with modern technology these things seemed to happen and the projector and the laptop weren't compatible i've sort of like many other things today and but it hopefully  shortly and with all the proper equipment in the meantime i want to thank everyone for coming on behalf of the jericho historical society and we have this is our distinguish winter lecture series as you now are familiar and we will be having two other lectures this winter respectively the second tuesday of each month in february and march aldrin all over will be discussing archaeological sites in jericho and underhill and if anyone has any shards to bring in or any other archaeological artifacts we're delighted brassy can identify them for us and then jack chase will speak to us in april april the letters home to vermont to his family during the civil war and i'll also bring some to read or he can read them perhaps for us which i have given to the vermont historical society which are quite powerful quite poignant which point up also  efficacy and how efficient our trains were during the war and after and of course how what a wonderful invention the telegram was also that you could lose your son on the battlefield and the family would know it certainly the next morning if not later that day the postmaster where deliver the telegram to the farmhouse then also next year will be the hundred fiftieth anniversary of wilson alva snowflake mentally with a native of jericho as many of you are familiar so we will be having a lecture series next year able probably be held at the jericho elementary school we plan to have a worth discussing a committee has been formed which of course brought to the two hundred  the jericho community center and i am myself so there will be a series of events planned around the work in the life of bentley but a major effort will be for we're thinking of having a symposium of which we will bring scholars both in vermont and out to discuss the impact of bentley's work not only on meteorology but climatology on physics cloud studies photography of  spoken to us twice over the years will be the moderator for this symposium and their professors scholars both down at harvard and columbia who have already expressed interest  to come up to participate in this symposium so it should be quite a lively event we'll probably have it depending on people's schedules in february when when he was born before preview of the forthcoming event this evening i would like to think the the slides which you will see which accompany the lecture  many of the old photographs i obtained for this presentation were from the vermont historic society their photographic archives and records from special collections of bailey how library connell gallagher is here with us this evening he is professor emeritus of library at the university of the thirty six years at pressure collections the shelburne farms folks there are convinced it's very helpful as well as the shelbourne museum and the state of vermont historic preservation department was very helpful in the slides you will see on the justin smith moral homestead down in stratford vermont so i want to be sure and thank them and the lectures this evening will be on they're sort of rather chronologically beginning give you a sneak preview here the first property landscape or of the homestead i use the generic term nineteenth and then we go next to the marsh buildings rockefeller property national park today in woodstock and this was begun by charles marsh the father of the famous george perkins mars consider now to be the first environmentalist internationally as well of course here in vermont and the nation of the family th frederick billings family a native of woodstock also purchased the the estate them from george perkins marshall was living abroad for many years both in turkey and italy  the property mrs lawrence rockefeller mary french rockefeller was a granddaughter of frederick billings but we'll have more details on these the later the next we'll go the shelbourne farms which many of you are familiar with started by william seward webb also in the eight hundred eighty s that will be followed by in the darling farm in east burke who was not a vermonter interesting enough in the end they'll be six of these properties which i'll cover several were native vermonters who then what abroad and became successful not necessarily abroad excuse me who left the state and then made their fortunes and came back to vermont and the darling of farm you may be familiar with in east burke and then the theater of ale property which is now linden state college he was the first president of new england tell him tell him ninety four and that in one thousand cans became the president of eighty in t so you can see there is a broad spectrum not only of of the history of agriculture will be touching upon it but of sort of nineteenth century capitalists or industrialists who are really quite successful then the last property  great would the u s martin stayed in plain fail which is now god or college one common theme i think you'll notice throughout is that all these properties remarkably are alive and well today some that been transformed but many are still serving their primary purpose both in agriculture and is centers of their respective communities this is quite a unique legacy i think we'll be getting nearly one hundred fifty two hundred years ago i have not touched upon other sort of nine hundred centur and proctor of course and the fair bank scales both were very early nineteenth century global companies i think one of these days they'll be recognized as probably the first global countries in the united states with a singer sewing machine but the smith family in st alban's were famous railroad people the center of a model railroad of course which they founded and then he was very active in the great northern railroad they all vote the procter family  the smith family in the fairbanks family they had farms but primarily for their own use and primarily as a gentleman farmer and for their morgan horses and things but they did not develop the agricultural estates the type wh you'll see this evening but i did not come into the twentieth century we have of course the james wilbur down inventing and i