The Blodgett Family of Waterford: Some Branches of the Tree, with the Farm Location

A granddaughter of Alena Dorothy Blodgett sent an inquiry to the Waterford Historical Society last week via its Facebook page. So here are some notes on the Blodgett family, starting with material from Hamilton Child's 1887 Gazetteer of Caledonia and Essex Counties, Vt.:

Ephraim Blodgett, born in New Hampshire, in 1815, came here at the age of twenty-one years, and married Louisa Kidder. His four sons and two daughters were as follows: Ephraim A., Nelson V. who died in the army, Volney B. and Austin E., both of this town, Louisa M. (Mrs. J. M. Gannett), and Almira F. (Mrs. Fred Blodgett), of this town. Ephraim A. married Martha, daughter of Philip and Sarah (Winslow) Thomas, in 1872, and has two sons, Royal E. and Harley E. Mr. Blodgett is a farmer, and resides on road 40.

Today the Blodgett Farm Road connects Suitor Road to Duck Pond Road. There is a mention of the Blodgett barn here, indicating that it was built by a member of the town's noted barn design family, Frank C. Bullock.

Note the mention of Ephraim's son Volney B. [Brown] Blodgett. Here is a basic sequence of some family members:

Ephraim Blodgett (b. 1815)

Volney Brown Blodgett, Adell Maria Blodgett

Elbert Herman Blodgett (15 Sept 1853-27 May 1957), Bessie Adams Blodgett

Alena Dorothy Blodgett, grandmother of the person asking for information.

The Adams family (see Bessie, above) is also significant in Waterford history, and the sequence leading to Bessie is:

James and Submit Adams (perhaps Waterford's earliest settlers)

Charles Adams 1773-1845, Rebecca Morgan 1778-1858

Jonathan Adams 1811-1894, Roxana Ladd 1814-1881 [Roxana was the daughter of Moses Ladd 1791-1879 and Hannah Carr 1795-1890; Moses was the son of Thing Ladd 1762-1846 and Elizabeth Jimson 1764-1812]

Jonathan Adams 1840-1919 (bur. Grove Cem.), Elizabeth A. Babcock 1841-1916

Bessie Adams Blodgett (bur. at Passumpsic Cemetery in Waterford)

Going back to the original paragraph from Child's Gazetteer, let's follow Ephraim's son Ephraim A. (Alonzo):

Ephraim Alonzo Blodgett 1845-1912, Martha J. Thomas 1848-1923

Carl Henry Blodgett 1886-1947, mar. 1 Ada Mar Potter 1884-1914, mar. 2 Ona Ardelle Goss 1887-1947

Warren Blodgett 1924-2016, Virginia Larrabee

Some current residents of Waterford will have known Warren Blodgett. Here is his obituary, provided by NEK Genealogy:

 Now, backtracking to the farm: In 1980 Allan Hodgdon included in the Vermont Historic Site and Structures Survey, at number 0316-19, what he called the Blodgett-Farrand Farm. He wrote, "The former Blodgett farm, also known as Valley Farm, was settled around 1815 by Ephraim Blodgett. The farm includes an early Cape Cod style house, a small barn, and a large Dutch type barn. In 1887 the Blodgett farm included 200 sugar trees, 7 cows, 20 sheep, 8 head of young stock, and 150 acres of land. The farm was inherited by Volney B. Blodgett, son of Ephraim and Louisa Kidder Blodgett." He listed the farm name in 1980 as the Carlton Farrand Farm. Here is Mr. Hodgdon's sketch of the farm location; "State Highway #3" is today's Duck Pond Road.

 

Daniels Family Photo Around 1898, at the Family Farm in Waterford, from Vivian Daniels Davis

Some identification, thanks to Vivian Daniels Davis, who shared this wonderful photo with the Waterford Historical Society last week:

Grandpa Daniels has his arm on the horse, my dad Ben Daniels sitting on the wheel, Uncle Carl Daniels in the middle holding the reins, my aunt Bertha Daniels on the end (right), and Grammie the first lady on the left.

