As the new school year begins, it’s probably a good idea for all of us, not just students, to brush up on our math skills. Let’s try a few questions. Here’s the first one: How many seconds in eleven years? Is everyone reaching for a calculator? The answer is 346,896,000. Next try this: What sum multiplied by itself will produce 998,001? Answer: 999. How did you do? Well, now consider this: in 1810, a six-year-old Vermont boy answered both of these questions in 8 seconds. His name was Zerah Colburn

Born in 1804 in Cabot, VT to Abia and Betsy Colburn, Zerah was the sixth in a family of eight children. Fortunately, when Zerah was only 29, he published an autobiography describing his early life and travels. Oddly, the Memoirs of Zerah Colburn by Himself was written in the third person and Colburn referred to himself as “Zerah” or “the boy.”

Zerah grew up on a small farm. His father worked as a joiner to support the family. In August 1810, when Zerah was about six years old, he was playing near his father’s work bench. His father heard him reciting math facts: 5 times 7 is 35, and 6 times 8 are 48. His father was surprised, especially since his son had only spent six weeks at a village school. So he asked Zerah the product of 13 times 97, “to which 1,261 was instantly given in answer.” Astounded, his father “concluded that something unusual had actually taken place; indeed he has often said he should not have been more surprised, if someone had risen up out of the earth and stood erect before him.”

Later his father took the boy to Danville, where court was in session. Zerah was questioned by the judges and lawyers. They, too, were impressed by his mathematical skills. They encouraged Mr. Colburn to take his son to the legislature which was to convene in Montpelier at the start of October. There a large number of people “had an opportunity of witnessing his calculating powers, and the conclusion was general that such a thing had never been seen before.” Questions were asked to stump young Zerah, “but he answered them correctly; for instance, which is the most, twice twenty-five or twice five and twenty? Answer: twice twenty-five.”

From Montpelier the father and son headed to Burlington. But, soon, Mr. Colburn realized that larger audiences and wealthier patrons were required if he wanted to take advantage of his son’s gifts. So, he and Zerah headed to Boston. Along the way they stopped in Hanover and met Dr. Wheelock, the president of Dartmouth College, who proposed to “take upon himself the care and expense of Zerah’s studies.” But Mr. Colburn could not be convinced to accept the generous offer.

In Boston, Zerah continued to astonish audiences at public exhibitions. Soon a “number of the first gentlemen” in Boston wanted to see to Zerah’s education and establish, “a situation where he might be enabled to pursue the studies which seemed most adapted to his genius, and render it profitable to the world.” They offered to raise $5,000. Mr. Colburn would receive $2,500 and the other half would be used to keep the boy under their control and educate him. But the offer was “not equal to the exalted expectations of his father.” In addition, being separated from his son “did not harmonize with his views of parental obligation.”

Abia and Zerah traveled to New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, and made enough money from Zerah’s shows to continue to the next city, but not enough to cover an education for the boy and a profit for the father. “Mr. Colburn began to think that his situation and prospects were not likely to be improved by a longer effort in his own country.” In addition, as one traveler who met the Colburns, pointed out, “the desire of the father to have his son educated has been superseded by the curse lust for gold.”

 In April, Zerah and Abia returned to Norwich where Mrs. Colburn and the rest of the family had come to stay with relatives. There was speculation that she had traveled to Norwich to encourage her husband to return home. But Abia declined his wife’s pleas. Finding little interest in Zerah’s talents in America, he decided it would be more profitable to display the young genius in England. So on April 3, 1812, even though a war had just begun with England, the two walked aboard the New Galen and set sail for Liverpool.

In London, Zerah’s performances continued to dazzle audiences. Despite the well-attended performances, there was little profit. A British friend of the Colburns suggested that an image of Zerah would be a money maker. So a drawing was created and engraved, and copies of his image sold well. This engraving is the only likeness the world has of Zerah. A close look at his left hand shows that the eight-year-old boy had six fingers. Several of his brothers, his father, and great grandmother also had an extra finger. Zerah had the extra finger removed while he was in England.

