Windsor County Court January 15

Cameron Lackey, DOB 7/18/90 pled not guilty to a charge of unlawful mischief of $250 or less on November 17 in Ludlow

Bruce Wlls, DOB 9/1/94 pled not guilty to a charge of taking big game by illegal means on December 20 in Springfield

Casey Thayer, DOB 9/14/94 pled not guilty to his first charge of DUI, Alcohol, drug or both, and a charge of possession of less than 2 ounces of marijuana on November 11

Garrett Rogenski, DOB 5/21/94, pled not guilty to his first charge of DUI, alcohol, drug or both and a charge of possession of less than 2 ounces of marijuana in Hartford on January 7

Kyle Davis, DOB 5/21/91 pled guilty to a charge of taking a big game animal by illegal means in Hartford on January 7.

Tisha Coburn, DOB 3/28/88 pled not guilty to a charge of giving false information to a police officer to implicate another in Springfield on November 9

David Lazarovich, DOB 5/3/94 pled guilty to a charge of operating a vehicle at excessive speed in Bethel on November 24

Maggie Triano, DOB 12/1/85 pled guilty to a charge of her first DUI on January 13 in Hartford.

Trevor Varney, DOB 6/8/90, pled guilty to a charge of taking a big game animal by illegal means in West Windsor on November 11

Paul Butler, DOB 9/24/54, pled not guilty to two charges of violating conditions of release in Hartford on December 3

Joseph Callander, DOB 1/15/44, pled not guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct/fight on December 1 in Windsor

Patrick Carlisle, DOB 5/18/69 pled not guilty to a charge of his first DUI in Hartford on January 10

Noyes Academy

Simeon Ide left Windsor in 1835. When I googled “Upper Valley, 1835, I found the Noyes Academy of Canaan, New Hampshire. The story of Noyes Academy would make a drama as interesting as any show on the History Channel. The story is so complicated, though, and with so many contradictory players, it would be difficult to do justice to the story with a television show or even a movie.

In the early 1830's, several prominent families in Canaan, New Hampshire saw the need for a school of higher learning in their town. Twelve incorporators and trustees received a charter for the school they would call “Noyes Academy” after Samuel Noyes, an octogenarian farmer who was also one of the incorporators. Several of the incorporators were Abolitionists, who thought that the academy should admit black students as well. Classes at Noyes Academy began on March 1, 1835. Unfortunately, there were many in Canaan who were strongly against having a school that served Negro students. They combined with other like-minded souls from surrounding towns who formed an angry mob that used 80 oxen to pull the school off its foundation, move it down the road, and deposit it on the common next to the Congregational Church.

Churches were the center of a growing Abolitionist movement during the 1830's. A revival of religious fervor led congregations throughout New England to focus on the wrongs occurring in their society, leading to a focus on slavery. In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison began publishing his aboltionist newspaper “The Liberator”. In 1833, Oberlin College became the first college to admit black students.

Everywhere in New England, feelings ran high on either side of the slavery debate. The thing that was so remarkable about the people in Canaan was how far they were willing to go to act on their convictions. It is one thing to state your support for abolition, to go to meetings, make speeches, and maybe even participate in the Underground Railroad. It is another thing to start a school in your town that will admit free blacks, send your children to school with them, and let them live in your home while they went to the school. Conversely, it is one thing to be against abolition, and attend meetings against abolition, and maybe even help slave catchers who might come to your town looking for runaway slaves. It is another thing for you and your buddies to gather 80 oxen and use them to pull a school that allows black students off its foundation,then drag it a mile down the road and dump it on the town common.

In 1834, 60 Canaan citizens bought subscriptions equaling $1,000 for the creation of Noyes Academy. Five incorporators, Samuel Noyes, the octogenarian the school would be named after Nathaniel Currier, John Harris, George Kimball and George Walworth, applied to the State of New Hampshire for a charter for the school. The charter was granted on July 4, 1834, for “the education of youth”. All fired up from the fact that the charter was issued on the Fourth of July, the incorporators came up with the idea that the school should “be based upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence” and be open to all pupils regardless of race”.

