Forrest's Brothers - Following a Trend out of Vermont

Forrest had two brothers. Frank, whose real name was Francis, was older than Forrest, was also in the Army during World War I and did serve in the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe. Frank had moved to Cleveland Ohio and enlisted from Cleveland. Clifford was younger than Frank and was a teenager during the war. Clifford went to Dartmouth for two years, then went to live with Frank in Cleveland. In 1930, Clifford is a single 29 year old who turns up on the census as living with Frank and his wife in Cleveland. In 1940, the tables are turned, Frank is divorced, and living with his brother, sister-in-law, and 3 year old nephew Clifford, Jr. Forrest was the only one of Seth's sons that stayed in Vermont.

This is a pattern that was occurring throughout Vermont in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Historians differ on exact numbers. Some sources say that Vermont never lost population, other sources say that Vermont lost population in 1920 and 1940, and had zero population growth in 1890.

When Vermont was first settled in the late 1700's, southern New England was becoming crowded. There was little land available to young people starting out. Farms in Massachusetts and Connecticut had been worked for 100 years at least, and were getting worn out and less productive. People moving to Vermont found rich land and productive farms. A century later, Vermont's farms were warn out as well, and the soil was more rocky and mountainous than southern New England soil to begin with.

Vermont historians and sociologists from as far away as UCLA have done studies on the migration from Vermont, trying to pinpoint who left, who stayed, and why. Jeremy Flaherty, a student from UVM, published an oft-quoted paper entitled “Community and Persistence in the Kingdom”, a detailed look at emigraters and persisters (those who stayed). Another famous work dealing with Vermont migration is “Those Who Stayed” by Hal Barron, that details the exodus from Chelsea.

There are some differing views on Vermont's population crisis after the Civil War. There is argument about whether a population crisis even existed. Some of the extensive research yielded information that is only common sense. Young adults were the most likely age group to emigrate. That is not exactly a ground-breaking discovery. Taking young adults looking to start their lives in a new location out of the picture, what do we have left?

The four variables that kept people in Vermont were wealth, land, extended family, and church membership. People who were doing well in Vermont were not apt to leave everything and start new somewhere else. Young people who had good prospects at home stayed home. People who owned land did not often leave it, especially if they had a good productive farm. Some researchers that used censuses as their main source of data made an error by inflating the percentage of farmers who left Vermont. Many men who listed “farmer” as their occupation on the censuses were actually farm laborers who worked for a farm owner. These men were very likely to emigrate. Farmers who were listed as property owners on the tax rolls were much less likely to leave.

Family size was another good indicator of the likelihood of people leaving or staying (I refuse to use the term “persist”. In Vermont, we “stay”). However, the statistics are surprising. Large families were often more likely to leave, especially if their farms were smaller and their land more worn out. Families with many children had a built in labor force to help establish a new farm on virgin soil. A Vermont father with many young sons didn't have enough land to divide up in his estate and provide each of his sons with his own farm. Out west, there was more land. Even if your own farm wasn't huge, land was cheap enough that you could afford to help your son or son-in-law start out on their own place.

Large extended families were another matter. If a husband and wife had aging parents, and aunts and uncles in their town, and brothers and sisters who had children who were their own children's cousins, it made it harder to leave an extensive support network. Churches also provided a support network and a social group that was hard to leave. Studies have shown that towns that had supportive, welcoming churches with popular preachers lost less population than towns with churches that seemed rigid and unwelcoming, with unpopular or stern ministers.

One problem encountered in studying Vermont's population loss is deciding what exactly it means to leave. Historians who used censuses as primary data sources compared censuses. When a family didn't show up on the 1880 census when they were on the 1870 census, the researcher checked the town vital statistics and graveyards to make sure they hadn't died. Besides, even in those days, it was pretty unusual for a whole family to die. It's trickier with a young adult. Did they really move? Or did they just manage to avoid being counted? Did they die and no one bothered to document it. I don't care what anyone says about how accurate these vital statistics are, this happened more than you think it did. If they hadn't died, these researchers assume they moved west. This is a pretty huge assumption. It always surprises me how mobile people, even whole families, were in the late 1800's. Charles Aikens moved around all over town. People flipped houses then just like they do now. If someone moves to the next town over, that isn't a migration, it's just a move. Censuses are great ways to follow a family's movements and changes.