With bills mounting in England and no patron on the horizon, Abia and Zerah set off for Paris in the spring of 1814. As soon as they arrived, a language teacher was hired for the boy and after a few months, Zerah was fluent in French. When his language course concluded, he entered the Lyceum Napoleon in Paris.

During their time in Paris, the Colburns met with John Quincy Adams, who had come to Europe in early 1815 to sign the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. “The father is a plain New England farmer and by all appearance a very ordinary man,” Adams wrote. “His language is that of our most uneducated people… Zerah is certainly an astonishing and promising boy; but if his promise is ever to realize anything, the sooner the father commits him to the tuition of the Polytechnic School the better.” Sadly, Mr. Colburn did not follow the advice of the statesman.

In the summer of 1816, once again short of cash, Abia pulled Zerah out of his French school and returned to England, where Zerah’s exhibitions began again. In London, they connected with the Earl of Bristol who raised funds for Zerah to attend the prestigious Westminster School. After problems with hazing from the older students, it was decided that Zerah would live with his father and become a day student. The money saved from boarding at the school was enough to support both the father and son. This plan worked well for the next three years, until Abia had another disagreement with the school administration and removed the 15-year-old Zerah from the Westminster School for good.

With little interest in Zerah’s mathematical wizardry, Abia cooked up several new money-making schemes for his son. First, he had Zerah take acting lessons and they traveled from London to Ireland and Scotland looking for roles, but found no offers. Then he had Zerah try his hand at writing plays. This too was a failure. Finally, when he was 18 years old, Zerah opened a day school of his own. But the school made very little money and Zerah had to close it for good when his father became ill. Abia, who never saw his dreams fulfilled, died of consumption (tuberculosis) in February 1823. He was 54.

With no money and an ocean away from his home in Vermont, Zerah told the Earl of Bristol of his father’s passing and said he was heading to America. Once again the Earl of Bristol generously assisted Zerah and gave him money for his homeward passage.

When Zerah reached America, he hired a man in Whitehall, NY to drive him by wagon to Cabot. He arrived at his mother’s house near sunset on July 3, 1823. “Not knowing who lived there, they inquired of an elderly woman who was at the door, if she knew where the widow Colburn lived? She replied that she was the woman.” Zerah, who left home when he was six, “made himself known as well as he could,” but his mother failed to recognize him until his brothers and sisters appeared and agreed that this was indeed their long-lost brother who hadn’t communicated with the family for 13 years.

Mrs. Colburn, now 65, had “by a course of persevering industry, hard fare, and trials… succeeded in supporting herself, besides doing a good deal for her children.” But she was struggling, so Zerah established a school in Cabot and worked to support the family. However, the school closed after two months, so Zerah left Cabot and worked at a school in Fairfield, NY.

In 1829, Zerah married Mary Hoyt and between them they raised six children. There is no evidence that any of the children inherited their father’s math wizardry or an extra finger. In his memoir, Zerah reflected long and hard about the consequences of his calculating gifts and expressed his regrets at times that “his mysterious faculty was bestowed.” He also felt sorrow for his father, who abandoned his family and country, “and the trials which, after two or three years of prosperity, followed him to the close of his life, that he is led to believe his father paid dearly for the singular talent conferred on his son.”

In 1835, the now Reverend Zerah Colburn became a professor of Latin, Greek, French, and Spanish at Norwich University, but surprisingly, not of mathematics. He taught there until he died of tuberculosis, the same disease that had taken his father, in 1839. He was only 35 years old. 

Zerah is buried alongside his wife in Meeting House Cemetery, the thirdoldest cemetery in Norwich. His tombstone is located in the northwestern corner, a quiet and peaceful resting place for one of Vermont’s most remarkable mathematical prodigies.

Much has been written about Alden Partridge, who established Norwich University (first known as the American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy) on the town green in 1819. He was a great leader and an innovative educator. But what was life like for the teenage scholars attending the University who left their homes hundreds of miles away and sought an education in rural Vermont? Where did they live? What did they study? What did they think of Norwich?

The South Barracks before and after the 1866 fire.

Fortunately, many of the early school catalogs, student letters, and diaries have survived to this day, and from them, it’s not difficult to sketch out the daily life of the students while they studied in Norwich nearly 200 years ago.

