The Vermont Book Of Days — The First Year by Michael Thurston and Missie Thurston with John C. Wriston Jr.; published in December 2005 by Exile Media Corporation in Barre; hardcover; 224 pages; $39.95.
Reviewed by Jennifer Hersey
Many years ago, a retired biochemistry professor from Delaware, John C. Wriston Jr., began a research project about Vermont. He wanted to collect enough stories to have one for each day. Between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s he collected 365 of them. He approached publishers, none of whom was willing to print what he originally called A Vermont Book of Days. So he went on to research Vermont postal history instead.
Years later, he got a phone call from a young Saint Michael’s College student, Missie Thurston, who was working on a project with her father, Michael Thurston. It was similar in focus to Mr. Wriston’s, but was to be produced in multimedia, including radio, print, Internet, and television.
The three agreed that together they could make it work, and by the summer of 2004 it was ready to go. They launched the project August 29 of that year, just in time for Mr. Wriston to see their work finally come to fruition. He died November 6.
Mr. Thurston wrote in the preface, “John would be thrilled with the success of The Vermont Book of Days. He would also be pleased that there’s finally a book, because his dream began with an idea for a book. Although this is not the book he tried to get published all those years ago, it is a book that is filled with his spirit, his love for Vermont and a generous chunk of his research.”
What follows is a sampling of the interesting, odd, and sometimes outrageous entries in the book. Some of the events are well known to residents of the state, and others have been resurrected from obscurity.
On January 6, 1857, the Vermont State House burned. The exterior was saved and incorporated into the current building. The newer building, with a price tag of $150,000, was dedicated in 1859. Incidentally, the House and Senate chambers are the oldest in the nation still being used in their original condition.
In an effort to establish a mandatory grading system for maple syrup, the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association was formed in Morrisville on January 12, 1893.
Ida May Fuller of Ludlow made history on January 31, 1940, when she became the first United States citizen to cash a Social Security check, written for $24.54.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher, named one of the ten most influential women in the United States by Eleanor Roosevelt, was born February 17, 1879, in Kansas. After moving to Arlington in 1907 after getting married, she founded the first adult education program in the country.
The winter of 2006 will go down in history for its mildness, but on February 19, 1932, there were boats cruising on Lake Champlain. At that time, no living person could remember the lake being free of ice during the winter.
Vermont became the fourteenth state admitted to the union on March 4, 1791. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson signed the Congressional approval document, and it is housed at the Vermont Historical Society.
The state’s oldest known commercial sugarwoods was tapped in Dummerston on March 19, 1764.
On March 24, 1800, Orleans County Court convened in Craftsbury, possibly in the home of Samuel Crafts. At the time Brownington and Craftsbury shared the shiretown status. The shiretown became Irasburg and then, of course, Newport City.
Everyone has heard of the Houghton Mifflin Company, but did you know that Henry Oscar Houghton, founder of the original company, Riverside Publishing, was born April 30, 1823, in Sutton?
Newport was once a popular tourist destination, so popular that when the Memphremagog House on Main Street was decimated by fire on May 15, 1907, it had the capacity to accommodate 400 guests and was often sold out. The Lady of the Lake and the Mountain Maid docked at the hotel for guest excursions.
The Anthemis was a steamboat on Memphremagog, and on July 24, 1931, a passenger tally counted 15 nationalities represented. The boat operated from 1909 to 1948 under the direction of Captain McEwen.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that most Orleans County residents have heard the story of Runaway Pond (June 6, 1810) but how many know that the North Troy boys basketball team won the state championship on June 27, 1937? The boys were undefeated in their season. There was no formal state tournament in which to compete, so Coach Wilbur Stufflebeam wrote to newspapers, challenging any team in the state to play them for the title. Randolph was the only team to accept the challenge; they lost.
Although the demise of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare is usually credited to newscaster Edward R. Murrow, U.S. Senator Ralph Flanders of Springfield introduced a motion to censure McCarthy on July 30, 1954. The authors write, “It was David taking on Goliath.” In December the resolution passed, starting the “beginning of the end for Goliath.”
Bread and Puppet Theater’s Domestic Resurrection Circus made the cut for the book, as did Bill Connor, the first person to swim the length of Memphremagog. A lesser known event, however, was in the form of an obituary — for a ram named Gold Drop. On August 9, 1965, the Middlebury Register ran the obituary for the apparently much-loved ram, which read, “He will be sincerely mourned by all sheep breeders at home and abroad.”
The Border Patrol set up its first Vermont headquarters in the Newport Federal Building on September 20, 1924. Too bad it hadn’t been established much sooner, because on December 17, 1813, British troops attacked the makeshift patrol base in Derby. They destroyed the base and took supplies. The border at that point was manned by a volunteer force led by Rufus Stewart. The volunteers were spread so thin that the base had been left unguarded.
When Alfred Hitchcock’s film production team chose Craftsbury Common as its location for The Trouble with Harry, they believed that the town would be in its full foliage glory. After all, it was September 27, 1954. What they found were nearly bare trees, so bare that they found themselves gluing leaves in place to get the foliage effect.
On November 9, 1827, parents were no longer in control of the books taught to their children in public schools. The School Law of 1827 said that towns, not parents, would decide what books were taught. Outraged Vermonters created a state board to repeal the law, saying the law was “particularly obnoxious and unacceptable to the people.”
One of the most important entries in the book is November 25, 1858, the day that Vermont outlawed slavery within its borders. It was called the Vermont Personal Liberty Law.
And this one was so good, I had to save it for last.
On November 16, 1836, the Legislature passed a law saying that “circus riding, theatrical exhibitions, juggling, sleight of hand, ventriloquism, and magic acts [were] public nuisances.” Considering there is no record of the law’s appeal, Circus Smirkus better watch its back!
The Vermont Book Of Days is an absolute joy to read for the serious history buff or curious dabbler. There are a few inaccuracies in the book, so it shouldn’t be used as a source for research, but that said, there is a surprise on every page.
