Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1915-09-10

dJ lne uWelllng mouse OF Joseph I1eT-
rick. Nathaniel Herrick was chosen
moderator, Samuel Hart, town
clerk, Nathaniel Herrick ,jr., Robert
Pike and Benjamin Cheney, select
men, Samuel Hart, treasurer
Zadock Herrick, constable, listers
same as selectmen, James Morehead,
surveyor of highways.
Those who were chosen to town
office and four others, Elijah Bug
bee, John l.. Crawford, James More
head, jr., and Eben Johnson, took
the freemen's oath, and the town
officers down to highway surveyor,
took the oath Of office.
Joseph Herrick's dwelling house
was voted the place for putting up
advertisements, and September fol-
lowing Clarke Curtis was chosen the
first representative.
For some reason that does not APP
pear on the record, no town officers
were chosen in 1799 nor any repre-.
sentative.
March and Freemen's meetings
were held regularly until September
1914 when but eleven names appear
on the checklist, and state officers
only were voted for. In March,
1915. the town failed to choose town
officers, and the organization was
abandoned, and the records delivered
to the county clerk at LuneEburgh.
The town was re-organized Jan. 10,
1922, and at the March meeting fol-
lowing, was for the first time divided
into school and highway districts,
which had the same bounds and
designation of North and South.
Gen. Seth Cushman of GuildhaI
built the first saw and grist-mill
about 1910. During the "cold sea-
sons" the grist-mill entirely run
down. The granite mill-stones lay
near the old mill site, and the people
go 'out of town" to mill, and have
for nearly fifty years. The saw-mill
held out until 1926 or 1927. About
this time Martin Joslyn built another
saW-mill and sawed a few thousand
feet of boards, but the dam proved
to be on a clayey foundation, and
Joslyn failed in health and financial
ly, so the mill went to ruin without
ever being inclo5ed or covered.
About 1S45 Gershom Carpenter
built saw-mill near the main road
on the same stream, which has some
years done good business, but is
now badly out of repair.
About the year 1910 or 1911 Mr..
Green, blacksmith, from Connecticut,
moved in and built him a blacksmith
shop, and commenced to carry on
his business, but in the course of a
wear or two Green had some difficulty
with the boys in town, and the boys
took retributive justice into their
own hands, and one day when Green
was away to dinner rolled his anvil
out of doors, and carried his tools
into the woods and hid them where
he never found them; but a part of
them were found more than thirty
years afterwards in a hollow log in
the vicinity of the old shop in a
pretty good state of preservation.
Green soon after moved back to Con-
necticut; and all who ever attempted
to start the blacksmith business in
town since, have for some reason en-
tirely failed to accomplish their
object.
The inhabitants have up to the
present time been dependent on adj
joining towns generally for shoe.
making and most mechanic work
lone in shops.
But as an offset in part for these
disadvantages-such as going so far
to mill, getting mechanic work done
and getting goods from stores for
family use flor there has never been
? anything like a store of goods kept
in town., the town has never beer
, cursed by tipping shop and its sur
S roundings, so that the people are
e generally temperate and frugal in
their habits, and there are no interna
n police expenses for the detection anC
r punishment of crime, and there has
4 not been pauper on the town since
the reorganization in 1922, and the
K whole expense for transient poor
and incidental charges during the
4 period just named has been less thar
n $25.
!, The hard wood was cut from large
e tracts of land and burned to obtair
l ashes. which the early settlers
leached and boiled into salts, and car
o ried to Guildhall, VT, or Lancaster
: N. H., distance of 10 to 20 miles
t Yet where there is a will, there is
A way" Those that had a horse
}, would make what they called ;