Duxbury,
Vermont
On June 7, 1763, the area now known as
Duxbury, Vermont, was chartered in the name of King George III by Governor Benning
Wentworth of New Hampshire. Sixty-five persons, one of whom was a woman, were named
proprietors in that charter. None ever visited Duxbury; they were all land speculators.
However, 1763 was a difficult year to attract settlers to a new township. Although the
French and Indian War had just ended, neighboring New York had laid claim to Duxbury and
the other "New Hampshire grants." In addition, serious trouble was brewing
between England and her increasingly rebellious American colonies.
So it wasn't until 1786, twenty-three years after the charter was granted, that Walter
Avery and Stephen Tilden settled in Duxbury. By 1790, when the first U.S. Census was
taken, Duxbury had 39 inhabitants. Ten years later the census of 1800 counted a population
of 153, 77 of whom were less than sixteen years old. From this, one may infer that the
adults in the town at that time were relatively young and strong.
In 1791, Vermont became the fourteenth state to join the Union, and Duxbury recorded its
first birth, that of Lucy Bryant. In March of 1792 the first Town Meeting, held at the
home of Walter Avery, elected Benjamin Davis as its representative to the Legislature.
The early settlers came to Duxbury from the "lower colonies" of Connecticut and
Massachusetts as well as from New Hampshire. Some were younger sons who migrated northward
because there was no family land left for them to inherit. Some had fought in the
Revolutionary War and had seen the land along the Onion River (as the Winooski was then
called) and had liked the look of it. Some came because the soil in the "lower
colonies" was already wearing out. And some must have come for the sheer adventure of
it.
Whatever their reasons for moving to a virgin land, they found a bleak situation: hilly,
stony land that had to be cleared, no home, no crops, a short growing season, none of the
comforts of "back home." There were even property disputes arising from the fact
that surveyors were unaware of the deviation of magnetic north from true north. As a
result, several surveys, the last one in 1798, had to be made to sort things out.
Life was hard and labor-filled. Illnesses were treated at home with plants and roots as
medicine; deaths were frequent from accident, disease and primitive methods of treatment.
Food, too, had to be produced at home, whether hunted, fished or grown on the limited
space cleared of trees. Footwear was made from skins, though a precious pair of shoes
might have been brought from "home." One settler arrived in the Dowsville
section of Duxbury in the late fall with no boots at all; to cut firewood in the snow, he
tied wood chips to his feet.
Though the forests were at first a burden, they proved to be of untold value to Duxbury's
early settlers. The woods provided them with logs for their cabins, with wood for their
dishes, furniture and tools, and with ashes for fertilizer. Ashes also provided the first
cash crop for the early settlers in the form of potash, which was used in the manufacture
of soap, gunpowder, and bleach. Firewood also came from the forest, as did the settlers'
only sweetening: honey from the hives of wild bees and maple sugar. Wild animals abounded
and were easily trapped or hunted, providing such essentials as food, blankets, rugs and
clothing.
As more land was cleared, flax could be raised for clothing, and sheep could be brought in
for wool and food. It was a gala day when a cow could be added to the "farm" and
even more so when a yoke of oxen could relieve some of the man's work.
From its beginnings, Duxbury was divided by its topography into small communities. Almost
without exception, cemeteries and schools mark the sites of these hamlets. The nearby
cemetery was essential since coffins were carried by family or friends to the grave. Often
those who died of a contagious disease were buried at night so as not to cause panic among
the neighbors. The schoolhouse in each little community served as learning center, a place
of entertainment, and the site of church services. The early schools were run by the
residents of each community, not by the town. By 1850 there were nine school districts,
each having its own school with a "necessary" out back. The teacher had probably
completed only the eighth grade herself and might have been only slightly older than some
of the "big boys" she was supposed to teach. There were few frills in these
schools; as late as 1905 the total cost of operating each district school was less than
$236.50 per year!
