Crowded Country Calendars!

Living in rural Vermont means there are always more things to do than there's time for! And I don't just mean weeding the garden or clearing out the garage.

This weekend, history and music fans have the very unusual opportunity to hear music from the Waterford, Vermont, family of Euclid Williams, recreated by contemporary folk and bluegrass band UnCommon Folk, on Saturday June 18 at 6:30 at the Lower Waterford Community Church (across from the Rabbit Hill Inn, in Waterford, Vermont) -- see preceding post.

And for the rest of the weekend, why not visit the Vermont History Expo in Tunbridge, Vermont? This stunning exposition of all things historical, intriguing, and fun is a family event that takes place once every two years. I'll be there with a group of fellow Vermont authors, and I'll be presenting at 4 pm on Saturday "Myth, Legend, and Wild Truths of 15-Mile-Falls" -- which is of course the section of the Connecticut River that includes the Moore Dam reservoir at Waterford today.

Here's the handout for my talk, so you can get a bit of the flavor! Hope to see you at the Expo.

TRUE OR FALSE?

In 1840, it was impossible to take a boat up the last one-third of Vermont’s Connecticut River.  TRUE   FALSE

Fifteen Mile Falls was a killer stretch of the Connecticut River, and “spiked boots” tied to trees at the edge proved it. TRUE FALSE

Nobody ever rode a log through Fifteen Mile Falls and survived to tell the tale. TRUE   FALSE

Loggers ate the best food on the river! TRUE  FALSE

George Van Dyke was a wicked, stingy man who stripped the boots from his own loggers’ feet after the log drive. TRUE  FALSE

George Van Dyke’s death caused the end of the Connecticut River logging days. TRUE  FALSE

To buy land along Fifteen Mile Falls, the power company threatened residents to make them sell out.  TRUE  FALSE

There are bodies of dead men in the cement foundations of Comerford Dam on Fifteen Mile Falls. TRUE  FALSE

The men who built the Comerford Dam wooed away the “local girls” and caused fights with local men. TRUE  FALSE

If you go boating behind the Comerford Dam, you can look into the water and see the remains of the drowned town. TRUE  FALSE

Comerford Dam: Another Early Postcard View

Hard to tell whether the photo was gently enhanced to emphasize the European "Romantic" appearance of the Comerford dam in this postcard, probably printed in the 1930s.

Remembering Upper Waterford: UNDERWATER by Rosalie Vear

A memoir of life in Upper Waterford by Rosalie Vear was posted in 2015 at the site for "Memoir Writing at Good Living Senior Center." It's vanished now, but with Mrs. Vear's permission, we have posted pages from her finished book. Click HERE to read them.

Fifteen Mile Falls and Waterford's Dams: A Fragile but Essential Document

The meeting of the Waterford History group at the Davies Memorial Library on Wed. Aug. 27 (6:30 pm) will focus on how to store and organize the historically interesting items that people bring to the library or keep at home. An example of what we might consider, with our guests Garret Nelson (library director, Lyndon State College) and Marjorie Strong (librarian, Vermont Historical Society) is this four-page document printed on a single sheet of very fragile paper, dating to the years when Comerford Dam was being built. It includes the now-rare map of the "construction camp" and many of the details bring fresh perspective -- like the stables!

The scans shown here were made on a flat-bed scanner, with enormous care, as the document is "tender" at the fold and can't take much handling. How can we best preserve and protect it as information, and as the fragile item it has become?

Hope you'll join the discussion!

Fifteen-Mile Falls and Comerford Dam: Then and Now

The Waterford History group met Matt Lewis at the TransCanada garage parking lot on the Comerford Dam Road (the Barnet end of Lower Waterford Road) this morning to learn about uses of the area during the construction of the famous Connecticut River dam, starting in 1928 and set into action (by President Hoover, via remote switch) in September 1930.

The construction project required its own rail spur from East Barnet to the dam, and two thousand people or more -- of whom about 1700 lived at the construction site during those years -- took part in building the dam. For a few months, it was actually the largest power-generating dam in the United States (until the Hoover Dam went online). Our meeting and walk, planned and supported by Matt with plenty of maps, blueprint copies, and 1930s documents, reviewed where the "camp" of workers had stood.

Thanks to Matt's planning, we also were able to visit and enter the last standing cabin from those days (now a storage shed and home to many bats). Matt pointed out where the concrete works had been, as well as the original site of the high-voltage service segment of the dam that is now located across the river in New Hampshire. He also noted for us the old road toward the now-water-covered Waterford hamlet of Copenhagen; group members who live in the Waterford Springs part of town were already somewhat familiar with this route. Craig B. shared a photo of the Copenhagen district schoolhouse; Dr. C. E. Harris's history of town also says there was a sawmill in Copenhagen.

Other topics during and after the hike included when the planning for the dams that would cover Fifteen-Mile Falls began. Here is a snippet from Electrical World, October 21, 1909 (p. 1009):

LITTLETON, N. H.—Carl A. Ross, promoter of the power project at Fifteen-Mile Falls, on the Connecticut River, is reported to have sold his interests to Massachusetts capitalists, who are already making plans for the development of three large power plants, by which it is estimated that about 5000 hp would be generated. It is understood that work will commence on the plant next spring. Carl A. Ross will have charge of the project.

Plans for upcoming Waterford History meetings: August, guest speakers Garret Nelson (Lyndon State College library director) and Marjorie Strong (Vermont Historical Society librarian). September, pulling together our archives; there are also plans for a display of pre-archaeology materials at the library at the end of September.  October, geology of the region, with possible guest geologist. November-January, winter break. February, consolidating information about Copenhagen.

Comerford Dam Construction, Waterford, Vermont, and Adjacent Towns, Circa 1930

Yes, we've talked about Comerford Dam before in the Waterford History group -- but who can resist wanting to know more about this amazing structure and the complicated project that built it? We'll talk more about these photos in the 2014 meetings of our group, and look at a possible new project: mapping and walking the existing trails and old roads that reveal the dam's construction process.

Meanwhile, on the agenda for Wed. Oct. 23 and for our November meeting: Waterford's own farm-to-table project (for an event next summer!); a report from Girl Scout Laura Benoit on her Waterford cemeteries Silver Award project; and more!