“Here I am in the region of snow drifts once more!” Edward Stanley Abbot wrote his mother in late March of 1862 soon after he arrived to begin the spring term. “I got here this afternoon and have established myself to my satisfaction in this frowsy country village… I am to board close to the Academy (“Barracks” they call it here) at Mrs. Dowe’s, a comfortable house and clever people apparently. I am to have a nice large parlor and a snug little sleeping room at the enormous sum of half a dollar a week!”

Once Abbot arranged his housing and meals he began his classes. With Partridge as the superintendent, the cadets were introduced to a “vigorous course of study.” The faculty was a talented one and offered over a dozen courses that included everything from astronomy to civil engineering as well as five foreign languages. In addition, the cadets were “correctly instructed in the elementary school of the soldier…” with a system of discipline that was “strict, but correct.”

Students slept in large barracks that were located on the green. According to the school manual, “The students (were) required to sleep on mattresses, or straw-beds; no featherbeds… allowed…” Cadets boarded (ate their meals) “at respectable and genteel houses in the village.” The quality of the meals varied greatly and the young men were never hesitant to critique the local fare. In 1824 in a letter to his family, John Hancock described his New Year’s day meal. “This day we had a turkey at our boarding house for the first time since I arrived here. It weighed ten-and-a-half pounds and ten boarders soon demolished it and went off complaining of being hungry. For my part, I only had one tuff drumstick – slim dinner for all of us…” By the end of April, young Hancock had moved to another boarding house run by the Emerson family. “I went to dinner for the first time at this place and must acknowledge I did not think there was any house in the village that could produce such good victuals… Warm cakes at breakfast and supper and… the butter, too, must not be passed over without giving it the eulogy it deserves. It is yellow, cut handsome and stamped very handsomely.”

A young cadet, class of 1864.

While meals were definitely on the mind of the cadets, a tight military schedule kept them busy. A typical day was outlined by William Davis in 1842. He woke at 5am to the beating of a drum and attended roll call. Breakfast was at 6:30, followed by “prayers and lecture by Capt. Partridge.” Classes ran from 8:30 until the noon meal. At 3pm, “…We were paraded in streets by Adjutant (Partridge)… until 5. He marched us to the Hotel and treated us to a glass of wine. Went upon guard at 1/2 past seven – and staid on until 10. I came into my quarters this evening more fatigued than usual. Studied until nearly 12 and then retired to rest-taking soldier comfort lying upon the hard floor. Quite a luxury…”

But outside of classes and hours of marching, many cadets learned to enjoy what Norwich had to offer. In the winter, the young men skated on the flooded parade ground and some ventured out on the Connecticut River “where there is elegant skating.” The cadets purchased maple syrup from the villagers, others swapped “old pantaloons, coats, etc.” for the syrup. Often winter dances were planned, but due to the fickle weather, many were canceled as was the case in late February of 1824. “This is Washington’s birthday and the cadets contemplated having a ball tomorrow eve… but owing to the freshet and several other disasters, the bridges being carried away and no girls are in place…we shall have to abandon the idea.”

For cadets like Abbot who grew up in Boston, Norwich quickly lost its appeal during mud season. “As for the place itself, Norwich may be best described as an enormous pig sty,” he wrote. “Filth, nothing but filth, all over town owing to the fact that we are thawing out. I stay in the house all the time since it is sheer impossibility to walk the street, and the weather is too cold as yet for me to wear nothing but swimming drawers and paddle round town.” Yet his mood changed, as it does for most Vermonters when spring finally arrived. “I no longer live in a pig sty,” he began in a late May letter. “Norwich is most beautiful, within the last three days, the bare unsightly trees have put on the verdure of the soft spring foliage, the grass and flowers have risen from their graves…”

Once the weather warmed up, skirmishes often erupted between the cadets and the students at Dartmouth College. The ‘Darties’ were not impressed by the marching and uniforms of the Norwich students and often pelted the cadets with eggs when they ventured into Hanover. And the cadets were disdainful of the civilian college across the Connecticut River.