The incorporators scheduled a meeting of the 60 patrons for August 15th to discuss the proposal. In the meantime, several Abolitionist orators came to Canaan to give speeches in favor of Abolitionism and increased rights for freed Negroes in general, and the Noyes Academy specifically. This drew a lot of attention to Canaan and to the issue at hand. The people of Canaan were divided on this issue, anyway, and these strangers coming into town got everyone all worked up. The debate in Canaan ceased to be for or against abolition, and came to be for or against Noyes Academy. William Wallace, author of “The History of Canaan”, says, “This was a question that took a man of great ability to straddle.”

Although the meeting was officially only for the patrons of the school, opponents of the plan attended and made speeches against having an interracial school in their town. These opponents were Elijah Blaisdell, Dr Thomas Flanders and Dr Joseph Richardson. At the meeting, battle lines were drawn. Of the patrons themselves, when the speeches and discussions were done, and a vote was taken, 36 voted in favor and 14 voted against. After a few changed their minds either way, and patrons who were absent weighed in with their votes, the final tally was 49 in favor and 11 opposed.

Windsor County Court January 8

Travis Putnam DOB 9/4/91 pled guilty to a charge of his first DUI in Windsor on December 28

Cassandra Pisani, DOB 5/23/82 pled guilty to a charge of her first DUI in Hartford of December 22

Alexander Pleger, DOB 6/7/87 pled not guilty to a charge of possession of less than 2 ounces of marijuana and a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs or both in Hartford on December 22.

Wilbert Patterson, DOB 10/18/55 pled guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct/fight in Woodstock on November 18

Kate Vernon, DOB 7/13/79 pled not guilty to a charge of operating a vehicle with a suspended license in Hartford on November 19

Emily Sauter, DOB 3 / 4/ 83 pled not guilty to a charge of her first DUI, in Sharon on December 15

Leslie Lee Ray Handy, DOB 11/23/65 pled not guilty to a charge of retail theft of $900 or less in Hartford on November 21

Walter Foley, DOB 1/16/58 pled not guilty to a charge of being in violation of conditions of release by consuming alcohol in Royalton on November 22

Michael Crandall, DOB 2/11/87 pled guilty to a charge of simple assault in Sharon on September 20

Lauren Lefevbre DOB 1/25/85 pled guilty to a charge of her first DUI on December 22 in Hartford

Charles Neily DOB 4/30/82 pled not guilty to a charge of his first DUI on January 5 in Hartford

Tonia Bushway, DOB 10/31/70 pled not guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct noise in Windsor on November 15

Brandon Stellar, DOB 2/1/92 pled not guilty to a charge of taking a deer out of season in Windsor on November 13

Matthew Hooper, DOB 8/14/87 pled not guilty to a charge of his first DUI, in Windsor on December

20

George Ottenbreit, DOB 9/23/84 pled not guilty to a charge of violating conditions of release on November 7

Tina Boudreau, DOB 8/14/76 pled guilty to a charge of retail theft of $900 or less in Hartford on November 17

Edward Johnson, DOB 3/14/60 pled not guilty to a charge of his fourth DUI, in Spring field on January 6

Tyler Holmes, DOB 4/26/95 pled guilty to a charge of taking a big game animal by illegal means in Springfield on November 11

Arturas Kalraitis DOB 5/9/83 pled guilty to a charge of careless or negligent operation of a motor vehicle in Hartford on December 22

Amy Cole DOB 10/14/79 pled not guilty to charges of identity theft, forgery, false pretenses or false tokens, and credit card fraud on October 30

Rory Larock, DOB 7/8/59 pled guilty to a charge of possession of less than two ounces of marijuana in Windsor on November 18

April Lepage DOB 11/11/72 pled not guilty to enabling alcohol/minor in Springfield on November 13

Simeon leaves Windsor

As in the case of Lemuel's loss of the election to state legislature, Simeon's hard-boiled Republican politics led to a financial setback. After Andrew Jackson was elected President, Simeon had a visitor in the shop. A representative from the Democratic Party came in and asked Simeon about the political leanings of his paper and the print shop. It should have been pretty obvious what the political leanings of the paper were, since it was called “The Vermont Republican and Journal”. Simeon told him that he was a Republican, but he would heartily support any measures of the Jackson Administration that he considered good for the country. This was not what the visitor wanted to hear, and Simeon lost the postal contract to another printing company whose bid was actually higher than Simeon's. This was a loss of $3,000 a year in cash, in an era when hard cash was pretty rare. Simeon realized after he lost the bid that had he said he was a Democrat, he would have kept the contract. On the other hand, who would have believed him? Political contracts are good while they last, but they always come to an end with a change of administration.