have a an agricultural state also and there are two or three others around the estate but i think these are the major ones to give you a good cross section of of the history of these agricultural properties in vermont in the nineteenth century which were most of them were working farms right up until the first world war between the two wars but they have transformed themselves into very much modern adapted themselves very well the twenty first century we will have to have on which is probably easier for me with my vision the lights on for it's just like  we're being televised gracious here i think we're on the moon at the moment and so the television folks they're here for the courtesy of green mountain tele community television in richmond which you may know and they are very public spirited group and they're not only cover the jericho historical society events but they do the community now vance and other lectures we've had there so we're very pleased they're with us tonight and want to thank them also for their public service very much appreciated well i think we're almost ready to begin help the same thing and i want to also thank thomas jacobs who helped me put all this together i gave this presentation and god are cowards last february about this time  explained to you the subject of the lecture and these are the the agricultural states which i'll be coming over i'll be covering the seeding year and you're also and thank you for your exemplary efforts and stables for once was cooperative here and well we're everyone's very appreciative i hope i can live up to your effort  yes i think we can begin we'll go to stratford vermont this is the homestead very much a great nineteenth century word you remember some of us perhaps the room this evening will remember the famous publication the new england homestead in homestead was very much a word used for an agricultural state or your farm and it was kind of a fancy term i suppose in the big century before the civil war and after the civil war this is the home of justin smith and he lived in the village of stratford grew up there and this is an example of a nineteenth century america and it's this sort of gothic american architecture which was common in the hudson river valley in the eight hundred forty s and moral foundation just in moral foundation which manages it but it was given to the state of vermont it's an estate historic site own he also was one of the first on a large farm one of the in the records of history of agriculture in vermont to begin rotating crops this had begun in england in the late eighteenth century early nineteenth century and just immoral was one of the first in vermont first saying major farms and rotate the crops it was not only known for the architecture of the property but of course landscape gardening yes have you go to the next will start again here and just unmoral became he's our longest serving member of congress in the in the national congress he was for forty four years house of representatives for many years and then of course was a u s senator and of course he's most famously known for the moral land grab act which was of course the most important educational law passed in the nineteenth century and in the history of our country only ranks with the g i bill of course agricultural economics you can see that all of these gentlemen we're going to talk about tonight and their families they had vision here are these the terminology which is in that eighteen i mean it's what we hear today  stop there from this is fine this is done with don i want to further bring morals accomplishments to us that he also was keenly interested and this is another theme which you'll see in many of these  patrician sort of agriculture the farmers that he was jianli interested in architecture and we have he was chair of the senate buildings committee and of course he was the key  pass there's a senator from texas i think we have a constituency here from texas evening cronin who was sort of grade b movie actor who was from the us one of the senators from texas and he now wants to have the zoning which was put through that are limiting all the buildings in washington central washington to five stories and senator cronin from this was all designed pushed through the buildings committee and through legislative by moral so he was really a remarkable individual not only from his from the small town of strafford romana some of you may have missed a tree lovely small vermont village which still exists now we have here we moved to woodstock vermont and this was the home as i mentioned briefly earlier the eastern part of a man's aristocracy his grandfather was our first lieutenant governor i was just the first governor then his son james george first marcus father charles as i mentioned earlier is course internationally no as our first environmentalist and in eight hundred sixty four he wrote his famous essay on man and nature when he was growing and the need for measures to protect the land and that was the basis of course for his book man in nature which he wrote in one thousand nine hundred sixty four prior to that he had lived as a diplomat as i mentioned both in that something had to be done about it he never came back he died in italy and then the property was purchased by clever billings in eighty sixty nine buildings also was a native of woodstock picture yes and who then is a young man went to university of vermont graduated nine hundred forty four then he went out to california as many did with him came to join him and his law firm which was the leading law firm in san francisco at the time was trying to a park some of you whom you know from bennington vermont the park mccollough mansion again a state but not an agricultural one and i'm in north bennington still going today but frederick was again a very brilliant young man made his name and very much respected in california for two reasons one of course he founded was one of the first chairman of the board of the university of california at berkeley and he owned a lot of the property and then berkeley across the bay from was the first to take a very serious interest in the land holding records of the spanish colonial period in california and also defended them great many of