Throughout the nineteenth century the forest continued to play a central role in the life
of Duxbury as the phrase "summer farmer, winter woodsman" described the life
most men lived. Two forest products of importance were charcoal and bark. Charcoal was
produced by slowly and carefully burning stacks of small logs; the resulting charcoal was
then sold to blacksmiths and foundries in Waterbury. Bark, too, was taken to Waterbury,
where it was processed for tanning leather and then sent to the shoe factories in
Massachusetts. By 1858 at least seven water-powered sawmills were in operation, turning
out planed lumber, shingles and clapboards. Still later, sawmills produced barrel staves,
wooden boxes, chair stock and dimension lumber. At one time, over fifty workers were
employed in Duxbury sawmills, with many more working in the woods to supply the logs.
Today, only two active sawmills are left in town.
For a few decades after 1820 Vermont was the largest sheep-raising state in the country
and had more than 100 woolen mills in operation. Increasing competition from the western
states and the repeal of the tariff on imported wool, however, led Vermont farmers to
switch to dairy farming. The invention of the iron plowshare and other farm implements
made a farmer's life less difficult. The railroad which came through Waterbury in 1849
meant that products from Duxbury farms could be quickly and economically shipped to
markets in Boston or even New York. (Before the railroad came, drovers made the long trip
to Boston, driving the farmers' cows, turkeys and pigs before them.) In 1850, one farmer
made 1,000 pounds of cheese, the total Duxbury yield being over two tons! Over 19 tons of
butter were made in Duxbury farmhouses that year, both the butter and the cheese being
mainly Boston-bound, though some was used locally for barter.
The years 1850-1860 marked a high point for the town of Duxbury; the 1860 population of
one thousand residents will not be reached again until the 1990's. There was a variety of
reasons for the decline of towns like Duxbury. Most important, perhaps, was the Homestead
Act of 1862, which granted 160 fertile acres in the Midwest to anyone who would homestead
for a certain number of years. Veterans returning from the Civil War were especially
attracted to the generous provisions of the Homestead Act and often encouraged relatives
and former neighbors to join them in Iowa or Kansas. Other factors that contributed to the
decline of small New England towns were the thin and worn-out soils on the hill farms, as
well as more opportunities to work for wages in the larger towns and cities, which were
increasingly viewed as offering an easier and more "modern" style of life.
Duxbury has had its share of natural disasters as well. There have been droughts and
blights and the year 1816, known as "eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death," when
there was a hard freeze every month of the year, causing great suffering. Easily the worst
disaster within our memories was the 1927 flood, which swept away many homes in Duxbury
Corner and along River Road, sawmills and railroad tracks, and every bridge in town (as
well as both bridges from Duxbury into Waterbury). Twenty lives were lost in Duxbury and
Waterbury Village. For some time after the flood, a hastily-built flat-bottomed barge
ferrying passengers across the Winooski near Smith's Store was our only link to the
outside world.
The Great Depression in the 1930's is still remembered as a time when jobs were
practically nil, markets were non-existent, and there was little or no money for clothing,
seeds or the bare necessities. "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do
without" describes these hard years. Many abandoned hill farms in Duxbury were bought
at this time by the Ward Lumber Company of Moretown, which converted the former fields to
pine or spruce plantations, leaving only stone walls and lilac bushes to mark the former
farms but providing badly-needed tax revenues and job opportunities.
In 1950 the population of Duxbury hit a low of 489, and as late as 1970 our population was
still less than it had been in 1920. Nonetheless, during the twenty years from 1950 to
1970 changes took place which shaped the modern history of our town. First of all, one by
one the district elementary schools were closed and their few remaining students were
transported to the school at Duxbury Corner. In a similar manner, students who in earlier
years would have attended high schools in Waterbury, Waitsfield, Montpelier or Northfield
were consolidated at Harwood Union High School, built in South Duxbury in 1966. Route 100
from South Duxbury to Duxbury Corner was converted from a dirt road to a paved state
highway in 1961, making the trip "over the hill" to Waterbury possible even in
mud season. The construction of Interstate 89 increased job and educational opportunities
for people living in Duxbury as even Burlington or White River Junction came within
commuting range. The final change during this period was the appearance of seasonal
residents: teachers and ministers who fixed up old farmhouses on the back roads and so
preserved an important part of our architectural heritage; skiers, attracted to the nearby
ski areas in Stowe and the Mad River Valley; and retired people, who enjoy their summers
in Vermont and winters in a warmer climate.
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