St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1907-05-15

IMr. William H. Jeffrey. the we'll known
historical and biographical writer of
Ebst Burke, in his forthcoming volume
d Franklin, Grand Isle and Lamoille
Counties has the following to say about
Vi mont and Vermonters:
termonters are peculiar people.
Tley have builded not upon sand but on
the eternal hills a grand commonwealth.
Shk has endeared herself to her sons in a
PECULIAR and lasting way. In this day
weIoften hear a cry for "a newer, a
greater Vermont" Vermont is ever new,
ever great, for she has met and solved
problems that few of her sister states
have grappled with. The voice of
Freedom and Unity" may be heard here
asnowhere else. From the day Uuly,
l777) when she led all the rest of the
states and counties of this continent in
the adjustment of slavery, to the present
time, there has been broadcast a
distinctively Vermont spirit. There is
voice that calls, a voice that calls so
that when once you have heard it, it will
grip you with its melody until at last
you answer, Here Iam!" A song of her
eternal hills that comes down through
whispering naples, lifting with the
secrets of her mighty forests, her sun
kissed mountains and her dreamy
valleys washed by the clamorous
streams; it is a song of life that sets the
alert heart beating in new time to its
melodies. There is a vivid inspiration
that makes our people breathe deeper
breath of living JOY, that makes them
live, all unknowing, the lives some poets
sing Of, and sends them at last, when
their own day has come, to sleep con-
tented under its high blue skies, willing
enough to turn down the last page
because the book of lite has been such
good reading. We grow prosperous as
the years go by, but the mere dollar
mark has never been rung on its coin OF
lite, the scrapping hunt for money as the
end of things has never sent it on the
squalid trail of profit hunting gain, the
haggard straining face of the market
place, white and drawn, has never
marked the visages of our people. The
proof of it is in the history of the state.
ltmay be found, by those who care to
search, in the lives of our people, who
have made the state what she is today.
Vermont has prospered because the
genius for prosperity was in the blood
and brain of her sturdy sons and noble
daughters. Here the crops grow
abundant, the trees grow rich with
blossoms and red with fruit, and we
know each from each as well as some
cleaning miser knows each dollar from
another in his horde. There is some
thing in the air, some instructive knowl-
edge of the mysteries of the unnumbered
ages that sleep, hidden behind the
granite faces of these insoluble hills;
some breath that lifts you in spite OF
yourself beyond the range of sordid
things and sends your nostrils fitting to
Snitt a breath from the horizon OF
creation,
We do not build skyscrapers here or
ooast of them, for have we not Mount
Mansfield, Jay Peak, Pisgah and the
SSamers Hump? We already live toe
nigh in the clouds to measure success
with foot rule. The quiet and cultured
ar OF our people is not the least of oul
MINOR charms, for we are the least
Ooasttul of any in America Vermont
stands STANDS high, the glorifed mistress O
snem all, hanked by it's green hills, the
SSliIvery waters of Memphremagog and
SShIamplain, with the song of deer
nsnt' swinging triumphantly through
our t% beautiful meadows, deep forests ant
.ne clear blue sky above for sunlit
rr%nopy' Truly, we need no new Yer
II | shall have added to the materia
,or the future historian; ifI shall have
preserved pit" the biography and history 0
any OF the families of those gracious
I%laiperate, and valiant old STATE
O builders, whose works shall live through
ost all time; if | shall win the approval
VI 5he people of our beloved state, then
anu only then, shall l not have laboret