the old remaining california families who owned a lot around the bay area fornia against again this american habit of developing property and taking property in their fortunes so he's become sort of a latter day hero the count stanislaw well as protecting the rights of the original spanish suburbs on the west coast then the merry french rockefeller was frederick's granddaughter in the country that focused on conservation the environment and the stored ship of the land really quite a unique history of the father of environmentalism carried on in the twenty first century by lawrence rockefeller and his family of course are noted conservationists and national park for sort of the year from the to tell him about four thousand acres the would start farming marsh perkins buildings about five hundred eighty so this is a major effort to buy  above the lake where the now city adirondack museum resides and this was all part of that pattern of a lot of these railroad magnates and then by great forest both in the east of the adirondacks and in the northeast as well as out west and of course with the advent of the railroad act of the civil war it made logging you see the lumber open and provided it for it to stay open for like generations to come you see certainly these three properties we discussed so far have survived pretty much  as they were designed and exist today and but serve the public and in very different ways i could digress just or very early on in the eight hundred eighty eight eighty nine he wanted to purchase land to preserve the hilltops the ridgelines in vermont and he wanted to buy everything that he could see from bread loaf in from brandon to waterbury which he succeeded in doing over thirty thousand acres of which he gave it to middlebury most of it in one nine hundred ten he kept middlebury then sold it in hundred thirty six to founded them big chunk of the green mountain forest but he'd purchased all the mountain tops and the slopes for relief from like non aid not helen course campbell  all our forests were cut off eighty percent of vermont certainly up until the late nineteenth century was open today of course we're just the reverse eighty percent of vermont now is  and if they just stand a little bit of time just reading history just take an afternoon off or an evening off and read a man in nature for instance you never hear of cording or george mars they would put things in perspective and i think they would be it would help the movement if they were just a little more patient and a little more understanding and aware of what how the environment has involved in vermont it's gone through very serious periods of de forest ration of wetland management soil conservation and these are not new subjects our forefathers faced these issues just as much as we are today i think they probably handle them just as well we'll go on to the next line now we're going to jump about we need to do the darling farm i think this is to boston was in the property hotel business then went on to new york and was able to acquire a whole block there of the lower beginning of the family on washington square and then the fifth elmer decided at an early age he wanted to come back to vermont so he came back east burke and began buying up the property there again most of these people he started in this is the famous creamery but when the farm elmer began the farming when he came back to vermont of course as brahman farming that was primarily it was in cheese and butter and then he had again he gave a nine hundred thirty three about three thousand acres to the state of vermont which is now the burke state park then even though the state had its first agricultural college done round all they had a division at the lyndon institute to teach high school students to be farmers not say college kids randolph was at that time ran up started this evening are aware it's become a great of course bicycle cross country trail center as well a great mentor cross country center nordic skiing so again it's an example of one then he went to new jersey to morristown new jersey where he and there were lots of that part of new jersey as the hudson river valley in long island in this late nineteenth century were a lot of problem states and farms people came out of new york  but his uncle was a very successful steel man and had steel mills wire steel in new jersey railroad tied tracks and then his uncle property in morristown was called speedwell so theodore use that name but he came up to vermont in the early eighteen eighties he had friends who worked for his uncle from onder from the st john's very area and young fellow he then went into the telephone like i suppose our mobiles we have today or whether it's apple or microsoft or internet things he n t you get these these people had drive they had vision but he still kept his connections to vermont then he retired permanently came here to live in lind programs of which we financed then when he passed away he left most of his property to linda normal school to become used for educational purposes and then the state of vermont sold off college system which is when it began you have lived in state college johnson state college and of course castle from there now are the community colleges in a sense expanded but the nucleus of lind n state college where the land it's on today about seven hundred acres is all part of the residue of the vale of state so again their legacy is still very much again as you can see from agriculture of this was there there yes to vermont and the impact i think we need to stress toll of these again i suppose one could say noblesse of lee but i don't think taken the train a few times down to where they went once a year to have lunch with with the sword where but their fire managers were always in constant contact they talked about of course breeding their horses improving their herds of go oh i'm sorry jen candidates here with us this evening and this is one of her favorite slides this is of an arbor you see again they were great into their landscape gardening and of course again one can say cynically they have the money to do these things when i look at it a little differently i don't think this was done to be boastful to be extravagant i think they