The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-01-09
WINTER TRAGEDY IN
VERMONT RECALLED
Joseph Soper, Pioneer in Dandy
Frozen in Trying to Garry Grain
to His Family.

The Genealogical Editor has called
the Nomad s attention to the interest
ing fact that family traditions often
contain interesting stories which do not
get into general literature, though now
and then they may appear in abbreviat-
ed form on the genealogical page. He
cites the case of Joseph Soper, which
came to his notice the other day. In
the wear 1865 Joseph came with his fam
ilv TO settlcin.the then wilderness Of Dan
by. VT. There was no mill nearer than
Manchester, fourteen miles away, and
one morning Joseph Soper went there on
foot with some corn to be ground. While
ut the mill there arose a binding snow
storm, but Joseph knowing his family
was without meal, started for home near
night fall with the bag of meal on his
back. The night was bitter cold, and
there was no visible path, Meanwhile
his family awaited his return-but
awaited in vain. Morning dawned-no
Joseph was there. BY that time the
storm was over, but bitter cold over
spread the hills and woods. Joseph s
brother then set forth in an attempt to
find him, and had gone but a few rods
into the woods when he found his body,
the trunk of a large tree, and frozen
stiff. Beside him was the bag of meal
to which he had faithfully chung. The
! body was buried in a hollow log, on the
spot where it was found; and to this
| day an old stump, on the John Hllllard
farm, is pointed to as marking the spot
where Soper was thus, like a soldier
fallen in battle, rudely inferred.
| Such tragedies as that are related II
many a family of early settlers in Yer
mont, in New Hampshire and Maine
But now and then the family traditions
are not so tragical. In certain tow
in Vermont a story has come down o
the way in which all the local famille
gloriouslv withstood the terrible white
of 176s without any meal or meat, o
ordinary foodstuffs of any kind. Al
the settlers then in the town had com
up the Connecticut river on RATS tn
autumn before, bringing with them hal
a dozen mich cows and two barrels o
rum. Other supplies-meal, bacon an
so on-were sent up on another raft
But it happened that the winter close
in exceptionally early on the river, an
though the first raft and the people 90
safely through, the second raft wa
stopped by the ice, and could not &c
farther than Number Four wher
Charlcstown, y. H., now stands. No
was il possible for the people who ha
gone on to get any supplies. What di
they do' They managed, in spite G
the season, to get little sap out
the maple trees, which they boiled dow
into syrup. The cows, fed on the twig
of birch and maple trees, and on SON
wild hay that the man had been able
get in before the snow fell, kept on gl'
ing milk all winter and with this mil
| and the maple syrup, and the rum, II
| settlers made milk punch every day, u
| on which they lived and actually thrive
/ all winter long, and until supplies We
J brought up in the spring. The peop
: who came up with the supplies cxpectt
4 to find the others all dead, and we
| astonished to find them instead IN
particularly fine condition. And It is
fact that the people of that town ha'
voted against prohibition in every ele
ton that has been held.-Nomad
| Column in Boston Transcript.