Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1911-05-19
Boys that Addison County and
Brandon Farms Have Pro-
duced.

The following address was delivered
by Judge Charles l.. Button at the Ad-
Olson County and Brandon Y. M. c. A.
convention held in Middlebury, May 5,
and which was reported in full in last
weeks Register:
1t is a good thing to emphasize occa-
sionally that our farms are raising other
and higher products than Morgan
horses, Merino sheep and Holstein cat
tie, that manhood is the principal pro-
duct of Vermont farms. / am sorry
that my subject does not include the
girls, but they must be vigorously
excluded for as Governor Proctor has
suggested to do justice to some of the
boys is alone a stupendous task.
| shall take no pains to distinguish
between farm born and village born
boys, for / believe there is no village
here represented large enough to have
produced boys uninfluenced by our farm
life.
The boy that the Addison county farm
he was Silas Wright, Q795-1S4O who,
while not born in Weybridge, moved
there at the early age of ten months
and thus was grated into Weybridge
farm life young enough to have known
no other farm influence. Having grad
uated from Middlebury college in 1915,
he became for nearly twelve years
G833-1844) a U. S. senator from New
York and later governor of the Empire
State. A contemporary of Webster, he
was a great enough man to decline
protfered appointments as a justice of
the u. S. Supreme Court and as secre-
tary of the treasury, and he was much
talked of for president. The monument
from which the village of Weybridge
Monument takes its name commence
rates his career. There are Wrights in
Weybridge that are still taking their
right share in the r%emaking of Yer
mont.
The boys that Addison county farms
have produced, who were they? In
Cornwall, you at once say Solomon
Foot C1SO2-lS66), three times speaker
of the Vermont House, representative
in Congress, United States senator
from 1851 to 1866, representing YER
mont in the senate throughout the war,
much of the time as president pro tenn
and always as the friend of Lincoln.
There are other boys from Cornwall,
Henry Norman Hudson 0~S14-1S86).
editor of two editions of Sh~akespeare's
plays; Reuben Post Q792-1S58), for
several sessions chaplain of the u. S.
House of Representatives, pastor of a
Presbyterian church in Washington
from 1919 to 1886 and of one in Charles
ton, S. c., from 1886 to 1858. doubt
less he ministered to keep the South
three years after his DEATH Joel Har-
xraNr ipc1atr n-On 1891 nogtnp Of Hapf-
ford, Conn, and Boston churches and
president of Marietta college 1S36-
1876; Charles Marsh Mead QS36-191D,
lecturer or professor of Hebrew or the
ology in Andover, Princeton and Hart
ford theological seminaries and member
CT the American committee on revision
of the Bible; not to mention his worthy
nephew, Carl Mead, the New York law
yer and the various prominent New
York bankers that also claim Cornwall
as their birthplace.
In Shoreham, we have four governors,
Silas II. Jennison, at least five times
governor of Vermont, did much to
develop the'agricultural interests of this
county. Governor Ebenezer j.. Orms-
bee is a native of Shoreham. A few
years ago there sat at the same time in
the executive chairs of Michigan and
New York two boys produced in Shore
ham, Governors Rich and Morton. Levi
?. Morton, the parsons son, had already
been vice president of the United
States. He is now at a ripe old age
president of the Morton Trust company
of New York city. Another Shoreham
boy, Byron Sunderland, had a war SER
vice from 1861 to 1864 as chaplain of the
U. S. Senate, a position he again held
from 1872 to 1879. He was pastor of a
Presbyterian church in Washington
from 1858 to 1898.
Salisbury produced Columbus Smith
Q~8l9-l909), who, crossing the Atlantic
on a sailing vessel and returning on the
first transatlantic Cunarder, solved the
great riddle of the lost heirship to the
Shard estate, commemorated in his
Salisbury. home of Shard Villa; Wilbur
F. Storey, a famous editor of the Chi
cago Times; Julius Walter Atwood,
rector of Episcopal churches in large
American cities, such as Columbus, o.,
and Fred l.. Hamilton 0S66- 1909, the
mention of whose name touches the
heart strings of every true Addison
County and Brandon boy.
New Haven would probably select Sir
Curtis M. Lampson, Bart, president of
the A atlantic Gable company and donor
of the SIS, 600 that built the Lampson In
stitute at New Haven Mills; and Lei
cester would select Stephen DIN Q797-
l85D president of Randolph-Macon col
lege in Virginia Q834-'30 and of Wes-
leyan QS30-'4l and l842-'51.)
Bristol has produced two presidents
of the Vermont Bar association, Walter
Chapman Dunton, QS30-1S9l), civil war
patriot, judge of the Rutland Probate
District and of the Vermont Supreme
Court, and professor of law in Iowa
State university; and Charles Marley
Wilds Q856-l90l), who lived only forty
five years, long enough to become vice
president of the Grand Trunk R. R.
system and the bright star of the Yer
mont bar. Bert H. Hill, director of
the American school at Athens is from
Bristol.
John Barrett summered in his boy
hood on his grandfather's farm in
Orwell. He has been minister to Siam,