St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1877-06-01
Village Improvement Associations.

The most beautiful village in Ameri-
ca-and Col. Geo. Z. Warning, Jr., who
is an authority on the subject, calls the
United States ''par excellence land of
beautiful villages"-is Stock bridge,
Mass. Its beauty does not consist in
fine houses, costly fences, mathemati-
cal grading, straight lines and sharp
corners, or costly Improvement but in
a general air of good taste, neatness,
simplicity, cOZiness, and in the permit
ting of the natural beauties of the place
to have their full effect by the remOv-
al of the eye-sOres and mOnstrOsities.
No visitor can drive through Stock
bridge without seeing that some in
| tluence, different from those which rule
in most country villages, has been at
work there. There has been organized
and tasteful care for the looks of the
place, without subordinatiOn of comfort
and convenience to appearance and
show and under such care it has be-
come place of delightful homes with
tasteful surroundings, and an average
of comfort Il cultivation probably be-
yOnd any other village on the CONT
nent, if not on the globe. This result
has been largely due to the ''Laurel
Hill Association" of Stockbridge. The
leading families of the village, a gener-
alton agO-the Sedgewicks, Dwights,
Fields, Fowlers, and others-were cul-
tivated people. They organized this
improvement association, originally for
the purpose of converting Laurel Hill,
pretty wooded and laurel crowned
knoll in the village, into a public park
They next attended to the village burr
al ground; which, before neglected.
was laid out in proper and tasteful or
der and arrangements perfected for
suitable and constant care of it. Then
the sidewalks of the village were taken
in hand. Then the house owners gen
orally were encouraged to put their
premises into neat and tasteful cOndi-
ton ; and so the work went on, some
thing being accomplished for improve
ment every year, with the general re-
suit already noted. A contributor to
the New York Tribune, a year or so
ago, thus described some of the COLA
teral influences of the Laurel Hill AssO-
citation:
"Next followed the planting of trees
by the road side wherever trees were
lacking. The children, sometimes dis
posed in their thoughtlessness to treat
young trees too rudely, were brought
in as helpers of the association, while,
at the same time, put under bene fetal
culture for themselves. Any boy who
would undertake to watch and care for
particular tree for two years was re-
warded by having the tree called by
his name. Other children we're paid
for all the loose papers and other I'M
slightly things which they would pick
up and remove from the street.
"Gradually the work of the associa-
ton extended. 1t soon took in hand
the streets connected with the main
street. Year by year it pushed out
walks from the center of the village
toward its outer borders. Year by
year it extended it's line of trees in the
same manner and year by year there
has been a marked improvement in the
aspect of the village. Little by little,
and in many nameless ways, the houses
and barns, and deOr-yards and farms
have come to wear look of neatness
and intelligent, tasteful care that makes
the StOckbridge of to-day quite a diff
ferent place from the StOckbridge of
twenty years ago. Travellers passing
through it are apt to speak of it with
admiration as finished place; and
compared with most even of our New
England villages, it has such look
but the Laurel Hill Association does
not consider its home finished, nor its
own work completed. Still the work
goes on. Committees are even now
coming plans for further improvements.
BY itself, or by suggestions and stimu-
lations offered to others, the association
is aiming at the culture of the village
people through other agencies than
those of outward and physical adorn-
ment. 1t fosters libraries, reading
rooms, and other places of resort where
innocent and healthful games, music
and conversations, will tend to promote
the social feeling and true culture.