 |
| 1858 map |
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment