Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1894-05-25
The Old village on whltlngham Hill.

William Henry Bishop, the novelist,
has been telling, in the Century, of his
search for an abandoned farm in New
England. He wanted a summer home,
and he thought that nothing could suit his
fancy quite so well as an abandoned farm.
He obtained the published catalogues of
this kind of property in the market, and
then he set out to visit those places that
seemed suitable for his purpose and to be
within his means. He had a delightful
pilgrimage and he tells of it in his own
pleasant vein There were countless en-
chanting scenes to catch his eye, and his
encounters with the country folk were
always entertaining. In the May number
of the magazine he writes of his expert
ences in upper New England. 1t re-
mained for Vermont to furnish the most
marvellous of all the stories he fell in with.
"Whitingham, in the southern part of
the state, | was told, was an absolutely
deserted village. A commercial traveller
declared that he had twice driven through
it without encountering a living soul, and
that the houses all stood vacant, excellent
houses, too, and some even with good fur
niture in them. When asked how he ac-
counted for this he said, in the usual way,
that the old folks had died off, and the
young folks moved away. Later on he
wrote me that he understood the place had
been stocked with Swedes-such was
the rather irrrverent eXpression-by well
known capitalist of Bennington; but sub
sequent investigation showed that there
was nothing in this unique story. The
Nottingham postmaster writes, "Ths
town has been quite prosperous for the
past few years, and there are no Swedes
settled here
Thus there seems a chronic tendency in
the human mind to invent such tales, fol-
lowing on after Atlantis, and Norumbega,
and the seven cities of Cibola.
What was once the village of Whiting
ham on the hill has good many things to
answer for in the literature of abandon
ed farms and villages" in New England.
1t is true that there was once a thriving
village on the top of that wel-famed hill,
and it is not many years ago that com
modious church, an academy, and dwell
ings stood there, whose only occupan is
WIZ WIN NAAlh5o VI NlAC LClu anu NpOus
The church fell before the bands of van
dals, but we presume some of the build
ings yet remain. The point which those
who write about deserted farms do not
or will not understand is that the fact that
this village is no longer tenanted argues
nothing against the prosperity of Whiting
ham, or of Vermont, or New England. In
the natural course of events its business
and its population simply slid off the hill
down into the thriving villages which
sprung up in the valleys on either side.
Just why the early settlers made for the
highest lands on which to build homes is a
question never fully or satisfactorily an
swered, but they did it, and what took
place in Whitingham took place to greater
or less extent in Wilmington, Newfane,
Brattleboro, and many other towns. In
some cases, notably in Newfane, the
buildings were taken to pieces, as times
changed and moved bodily down to the
lower lands, where they were again erected
and are still occupied