In June of 1839, 100 Dartmouth students in a long column of fours, marched into Norwich and attempted to enter the Norwich University grounds before they returned to Hanover. “Our gate was guarded,” recalled one cadet. “The sticks and canes carried by the invaders proved ineffective in the assault against the bayonets of the guard. The invaders, after a short struggle, broke in retreat and were not pursued. Spoils of the history consisted of cursed silk hats and two or three walking sticks.”

The cadets did not take the “nighttime invasion” lightly and returned the favor a few weeks later by marching in full uniform to the Dartmouth campus. With 150 men, three snare drums, three fifes, and a bugle, they formed one column and “struck out for the land of our enemy, Captain Partridge in command.”

After crossing the bridge, the cadets marched up the hill. Around the green, “the roads and grounds were filled and progress was difficult, and here was where we expected trouble… We would not resent jeers, hisses, or insulting remarks, but drew the line at stones and brickbats. We knew why we had fixed bayonets and why our arms were at carry. We were ready for an emergency – none came… Emerging from the crowd, we marched to the end of the village, then we countermarched and took our way homeward; our band playing Yankee Doodle.”

The hostilities ebbed as the Civil War approached. Students from both schools met and formed political clubs and presidential candidates were jointly supported. At a mixed meeting held in Hanover shortly before the war, a Dartmouth student proclaimed, “We must acknowledge that you are not only our equals in classic and scientific attainments, but our superiors in this, that you can buckle on the sword and lead men in this conflict, while we must shoulder the musket.”

Norwich Cadets

Cadets left Norwich University to fight or help organize state militias once the Civil War began. The entire class of 1862 enlisted upon graduation. By the end of the war, over 600 Norwich alumni served in the Union Army while 40 cadets fought for the Confederacy. One of those who fought for the Union was Edward Abbot, who wrote so eloquently about his experiences in the “frowsy” little village of Norwich. Within weeks of his graduation in the summer of 1862, he became an officer in the Union Army. The next summer, while leading his men near Little Round Top at the battle of Gettysburg, he was shot and died soon afterward from his wounds. He was 22 years old.

The story of cadet life in Norwich came to a close on the evening of March 14, 1866, when a fire broke out in the South Barracks. The cadets scrambled to save the books and furniture and set up a bucket brigade; but the blaze was too powerful and the building was a total loss. Soon after the fire, the University moved to Northfield, Vermont, where the prosperous railway center made a generous offer to help rebuild the military school.

Never again did young cadets march up Main Street to hear Partridge speak from his home or protect the campus from an invasion of Darties. No longer did the citizens of Norwich visit with cadets at the village store, watch them skate on the river, or have them as guests for a New Year’s meal. The University was in Norwich for less than 50 years, but it made an impact. One has to wonder what the town would be like if it had remained.

Drop into Norwich Historical Society this summer to see the exhibit “The Education of Citizen Soldiers: Norwich University turns 200.”

Several of the photos in this article were used courtesy of Norwich University Archives, Northfield, Vermont.

Norwich Historical Society Shares Skiing Lore

What’s the magic behind Norwich and its Olympic skiers? Is there a secret group of ski coaches hiding in the woods at the top of Elm Street? Are ski jumping classes a requirement at the Marion Cross School? Or is there a magic elixir in the town’s maple syrup? What else could explain the abundance of Olympic athletes who have come from this small Vermont town during the last sixty years?

Flying at Sample’s Jump

For starters, if you lived in Norwich in the 1930s, you really weren’t far from the center of a skiing revolution. It all began in 1934 with ‘Bunny’ Bertram, a 1931 Dartmouth graduate who captained the first Dartmouth ski team. He made history on a hillside pasture just north of Woodstock, Vermont when he rigged up “an endless rope tow, powered by a Model T Ford engine.” Prior to this time, once a skier got to the bottom of the hill, they had to hike back up the slope for the next run. “The ingenious contraption,” states the historical marker at the site, “launched a new era in winter sports.” Closer to Norwich, the original ski ‘lift’ in the country was developed at Hanover’s Oak Hill in 1935. The J-Bar ran successfully for more that 40 years, while Bertram’s rope tow lasted for just a year before he moved his operation over the hill and set up what became Suicide Six.

