St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1911-03-15
COMMERCIAL CLUB
Enthusiastic Gathering. Stores To
Close Evenings. Plans For
Annual Election.

The meeting of the st. Johnsbury
Friday evening drew an attendance
of about 125 men and proved to be
one of the most enthusiastic and
profitable meetings held since the
clrb was organized. Not only was
he speaking of the best but an
nouncements were made of several
important business developments.
In a letter sent by G. H. Goss and
read by Joseph Fairbanks he said
the new block which E. A Darling
was to build on the vacant lot west
of the garage would cover the whole
lot and be of the same general con-
struction as the garage itself, and
that an elevator large enough to
handle the largest trucks would be
erected between the two buildings.
They are to add trucks to their bust
ness He reported the first ten
months of business in the new
garage as successful and constantly
increasing. Work on the new build
ing will be commenced about the
first of April.
Arthur F. Stone, for the special
committee which has been consider
ing the plea of the clerks that the
stores be closed certain evenings re-
ported that the committee had not
completed it's work but that the dry
goods, tailors and clothing stores
have agreed ito close their stores Mon
day nights on or before nine O'Clock,
on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
and Friday evenings on or before
six O'Clock and on Saturday evenings
on or before IL O'Clock. Negotia-
tions are also under way to have the
hardware and furniture stores close.
John Rickaby for special COM
mittee which had been appointed to
devise a plan whereby the members
of the club would have the fullest
representation in the choice of Of
ficials at the annual election to be
held the second Thursday evening in
April reported a resolution. 1t pro-
vides that full list of the commit
tees and officers be sent to each
member of the club with blanks for
the nomination of officers for the
coming year. These blanks are to
be returned to the committee and
the three candidates receiving the
greatest number of votes for each
position shall be placed before the
annual meeting for ballot. New
names may be presented at that time
if any member wishes.
Music was furnished by Warren.
Peck on a grafnola and by the
Academy Glee club. The boys sang
well and pleased the men so much
they called them back after each
selection.
The first speaker of the evening
was P. F. Hazen, who spoke about
the Fairbanks Scale Works. He
gave some statistics showing how
the business had steadily developed
for the last 40 years and of it's pres
ent magnitude. He also spoke of
the advantages competitors some
times had in location, etc., and said
their only way to overcome these
drawbacks was "a big produc-
tion." That had been the means of
increasing many of their lines. He
closed by saying that the E. & T.
Fairbanks & Co. was thoroughly in
terested in introducing any new en-
terprise that would help build up
the town.
Lieut.-Gov. Slack spoke upon the
legislature. He made several pleas
ing remarks about the late lamented
and then gave very interesting
account of the establishment of the
Vermont legislature and compared
the work of the early bodies with
that of the present day.
Commercial club
Prof. M. G. Benedict spoke of The
Utica Chamber of Commerce. He
was formerly a member and told of
some of it's plans and accomplish
ments. Then he spoke very forcibly
of what the ST. Johnsbury club can
do in the way of organized unset
fishness for the development of
public interests.
The last speaker was the Rev.
Edward T. Fairbanks, who spoke of
st. Johnsbury. He spoke in his
toric vein and said that the first
Fairbanks who came to st. Johns
bury was warned to leave town at
once by the sheriff. This was a Gus
tom of that time when they did not
know about stranger who came
into town and they did not know
about him. He did not take the
advice of the sheriff however.
Another fact brought out was that
the small brick house just north of
the Griswold e Mackinnon mill was
one of the Oldest in town and once
used to shelter slaves while escaping
to Canada. He also said the horse
races across the Plain in the early
days was then one of the popular