In 1824, Edwin Ferry Johnson, a young cadet at Alden Partridge’s military school, hiked up Norwich’s Prospect Hill, plunked himself down and drew a detailed pen and ink sketch of Norwich with Hanover in the distance. The drawing includes the South Meeting House, which later became the Congregational Church, and Alden Partridge’s American, Literary, Scientific & Military Academy, which became Norwich University in 1834. Johnson’s sketch shows a prosperous village that had seen its population grow from 1,158 in 1790 to 2,316 in 1830. Wool production, apple growing and farming were fueling the growth. A toll bridge to Hanover was built in 1796. A year later, Jasper Murdock built his elegant home that was both a stagecoach stop and tavern near the corner of what is now Beaver Meadow Road and Main Street. A post office opened in 1805.  The village was thriving; into this development stepped the Emerson family from Westfield, Massachusetts.

From the day they first arrived, Elihu, Joseph and Thomas Emerson and their cousin, John, worked in the community as merchants, speculators, smithies, farmers, builders and town officials. Acting singly or together, the Emersons invested in many properties, including a 100-acre lot of two thousand apple trees.

Elihu Emerson, the oldest of the Emerson men, headed from his family home in Westfield, Massachusetts to seek his fortune in Norwich in 1792, soon after he turned 21. Westfield is not far from the Connecticut River, so it’s possible Elihu paddled upstream to Norwich. But, alas there is no record of how he first journeyed to his new home. Shortly after he arrived, Elihu, who was a blacksmith by trade, set up a shop. In 1794, he built just south of his blacksmith shop what many believe was the earliest brick house in Norwich. The house at 332 Main Street still stands today, opposite Beaver Meadow Road. In 1798, Elihu and Thankful Grant were married and raised six children together. The large family may have prompted him to build a larger home next to his first home which is known today as the “The 1820 House.” The exterior of the house looks much as it did when it was first constructed, only a projecting porch now covers the front door.  “The interior is noteworthy,” explained The Early Houses of Norwich, Vermont  “for the beautiful treatment of one of the main rooms on the second floor… there is a paneled fireplace and on either side of it recessed alcoves with seats, the alcoves being spanned by graceful arches.”

Mr. Emerson was a sturdy New Englander.  He outlived his first wife and then also his second wife who died when she was eighty.  According to one story, Elihu, who was considered quite agile his whole life, placed his hands on his horse’s back and mounted “thereon from the ground on his seventy-first anniversary of his birth.”  Elihu died at his daughter’s home in Leicester, Mass in 1873 at the “advanced age of over one hundred and two.”  His remains were returned to Norwich and placed in the Fairview cemetery near his brother Joseph’s grave.

Joseph Emerson followed Elihu to Norwich and, in 1796, purchased land on “the highway leading from Dr. Joseph Lewis’s house to the Meeting House.”  Around 1815, Joseph built a house on his land “at a time when he was in his middle forties and just beginning his active career as a builder in Norwich.”  The “1815 Emerson House” still stands on the east side of Main Street. The building to the north, which now houses the Ledyard Bank, was once his workshop where he made a living as a builder and a hat maker.  According to The Early Houses of Norwich, Vermont the house was “almost a twin to Elihu’s house…and the decorative treatment is unusually rich, and would lead us to suppose that Joseph was fond of all kinds of carved detail, panelling, etc.”

Joseph was “engaged considerably as a builder”—and considerably is the word.  Following the construction of his own home he built “The Partridge House” on Main Street. Now a B&B, the house is an impressive brick structure. Next time you walk by, take a look at the doorway and the triple window above the door which is “…itself treated like a doorway with sidelights and elliptical fanlight.” Joseph also built the third brick house on the left as you enter Norwich and probably had a hand in the building of his brothers’ homes.

One of the striking features about the brick houses built in Norwich between 1810 and 1830 was the beautiful color of the brick described as “a warm soft red, almost a salmon-pink.” These bricks were made in a brickyard located on Blood Brook near the intersection of Main Street and Route 5. In all probability, the Norwich brickyard was the earliest brickyard in this region.

