12/19/08

Peacham

I once lived in a flat, newly-built suburban area in another state, where the effort to achieve variety had such a modern touch that it resulted largely in uniformity. It lacked wholly the atmosphere which I feel--and generally feel an affection for--in Vermont...Charles Edward Crane


In my last post I went on for a bit about "pretty" being an inadequate and overused word for describing the Vermont landscape, but I have to say that Peacham is pretty. A row of imposingly formal houses gives its Main Street a genteel air, and the town has historically been a vacation spot for "quality" folks in government and academia. Peacham was also the childhood home of the ungenteel anti-slavery crusader Thaddeus Stevens, on the U.S. Congress's all time honor roll for angry, radical, powerful and principled members.

Peacham sits up high, it's fancy houses poised on a long hill fronted by stone walls. In fact, the town is situated on the ridge that divides Vermont into two watersheds, one side draining into the Connecticut River and the other towards Lake Champlain.


The Bayley-Hazen Road (built during the Revolution to move Benedict Arnold's troops north for an assault on Canada, but more successfully utilized in getting settlers to the Northeast Kingdom) runs lengthwise through the village. I always feel like it's an historical adventure to steer down that narrow, rolling route from West Danville towards Groton.

Peacham facts and figures

8 comments:

  1. If Lord of the Rings were set in Vermont, this could well be the journey's starting point! A beckoning road if ever there was one.

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  2. That's right, Clair. All those British children's books (Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh, Swallows and Amazons, Narnia series) that I read and reread as a kid must have fed my taste for the domesticated New England landscape. I guess if I'd loved Jack London, I'd have ended up in Wasilla.

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  3. Now there's a thought! You and Sarah Palin. Boggles the mind.

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  4. Susan,
    Love the quality of light in those paintings.
    Particularly, this time of year and you have it
    right!

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  5. I live in the town where this was drawn. It is called Peacham, and as good as this drawing is, it just doesn't do this town justice. There is much more that it has to offer, and there are better veiws than this. But I really do think it is a good picture.

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  6. Yes, the trouble is that there is so much to see in our Vermont towns, and I never have enough time!

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  7. ..this is the wonderful poem...

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