While the rope tows and J-Bars made the sport more accessible, especially to children, learning how to ski properly was still a challenge. Enter Ford K. Sayre. Ford learned to ski at Dartmouth and directed the Winter Carnival in 1933 when he was a senior. That same year, on a joint Dartmouth/Smith College trip to Mt. Moosilauke, Ford met his future wife, Peggy. The couple married in 1933, and managed the Moosilauke Lodge until 1936 when he became the manager of the Hanover Inn. At the Inn, he offered free ski lessons to children of guests and to kids in the neighboring towns. According to an article in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine in the fall of 1944, Ford realized that during the Depression years, many children in the area, “particularly in the outlying communities, could not afford adequate equipment and instruction in skiing.” Ford rounded up usable second-hand equipment and had it repaired and distributed to children who needed skis. He also spent “many weekends teaching skiing to the children of Etna, Norwich, and other communities.” In 1942, Ford enlisted in the Army Air Corps while Peggy continued to run the learn-to-ski program. In July of 1944, Ford was killed in a mid-air collision during an air show in Spokane, Washington. Rather than send flowers, a friend suggested that money be donated in Ford’s name to keep the ski school thriving. The demand for the program grew and a community Junior Ski Council was formed to assist Peggy. In 1950, the JSC and the Ford Sayre Memorial Fund merged into the Ford K. Sayre Memorial Ski Council.

Norwich’s Betsy Snite cover of SI 1960

The techniques and philosophy of the program were outlined in the Procedure For Volunteer Instructors packet written in 1950 by Albert Snite, a Norwich resident and father of the future Olympian, Betsy Snite. “The instructor must be willing to recognize some latitude in the pupil’s style,” Snite wrote in the introduction, “but must attempt at the same time to teach the solid fundamentals of skiing. This is a system that… allows for the individual variations from the basics. So don’t worry if your first grade pupil doesn’t look like [an Olympic star] after two weeks of work.” Instructors were encouraged to have “unlimited patience,” and when students were tired, “do something easy to rest them and make it fun.”

Sample’s Jump

In the late 1940s, the Ford Sayre program got rolling in Norwich on the south side of Cemetery Hill. The Altow Ski Area was named after the first owner, Al Peavy: Al’s Tow! The rope tow was powered by a Ford V-8 truck engine. The moving rope circled over auto wheels mounted on posts and towed skiers up the hill. An exciting interlude for a trip up the slope came when the hill flattened. The skier had “to let go of the rope before it went out of reach over one of the wheels, then glide across the flat stretch and grab the top again as it emerged from another wheel at the far side.”

According to Buff McLaughry, who grew up in Norwich, this was a scary moment when he was a five-year-old. “The fear of the middle rope wheel and letting go and grabbing on again was more intimidating then the run downhill!”

As a grade-school student, Bill Aldrich, another longtime Norwich resident, helped sell hot chocolate in the warming hut at the base of the hill, and also operated the rope tow once the adults had fired up the engine. “We would watch the towline for ‘fall offs’ and put the engine in neutral until it was all clear.” Altow ran 1,500 feet from top to bottom and, according to Aldrich, “It would take 3-5 minutes to shush it on a brisk day and maybe 5-7 minutes to ride up.” It cost .50¢ for a half day of skiing and the Ford Sayre Ski School charged $1.50 per winter for ski instruction. No races were held at Altow, but the town’s children learned the basics of skiing on the little run. Altow opened in the late 1940s, and by the 1950s had installed lights for night skiing. Aldrich remembered on night skis, “It was a beautiful scene to look over the town area from the top.” In the early 1950s, the neighboring cemetery spread across the hill, and the Altow Ski Area had to close.

Albert and Elizabeth Snite owned the Altow hill and offered free use of the area to the town. Their daughter Betsy took full advantage of the area. Bill Aldrich remembers her training at Altow in the warmer months. “Betsy ‘ran’ up and down Altow three times per day and to the very top, not the first knoll! After that, she jogged 3-5 miles and finished by doing the hill again!” In the winter, she skied every day. According to Jerry Hickson, Snite’s first Ford Sayre ski instructor, “She was about nine years old and quite eager to ski. Later, when she was in high school, she didn’t race in Ford Sayre races because she was too good, but trained with the Dartmouth ski team.” Betsy kept getting better. She competed in the 1956 Winter Olympics at the age of seventeen. Four years later she won the silver medal in women’s slalom in the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, California. She made the cover of Sports Illustrated and became the first Olympic medalist from Norwich, Vermont.