Even with the loss of the postal contract, business still prospered. The new printing press was powered by horse power. A blind horse walked on a track and the turning track powered the press. As time went on, the press demanded more power to keep up with the volume of printing, so Simeon moved the presses to the old woolen factory at the south end of the village, on the second fall from the River on Mill Brook. As long as there was enough water in Mill Brook to power the press, this worked out, but when the brook was low, there wasn't enough power to run the press.

While Simeon was trying to deal with the issues of the printing business, his brother Truman died. Truman had just been put in charge of the newspaper when he died at age 28, leaving his wife and year old son. Simeon and Evelina lost a two year old daughter at this same time, Frances, in 1831. When Truman's wife died in 1835, Simeon became the guardian of their son John.

While he was trying to figure out how he was going to deal with the seasonal lack of waterpower from Mill Brook, Simeon was in Claremont, New Hampshire buying paper from the Claremont Manufacturing Company. He noticed that there was plenty of waterpower serving the mill and wondered if there was enough room there for his printing presses. A couple of weeks later, he sold his papermaking, printing presses and bookstore to the Claremont Manufacturing Company, for shares in the company. At the time, Claremont was up and coming and shares in the company were worth a great deal. Property prices in Claremont were also sky high, and Simeon bought a house in Claremont in the middle of an era of property speculation in Claremont. On the other hand, Windsor was going through a decline. Simeon's Windsor house ended up being on the market for several years, and he finally sold it at a loss.

Simeon left Windsor a fairly wealthy man, but his fortunes continued to decline in Claremont.

The Claremont Manufacturing Company experienced some financial reversals, which caused his stock to lose $40,000 in worth in one year. These financial reversals led the company to sell some of it's water rights, allowing other companies to build dams on the river, lessening the waterpower to their own mills. The worst setback came when Simeon won the bid on the printing constract for Webster's Dictionary. The other directors of the company decided to decline the bid, because they would have to make some readjustments and financial investments that they didn't want to make in order to fulfill the bid. The Merriam company got the bid instead. The Merriam Webster dictionary was almost the Ide Webster Dictionary. In 1838, Simeon sold his shares in the Claremont Manufacturing Company to his sons Lemuel and George, and went back to running a hand press. He also worked off and on for other printers. He died at the home of his daughter in Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1889.

Simeon's daughter Mary died in 1844, and his beloved firstborn, Harriet, died in 1854. His daughter Agnes married her cousin John and died four years later. John himself died on a Virginia battlefield during the Civil War. Simeon's wife, the love of his life, Evalina died three years later, in 1857, at age 57. Simeon outlived his son , who died in 1886, by 6 years. His son Lemuel died in Middlesex Massachusetts in 1906 at age 80. His daughter Sarah was his last child to die. She died in 1920. Sarah married Reverend Alonzo Flanders and lived most of her adult life in Chester, Vermont. It was her son Louis Flanders who wrote the biography of Simeon, “Simeon Ide, Yeoman, Freeman, Pioneer Printer”. Ellen died in Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1907. Because Simeon died in Roxbury at the home of his daughter, it might be reasonable to assume that he died in Ellen's house. Julia married Henry Bostwick and they moved to Cayuga, New York. On a visit to New York to see Julia, Simeon met her mother-in-law and ended up bringing her home to Claremont as his second wife. Julia died in 1902. Charlotte never married. She became a school teacher and died at age 80 in 1918.

Happy New Year Upper Valley!

Thank you and Happy New Year to everyone who's reading my blog.  I am getting more readers than I ever thought I would.  Every time I look on the blogger dashboard and see my statistics count, it is more and more exciting.  I can't wait to see what 2013 brings.  Please, please email me at uppervalleyanonymous@gmail.com if you have suggestions, or even better, if you would like to contribute some posts.  I would like for this blog to eventually become a forum for the whole Upper Valley - anything anyone would like to contribute: news articles, sports articles, interviews, issues you would like to comment on of local or national importance, recipes, cleaning tips, recommendations for a great restaurant, mechanic, supermarket (although I'm absolutely partial to Shaw's by JC Penney's, I respect others' opinions), please, email me with your ideas.