Thomas, the last Emerson brother, arrived in Norwich in the early 1800s. Thomas “was bred a merchant” and “parlayed an inheritance from his great-grandfather Pratt, a Boston banker, into a fortune.” In 1807, Thomas moved to Detroit, Michigan where he formed a partnership with Stephen Mack. The firm Emerson, Mack & Conant, “kept a general assortment of dry goods, groceries and hardware.” They traded with Native Americans and the American military and had a very lucrative business until Detroit was surrendered to the British in 1812. With this “interruption of business, Mr. Emerson withdrew from the firm and retired to Vermont where, with ample means, he entered upon a more public and notable career.”

When Thomas returned to Norwich to join his brothers, the Emerson community spirit kicked into high gear. In 1817, Thomas and his brothers pledged almost 50% of the funds needed to erect the South Meeting House which later became the Congregational Church. Joseph became the builder of the Meeting House. Half of Thomas’s $600 pledge paid for a Revere Bell that he had carted to Norwich by oxen from Massachusetts. Although it is not mentioned in any history, a simple yet elegant weather vane atop the South Meeting House was almost certainly crafted by Elihu Emerson, the first known blacksmith in town. That same year, the Emersons backed Alden Partridge’s desire to build a military academy on the Plain. Today this is the village green. In 1819, Joseph Emerson was awarded the contract to build the Academy. He finished the South Barracks in 1820 and completed the North Barracks in 1832. In 1820 Thomas became involved in politics and represented the town between 1824-1829 as a Jackson Democrat. “Mr. Emerson was a good representative, in his day and on a small scale… was a good example of a political ‘boss.’”

In 1820, Thomas Emerson bought a lot from Cyrus Partridge and built his own house diagonally across from “his” meetinghouse in 1822. Today, the house holds the post office and is known as the Emerson House. Not to be outdone in the 1820s, John Emerson, Thomas’ cousin, built a large house on Main Street, just beyond the Main Street-Beaver Meadow intersection and opposite the Grange Hall. “Originally this house was entirely heated, of course, by fireplaces, but in 1889 or 1890 the first furnace and the first bathroom in Norwich were installed.”

The Emersons left their mark on Norwich in more ways than one.

Today, if you have the time to stroll down Main Street you can still see many of the structures that Edwin Johnson sketched in 1824. If you look closely at the drawing, you can pick out Elihu Emerson’s blacksmith shop and the home he built in 1820. And, further still, you can spot Joseph’s home on Main Street and Thomas’s home which is on a diagonal from the South Meeting House. With a savvy eye for style and sturdy building, the Emersons set the standard in Norwich for home construction. Their legacies are with us today, two centuries after they were constructed.

The image of a livestock guard dog that comes to mind for most people is that of the Great Pyrenees, and it isn’t wrong, but there are more of those fluffy white breeds than you might have known. The Kuvasz, Komondor, and Maremma all have similar looks but slightly different personalities.

Maremmas are becoming increasingly common as farmers re-discover their wonderful traits and smaller size. Maremmas get along with a wide variety of animals, large and small, including cats and other domestic pets, and they are known to be very affectionate with their families and children.

Eva Smith* of Norwich, VT researched the breed heavily before investing in her first puppy when she was still living out west. In her research, some of the most critical things Eva found were that they bark less, roam less, and are more accepting of visitors. They may remain aloof but not aggressive. Sentinel “Senti” came to her from Texas in the spring of 2016 and went straight to work.

One of the ways to raise livestock guard dogs is to put a separate pen inside the sheep pen so that the puppy and the sheep get to know each other first. Senti ended up at the mercy of two sheep who coveted his food and broke down his fence many times. However, it sent him patrolling early.

“I was losing sheep like crazy to coyotes out west. He was the best investment I ever made,” Eva noted.

Eva described the Maremmas’ personality as having wolf-like independence and ability to make decisions. They aren’t dogs for the obedience ring! While they will follow the commands of their leader, these dogs aren’t likely to listen to anybody else.

That’s an instinctual trait bred into these dogs over centuries. A shepherd would need to be able to trust that his dog would only listen to him and not a potential thief, the dog needs to trust its instincts and make decisions at the moment, and the human needs to make sure that the dog is always set up to have positive experiences from the beginning.

Eva decided to move back to Norwich, VT in late summer 2016 and brought – along with her children, house pets, home furnishings, and the rest of accumulated stuff from 12 years of life out there – 16 sheep and Senti in a trailer.

Sheep aren’t the only animals Eva and her family have, of course. She also has two alpacas, a mini horse, goats, and chickens. Last winter, she acquired a second Maremma, Ginger, who is driven to be with the lambs. Eva now summers her sheep at Sweetland Farm in Norwich, VT.

