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    Holland and Its Neighbors
    Holland and Its Neighbors
    Holland and Its Neighbors
    Ebook183 pages1 hour

    Holland and Its Neighbors

    By Holland Historical Society

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    About this ebook

    Holland and Its Neighbors offers a glimpse of bygone times in a rural area of northeastern Vermont along the Canadian border. Holland is typical of many rural small towns. Its neighboring Canadian towns and Norton, Derby, Morgan, and Charleston, Vermont, have familial, geographical, and historical connections that give the area a unique and cohesive culture. Mills and lumber-related businesses were established early, and as land was cleared, farming also became an important way of life. Holland and Its Neighbors includes photographs of loggers and mill workers, while images of horse-drawn equipment and horse-powered machinery illustrate hard work and long hours on hardscrabble farms. Interesting community characters such as Big Jack, peddler Jabez, fortuneteller Marie, hermit Scotty, and Haw Tabor are also pictured.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateAug 11, 2004
    ISBN9781439615829
    Holland and Its Neighbors
    Author

    Holland Historical Society

    Holland and its neighboring towns have changed dramatically over time, but the communities are proud of their rich history and their accomplishments. The Holland Historical Society's mission is to preserve the area's history, heritage, and sense of place.

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      Book preview

      Holland and Its Neighbors - Holland Historical Society

      sheds.

      INTRODUCTION

      Welcome to the pages of Holland and Its Neighbors. The town of Holland is a small dot on the map in the northeast corner of Vermont surrounded by similar small dots separated on the north by the 45th parallel international boundary line. All of these dots represent an interesting shared history. This scenario is typical of the rural, small-town dynamic of everyday folk such as loggers, farmers, teachers, and preachers. In the earliest beginnings, townships sprang up in small communities around mills—grist, lumber, starch, and shingle—often relying on neighboring towns for services their own communities did not offer. Ministers, teachers, doctors, peddlers, merchants, and surveyors were shared. Holland, its Canadian neighbors in Quebec, Derby Line, Morgan, Charleston, Derby, and Norton interacted as one larger community. Eventually, each township developed into its own entity but maintained family and rural ties with neighboring towns.

      During the 1800s, as the towns grew and attracted more settlers, businesses sprang up around centers of activity like Tice Hollow and Caswell’s Mills in Holland, Barnston Corner and Baldwin’s Mills in Quebec, Morgan Four Corners, Derby Line in Derby, East and West Charleston, and the Norton Railway Station. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, as more of the wilderness trees were harvested and land was cleared, farms and farming became the second important way of life for residents. Images of horse-drawn equipment and horse-powered machinery tell a story of hard work and long hours. Farmstead areas also developed into small communities, and organizations such as the Modern Woodman, the Grange, the Ladies Aid, and others were established. Social life revolved around these meetings, churches, and neighbors. As in many rural towns during the 1920s and 1930s, innovations and inventions became the norm; cars, telephones, and electricity enabled mobility and communication while early tractors, motorized equipment, and industrialization made farm life, logging, and mill work easier and faster. As progress changed the way of life, more time was freed up for recreation. Many of the lakes and ponds in the area became vacation destinations, and summer cottages, lodges, and camps sprang up around the shores of Seymore, Salem, and Echo. Holland Pond, the Hurricane, Norton Pond, and Derby Pond became favorite hunting and fishing territories.

      And, of course, every township had its own characters—the hermit, the peddler, the practical joker—its authority figures of town clerks, selectmen, road commissioners, and town fathers, and last but certainly not the least, its everyday folks creating the town with their work. While times and environments have changed, some things have pretty much stayed the same. We still have our town characters and our pillars of the community. We still have our loggers and farmers, our storekeepers, our preachers and teachers. We still have our memories of days gone by. It is these values, customs, and country ways that give Holland, along with its neighbors, a culture all its own in this little corner of the world. The Holland Historical Society Committee hopes to represent this sense of place and identity within these pages. Enjoy the glimpse into an earlier time and reminisce.

      A MAP OF HOLLAND. This map shows the township of Holland and the neighboring towns that are included within the pages of this publication. Interconnections between families, communities, and countries tie this corner of the world together and connect the dots on the map.

      One

      HOLLAND TOWNSHIP

      In the beginning, before the town of Holland was chartered, the land was considered part of the Hampshire Grants and went by the name of Elysiana. It was also included in the 3,000 square miles known as Phillip’s Grant—land that Phillip, an Abenaki chief, transferred in 1796 to the Eastern Company land speculators and that chiefs at Odanak sold again to the Bedel Company in 1798. To ensure Vermont’s independence from New York and New Hampshire during the period of 1779–1781, Gov. Thomas Chittenden rapidly granted vacant lands. Timothy Andrus (Andrews) and associates received a charter for the town of Holland’s 23,040 acres in October 1779. It was not until 1800 that the first settler arrived, due to unsurveyed boundaries and unpaid granting fees. None of the original grantees ever lived within the town.

      The first permanent settler to arrive was Joseph Cowell, who came from Connecticut and settled on what is now Mead Hill. Second to arrive was the Edmond Elliott family. Eber Robinson, a lawyer of sorts, was third to arrive. The first town meeting was held in March 1805; at that time, there were 210 acres of improved land and 17 houses. By 1824, 654 acres had been improved and 29 houses erected. From 1810 to the 1820s, most of the families with familiar names arrived, such as Willey, Goodenough, Hinman, Ferrin, Moon, Wilkins, Hatch, Worth, Wilcox, Pinney, Rumery, Mead, Davis, and Watson, many with descendants still living in town.

      THE LOT DIVISION GRANTEES MAP. This is a true copy of the original land grant map taken from Crafts Book of Plans and copied out in 1910.

      THE BEER’S ATLAS MAP. The Holland Township map appears in Beer’s Atlas, published in 1879.

      A CURRENT MAP. This 2001 map of Holland was taken from The Northern Cartographic Vermont Road Map and Guide, printed in South Burlington.

      RURAL LIFE. A picture is worth a thousand words, and this one says it all.

      AT THE YARD. Logging was one of Holland’s most important industries. A good team of horses is worth its keep when skidding logs to the yard, where men with peavies prepare a load for the mills.

      LUMBER AND SLABS. After

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