When I am driving to and from West Lebanon, or up and down the interstates, I can't help but think about the Upper Valley, and the kids and young adults here, and say a prayer for the kids and young adults in Newtown, Connecticut.  The debate will rage about gun control and mental health services, but in the meantime, even in the Upper Valley, there are people of all ages who are suffering with various problems that seem insurmountable.  You never know who is experiencing whatever kind of pain and trauma, and how much just a kind word or a kind deed might help. 

This year, go out of your way to feed a hungry kid, help an old lady cross the street or carry in her groceries.  My daughter's boyfriend was driving home from school one day when he saw an elderly couple stopped on the side of the road with a flat tire and he stopped to help them.  This is the kind of thing we should all do to make someone else's day. 

Sometimes I think the problem is that everyone is so busy and stressed just trying to keep their heads above water that they can't stop to help someone else.  Not many of us have the spare time of a high school student.  Usually we are running late, racing the clock, trying to make up the five minutes we lost somewhere so that we won't be five minutes late arriving somewhere else.  Do what you can, even if it is just letting someone go in front of you in West Leb. (I don't understand why more people aren't using that underpass between K-Mart and JC Penney's). Compliment a stranger.  Say please and thank you *all the time*.  What comes around goes around.  At the very least you will reap the benefits of knowing you made someone else's day a little better.

And again, email me at uppervalleyanonymous@gmail.com and let me know if you want to contribute to this blog!

The Vermont Republican and Journal

The “Vermont Republican and Journal” was a little different from todays "Valley News". The ads  were on the front page, not in the back. Articles didn't have bylines, so the reader didn't know who wrote them. Most articles were about events in Washington, DC, and other events of national interest. There weren't many articles about things that were happening locally.

 

In April of 1811, during Simeon's apprenticeship at the Vermont Republican, an article of local interest was written by a Dr Trask. He was writing about an epidemic of spotted fever. Dr. Trask had treated 180 patients from the Windsor area for “spotted fever” and only three had died, a toddler, an elderly patient, and a teenager who was already sickly. He describes spotted fever as starting with severe limb pain and spasms, and developing with a high fever and a rash. He would bleed the patients, and have their caretakers make them sweat by putting hot water bottles or hot bricks with them under the blankets in their beds, while wiping their faces with cold cloths. He also prescribed an emetic to induce vomiting, powders of calomel, opium, camphor, and tea of Virginia snakeroot.

Calomel also induces vomiting and was a favorite medicine with doctors in the early 1800's. They stopped using it when they realized that it was very close to mercury in its chemical makeup and could change into metalic mercury in direct sunlight. Calomel is also called mercurous chloride and made patients hair and teeth fall out when given in large doses. Opium is today's heroin, and was given to patients as a pain killer and sedative. Camphor was made from the bark of a camphor tree. It was rubbed on patient's chests to help with respiratory congestion and applied topically to rashes to reduce itching. It is still used today in Vicks Vaporub. Virginia Snakeroot was given to these patients to bring down the fever and alleviate the sore throat.

The disease that Dr Trask called “spotted fever” was typhus, which was epidemic throughout New England during this era. Typhus is spread by bites from fleas or lice that picked the disease up from their rat or mouse host. Typhus was responsible for some of the infamous plagues of Europe during the Middle Ages. Some strains of typhus were deadly and other outbreaks just caused people to become really sick with miserable symptoms. You were more likely to recover if you were healthy before you got sick and if you were well nourished with a nutritious diet. The treatments Dr. Trask prescribed were probably not that helpful. Probably the most helpful was the opium, and the colomel and bleeding were actually harmful.

Dr Trask was one of the two doctors in Windsor in the early 1800's. He owned one of the biggest houses on State Street. He was one of the incorporators of the Vermont Medical Society and was the first doctor to the Windsor State Prison.

