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Waterford History & Heritage Proclamation
It's time to celebrate Waterford, Vermont!
Please come join us for a reading of Gov. Phil Scott's decree honoring the historic 'naming'
anniversary of Waterford. Residents successfully petitioned Montpelier
225 years ago to have their hometown's name changed from Littleton,
finally ending a pre-Revolutionary era when Vermont lands were fought
over by the provinces of New Hampshire and New York. Anniversary cake
will be served. A 2022 calendar of history-related programs with
community partners will be distributed. Brief election of WHS officers
follows the celebration. Friends, neighbors, descendants and history
fans warmly invited. Masks required.
When:
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
4:30pm to 6:30pm
(UTC-05:00) America/New York
Where:
Davies Memorial Library, Lower Waterford
Organizer: Waterford Historical Society
pikeprose@gmail.com
The Naming of Waterford
By
Eugenia Powers
Typed
and edited February 2022 by Betsy Carpenter
The
area now known as Waterford was chartered under the name of Littleton on
November 8, 1780, to Benjamin Whipple and his associates. This charter was
issued by the Independent Republic of Vermont and signed by its governor,
Thomas Chittenden.
The
incorporation of Waterford as Littleton, Vermont, took place in 1791, after
Vermont became the 14th state in the Union, and the town kept this
name until 1797. We know this for a fact because two years later, on May 6,
1793, town government was organized at the first town meeting--held at the home
of Nehemiah Hadley who lived near the river south of Lower Waterford Village--and
the records of this meeting, as well as other meetings occurring over the next
four years, are described as taking place in “Littleton, Vermont.”
But
in March 1797, by an act of Legislature, the town was re-named Waterford. The question
of why the town’s name was changed to Waterford specifically may never be fully
answered. But there can no doubt as to the reason for making the change. Across
the Connecticut lay Littleton, New Hampshire, and the possibility of confusion is
almost unlimited in situations where towns of the same name exist so close to
each other. So the residents of Littleton, Vermont, decided to take care of the
situation. In a town meeting held in the old log meetinghouse on the river on
September 6, 1796, they voted to petition the legislature “to alter the name of
Littleton to Caledonia.”
The
meeting that took this action was really two meetings—a town meeting and a freeman’s
meeting. There are separate warnings for the two meetings in the Town
Proceedings book, but the dates are the same. This was the third town meeting
held that year. Most of the business of the three meetings was about schools
and school districts. The action in the Freeman’s meeting was the election of
John Grow, Esquire, to represent the town at the session of the Vermont
Assembly which was meeting in October. At that time, John Grow was also Town
Clerk and one of the selectmen. He had represented the town in 1795 and was
re-elected in 1796, 1797 and 1798.
John
Grow probably wrote the petition and carried it to the Legislature, which met
in Rutland that session. Six weeks after the town vote, the State Papers of
Vermont, Volume X, page 390, shows a petition from the town of Littleton
requesting that the name be changed, not “to Caledonia,” but “to Caledonia or
Waterford.” This was signed by all three selectmen—John Grow, Levi Goss and
Daniel Pike. The date of the journal entry is October 19, 1796. Then in the Laws
of Vermont for 1796-1799 on page 124, we find that the name was changed to
Waterford on March 9, 1797.
When
in this process did Waterford join Caledonia as a top candidate for the town’s new
name, and why did Waterford finally prevail? Legislative reports do not contain
the details of why things are done. Town records do not typically contain the
arguments leading to a decision. Over the years, though, at least a couple of possible
explanations have been explored by authors, including Esther Munroe Swift in her
Vermont Place-Names: Footprints of History and C.E. Harris in his A
Vermont Village.
The
most obvious explanation—Waterford was so named because there were places in town
where the Connecticut could be forded—may be too simple. Granted, there were
spots in town where one could ford the river, but they were dangerous
crossings. One such place was called the Basin. This was upstream from the
upper village and is the spot where the Pikes crossed when they came to town.
Traditionally, they held onto the tails of their oxen to save themselves in the
rough water in case they slipped on the rocky river bottom. Perhaps Daniel Pike
advocated for the name Waterford because he wished to commemorate this event.
The
other place was below the upper village where a sandbar ran part way across the
river. This spot was a reasonably good ferry site, but too deep really for a
ford, at least part of the way across. Further, the sandbar could shift
treacherously with the current.
It’s
worth noting that the assertion of a ford existing at Lower Waterford is
totally false. Any crossings made there were done after the dam at Gilman was
constructed. Then it could be crossed on foot in the summer on a Monday. The
water was held back at Gilman on summer weekends for use during the following
week.
Another
theory about the origin of the Waterford name is that the town’s earliest settlers
had Irish roots and named it after Waterford in the southeast of Ireland. The
place-name Waterford is, indeed, an old one, existing in England as well as
Ireland and brought to this country by early settlers. But what do we know
about the town’s earliest settlers? The names of the people living in
Waterford, Vermont, as listed in the first census were Adams, Brown, Felton
(which is probably Felch misspelled, since it is known that the Felch family
was here at the time), Knoulton, Morgan, Pike, Potter, Sylvester and Wood.* They
were all representatives of families that had lived elsewhere in New England
before coming to Vermont—and, in some cases, elsewhere in Vermont.
These
would seem to be a primarily Anglo-Saxon group, although some may have been Scots
or English people who came to America by way of Ireland. In the course of the
British oppression of Ireland, both English and Scots were encouraged to move
to Ireland, as part of a policy to subdue the Irish rebels. But few of the
people who migrated there were satisfied with conditions, and many moved on to
America.
There
is another matter of interest which might have a bearing on the selection of
the Waterford name. Across the river from Hanover, N.H., were two
confusingly-named towns – adjacent and both named for English towns. One of
these, which contains the village of White River Junction, is still called
Hartford. The town just south of it was originally named Hertford. The spelling
and pronunciation of the two names was so much alike that Hertford petitioned
the Vermont Assembly for a change of name.
The
name was changed to Waterford by an act that was “read and concurred” on
Saturday, June 15, 1782, and recorded in Governor and Council, Volume 2,
page 156. But then on page 157 there is reconsideration of “the act mentioned
in yesterday’s journal” and it was proposed to “alter the name of Waterford to
Hartland.” So, as the Vermont History News reported in its May-June,
1980 issue, Hertford became Waterford for a weekend and then became Hartland,
the name the town still bears.
The
possible relevance of this legislative action to the re-naming of Littleton,
Vermont, lies in the fact that several of its early residents were people who
had lived in Hartland. The reconsideration of the name was the work of a Paul
Spooner, a counsellor who lived in Hartland. We don’t know if there was a local
controversy over the town’s new name, but perhaps those who moved to Littleton,
Vermont, were among those who wanted Hertford called Waterford.
Silas
Davison was one of these who came to Littleton, Vermont by way of
Hertford/Waterford/Hartland, and John Grow’s wife, Deborah Davison, was the
daughter of Paul Davison by his third marriage. Silas Davison was the grandson
of Paul, his father being Daniel Davison, son of Paul by his first wife. So,
John Grow may have had family influences operating on him when he wrote the
petition requesting the name change to Caledonia or Waterford instead of just
Caledonia. What the relationship was between the Spooner and Davison families
is not known.
So,
to the often cited but unproved reasons for why the town was named Waterford,
we can add a third possible reason—also unproved. One day, perhaps with further
research, we’ll know for sure.