Ski Altow poster

Near Altow off of Hopson Road, a 25-meter ski jump was created in the 1950s by David Bradley and Omar Lacasse. It was called Sample’s Hill after the Dartmouth artist-in-residence, Paul Sample who owned the property and lived nearby. Buff McLaughry sped down Sample’s Hill many times as a boy. “The excitement of flying in the air as a kid was incredible,” said Buff. “Jumping was viewed as an extreme sport then. It was the X-Games of its day. Spectators flocked from all over to watch us sail through the air for jumps of even 50 feet. It was really cool.”

“I remember,” said Steven Bradley, son of David Bradley, “the road being lined with cars, and kids carrying long skis.” According to Steven, “The worst (part of jumping) was seeing the guy in front of you crash and come sliding out below in a heap. You never knew if there was some huge divot or a deep rut where you would be landing next.” Steven admitted that he wasn’t the best, but “There were a few local kids who could really lean out on their luck and, once they got a taste of it, were amazing on the big hills. Everyone got their start there.”

Among those who began their skiing and jumping career in Norwich was Jeff Hastings, who competed at the 1984 Olympic Games and finished fourth on the large hill, placing just 2/10ths of a point out of the medals. A neighbor of Hastings was another jumper, Mike Holland. He competed in the 1984 and 1988 Winter Olympics. In 1985 he held the world distance jumping record for 27 minutes before a Finnish jumper passed his mark by one meter. Mike’s brother Joe was the “leading U.S. Nordic combined skier in the late 1980s and early 1990s” and appeared in the 1988 and 1992 Winter Olympics. Not to be outdone, the youngest Holland, Jim, was a ski jumper in the 1992 and 1994 Winter Olympics. Felix McGrath, another Norwich native, was an alpine skier in the 1988 Olympics. Tim Tetreault, who was raised in Norwich, competed in the Nordic Combined in three Olympics during the 1990s. The list goes on and on. In all, Norwich has produced 11 Olympians, highlighted most recently by Hannah Kearney, who brought home a gold medal from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics where she won the women’s moguls event.

Altow rope tow

Articles in The Valley News and The New York Times and a new book, Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town’s Secret to Happiness and Excellence have recently appeared about Norwich and its abundance of world class winter athletes. The writers have searched for answers to the town’s success in winter sports. And the answers seem elusive. But if you follow the threads, the one thing the athletes have in common is the Ford Sayre program. Hannah Kearney started skiing when she was two and when she reached first grade enrolled in Ford Sayre program. Betsy Snite had a Ford Sayre coach at Altow, the Holland brothers soared at Sample’s Jump and Oak Hill under the watchful eye of David Bradley or another Ford Sayer instructor. Buff McLaughry, a jumping mentor in the Ford Sayer program for 23 years, coached Jim Holland. Whether they started at Altow or the Dartmouth Skiway, Sample’s Jump or Oak Hill, so many young people, whether they went on to be Olympic or recreational skiers, at one time had a volunteer Ford Sayre coach who made skiing exciting, and – most importantly – fun.

Drop by the Norwich Public Library in February to see the Norwich Historical Society’s exhibit on winter sports and the Olympics.

There is a black and white photograph of Norwich’s Main Street in 1940. It’s the view a driver would see heading out of town towards Hanover. Huge maple trees hang out over the road; by the sidewalks the grass is bushy and unmowed and there is only one parked car in sight. What was it like in the village of Norwich that day? In 1940, the Norwich Women’s Club assembled a detailed 103-page booklet entitled Know Your Town, whose purpose was to “evaluate the town’s social assets and liabilities… and to present a picture of contemporary life which shows the changes and trends in the community.” In its twelve chapters, the survey covered everything from community health programs to leisure time activities.