Right now, while the lambs are being born, Ginger is in with the alpacas and the mini horse as she is just about to turn one and still in training. Ginger does make daily visits to see “her” lambs and sheep, though.

Senti, on the other hand, still hates being inside, but seems to enjoy being a family farm dog. He loves his family and protects the area around the house, the sheep in the winter, and the other animals in the summer. Unlike their neighbors, Eva and her family haven’t had a single bear problem at their house, though Senti will bark for much of the night if a bear is around.

Later this summer, Ginger will get her chance to actively guard her flock, when Eva’s lambs are old enough for the sheep to move to a different pasture at Sweetland Farm. It will be a good move for all involved. Sweetland Farm will get a new pasture grazed, allowing the older one to come back, the sheep will have fresh grass, and Ginger will be out and able to do her job. When small agriculture works cyclically like this, even if it means involving a few farmers, we get back to a more environmentally friendly agricultural system, one that has been practiced for centuries.

*Name has been changed by request

Editor’s Note: For a few years now, the Norwich Times has been featuring our young people thinking, doing, and living outside the box. Rather than follow the traditional four-years-of-high-school on to four-years-of-college route, these adventurous souls are recognizing that there are many paths, and that some may lead to a whole new world to explore. Read about Abby Dole, Maisie MacMillen, and Cleo Roback as they tell us about their exciting and humbling travels to distant lands.

Abby Dole

I began the fall of 2017 in Boulder, Colorado, working to save up for my travels, hiking, and living with my sister. After 4 months in Boulder, I went to Tamarindo, Costa Rica for three months in order to learn Spanish and surfing. There, I went to an International language school called EF (Education First) and stayed with a host family, taking Spanish lessons in the morning and surfing in the afternoons. I spent my weekends going on road trips with friends driving to different beaches and mountains around Costa Rica. While on these excursions, I came face to face with a sloth, a whale, and many monkeys, but the most exciting meeting was when Maisie MacMillen came to visit me in Tamarindo!

From there, I also travelled to Nicaragua to climb the Cerro Negro volcano and see the capital city of Managua. After my three months in Latin America, I went to Paris, France for two months, where I took French classes at the same language school (EF), staying with a host family again. While in Paris, I took a side trip and visited Frankfurt, Germany.

I returned to the USA at the end of May, and will start school at UVM in September. This year I tasted some amazing food, met incredible people, and got to do so many unforgettable things. After a big year, I’m excited to be back home in Norwich!

Cleo Roback

I had known I wanted to take a gap year ever since I became familiar with the term at the beginning of my high school career. And once the summer after my high school graduation started to fade away, I became more and more excited to finally make my own adventure and learn my own way.

When I first arrived in Rincón, Puerto Rico I had a mission in mind and a whole lot of excited energy. My travel partner, Liam Gurman, and I became interns for ARF, a local Puerto Rican animal rescue foundation. In our 3 months on the island we rescued, vetted and sent out over 200 dogs to their forever homes both on the island and to the states.

We also participated in three mass sterilization and vaccination clinics which is a vital step in ending the street dog problem in Puerto Rico.

We got to work alongside some amazing individuals during these projects such as Miriam Perez, the ARF president who stops at nothing to protect her morals and her animals. Dr. Cruz, the only licensed mass sterilization veterinarian on the island along with his mobile clinic able to arrive at all sides of the island for animals in need and the students and staff at the Jorge Seda Crespa Middle school where we hosted our monthly dog club. I felt so lucky to be surrounded with such an intelligent and passionate team. It made the monumental task we chose to take on that much more possible.

When I first set out I thought I was going to come back with a tan, hopefully a puppy (or two), and a great experience. But I gained so much more. Life lessons learned the hard way. Responsibility to myself and others, honesty, and resilience. More than anything I am now feeling more inspired, re-energized and motivated than ever to tackle my freshman year  at Hampshire College.

Maisie MacMillen

I first knew I wanted to take a gap year after I was fortunate enough to attend The Island School the fall of my junior year. I attended The Island School for a transformative 100 days and it was after I returned home that I knew traveling abroad and stepping outside my comfort zone was where I shined and grew the most. With my parents on board, I put the college process aside, something not many teenagers and parents feel is an option, and focused on how to make this next year equally as transformative.

