Winter 2013
Village Life in Vermont and New Hampshire, 1760-1900
The Flow of History program for 2012-13 focuses on economic development and its impact on communities. Under a general
umbrella of considering the relationships between humans, geography, and culture, our elementary teachers are studying how
people in Vermont (and New Hampshire) made their livings from the early settlement period into the 20th century, and how those
activities and expanding commercial links with the larger society affected the land, the make-up of communities, and people’s
lifestyles. We begin this issue of the newsletter with a background essay about village life and economic development.
click to link to :
Village Life in Vermont and
New Hampshire, 1760-1900
A Framework for Teaching
about Village Life Changes in the Land: A Village Life
Lesson for Elementary Students
Village Life Lessons:
Document 1
Document 2
Visual Thinking: Taking Notes
www.flowofhistory.org
P: 1.866.889.0042
E: [email protected]
A Survey of Economic Development to 1900
Economic development is an integral
part of any historical narrative about a
town, state, or nation. Especially if we
want to know how human activities have
affected land use and the environment in
our communities—a topic addressed in
most elementary curricula in Vermont
and New Hampshire—we need to look
closely at how economies have evolved.
What did the early settlers do to provide
for their basic needs of shelter, food, and
clothing? How were natural resources
used to make goods? What kind of
infrastructure was necessary to enable an
economy to grow? When did money
become important and how did it change
the nature of commerce? How have the
ways that people in our communities
used the land changed over time, and
how has the environment itself been
changed? And finally, if we take stock of
the first 150 years or so in the life of our
towns, what would we say have been the
most important developments?
Subsistence was the order of the day
for the early settlers in our Vermont and
New Hampshire towns. They cut down
trees, prepared the soil for planting grains
and vegetables, and created pastures to
graze their animals. The first houses were
made of logs, but within a few years of
settlement most villages had at least one
sawmill, and eventually these log cabins
were replaced by larger houses made of
sawn wood. Gristmills also sprang up
early on the abundant streams in the
region, because people wanted to turn
corn and wheat into flour for making
bread. These families were largely
self-sufficient, growing their own food
and making their own clothes and
household items. But even from the
earliest years of settlement, families
traded or bartered surplus goods with
each other for things they didn’t produce
themselves. The first general stores
usually carried some goods imported
from beyond the region—including
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William Jarvis imported
400 Merino sheep from Spain
to his farm in Weathersfield,
Vermont, in 1811. Farmers soon
realized that the robust and
productive Merinos thrived in
the environment of northern
New England, and because
tariffs on imported wool
were high, a new “cash crop”
was born.
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commodities like sugar and coffee
produced by slaves in the West Indies—
even before 1800. But until well into the
19th century very little money was in
circulation in these mostly rural communities far removed from the centers of
commerce. Most of the buying and
selling at general stores and the shops of
other merchants and artisans was done
on a debit-credit basis through trade or
barter. They recorded these exchanges in
account books and daybooks.
Many of the earliest farms were
established in the hills rather than on the
valley floors. Hill locations were considered safer for avoiding confrontations
with Native Americans, and perhaps as
having better soil. But as the threat from
Native Americans diminished after the
Revolution, and as mills and meetinghouses were erected closer to or on
village plains, populations began to
coalesce around downhill parts of towns.
Webs of social interaction thickened as
population densities increased closer to
village centers.
Various natural resources provided
people of an entrepreneurial bent with
opportunities to develop small-scale
industries. Trees seemed nearly infinite
and the early settlers (and their descendants) consumed them with abandon.
Wood was initially used for buildings,
bridges, and roads. Potash, used to make
soap, glass, and fertilizer, was made by
burning trees that were cleared to open
land for agriculture. Many Vermont and
New Hampshire farmers produced
potash for sale, and it was even exported
from New England to Great Britain, which
had been deforested. Large-scale timber
harvesting for export began early in the
19th century; Burlington was one of the
nation’s busiest lumber ports in the
1870s, and the Connecticut River log
drives of the post-Civil War period are
legendary. The discovery of mineral
deposits led to other extractive industries
around the region: iron, granite, marble,
copper, and slate (the latter three
primarily in Vermont) were the most
important through the first part of the
19th century, and these involved foundries, smelters, and other processing works
along with mines.