Simeon wrote the editorials and signed them “The Pioneer”. Some things never change – several of Simeon's editorials were essays against tobacco use and alcohol consumption. The same paper that announced the opening of the new high school had an editorial warning young people to stay away from liquor. The rest of the articles didn't have a byline, so the reader doesn't know who wrote them. It's hard to believe that with everything else Simeon did, he wrote all of the articles in his paper. We know that there were newspaper reporters from Vermont in Washington, DC, because when Simeon went to Washington, he spent some time seeing the sights with a newpaperman from Vermont as his tour guide.

Most of the paper consisted of step by step proceedings of what was happening in the debates in Congress, including transcripts of every speech and debate. This is really dry stuff, that people obviously read, because “The Journal” had a significant readership. We talk about people from that day as being not as well informed as we are, but when you look at what was in the paper, there was much more true information about what was happening nationally than what we have now. The transcripts went on for page after page.

There were plenty of letters to the editor and most of them addressed national issues. Letters to the editor could go on for a couple of pages – and the print was small. I had always wondered what Simeon thought about the brewing conflict over slavery. As you read through some issues of "The Journal", you do see some articles and letters to the editor in favor of the establishment of Liberia. Liberia is an African country that was established by American people. It wasn't established by the American government, but by private American interests who donated to the cause. The biggest of these was the American Colonization Society, headquartered in Washington, DC. Liberia wasn't founded to be a haven for freed slaves, but for black people that were already living in American as freedmen.

On the surface, this looks like a noble cause, and in some way it was. However, the theory behind the founding of Liberia was that free black people could not function as full citizens in the United States, so they should be sent to their own colony where they could be citizens in a “lesser” country than America. In regards to black people, this seems to be the policy “The Journal” leaned toward. We already know that Simeon and his paper were firmly Republican, and Thomas Jefferson was one of the first proponents of the creation of an African colony for American Negroes.

To see microfilmed copies of old Vermont newspapers, go to the Vermont Library Association.  It's in the same building in Montpelier as the Vermont History Museum.  When I went there, I went into the Vermont History Museum and asked for directions to the Vermont Library Association.  The girl at the desk told me it was in Barre, at the museum in Barre.  I went back to Barre, only to have them tell me it was in Montpelier.  Don't make the same mistake I did.  The door you go in to go to the Library Association is on the right side of the building.

 

Windsor County Court December 18

Eugene Smith, DOB 5/28/49 pled guilty to a charge of taking a deer out of season in Hartford on November 12.

Joseph Moffitt, DOB 1/27/83, pled not guilty to a charge of driving with a suspended license in Chester on November 27

Robert Gillam, DOB 8/26/34 pled not guilty to a charge of his first DUI, in Norwich on November 21

Angel Nestervich, DOB 12/14/89, pled not guilty to a charge of possession of less than 2 ounces of marijuana in Springfield on October 25^th.

Daniel Worcester, DOB 1/1/54, pled not guilty to a charge of careless and negligent operation of a motor vehicle in Weathersfield on October 17^th.

Donna Gragen, DOB 3/21/51, pled not guilty to a charge of driving with a suspended license in Weathersfield on November 24

Christopher Bradford, DOB 2/24/94, pled guilty to a charge of possession of less than two ounces of marijuana in Hartland on November 17.

Douglas Bennett, DOB 11/20/60, pled not guilty to possession of less than two ounces of marijuana in Hartford on November 5

Sean Dunton, DOB 1/5/89, pled not guilty to two charges of unlawful mischief in Hartford on November 1.

James Clark, DOB 5/15/76, pled not guilty to a charge of driving with a suspended license on November 5 in Hartford

Rachel Aresco, DOB 9/10/87 pled not guilty to a charge of a first DUI, in Ludlow on December 16.

James Lacomb, DOB 8/20/80, pled guilty to a charge of driving with a suspended license in Springfield on November 1

Roddy White, DOB 12/14/83, pled not guilty to a charge of using bad checks, in Hartford on August 10

Katie Putnam, DOB 6/27/86, pled not guilty to a charge of using forgery to commit prescription fraud in Springfield on November 6

Frank Hewitt, DOB 7/7/52, pled not guilty to a charge of attempting to elude a police officer in Royalton on November 20.

Ian Spiro, DOB 12/23/75 pled not guilty to a charge of possession of less than two ounces of marijuana in Hartford on November 15.