News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1911-08-23
BAXTER AND HoYT CONVENTION

! MIR, EDITOR -
Please allow me limited space In
your well-known paper to give few par
ticulars OF an event that occurred long
years ago, That event was the Baxter g
Hoyt mass convention, held at Hyde Par k
Aug. 10, 1S66-45 years ago. At that
time Vermont was divided into three
Congressional districts. Lamoille county
was IN the third district, which com
pIised six counties. In alphabetical order
they were made up as follows: Chitten-
den, Franklin, Grand Isle, Lamoile
and Orleans. 1t being u mass convention
there was great effort made, not only
by the candidates themselves, but by
their prominent and most influential
friends and leu enants to rally every vote
possible within the limits of the six
counties. At that time there was no
railroad within the six above named
counties that would help the voters to
get to Hyde Park to attend the conven-
ton, 80 they had to depend wholly upon
conveyance by team from all over the
district. For that much noted occasion,
the third Vermont Congressional mass
convention, there was going to be such a
general turnout it was we'll understood
that Hyde Park Village could not even
yard them, when all reached there, there
would be so many people in the place, to
say nothing about sheltering them. For
those living in the most distant sections
of the district from Hyde Park it re-
quired two days by team to reach there
and knowing that they could not all be
cared for, those living long distance
away stopped out few miles before
reaching Hyde Park and came in the
next morning. From Chittenden and
Grand Isle Cos, some stopped at Cam
bridge and some came as far as johnson
and there were many more at both of
these places than could be entertained
in any more desirable way than to walk
in and camp right down on the floors of
actual count, hundreds stopping at any
and all places all the way from Cambridge
70 Hyde Park. Just the same rule was
adopted by those coming from Newport
by way of Eden. They stopped on that
line and filled both public and private
houses from Eden down to Hyde Park.
At that time the late DR.. David Randall
was proprietor of the hotel at Eden Mills
and on that occasion his place was filled
by people going to and returning from
the convention. One man drove a four
horse team loaded with casks of liquor
from st. Adams. He reached a pace
just two miles below johnson village
about sun down and got permission to
put up his team and feed and rest. He
staid until midnight and then hitched up
and went on TO Hyde Park.
The crowd had liquor enough there
that day, if it had been put into tight
vat few feet across, to have made a
swimming pond for the candidates.
The most prominent among the voting
class that day would have much rather
preferred an internal application than an
external one of goods named. After
reaching Hyde Park the ring leaders
among the political managers made an
attempt to divide off the voters by coun-
ties and have each county vote by itself,
but a goOd many skulked from one county
to another and voted in every county and
the result was no choice of a candidate
for Congress. Later they got up some
political wheel and new man took the
field and won the election to Congress.
Just word about dealing out the
liquor that day. At one place where
they did business, several men told me
that three men stood at tub and dipped
it up for customers similar to the way in
which the average farmer would dip up
swill for hogs H. E. NUGGET.