Textiles were the most important
industry in early- and mid-19th-century
Vermont and New Hampshire. Making
cloth from cotton and wool began as
handwork inside the home, but by the
turn of the 19th century workshops were
being set up for multiple operatives, and
by the 1810s mills for fulling (washing)
and carding cloth were sprouting up all
around both states. The Amoskeag
Company, which would become the
largest textile mill complex in the world
in the early 20th century, was established
in Manchester, N.H., in 1837. A textile
boom accompanied the sheep boom that
swept up farmers in both states between
about 1820 and 1845. This began when
William Jarvis imported 400 Merino
sheep from Spain to his farm in Weathers-
field, Vermont, in 1811. Farmers soon realized that the robust and productive
Merinos thrived in the environment of
northern New England, and because
tariffs on imported wool were high, a new
“cash crop” was born. Along with agriculture, raising sheep, producing wool, and
making woolen cloth were the major
economic activities in Vermont and New
Hampshire until the Civil War. The great
sheep craze also had a huge environmental impact, as farmers everywhere rushed
to clear cut forests and open up land
where sheep could graze. Until the boom
went bust—largely because of a reduction in the wool tariff that opened up
competition from abroad—sheep were
the most lucrative thing going in this
region.
About the time the sheep boom ended
in the 1840s, the railroads arrived in
Vermont and New Hampshire and
created a new set of economic transformations. Railroads dramatically lowered
the cost of transportation for shipping all
kinds of goods within and from the
region. This made it profitable for farmers
and manufacturers to sell products into
previously unaffordable markets, thereby
stimulating some economic growth. One
good example is the granite industry in
central Vermont, which exploded after
the Civil War as train tracks were laid out
to the quarries and sheds. But the
railroads also brought a flood of goods
into the region from places where they
could be produced more cheaply. Many
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The railroads also
rearranged the landscape.
Where the tracks went and
where the depots were
located determined where
the hubs of economic and
social activity would be.
Vermont and New Hampshire farms
could not compete with western farms
and eventually gave up trying. As
transportation improved and markets
expanded, it was simply too hard to make
a living from agriculture on the rocky and
worn-out soils of northern New England.
This was the primary reason that so many
people sought opportunities elsewhere.
The population of Vermont stagnated or
grew very slowly from about 1850 into
the early 20th century, and many towns
shrank by shocking numbers as people
left for the west or the larger communities in the state. (For an overview, see
“Migration from Vermont,” page 3, in the
Winter 2007 Flow of History newsletter,
available at the Flow website,
www.flowofhistory.org.)
The railroads also rearranged the
landscape. Where the tracks went and
where the depots were located determined where the hubs of economic and
social activity would be. There are many
stories of communities that intentionally
relocated themselves from hills or
outlying hamlets into existing village
centers or newly created depot sites. The
railroads were also voracious consumers
of wood, and some of the deforestation
that occurred in Vermont and New
Hampshire during the 19th century is
attributable to that demand. Overall one
has to be careful in making generalizations about the impact of the railroads on
towns, or farmers, or the economy of our
region, because so much of that impact
was particular to the place and type of
activity under consideration. The railroads
undoubtedly wrought enormous changes
everywhere they went, but there were
winners and losers.
Following the end of the sheep boom,
the arrival of the railroads, and the
turmoil of the Civil War, dairying emerged
as the economic foundation of Vermont
and New Hampshire. Through the ups
and downs of the sheep and wool mania,
most farmers always kept cows, and the
production of dairy products—mostly
butter and cheese— steadily increased
during the 19th century. By 1870, the
Franklin County Creamery in St. Albans,
Vermont, was renowned as one of the
largest creameries in the country; in
1900, Vermont was the country’s leading
producer of butter. Beginning in the
1880s, with the arrival of refrigerated
railcars and advances in disease control,
Vermont and New Hampshire farmers
began to supply fluid milk to the rapidly
expanding populations of Boston, New
York, and other northeastern cities.