(Click on the photo to see a larger version.)

To learn more about Vivian's years growing up on the farm, check out her recent interview on the WHS YouTube channel: click here.

Thank you, Vivian!

"You Never Know What You'll Discover": Today's Research Adventure

Benton, Richardson, Turek home ... photo courtesy of Dotti Turek

You may already know the house that Samuel Slade Benton built with his wife Esther, at the T where the Simpson Brook Road and the Daniels Farm Road meet. I've spent a lot of time this month seeking evidence for each of the small details that add up to a good story of the house and farm, and drafting an article on it for July publication.

But the most curious moment in the research happened this afternoon, as I was looking for the connection between mid-1800s owner Stephen Richardson and 1900s resident and eventual owner Clarence Simpson. (It turned out that Clarence was Stephen's great-grandson.) While I was searching, I found a transcript of the 1860 Census at Stephen Richardson's family home. At the time, Stephen was 37 years old, and the household included a 17-year-old farm helper named "Louie Packard" -- at least, that's what the Census transcription said.

Packard. Hmm. Noted architect Lambert Packard (1832-1906), who designed so many of St. Johnsbury's cultural facilities, as well as the classic original Fairbanks Scale structures, lived in Waterford during his childhood. (His mother was a Hastings from Waterford.) Could there be a connection to Louie? A cousin, maybe??

I downloaded a copy of the original hand-written Census page, and I checked Lambert Packard's family tree. No Louie, no Louis, no Lewis. Instead, I found a list of the architect's siblings: Charles born in 1836, Marshal born in 1839, Loren born in 1843, and Alonza born in 1845.

Bingo! Loren Packard, a younger brother of the architect, was 17 years old when the 1860 Census was taken. Back we go to the handwritten Census sheet, and sure enough, whoever transcribed it thought a dot of ink on the page meant there was an "i" in the name ... which was actually Loren.

So there we have it, one more small detail, established and worth thinking about: In 1860, Lambert Packard's younger brother Loren was living as a teenage "hired man" on the farm founded by the Benton family and owned at that time by Stephen Richardson.

Of course, the research never quite ends, because the next question is, whatever became of Loren? It appears that at age 19, he enlisted to fight for the Union in the Civil War ... the wonderful website resource "Vermont in the Civil War" notes that he later became a "master car maker" for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, and later lived (and passed away) near Albany, New York.  There are some inconsistencies in the listing (click here to see), which could lead me to more research -- but not today!

An Upper Waterford Home and Family at "Trout Brook Farm"

Postcards sent and treasured can offer unexpected insight into families and their lives in the past 150 years. It was a delight yesterday to find this card, which must have been included inside an envelope, since it had no address or postmark. It is a Velox postcard, according to postcard expert Dave Kanell, who says the card was thus printed between 1907 and 1914. On the back in browned ink, in neat but not fussy script, it says "Compliments of / S/ F. Cutting / Trout Brook Farm / Waterford Vt."

S. F. Cutting was Stillman Franklin Cutting, a longtime resident of Upper Waterford. He was born in Concord, VT, on September 17, 1846, to parents Franklin H. Cutting and Prudence Isham Cutting. In 1910 he served as a member of the Vermont House of Representatives.

It's poignant to know this homestead vanished with the construction of the Connecticut River hydro dams. Mr. Cutting would have seen Comerford Dam built (1930-31), but he died in 1940, before the Moore Dam's reservoir would fill the scraped-bare landscape where his home once stood. His death was recorded in Gilman, Vermont, but he is buried at Riverside Cemetery in Waterford.

An extra pleasure in exploring Mr. Cutting's life in Waterford was discovering his Valentine's Day 1841 marriage to Martha Woodward Carpenter, daughter of Amos Bugbee Carpenter -- some of whose family letters, perhaps due to his role as West Waterford postmaster, have also survived the years. In fact, we have a note that Martha, nicknamed May, sent as a child to her brother in college at Dartmouth, which can be seen here.