Wesley Vorhes DOB 4/30/6 pled not guilty to a charge of aggravated assault in Hartford on January 13
John Fenley DOB 7/11/62 pled not guilty to a charge of assault and robberty in Hartford
Justin Fuller, DOB 11/23/90 was charged with simple assault, giving false information to a law officer to implicate another and petit larceny of $900 or less in Springfield on November 30
Austin Strong-Lawson pled guilty to a charge of simple assault in Ludlow on December 12
Nicole Dingman, DOB 11/18/90 pled guilty to a charge of petit larceny of $900 or less in Springfield on November 8
Bruce Boedtker, DOB 10/12/50 pled guilty to a charge of operating with reckless or gross negligence in Windsor on November 18
Alisa Miller, DOB 3/29/83 pled guilty to a chage of her first DUI, in Springfield on January 15
Daniel Bagley, DOB 9/6/79 pled guilty to a charge of his first DUI, in Windsor on January 6
Justin Carpenter, DOB 7/10/95 pled not guilty to a charge of possession of less than 2 ounces of marijuana on January 24, 2012. This case went back to court because Carpenter didn't complete diversion
Nicholas Ragucci, DOB 6/20/91, pled not guilty to two charges of domestic assault in Springfield on November 25
Heather Doyle, DOB 11/15/80 pled not guilty to a charge of forgery and a charge of petit larceny of $900 or less in Hartford
Michael Wesolowski, DOB 10/3/70, pled not guilty to a charge of false tokens or false pretenses on March 9, 2012. This case went back to court because Wesolowski didn't finish diversion.
Edward Mello, DOB 6/22/76 pled guilty to a charge of driving with a suspended license in Cavendish on December 23
Sunday, January 27, 2013
George Kimball - hero or villain?
An inquiry into the backgrounds of the
major players in the 19th century drama of Noyes Academy
in Canaan brings some interesting insight into the possible
motivations and relationships between the allies and antagonists.
First, who was Samuel Noyes and why name the school after him? Samuel
Noyes was 80 years old in 1835. He was born in Atkinson, New
Hampshire and served in the Revolutionary War in a regiment from
Plaistown. He was one of the leading residents of Canaan at that
time,certainly one of the oldest, and probably the only remaining
Revolutionary War soldier. In 1794, records show that Samuel was the
only man in Canaan who paid any taxes on cash on hand, paying a tax
on 15 pounds. This tells us that he was quite prosperous, although he
wasn't the wealthiest in terms of real estate. He was a selectman in
1788, and in that same year he was listed as being a Baptist,
although in 1817 he joined the Congregational Church. William Allen
Wallace says, in “The History of Canaan”, that at that time there
was a strong feeling that they should form a society, like the
Baptists had done, to assist the church in the management of its
affairs, regardless of their denomination.” Samuel's farm was “the
first farm at the southeast corner of the town following the Enfield
town line along the South Road”. His wife's name was Lydia, and
she died in 1833, two years before the controversy over the academy.
They did have a daughter, Relief, who was born in 1791, but it is
unclear whether or not she lived to adulthood, although she was alive
in 1800. At 80, Samuel was active enough to be one of the
incorporators of the Academy, although his name is not mentioned much
in association with the events that transpired after the granting of
the charter.
It's impossible to be absolutely sure
why the patrons and incorporators chose to name the school after
Samuel Noyes. I think it was because he was a very old leading
citizen, and a Revolutionary War veteran. It wouldn't be accurate to
say that he was one of the founders of the town, but he had been
there for sixty years or so, and was one of the wealthier farmers in
the town. He was probably also a nice person that everyone liked.
Samuel lived 10 years after the Noyes Academy controversy. He died
in 1845 at age 90.
The other incorporators were George
Kimball , Nathaniel Currier, John Harris and George Walworth. It's
really important to keep in mind that at first, it wasn't the plan of
the incorporators and patrons of Noyes Academy to admit black people
into the school. There were no Negroes in Canaan. The citizens of
the town had a high quality school system that served the lower
grades and they wanted to establish a secondary school in Canaan so
that their older children wouldn't have to board in another town to
receive further education. William Allen Wallace gives George Kimball
the credit, or maybe the blame, for transforming the plan for Noyes
Academy. He says that Kimball and his friend M.P. Rogers of Plymouth
were instrumental in “changing the original features of Noyes
Academy so as to admit colored students.”
