Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1915-09-03
CRANKY.
BY LOOMS WELLS, ESQ.

This town was named, tradition
says, in honor of Lord or Earl CRANKY, |
and was chartered Oct. 10th, 1861 by
King George III. to Elihu Hall and
60 others. Divided into 70 equal
shares, containing by admeasure-
ment %, 040 acres, and to be six miles
square and no more, out Of which an
allowance was to be made for high
ways, and unimprovable lands by
rocks, ponds, mountains, and rivers,
1910 acres free.
The charter is in the usual firm
Of the Benning Wentworth New
Hampshire charters, containing con-
ditions and reservations of no i'm
portance to the present inhabitants
of the town, since the successful re-
bellion of the colonists. The Gov
ernor's farm of 900 acres is in the
S. E. corner of the town, and the
public rights of "Glebe" and In
corporated Society" are pretty much
all that is left to remind the inhabit-
ants-unless one looks at the copy of
the charter in the Town Clerks Of
fice-that their homesteads were
once English property, and were
granted to past generations by the
special grace and mere motion of
British king.
CRANKY is bounded N. E. by Fer
dinand and Maidstone, S. E. by
Guildhall, S. W. by Victory, and N.
W. by East Haven, in lat. A deg. 35
min. N. and long. 5 deg. 5 min. w.,
At miles N. E. of Montpelier.
The surface of the town is broken
and billy, not to say mountainous.
The soil is mostly of the granite
order, and is better adapted to graz
ing, and the growing Of the coarser
grains and vegetables, than for
wheat and corn, which require the
selection of the best fields, and a
favorable season; and even then are
more or less uncertain crops.
Rocks are abundant, affording an
available material for fences; and
there are some specimens of interest
to the geologist.
Good clay is very scarce, and of
minerals nothing Of practical import
ance is known.
Cow Mountain in the S. E., and
Mud Pond in the southerIy part of
the town, both rather small, are all
the ponds known with any certainty
to be within the limits of the town.
Unknown Pond, also small, near the
N. W. corner of the town. is believed
by some to be in CRANKY, and by
Others in Ferdinand.
The streams too are small. Moose
river or GasWell's stream, as survey
or Gen Whitelaw calls runs across
the S. W. corner of the town. from
East Haven to Victory, and two or
three of it's branches rise in the
southeriy slope of CRANKY. One
brook runs easterly through Guild
hall to Connecticut river, and with
Paui's stream and its branches drain
the northerly slope of the town, and
these streams afford a pretty good
supply of water power.
Of timber the white pine was quite
plenty in the north part of the town,
but a considerable portion of the
best quality has been cut. Spruce
and balsam however are abundant, las
but small part of the town has as
yet been cleared and hemlock, tama-
rack and cedar are found in a few
localities. A few elms also are found
.grOHjng on and near the streams,
while maple, birch and beech are the
principal varieties of hard wood.
There are no existing indications
that the Indians ever inhabited any
part Of CRANKY, and who was the
&rst white man that penetrated this
wilderness region probably none of
the present OF future generations
will ever know.
Henry Stevens, the antiquarian,
writes Il have heard Daniel and
Levi Hall, early settlers of Barnet,
tell of going up Passumpsic and
Moose rivers and through the woods
to Nulhegan river, hunting. This
was before the. settlement Of st.
Johnsbury, aid before and after the
Revolutionary war" Perhaps the
fact that Elihu Hall. Elihu Hall, jr.
John Hall 9Th, Benjamin Hall I'd and
Abel Hall were original grantees,
makes out a probability that these
old hunters first explored this local
atty, and procured charter of CRANKY
for the benefit of their family con-
nections. Yet all that pertains tc
the first settling, Of the town must
in the main be left to conjecture, as
the first settlers and their descend
ANTS are all dead or moved beyond
Stthe knowledge Of the writer: and
frhara is not q traditinn much less q