just had the funds and they enjoyed it but they also it was important vine raspberries the black berry all the fancy garden horticulture you must remember this era which we're discussing this evening say from the post civil war particularly to world war one the grange movement in vermont was very very strong and so you would have county fairs incidentally and all of these fairs early on there would be the web prize that would be the veil prize that would be the darling prize if you look at the records of the caledonia county town here in the katherine i think it's familiar a few years back my brother and i and we counted one hundred twenty farms in jericho alone that we knew of or exposed with because i had an advantage of my father here with the bailey company  we knew all the farms and actually they bought grain from them my father and but we were able to go through every town road in jericho and the list is now in the town office and you probably know underhill small or you may have had say seventy or eighty small farms and so the county fairs were a highlight of their growing season the grain  s on horticulture on improving raspberries on black berries you read some of these people are it's amazing what was done in this period again today we're so organically minded we're into all this new way of saving vermont through new agriculture which is come on which is very good but i also think again it's a tradition which has been here for many many years isn't today it's as if it's just been discovered badly i think he did too but the state we usually don't have much money and then they just felt they couldn't restore this was done in the one nine hundred sixty s when the taking over night in sixty two we wouldn't do this today i think we have enough public protest feeling for even though these are really three forty and store brand property i think we would have today have preserved them and this could become the director of admissions or the student center or something we would have saved these replaced all of this this is one of the only a state which we've covered the six which sadly has pretty well lost both of the building well we'll go on continue thank you this is  war and outside of boston and made primarily manufactured handles for again agricultural instruments such as a manu or for the  holes and was one of the leading manufacturers in the country for producing they had the actual steel part of the four but they asked them to would probably  learn how to do it back in plainfield made his money came back to vermont and then began to build in the state on a family farm part of that they are in farms have the word allenwood on it that was the first martin farm then he purchased about four hundred acres four hundred fifty acres he changed the road from east mark hill year to play fields that would not go through the really grew primarily because of marble exports granite and lumber but then of course it went on later for agricultural products you have a boston  offices and this is the center which sort of the barn foreman quadrangle all around next all of this again going back to an earlier comment about the speedwell state of a gal who helped life architect came to me two or three years in a row that she was able to get a grant from one of the i guess the national association of landscape architects did i know about god the garden god or they weren't to katie but they've since had a change of heart and so it's very rewarding to back if you're going say through plainfield they were made good as i mentioned the least their farm manager is the socially they may not hear down certainly did so they were very aware of the latest in landscaping as well architects as well of course many of you know as one of our great distinguished u s senators came from springfield vermont married into wealthy family in the springfield arm steel people and the arms ralph distinguished board of trustees for many years serving up to world war two and after course it became famous as a low residency degree program and very much in the back still very much an independent unique college experience here in the country i suppose reed college out west in oregon portland it's similar  altar if you read some of the early prospectus as i forgot to bring them is eating oh it's my father had it's amazing the courses which they were teaching back in the one nine hundred thirty s it's all the jargon we hear today of our mentalism organic farming soil crop rotation for reforestation teaching the young vermonters all the symposiums they haven't had the six week courses where you could come in and studies say forestry or arthur often spoke on the relationship again of today with the land with people with community all these terms we hear today and i hope this evening this presentation has given  you not only examples of agriculture but also working the land respect for the land and again working within their communities you must remember in this whole era of the nineteenth was at the funeral the very few people across the area had ended and then said you know she always thought she was better than anybody else in town so here for they sort of got even with it that nobody ga know this is a man's well but yet they would open their houses up once or twice a year they'd have christmas balls for the people over and they would have these sorts of festivities there was a relationship with their community not only agriculturally but but socially so i think even though they were very removed from the average vermonter i still think the way they left their legacy and course we see it today you're seeing remarkable that all six of these institutions that we've studied these these estates they all survived today in a very different form but are very active and very much part of the community again well thank you very much for being patient and i hope you've got an idea of what i've been trying to put across to say  answering questions you might have one on one or all six of these properties thank you very much this very much today and all these course we don't see agricultural states or farms being reproduced in vermont a few horse farms but even the houses which are new money folks kind of put up around which you see you sort of s