Dairying sustained agriculture in our
states into the last quarter of the
20th century.
Of course, economic development in the 19th century was interwoven with
social, political, and cultural developments. Historian of Vermont Paul Searls
notes that “the consequences of this century of change were profound,
striking at the heart of Vermonters’ sense of themselves as a community….
Was it to be a society that embraced change, or one that tried to perpetuate
tradition?” You can read this very interesting essay that appeared in the
Summer 2009 Flow of History newsletter at www.flowofhistory.org.
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A Framework for Teaching about Village Life
Here is a unit frame outlining an
approach to teaching about village life
in 19th-century Vermont and New
Hampshire. For similar unit frames
about Abenaki history and the
founding and early settlement of
these towns by European Americans,
go to the Flow of History website and
look for the Teaching Toolkits.
(www.flowofhistory.org)
Topic/Title
Village Life in Vermont and New Hampshire
Overview
This unit investigates the formation and evolution of communities in Vermont and New
Hampshire through the middle of the 19th century, with an emphasis on settlement patterns,
landscape change, and economic development.
Enduring Understandings
*All human activity has impacts on the land.
*Settlement patterns and ways of making a living in our communities changed over time as
people developed new ways of using natural resources.
Essential Question
What are the relationships between people, geography, and culture?
Focusing Questions
*How did farming change the land?
*What was the role of barter in the village economy?
*How did women’s work change?
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Content Grade Expectations for Vermont
H&SS3-4:8 Students connect
the past with the present by:
• Explaining differences between historic and present-day objects in Vermont, and identifying
how the use of the object and the object itself changed over time.
• Describing ways that life in the community and Vermont has both changed and stayed the
same over time.
H&SS3-4:9 Students show
understanding of how
humans interpret history by:
• Identifying and using various sources for reconstructing the past, such as documents, letters,
diaries, maps, textbooks, photos, and others.
H&SS3-4:12 Students show
• Describing how people have changed the environment in Vermont for specific purposes.
understanding of human
• Describing how patterns of human activities relate to natural resource distribution.
interaction with the environment over time by:
H&SS3-4:11 Students interpret geography and solve
geographic problems by:
• Observing, comparing, and analyzing patterns of local and state land use to understand why
particular locations are used for certain human activities.
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Suggested Resources
Children’s Books:
• Charlie Needs a Cloak by Tomie dePaola
• Ox-Cart Man, by Donald Hall
• Lyddie and Jip: His Story, by Katherine Paterson
Background Reading:
• Jan Albers, Hands on the Land
• David Foster, New England Forests
through Time
• “The Debit Economy of 1830s New England”: www.osv.org/explore_learn/document_
viewer.php?DocID=1947
• Richard Ewald, Proud to Live Here: In the
Connecticut River Valley of Vermont and
New Hampshire
Primary Sources:
New Hampshire Curriculum Framework: Social Studies
SS:EC:4:2.1:
Explain why needs and wants are unlimited while resources are limited. (Themes: C: People, Places and Environment, D: Material Wants and Needs)
SS:EC:4:3.1:
Illustrate cycles of economic growth and decline, e.g., New Hampshire manufacturing or agriculture. (Themes: D:
Material Wants and Needs, F: Global Transformation, G: Science, Technology, and Society)
SS:EC:4:4.1:
Describe different methods people use to exchange goods and services, e.g., barter or the use of money.
