guys are very good we have always been vulnerable to mountain weather and while the weather forecast says strong winds on the western slopes of the greens we have a different sense from those in the valleys history records there are no covered bridges and have never been in underhill mountain streams to quickly dispatch these structures downstream there were floods in one nine hundred twenty seven the snows of thirty nine hurricane in fifty five all this is not behind us and continues as we know from these past weeks how has this place in time shaped this community does it breed resilience a dark sense of humor the bicentennial history of vermont records and eight hundred eighty three newspaper report on the celebration of the fourth of july then quote arrangements were made to enjoy the day in a beautiful grove at the skirt of the village of underhill center but on account of the morning showers the assembly repaired to the church for literary entertainment it goes on the fireworks in the evening open with such wonderful brilliance that it was necessarily brief lasting less than two minutes for the first rocket being fired sparks fell into the box containing the stores and all exploded at once fortunately none were injured then all was over save the lightning glare of a mountain storm and the peels from the battlements of the sky which closed a worthy and appropriate celebration why choose underhill i would advance the idea that we are here partially because we like to be close to nature and also that we want to participate in a community of scale and this may sound romantically old fashion but perhaps there's a deeper yearning here where we can put place and time and people together with a sense of wholeness it is good to pause and reflect on underhill as a gift of nature and of human experience what we enjoy in this town rests on the shoulders of those who have come before and this is the occasion to pause and to celebrate our and better understand our present and renew our commitment to those who will follow it it is still a partially rainy day and i suspect the gods of the mountains would have nothing less fear the church behind me the free will baptist church constructed an eight hundred fifty and taken over by the town to become the town center for politics and government  took place in one nine hundred fifty with an extraordinary community effort of to put this all together just to the to the left the brick cal was was constructed by by get this captain faneuil hannaford who came from enfield new hampshire his significance in part is that he served as the fife and drum major in eighteenth in the war of eighteen twelve is bird in the cemetery on part that we now call moorpark ed more is a call as close to a town father as i think will ever describe this was a mill at the foot and they used millbrook and so the amount of lumber that came out of these hills was remarkable it was sufficiently denuded by the late nineteenth century that people could be zero and look up on the mountains and see the settlements of the logs that surrounded this town s thomas church raised in eight hundred fifty five burned down rebuilt and eight hundred sixty seven and eight hundred eighty two and next to it the green mountain academy which from eight hundred fifty to eight hundred seventy eight was a lived there until recently and roy kennedy son gaius contributed a painting which i believe is being raffled off by the historical society on the corner there were two to two brothers rails the under hill country store is one of the original two are all brothers store a private house across the street is the other terrelle store and then in some ways was only fourteen years old in terms of settlement and they were setting aside significant phones for books and for reading at the foot of the road if you walk all the way down is the the general service station now wells corner market it was called the green mountain service station i love it up here in the district five churches i as i mention a town meetings  clear defiance of contemporary educational theory we had fifteen autonomous educational districts in underhill but they split down over time as the settlements changed and things became more concentrated in both the flats in the center across what was known as the red bridge is the district house district schoolhouse it was single story until one thousand nine hundred when a second story was put on hundred fifty there were only four real districts left and when there was a fire you can still see it jane up stairs there was a far that did grave damage in the decision was made to make a single school and so that's when the central school where many of you have probably parked at the top of the hill was set up and put in place as i thought about this morning the one thing i didn't list that i think is perhaps for me most important for underhill is the humble bridge now as you can into underhill there's a bridge across the river and it's  and the question was what was going to be replaced it replaces the the engineers from the state of vermont had very detailed and expansive plan margaret homo i think thought it looked a little like they were putting an i e d nine and what you see today is the result of that extraordinary effort this is the gateway to our town that is on a human scale and perhaps just with a little bit of fun is the one time i underhill i was trying to think of a slogan and i don't know if you get the international film channel i f c but i love their slogan which i'd like to adopt for underhill which is always on but a little bit off was the sergeant the were of eighteen twelve buried in the under hill cemetery and it's the best connection we can have to an ancient soldier as part of our town that was well known so we here we have a corn shell under help grow a tremendous amount of potatoes once the railroad came through of jericho in underhill in eight hundred seventy seven they were shipping train kara loads of potatoes out of underhill speaking of potatoes this thing here is called a spud plough and you would use that in the fall of the year going along the row of potatoes in a dig them up out of the ground for you automatically this here is a milk can and i have seen advertisements that have a picture of one identical to this that was made by a tin smith named joseph smith bissonnette in jericho so this is very likely was made in europe and assortment of pitchforks this one being a normal sized fork one being one that you would have used if you were mowing loose hay away with a long handle so you could have put it way up high into the hay mouth if you're more on your lawn with a handle on more you might want to trim around the edge so you have this more that would have the edge of your lawn because it has a wheel only on one side this thing here is a milk tester where you would be able to test the percentage of butterfat in your mill and essentially it's something of this size probably would have been used for our running maybe a cream separator a butter churn possibly a washing machine something of that size these engines date from  hundred nineteen twenty and the came in all sorts of size of this thing here is a milk tester will you be able to test the percentage of butterfat in your mill it's a these little cups would have had a glass bottle with a small mat on the neck having graduations on it so once you'd run it through the centrifuge you could read what the percentage of butterfat was in your mill this is a wooden snow shovel and of course probably if your dad is out shoveling snow your child might want to come out and use his snow shovel as well if you were out in your sleigh in the winter time and it was kind of chilly you could take your foot warmer with you this would have had pipeline here's some of the early metal pipe line before it went to plastic if your horse injured his leg you could put this around it is like to pad it so that he wouldn't bump into something apparently rule gene that has something to do with the use of alcohol so it was saying the law was not news around the railroad station