George Kimball was born in Harvard,
Massachusetts in 1787. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1809, and
practiced law in Union, Maine and Warren, Maine. Then he taught
school in Concord, New Hampshire and Richmond, Virginia. From
Richmond, Virginia he went to Bermuda and was a schoolteacher there.
In 1815, in Bermuda, he married his wife, who was a woman of some
property. Some of her property was slaves. George returned to the
United States with his wife and her Bermudan “servant” Nancy.
It is common knowledge that slavery
was illegal in New Hampshire in 1835, and in fact, all of the
accounts of George Kimball's life in New Hampshire call Nancy a
“freed slave”, but how free was she? The Kimballs couldn't sell
her, but they removed her from Bermuda and brought her to New
Hampshire, and from the accounts of Nancy that I have read, she was
very black. What was she going to do, leave them? I am dying to know
if they paid her, but I would bet they didn't. Here is an excerpt of
a letter William Allen Wallace quoted in The Annals of Our
Village, an article in “The Granite Monthly”. The letter is
from his friend M.P. Rogers. Rogers is complaining about not being
able to keep good household help. He says, “I wish we had a good
little Bermudese like Nancy, instead of these white birds of passage.
They are as restless and troublesome as French Jacobins. I can't keep
one a week. Our Lydia is about retiring, and then we have got the
whole planet to circumnavigate for another. When you next go to
Bermuda you must bring Mary (his wife) a neat little Bermudean, a
She-Othello as black as a blackberry and as neat as a penny. Your
faithful servant is cut off by her ebony hue, and by the waves that
wallop our shores, from a propensity to run home among white clowns,
and send you polling after another witch, to run away as soon as you
have got her half learned.” This is the man who wants to admit
black students to Canaan's Academy?
George Kimball returned to Concord
from Bermuda and became the editor of the Concord Register. He is
described in “The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire” by Charles
Henry Bell, as being “refined, intelligent, companionable, and
amiable, but indolent and too fond of snuff and good whiskey”.
Indolence is not a quality that makes a successful newspaper editor,
then or now, and George was always asking his friends, especially Mr
Rogers, to help him out with his newspaper duties.
Finally they got sick of it and told
him he should go back to practicing law. They advised him to see
about starting a law practice in Canaan. Canaan had plenty of
sheriffs and justices. There would be plenty of work, and there was
only one other lawyer, Elijah Blaisdell, who was also a Mason, being
very active in the Mount Moriah Lodge.
George did relocate to Canaan and set
up a law office. Soon he was the postmaster, too. He got a lot of
business but had been away from practicing law a long time and made a
lot of errors in his work. He ended up calling on his old friends to
help him for help almost as often as he did when he was a newspaper
editor. In addition, the other lawyer in town, Elijah Blaisdell,
wasn't too happy to have competition, and harassed George constantly.
George was also terrible at managing
money. He would pay sheriffs and court fees, and then never collect
the fees from his clients. He often bought on credit and was in
significant debt. He liked to get involved in social movements. He
provided a large portion of the funding for the new Congregational
Church, he was involved in the temperance movement, and the
anti-Masonic movement.
In 1829, he convinced Nathaniel
Currier, John Shepherd and Hubbard Harris to publicly renounce their
membership in the Masons. Elijah Blaisdell and Jacob Trussell,
committed Masons, were furious. William Allen Wallace quotes
Blaisdell: “Neither one could explain why they had renounced”.
By 1829, Elijah Blaisdell and George
Kimball were avowed enemies. The competition between them as Canaan's
two lawyers became worse when George convinced Nathaniel, John and
Hubbard to quit the Masons. George comes across as a slick talking,
manipulative character who likes to feel important by joining various
causes and then supporting them with money he doesn't really have.
It also seems like a natural progression of events that the two
enemies, Elijah and George, would be the leaders on opposite sides of
a controversy that would rock the town.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
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.
Monday, January 14, 2013
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.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
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!
Saturday, January 5, 2013
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 25th.
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 17th.
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.
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