(Themes: D: Material Wants and Needs)
SS:GE:4:1.5:
Recognize the causes and consequences of spatial interaction on Earth’s surface, e.g., the origin of consumer
goods or transportation routes. (Themes: C: People, Places and Environment, D: Material Wants and Needs, F:
Global Transformation)
SS:HI:4:4.3:
Investigate the evolution of the United States economy, e.g., the transition from farms to factories or the trend
from small local stores to shopping malls. (Themes: D: Material Wants and Needs, G: Science, Technology, and
Society)
SS:HI:4:5.3:
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Trace the changes in the roles and lives of women and children and their impact on society, e.g., the family or the
workplace. (Themes: B: Civic Ideals, Practices, and Engagement, I: Patterns of Social and Political Interaction)
• Paintings and engravings
•
Diaries: Sally and Pamela Brown:
www.osv.org/explore_learn/document_
viewer.php?DocID=36; The Diaries of Sally and Pamela Brown 1832-1838, ed. Blanche Bryant and Gertrude Baker (Springfield, Vt.: The William L. Bryant Foundation, 1970).
Background Information
•
Letters of Mary Paul, a Vermont mill girl
in Lowell: www.vermonthistory.org/index.
php?option=com_content&task=view&id=
290&Itemid=176
Vermont History Explorer: Geography
https://www.vermonthistory.org/explorer/mapping-vt-history/103-gmgeography.html
• Merchant daybook
• Whitelaw Map of Vermont, 1796/1810
• Beers Atlas of Vermont towns, 1869
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Freedom and Unity: Building Communities http://www.freedomandunity.org/intros/building_communities.html
Vermont History Explorer: Maps
https://www.vermonthistory.org/explorer/mapping-vt-history/22-maps.html
New Hampshire History Slideshows
http://www.nhhistory.org/edu/support/slidesindex.htm
*The Good Old Days: Remember Them?
*Going to School in New Hampshire
*New Hampshire: An Industrious State
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Changes in the Land:
A Village Life Lesson for Elementary Students
Overview: The great sheep boom
(approximately 1825-1845) led to
significant deforestation in Vermont and
New Hampshire as tens of thousands of
sheep were put to pasture in the hills.
Upon seeing the environmental impact,
George Perkins Marsh (a native of
Woodstock, Vermont) wrote Man and
Nature (1864), a warning about the
impacts of clear-cutting the land. This
lesson combines informational text and
visual images that help students understand how agriculture changes the
environment.
Focusing Question: How did sheep farming change the land?
Topical Understandings: William Jarvis imported Merino sheep to Vermont and New Hampshire, which were highly profitable
because of their hardy nature and fine wool.
Sheep require lots of pasture, which led to the gradual deforestation of Vermont and New Hampshire. By the time the sheep boom
ended in the 1840s, 70% of land in both states had been cleared.
George Perkins Marsh was an important environmentalist who warned of the environmental consequences of deforestation.
Background Information: Hands on the Land, by Jan Albers, chapter 3.
Materials: Informational Text
Excerpts from Reading the Forested Landscape by Tom Wessels
Primary Sources:
• Painting: An Early Settler Clears a Forest
Excerpts from Man and Nature by George Perkins Marsh
• Painting: Height of Forest Clearing and Agriculture
Note-taking worksheets
• Photograph: Montpelier in the late nineteenth century
(Courtesy of the Vermont Historical Society)
Procedures:
1. As a class use visual thinking strategies to analyze the “Early Settler” and “Height of Forest Clearing and Agriculture” paintings.
Summarize the two eras of farming and create a list of questions or hypothesize about why the land might look so different in
the second image.
2. Provide students with the excerpts from Reading the Forested Landscape and the accompanying note-taking worksheets.
Discuss their answers and summarize farming during early settlement as compared to the time of the sheep boom.
3. What were some pros and cons to the sheep boom? For farmers? For the land?
4. Project “Montpelier in the late nineteenth century” and use the visual thinking strategies to describe the image.
5. Provide students with the excerpt from George Perkins Marsh and the accompanying note-taking worksheet.
6. Discuss the quote as a class. Ask how students might change their list of sheep boom pros and cons.
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Village Life Lessons
DOCUMENT 1: Excerpt from Reading the Forested Landscape
read
out loud:
The European settlement of Vermont brought change to the landscape. Upland areas where forests were less dense were cleared and
then settled. Men would usually prepare a homestead over a period of two to four summers and then be joined by their families. The
men cleared land by ax—up to three acres a summer—built log cabins, and prepared fencing for animals.