Not-so-long-ago ski school on Cemetery Hill, 1940

Norwich was 172 years old in 1940, and since the town was founded, its population had always been on the move, explained Carrie Barrett and Margrit Rosenstock-Huessy, surveyors of the town’s population trends. Chief among the emigrants would have been Norwich farmers. “How different the face of the earth must have looked in 1850! Wheatfields, oats, the apple orchards and sheep pastures compared with the monotony of our hayfields and cow pastures. Four-hundred-eighty-one horses (compared with 250 today) and 406 oxen (compared with 40).” In 1850, 376 men in Norwich called themselves farmers. In 1940, only 100 citizens held this occupation. Norwich had also seen its professional citizens move away. According to the 1850 census, there were 31 lawyers, doctors and teachers in Norwich, but by 1940 only 23 professors and instructors lived in the town. “But their center of interest now is mostly on the other side of the river…and they do not take part in the life of the community. Today,” they concluded, “Norwich is on the way from town to suburb.”

In the chapter on Norwich town government, Della Sargent MacAulay wrote “that to know your town is to understand better your state and national affairs.” And what better place to understand a Vermont village than at the town meeting. In 1939 Norwich, with the opening of Tracy Memorial Hall, welcomed a permanent home for community gatherings. It was a dream come true. Before Tracy Hall was constructed, the town meeting had been held in churches, meeting houses, the Norwich University and above Merrill’s Store in the Union Hall. Now the March gathering had a home that also provided a center for the town with a stage, auditorium, gymnasium and a well-equipped kitchen. MacAulay described the highlights of the 1940 town meeting. The town agreed to operate on Daylight Saving Time as Hanover did because, “the difference in time causes confusion especially in border towns.” Another article asked that the town give $100 for the Norwich Band’s free concerts. “Our voters from all over town drive to the village campus, sit in their cars, and relax for an hour on a summer evening, with a nickel bag of popcorn to munch, and enjoy the pleasure of listening to the band concert.” The town also discussed whether $350 should be given to the Norwich Fire District to cover expenses. Although the fire district was primarily responsible for fire protection, it could also “construct sewers and sidewalks and sprinkle and oil streets.” According to MacAulay, citizens discussed a “cooperative sewage disposal.” Hopefully, she wrote, “When action is taken that they will not employ the old unsanitary method of dumping sewage into our brooks to be carried to the river. Probably such practice will, in time, be forbidden by state authorities… and scientific septic tanks and drainage beds be required.”

Norwich Women’s Club in the early 1940s

In Our Educational Opportunities, Alberta Jacobson and Hazel Thorburn outlined the status of the Norwich schools. Of the six schools in town, all were rated superior except the Village School, which was rated standard. Fire protection was the main problem at the Village School. Two boilers were just below the main floor and the lowest grades with the smallest children had classes on this floor. If there were a fire there was the only one exit out the main door. “Some have suggested that the windows afford additional exits… but it would be a high jump for tiny tots… and in the panic and confusion of a fire, it is not safe to assume that older people will be on hand to pass these tots safely through the windows.” Mr. Kingsbury, the fire chief, suggested that a window on the ground floor be converted into a door. This he believed, “…would assure adequate protection to the little ones.”

Town School in 1941

School costs had “skyrocketed” in the years leading up to 1940, when education costs topped out at $18,000 annually – six times what it cost in 1900 – even though the student population remained the same. The cost of living had increased and “teachers’ salaries have gradually increased to $20 a week.” But the real problem was that the state spent “61.8% for highways and only 10% for educational purposes.” To rope in the school taxes, Norwich was gradually consolidating its schools. In 1905, there were thirteen rural schools. In 1940, there were only six.

Much of the survey concerned the town’s health and welfare. It reported that Norwich was blessed with wonderful local doctors who still made house calls. But a trend had started where many of its citizens were going to Mary Hitchcock Hospital when they were ill. For those on welfare, Norwich ‘pledged’ to cover the hospital costs. Citizens who might “be deprived of hospitalization because of lack of funds are accommodated through our ‘free beds,’ made possible by endowments from public-spirited Norwich donors.” The endowments covered between 150 and 175 days of care each year, and these patients were given “regulation ward care plus daily visits by a staff doctor.” The churches in 1940 also helped out those in need with Christmas baskets. Several groups made quilts for families “in need of warm bedding.” A “Mitten Fund” was established to see that every child in town had warm hands in the winter. In 1940, Norwich children were given 215 pairs of mittens. The description of the generosity of the town went on for many pages and was summed up with these words, “No matter how much we work through organization, nothing will ever replace the need for a great measure of much so called old fashioned kindness, friendliness, and neighborliness!”