It was hard for me to sit back and live day to day, and not plan weeks in advance. In order to make money for my travels, the first thing on the agenda was to find a summer job. I moved to Little Compton, Rhode Island to become a nanny to four kids aged 3-7. This was a good introduction to “being on my own.”

During the fall, I lived at home and continued to earn money to fund the travel I hoped to do later in the year. I researched volunteer programs of interest such as childcare, environmental work, and nursing. I decided I wanted to travel to Central America as it has a warm climate and is more affordable than some other parts of the world.

I found a national volunteer program called IVHQ that connects people with Non Government Organizations (NGOs) in the country of choice. My first assignment was at a childcare center in San José, Costa Rica. While there, I stayed with a host family who spoke little English. The center in which I volunteered was located in the second poorest village in the city. Attending the center everyday allowed these children to experience the fun, laughter, and love that they deserve.

After two weeks, I moved on to a turtle conservation project to gain experience in a broader range of volunteer work. After riding in two extremely crowded, hot buses for a total of 6 hours to the Nicoya Peninsula, I ended up in a town called Junquillal, population 400. Dirt roads, beautiful beaches, The Verdiazul turtle camp, two hotels, a corner store and a larger grocery store was about it in the town. Verdiazul is an all-volunteer organization aiming to protect endangered sea turtles. Our days consisted of doing beach cleanups, nursery tree work, hatchery work, or general maintenance on camp. At night we walked the entire stretch of Playa Junquillal (about 5 miles) in two-hour shifts. Our goal was to find turtles laying their eggs or to find current nests and collect those eggs and bring them back to the hatchery. Bringing the eggs back to the hatchery and digging a man-made nest for them increases the hatch rate tremendously. In the hatchery, they are protected from poachers, dogs, birds, the sun, and tourists. I spent 3 weeks at Verdiazul and it was here that I met other like-minded people and found a cause I care deeply about. I was able to be fully present and believe I was making a positive difference.

My next structured plan was to participate in a program in Santo Domingo, The Dominican Republic, for 2 weeks through a company called Gap Medics. Gap Medics creates intern opportunities in the medical field. During my time in the DR, I had the privilege of shadowing a nurse in one of the local hospitals. The hospital was very underdeveloped and vastly different than what I was used to. Each day we were in a different wing of the hospital shadowing Nurse Carla as she did procedures, took vitals and helped out in operating rooms. She always took the time to explain what she was doing and how the health care systems worked in the DR. This was an eye-opening experience and convinced me to study nursing at UVM this coming fall.

I am looking forward to doing my final gap year travels with my sister this summer, and am extremely grateful for my solo travels and for all of the people I met and the places I experienced. To all of you future high school graduates, I highly recommend taking a gap year!

Residents of Norwich: Have you seen a man blowing giant bubbles larger than a five-year-old at Marion Cross School? Or did you notice in the town picture that one of the residents has on a massive Bernie Sanders Puppet head? Perhaps maybe at Dan and Whit’s last year, you noticed an out-of-the-ordinary housing ad? It wasn’t on a white, 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, but a colorful 3D cardboard cut-out featuring bees, ukuleles, chickens, a red Canadian Maple leaf, and individually drawn portraits of a family of four. They were seeking a house in Norwich by July 1st, which was clearly noted as Canada Day.

These were the works of master hobbyist and founder of Make Your Own Fun, Dr. Ken Leslie.

For the curious, yes the search was successful, and Ken, along with his wife Shannon and two sons Journey and Phoenix, recently moved to a house upon the steep Glen Ridge Road. As for the focus on Canada, they are not exuberant Canadophiles, but actual Canadiens.

Although he grew up in Ontario, he and his family were living on the islands of Haida Gwaii off the coast of British Columbia before moving to Norwich over two years ago for his job as a consumer neuroscientist at Merchant Mechanics, located one mile south of Hanover. With an impressive academic background, this is not Ken’s first time in the Upper Valley. After earning a Neuroscience PhD at Brandeis University, he came to Dartmouth to do a postdoctoral fellowship in Psychological and Brain Sciences in the early 2000s with Dr. Mike Gazzaniga.