In 2014 we have Ancestry.com. The census records on Ancestry.com are probably the source I use the most, but you have to be careful not to draw inaccurate conclusions from a census. Just because a family doesn't live in Barnard any more does not mean they moved to Indiana, necessarily. However, I know that Frank and Clifford Aikens moved to Cleveland, Ohio because I can find them there on the census. I can find their death and marriage – and in Clifford's case, divorce certificates that state that Seth and Alice Aikens were their parents and they were born in Barnard, Vermont.

If you think about Frank and Clifford, they fit the profile of the young men who were most likely to emigrate west. Their father was not a farmer. Seth owned the blacksmith shop and a modest house on a small plot of land in the center of town. Seth may have followed in his father's footsteps as a blacksmith, but it was a dying art in Seth's time, and even more so by the time the boys became adults. Clifford had been to college for two years. Seth was an only child and Alice had one brother who never married, thus there was no extended family. When the boys became adults, Seth was still perfectly healthy. Pictures show him playing baseball at the turn of the century. Windsor County business directories list his blacksmith shop for decades into the 1900's'. Seth lived until the early 1950's, outliving Alice by ten years. The boys were not tied to Vermont by ailing and indigent parents.

Of course, census data and Ancestry.com only takes you so far. Why did Frank and Clifford choose Cleveland? Why a big city from a small Vermont town? The migrations out of small farming towns in New England, especially northern New England, followed two basic patterns. Farmers moved west, to better, cheaper, more fertile, more plentiful land. People who weren't farmers moved to cities. People with some education, like Frank and especially Clifford, although Frank could have gone to college too and there is just no evidence of that, got jobs in business and management. People without education became factory workers. In 1930, both men are listed as salesmen. Frank worked for a printing company and Clifford worked for a paper company.

Some researchers believe that Vermont's population problems were not caused by people leaving, but by a lack of people moving in. Young people have left home to seek their fortune since caveman days. This wasn't a new phenomenon. What was different was that there was nothing for new people to gain by coming to Vermont. Statistics seem to bear this out. By 1930, Vermont was the most homogenous state in the country, with 72% of the population having been born in Vermont. This shows that people weren't moving into Vermont. Why would they?

Actually, some people did move to Vermont. The cities did gain population during this time, which accounts for what little gain Vermont's population made during these years. Again, the definition of the word “city” is fairly sticky. Keep in mind that technically, the designation “city” applies to the type of government a town has. Towns that are governed by a town meeting and selectmen system are towns. Cities have mayors and/or city managers and a town council. That being said, there is fairly consistent agreement that in 1900, Vermont's cities were Rutland, Colchester Burlington, Montpelier, St Johnsbury, Barre and Bennington. Rutland, Colchester, St Johnsbury, and Barre experienced significant population growth during the late 1800's and early 1900's due to the factories in these cities that needed both factory labor and managers.

Historians agree wholeheartedly on one thing: the hill towns lost population.  People started leaving the hill towns in the 1840's and 50's.  The Civil War and the spread of the railroads only exacerbated the problem.  I can't find any online population statistics for Barnard before 1900, but population declined steadily there after the turn of the century.  In 1900, 840 people lived in Barnard.  Barnard's population declined every census year until 1970.  The town's lowest population was in 1960 when 435 people lived there, almost half of what there were in 1900.  By 1970, population was on the rise, with a total of 569.  In 1990, numbers there reached and surpassed the 1900 figure, at 872 people. In 2010, Barnard had even more people, with a population of 947.

Today, Vermont is experiencing the same population issues that existed at the turn of the last century. Again, population figures vary. Some publications say Vermont is the most rural state in the nation, and others name Wyoming or Montana. Vermont has been named as the state with the least population overall as well. It is safe to say without a doubt that Vermont is the most rural and least populated state east of the Mississippi. Vermont has one of the lowest birthrates in the country and one of the highest median workforce ages. This points, again, to the fact that there aren't a lot of people moving to Vermont. Depending on which statistics you believe, Vermont may or may not have had a population decline in 2011.