The ‘New’ Tracy Hall in 1940

“Over its spidery roads, leading through valleys and climbing steep hillsides,” began Helen Southworth’s report on the town’s roads, “Norwich folks have traveled from the generation of vigorous frontiersmen to the effete descendants whose luxurious cars keep more and more to the broad valley highways.” The writer regretted that there were no more carriages rushing to the station and that old roads were, “…ruthlessly destroyed in the modern obsession for speed and still more speed.” Most of the town roads were kept open in the winter, but during spring mud season it was a different story. “In March,” she noted, “many an ancient horse and buggy is seen going serenely along the village streets while the owner’s car remains in his hilltop garage.” Southworth felt the corner at Church and Main Street near the school, “…is a traffic hazard, and in spite of improved signs, a blind turn to strangers.” To protect the school children, the entire 8th grade at the town school became members of the state run School Patrol System. Each patrol leader wore a white belt with the state safety patrol buckle, along with a sweater and cap donated by the American Legion. Patrol leaders were stationed at the white church across from the school, at Tracy Hall, and at Elm Street. “These are the most dangerous points on the home-to-school route, and patrol leaders stationed at these points protect the children at the confusing turn on Route 5 at the school house corner.”

By 1940, the business scene in Norwich was changing, wrote Mrs. Southworth in the section on Norwich Industries. There were 21 ‘businessmen’ in town, but Southworth noted that the service for “blacksmiths, and harness makers was falling off, while the garages flourished.” A few new ‘industries’ were beginning in 1940. A ski school was opened on Cemetery Hill with a portable tow run by a tractor. A ‘cozy cabin’ with a stove and lunch counter was built near the ski tow with high hopes for a snowy winter. Plans were also underway to construct sheds for a mink ranch to be built in the western part of Norwich. By the summer of 1941, “…it is expected that the sheds will be occupied by 3,000 mink.” Norwich was selected for the ranch because “mink food is manufactured near here and the weather is believed to be cold enough to assure pelts of high quality.”

“At the close of the day,” began Mrs. Southworth in the chapter on recreation, “when the town’s ledger has been balanced, when the town’s offices and shops are closed; the school bells are hushed and the mill-wheels have ceased turning, then our town people seek relaxation and recreation.” In 1940, there were a variety of free time choices. In Union Village there was a Young People’s Club that taught teenagers how to introduce speakers and run a meeting “according to parliamentary procedures.” In the same hamlet, Rev. Rand ran an “extremely successful arts and crafts class.” There were circulating libraries in Union Village and in Norwich. In winter there was the Dartmouth Winter Carnival, skiing, and skating on “the pond on the campus, prepared and maintained by the Firemen with some help from the children.” There was also the annual school sleigh ride for the children. “When the sleigh bells jingle, and the children ride by laughing and calling to each other, many an oldster experiences nostalgia for the days of cutters and proudly stepping horses.”

Church Street in 1940

“The village itself, 177 years after the first settler came is dignified and charming in spite of the rush of motor cars along Route 5,” proclaimed Mrs. Southworth at the conclusion of Know Your Town. “The pride in lawns and gardens is widespread. The number of unkempt and unsightly buildings is few. Even the stores and garages in most cases are in keeping with the village character.” Written in 1940, at the end of the Depression and on the eve of the United States’ entry into World War II, Know Your Town discussed the beauty of the town, how it cared for its poor and children, and how it coped with changes in transportation and technology. “It would be a tragedy,” she concluded, “to have some outside industry through its modern and progressive interests mar this age-old atmosphere of stability and leisure too rare today. When civic pride is strong, such an inheritance remains a delight to visitors and joy forever to those whose home is Norwich.”