Although this was before marriage and starting a family, Ken has always been an active participant in Upper Valley life. If you’ve seen anyone sporting the stylish Upper Valley zip-up hoodies sold at Revolution in White River Junction, Ken was the original designer. He was also a pioneer and editor of the uvScene.com, an early social media website that promoted face-to-face community by hosting events, including dances and creative fundraisers, many of them hosted at the now defunct India Queen restaurant in Hanover. In some ways the uvScene could be thought of as a precursor to the functions of DailyUV.com or the Upper Valley VT/NH Facebook page.

Make Your Own Fun is Ken’s website (myof.org) that features his hobbies and creations while encouraging others to take part as well. From animation to beat boxing to creating giant puppets, there appears to be few things he’s unable to do. In his words, Make Your Own Fun is about using the power of play to create optimal conditions for learning, relaxation, and enjoyment while building community and promoting well being.

As eluded, his hobbies aren’t something that live only inside the confines of his home. He’s dazzled with giant bubble shows at the Montshire and has run the kids zone at music festivals in Canada and the US. At events, he goes by Dr. Ken, a factually accurate nickname bestowed to him during his post doc days by a friend who had yet to receive his PhD. Initially it annoyed him, but when he needed a stage name, he conceded it had a nice ring.

Ken’s infamous bubble blowing prowess started just before his older son Journey was born, initially learning from YouTube videos. When bubbling, he’s often dressed in a colorful costume such as a paint covered overcoat and hat. In action, he looks almost like a wizard casting gentle spells with his bubble wand. If one giant bubble isn’t whimsical enough, he can even blow bubbles within bubbles.

Bubbles are endless fun that kids love to chase, and will force even the most hardened adults to crack a smile. As to what’s special about bubbles, Ken says “they teach embracing the impermanent.” Bubbles are ephemeral. There’s a beauty in their aimless trajectory and fleeting existence.

Ken is a fervent advocate of making your own fun. Fun doesn’t have to come via a brand new toy from Walmart. The box itself can provide superior entertainment. That’s why one of his favorite mediums to work with is cardboard. “It’s the ultimate toy” says Ken. It’s free and can be constructed into nearly anything. Kids love it because it can be easily drawn and painted upon. He turned his son Phoenix’s stroller into a Tesla tractor (sadly they don’t actually exist) for an organic farming event, and if you think a cardboard Christmas tree wouldn’t achieve sufficient holiday spirit, you’d feel otherwise upon seeing the tree in his house. But as fun as cardboard is for creation, so is its destruction. It can be controllably burned, and there are few things more enjoyable than watching the glow of fire.

Music is also a passionate hobby of his. As a child he took formal training on the violin; now he’s self-taught on the ukulele. He realized that if you make a sound, and enjoy the sound, then you’re playing it right. All of this leads to a feedback loop that leads to mastery and, most importantly, the enjoyment of making music. He’ll walk around Dan and Whit’s strumming the ukulele, creating a stress-free environment for shoppers searching for socks and stewed tomatoes. During the holiday season, he and a friend spent Saturday mornings at the Norwich Post Office, relaxing the frenzied employees and customers by playing Christmas carols.

As if creating a giant Bread and Puppet-style Bernie Sanders head wasn’t enough of an artistic challenge, in the future, Ken is  looking to enhance his crafts by further refining his technique, and moving more toward the fine arts. On the wall in his living room is a current work-in-progress: a giant puppet self-portrait. He intends to have it ready for the Unifier Music Festival (unifierfestival.com) in Tolland, MA this Solstice (June 22-24), and is engineering it so it can blow bubbles.

He considers his Make Your Own Fun activities to be his form of cultural currency. A way of spreading enjoyment while also bringing community together to have and share sweet experiences. He recalls a particularly warming moment back in British Columbia; a renegade bubble floated upward in the sky seemingly forever, and everyone stopped what they were doing to watch.

There are moments when he starts to feel a twinge of self-consciousness over his colorful dressing style when among more traditionally dressed crowds, but ultimately he’s a supporter of self-expression. He wants kids to understand that “we don’t all have to be cookie cutter. If you want to play your ukulele and blow bubbles on the playground, you can do that.” In other words, don’t stop doing what you want to do just because you fear being the weird kid.

When it comes to life in Norwich, he’s grateful for the warm and welcome embrace his family has received from the town. Upon originally moving to the Upper Valley as a single adult, he was primarily focused on creating community with the other young and single adults. However, now as a father, he’s looking to connect with the other parents and children. The proverbial saying may be that it takes a village to raise a child, but Ken says, “we all need the village.”