproduce his 1848 painting which appears on the cover of
Pittsford's Second Century.
* A beautiful painting, a copy of Murillo’s ‘Madonna’
made by Martha Wood Belcher (Steve Belcher’s great-grandmother) was donated,
on behalf of Lucy Anderson, by her daughter Dianne Wilson. We have
contemporary newpaper reports of the exhibit of this painting in Pittsford
in 1875.
* To commemorate the house’s 140th anniversary, Steve
conducted house tours where
visitors got to see not only the acclaimed works of Martha Belcher, but
those of her daughter Hilda as well.
* Lorrie Byrom, owner of Camp Betsey Cox, donated two
of her Aunt Jean Davies’s photo albums. The albums feature several pictures
of Jean’s father Leone Smith and his Boy’s Club, that was active from 1916
through the 1920s. The home of
the Boys Club was Eaton Hall and many of the pictures show the boys
woodworking projects in Eaton Hall’s basement.
Membership Report
Lost Members.
Omissions and Corrections
PHS Anniversary
Celebration
We neglected two significant, paired, presences at the
event. Ernie Clerihew (in his straw boater) brought his vintage Model T, not
offering rides, but simply parked facing Rte 7 as evidence of the historical
nature of the event. This vehicle was soon joined by another Model T,
modified as a truck. It had belonged to Russell Shortsleeves, a local farmer
many years back. He modified it and later sold it. Steve Shortsleeves
tracked it down and bought it back, and restored the wooden frame on the
back that made it a truck.
Primary
Elections
Focussed on the mechanics of the election operations in
these challenging times, we neglected the actual results. Few races were
actually contested; ambition for local office seems limited. The one serious
challenge was to Butch Shaw, for the Republican seat in the State House,
from Dave Soulia. Butch won the nomination.
Pittsford Notes
Elections
Out-of-State members may not know that all Vermonters
received absentee ballots by mail. These could be mailed back, delivered by
hand, or junked should a voter choose to visit the polls. The Secretary of
State, Jim Condos, arranged for the votes to be tallied as received (early
votes were fed into scanning machines that did not reveal the totals), and
this is why Vermont was the first state to be called with certainty on
Election night.
The margins changed. In 2016, only one vote separated Donald Trump
and Hillary Clinton. This time, the margin was decisive: 896 for Biden, 784
for Trump (and Biden carried Rutland County, by 4,000 votes out of some
35,000 cast). Kanye West did get six votes in Pittsford.
Covid
Vermont still ranks lowest among US States for Covid
infections. Pittsford, however, has not been immune, and prior statements
may have been inaccurate. On the Vt. State Health Department’s tally,
Pittsford and Proctor seem to be combined as one township (despite the
separation in 1887), and so the Proctor report includes Pittsford (as it
should not). The Police Academy recently recorded 18 infections, out of 23
cadets, and that figure now appears on the Proctor/Pittsford tally.
Festivities
Pittsford observed Halloween with two events (the
Haunted House was cancelled, because the preparations were risky).
A. Tractor
Parade
Jeff Carleton, of Pittsford, had the idea of a tractor
parade, and in collaboration with the Village Farm, organized the event.
Some 30-40 tractors assembled on the green of the Village Farm off Elm St.,
and then, led by a police car and the Boo-Mobile of the PFD, rumbled down
Arch St. to the Fire Department, turned left onto Pleasant St., and then
right onto Rte. 7. Then left onto Furnace Rd. and up to Plains Rd. ending at
the Town Offices. The range of vehicles was most impressive. In size, they
varied from lawn tractors (riding mowers?) to a behemoth Krone ‘Big K.’ The
brands included Deere, of course, but also Farmall, White, Oliver (grouped
with different models), International, and others. A red Farmall hauled a
trailer from which Mr. and Mrs. Claus waved to Pittsfordites. After the last
tractor in the procession turned onto Furnace Rd, the police opened up Rte.
7 to allow the traffic to pass. One pick-up truck was observed hauling two
tractor tires, and two tractors, at least, arrived late.
B.
Trunk-or-Treat
The Fire Department did their best to reproduce the
entry-way to the Haunted House in the field uphill from the Town Offices,
and there was a line of cars through the field offering car-trunk/truck-bed
Halloween displays (one offered a skeleton spider, although in fact spiders
are contained within an exo-skeleton. But on Halloween the rules of nature
are suspended). Cars threaded a path around the town offices, back onto to
the road leading to the Caverly Pre-School, and then left through the FD
entryway to proceed past the open trunks: Beetlejuice, the Maclure Library,
the Sprouts Club, where Laurie Kamuda in a fetching witch’s robe offered up
spiders or bats from her cauldron, past the Grange Fair, and finally to a
Viking ship impressively recreated in the back of a pick-up truck, and an
Indiana Jones-themed Amazonian display (the Connaughtons at cross-purposes,
apparently), where the Librarian Shelly Williams, in orange jail-jumpsuit,
and Lothrop Principal Deb Alexander dispensed candy, rather than bats, from
containers.
Creatures
The Fox Farm on Corn Hill Rd. has acquired a Christmas
Jersey Cow, bedecked in festive ornaments. Their usual stock is dour Angus
beef cattle. This one seems a GMO: the body an oil tank, painted in Jersey
black and white, with seasonal accessories. The T-Rex on the outskirts of
Rutland now has a Christmas tree in its jaws.
Lighting
Christmas decorations have been appearing well before Thanksgiving, which
seems a solecism but people may be confused about time. The Town has
announced a competition for seasonal house-decoration, which probably means
that Pittsford will blaze out in photos taken from the Space Station.
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:
