Royalton

If it be necessary to startle the reader into an appreciation of Vermont's place in education, I can bring up the fact that the state has contributed two important factors--that it "invented" the professionally prepared teacher and the school blackboard. What school could operate today without such essentials?...Charles Edward Crane


I drove into Royalton last week (South Royalton, strictly speaking, which along with North Royalton and Royalton Village make up the town of Royalton, in true confusing Vermont fashion) on my meandering way home from an errand. "I have to get that blog going again!", I remonstrated to myself as I was driving the byways of my beautiful state, and myself answered, "Yes, get on with it!"--which I am happy to be now doing.

In looking up the history of Royalton, I came on this information: "The Vermont Charter reserved five lots of land: one each to support a seminary or college, a County Grammer School, the settlement of a Minister of the Gospel, churches in town, and town schools...58 Proprietors had to plant and cultivate five acres of land and construct a house of at least Eighteen feet square on each share of land or the land would revert to the Freemen of the State..it also reserved, for the benefit of the state, all pine timber suitable for a navy."

So I wonder what the patriotic Americans of today, who fight every tax and government decree, think about this town charter of our founding fathers? It certainly put the good of the many above the profit of the few. Something to ponder upon, no?

Also worth pondering is South Royalton's interesting Queen Anne architecture, and spacious town green with gazebo, memorial arch, and Civil War soldier. Fronting the green is a substantial brick business block, where a hungry wayfarer or peckish law student can find an ice cream parlor, bar and grill, or natural foods coop.

South Royalton is the only town in Vermont that needs to cater to the sensitive stomachs of law students, as it's the only town with a law school. Fittingly for our state, Vermont Law School is ranked as having the best environmental law program in the country.

South Royalton also has a very nice train station, and Amtrak's Vermonter still runs by. VLS students also run by the train station on their way to happy hour at the Crossroads Bar and Grill (as one law student wrote on the bar's website, "the scar on my left knee from tripping over the train tracks to get to your doors will forever remind me of all the good, the bad, the ugly times had therein...")



I need to get back to Royalton soon, both to have a beer at the Crossroads, and to take a look at the other two parts of town. But if I am going to keep this blog going, I need to move on up Route 14 while I still have some gas in my tank, and some light in the Vermont summer sky...

Barnard

You here in Vermont have a priceless heritage-old houses that must not be torn down, and beauty that must not be defiled, roads that must not be cluttered with billboards and hot-dog stands. You are guardians of this priceless heritage...Charles Edward Crane quoting Sinclair Lewis's address to the Barnard rotary club


From Bethel I drove up and down North Road's hills to the center of Barnard, two graceful churches and a forthright general store. I perused these appreciatively from the Route 12 intersection, and then continued south down the Stage Road towards Woodstock.


I didn't know it at the time, but my dirt-covered Toyota had driven past the pristine 300 acres of Twin Farms, a luxury resort that must cater to that 10% of our population holding 70% of our national wealth, since accommodations range up to $3,000. a night. What tickles my fancy is that this property used to belong to leftist critic of the bourgeoisie (remember those novels "Babbitt", "Dodsworth", "Main Street", and "It Can't Happen Here"?) Sinclair Lewis, and his wife, anti-fascist journalist Dorothy Thompson--and you can sleep in "Red's Room" (Nobel Laureate Sinclair's bedroom) for $1,300. a night. The irony is gratis.


I'm glad I didn't find out about Twin Farms until later, as my populist rant would have distracted from enjoying the beauty of Stage Road in twilight.

Barnard facts and figures

Bethel

"Diversity" has been Vermont's watchword, and it has saved the state from the worst of the depressions which more intensified industry has known. We have made almost everything in Vermont, from counterfeit money to clothes-pins and coffins...Charles Edward Crane


I've been driving past Bethel for years, turning left at this corner on my way from Interstate 89 to Rutland and points south. I always look up and appreciate this grain elevator planted so comfortably in the backyard of the town's main residential street--the scene reminds me of the WPA-style motifs of my father's paintings from his days as an artist and labor organizer during the Depression. Happily, rather than being an empty 1930's relic, this structure now houses the organic livestock grain supplier Green Mountain Feeds.


Last time I drove into Bethel, rather than take my usual turn south on Route 107 I headed up narrow Main Street to see what the town had to offer a visitor, especially in the way of food. The "Cockadoodle Pizza Cafe" beckoned me inside and didn't disappoint, offering a very respectable Greek slice (feta and spinach) served in an idiosyncratically pleasant interior, complete with wifi access and an interesting painting display on cheerful yellow walls (so much better than the depressing yellow arches I would have found in Rutland!)


Refreshed, I continued up Main Street in search of Bethel Mills Lumber, a very successful local enterprise with an interesting history. Founded during the Revolutionary War, Bethel Mills ground corn and sawed timber morning and night to meet the demands of new settlers. The business was operated by the same family for the next 100 years, then wiped out by the great flood of 1927, and rebuilt from the ground up as soon as the waters receded.

When the Great Depression hit, Bethel Mills struggled to keep its doors open. And then a twist of fate: a man with family in tow shows up looking for a job and is hired as a salesman; a week later the boss dies of a heart attack, and the new guy convinces the boss's widow to give him a chance managing the company rather than shut it down. She did, and together they rebuilt the business. And here's a typical Vermont happy ending to this entrepreneurial fairy tale: the new owner, unable to reach an agreement with the local power company over rates, decides to build his own hydroelectric plant on the river next to the mill. Though ridiculed by both his fellow townspeople and the utility, he perseveres and a few years later figures out how to produce enough electricity to both run the mill and sell back the extra juice to the power company--a satisfying arrangement that continues to this day.

Bethel facts and figures