TAKING NOTES
The European settlement of Vermont brought
change to the landscape. Upland areas where
forests were less dense were cleared and then
settled.
Men would usually prepare a homestead over a
period of two to four summers and
then be joined by their families.
The men cleared land by ax—up to three acres a
summer—built log cabins, and prepared fencing
for animals.
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The main idea of this paragraph is:
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It took _____________________ for the men to prepare a home for their families.
If it took four summers to prepare a homestead, how much land did they clear for their farm?
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DOCUMENT 2: Excerpt from Reading the Forested Landscape
read
out loud:
In 1810 William Jarvis, American Consul to Portugal, imported 400 Merino sheep to his Weathersfield, Vermont, farm. Merino sheep
produce very soft, high-quality wool and a lot of it. A wool craze swept the region. By 1840 there were 1.7 million sheep in Vermont
and more than 600,000 in New Hampshire.
To support all these sheep, the landscape changed. The countryside was cleared of forest to create pastures. Stone fencing, designed
to keep the sheep in their pastures, crisscrossed the landscape.
The Text:
Answer the question in your own words and underline the text that gave you the information:
In 1810 William Jarvis, American Consul to
Portugal, imported 400 Merino sheep to his
Weathersfield, Vermont, farm.
What did William Jarvis do?
Merino sheep produce very soft, high-quality
wool and a lot of it.
Why would William Jarvis do this?
By 1840 there were 1.7 million sheep in Vermont
and more than 600,000 in New Hampshire.
How long did it take for the sheep herd in Vermont to get very big?
To support all these sheep, the landscape changed. How did the landscape change?
The countryside was cleared of forest to create
pastures. Stone fencing, designed to keep the
sheep in their pastures, crisscrossed the landscape.
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Visual Thinking: Taking notes
Document 1:
What is the title of this image?
List what you see in this image. Use
the view finder to gather as many
details as possible. You can also
look online at: http://harvardforest.
fas.harvard.edu/dioramas
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What season do you think this is?
What details make you say that?
An Early Settler Clears a Homestead
How long do you think the farmer
has been on the land? What details
make you say that?
What percent of the landscape do
you think is cleared?
How do you think the landscape
came to look the way it does?
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Visual Thinking: Taking Notes 2
Document 2:
What is the title of this image?
List what you see in this image. Use
the view finder to gather as many
details as possible. You can also look
online at: http://harvardforest.fas.
harvard.edu/dioramas
What season do you think this is?
What details make you say that?
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Height of Forest Clearing and Agriculture
How long do you think the farmer has
been on the land? What details make
you say that?
What percent of the landscape
do you think is cleared?
How do you think the landscape
came to look the way it does?
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Visual Thinking: Taking Notes 3
Document 3:
What is the title of this image?
List what you see in this image. Use a
view finder to gather as many details
as possible.
What season do you think this is?
What details make you say that?
Montpelier in the late nineteenth century
(Courtesy of the Vermont Historical Society)
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What percent of the landscape do you
think is cleared?
How do you think the landscape
came to look the way it does?
board of directors :
Nancy Lewis, President Teacher, Stevens High School
Jennifer Boeri-Boyce, Secretary Teacher, Hartford Memorial Middle School
Jen Brown, Treasurer Teacher, Dummerston School
Sarah Rooker Teaching American History Project Director
11 Alan Berolzheimer Historian
teaching american history program partners :
credits :
Windham Southeast Supervisory Union
Barre Supervisory Union
Vermont Historical Society
Southeast Vermont Learning Collaborative
Alan Berolzheimer, editor
Jessica Butterfield, graphic design