Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1908-02-13
LONELINESS is BANlSHED
Telephones Are Many in Eastern
Vermont Homes.
Farmers Build Ualf-Milc of Line In
Accordance with Cooperative plan
Service Costs 81 Year
-. l.. Spcare's Iden.

| year seem hardly credible: yet this is
Iho luxury enjoyed by hundreds of resi-
dents in eastern Vermont at the present
lime, made possible by cooperation.
These Nermonters have constructed
telephone lines. and have established
complete system owned and controlled
by themselves, and operated for their
particular benefit, without any thought
| pr profit.
This notable cooperative achievement
has been accomplished by each of the
hundreds or farmers thus bound to-
gether by telephone contributing his
individual share in both money and
labor toward the building of the line in
which he is stakeholder and part
owner. Each one has, in fact, under
the obligation he assumed by the terms
Of the agreement that he entered into.
taken upon himself the responsibility of
building half mile of line. That is.
he furnished the poles and the wire
necessary to complete the half mile.
and paid for the telephone installed in
his house The whole thing cost him
about $40 If he provided his own
poles and set them himself, which
many have done. then the expense to
him was considerably less than $40
perhaps sos or $50
'C'N - lsT-0N l tiNN ' IsN n IN I.
When the line projected reached com
pletion and was put in operation, by
each man running his own particular
half a mile of it, then the farmer could
go ahead and do all the talking by wire
that he cared to, without let or him
drance, for 50 "A year. or at the rate Of
less than six cents week.
This cooperative rural telephone sys-
tenn has proved a great boon, not only
70 the faremrs, but more particularly TO
the farmers wives and daughters. The
widely separated houses, which in that
part Of Vermont, with farms Of about
200 acres are from quarter to a half
mile apart, are no longer lonely and
isolated. The cooperative telephone has
banished the loneliness and wiped out
the isolation of distance. It has served
10 make life in the country moro bright
and cheerful, and has brought far more
sweetness and light into the farm
houses than formerly shonc about their
hearthstones.
II farmers wife. daughter or sister
IS now left by herself at home and gets
to feeling the least hit lonely she can
go to her telephone, call up a neighbor
a. few miles away and have a half hour
or more of comforting gossip with her.
instead Of going to the trouble of hitch
ing up the old horse and driving five or
six miles over to a neighbours. having
short talk and driving back home, all
Of which would take up half day.
STARTED IN WEST CORINTH
From a small and insignificant be-
ginning a few years ago the co-opera-
tive telephone idea has spread rapidly.
First there was a short line, three miles
lx IN ('OriOtl.
This was later extended. and then came
other lines to connect with it, until
finally there is now n score of them up
and down the Connecticut valley. All
have connection with each other; form
ing in fact, one big cooperative system
that takes in cities, towns and farms,
but mostly farms.
In Washington. Windsor and Orange
counties where the cooperative tele-
phone first camc into being and where
II is most firmly established he is con-
sidcrod a pretty poor farmer who hasn't
a telephone in the house
It was at a social gathering one even
ing in the fall of 1899 at the home OF
G. l.. Spcare in West Corinth O. hamlet
of about Is houses, that the Vermont CO.
operative telephone idea originated Mr..
Spearo preached it He explained fully
the plan he had in mind, which he after
ward pushed to success Ever since then
ne has been STYLED the father OF the
cooperative telephone"
c. L. SPEAR THE ORIGINATOR.
Mr.. Spearo says: Il learned that there
were telephones that could he bought.
declared that | would purchase one
and furnish it for public use, and build
line one-third of the distance of three
miles to Corinth if others would build
the remaining two miles, Shortly after
that n ncighbor, t. II. Williams. said
nat he would build a mile and also get
a phone and then each of us put n
telephone in our houses. We drove over
TO Cornth one day. saw Mr., Scribner, a
merchant there, and he agreed to COM
plete the other mile Before we had
left his store in came DR.. Locke. who
said that he wanted to be IN on the
deal
1T then occurred o us that we might
take in a few moro persons and each
of us build half a mile of line. This ar
rangement We made and carried out
building our threc-mile line between
Corinth and West Corinth.
THE plan is stll being followed by
our company and also by most of the
companies that have copied after it,
Later on those of us who were in
terestcd in the project held a meeting
in a farmers back kitchen and formed
cooperative company I was elected
president r. II. Williams secretary.
drew up the bylaws, calling our organi
cation the Corinth Cooperative Tee
phone company
IT think l3 or moro small companies
similar to ours, sprang up about thi!
time, running from White River juno
ton north parrclel to the Connection
river.
SOME EARLY VICISSITUDES.
"rhc next summer / ran line or
tho same cooperative plan from Chcl
sea to Norshiro, adding 90 miles to GU,
ccmpanys line, not charging n cent 70
services or for profit on supplies. ant
finding myself aside from time 81
out of pocket when Chelsea was reach
cd
at ono time | had $l1S worth o.
telephones on the road that I had or
dered, when railway wreck demolish
ed them, | never saw splinter from
them / put my hand in my pocko
and duplicated the order.
Later, at a directors meeting in
schoolhouse at Corinth Corner, n mo
ton was carried to the effect that thu
president should purchase all supplies
n c a Ia,