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Vermont

Elisha Otis Gets a Sales Lesson From P.T. Barnum

Vermont-born tinkerer Elisha Otis thought so little of the safety elevator he invented that he didn’t bother to get a patent for it.

P.T. Barnum thought pretty highly of it, though. He offered Otis $100 to demonstrate the device before a crowd at the Crystal Palace, built for the 1853 New York World’s Fair.

Elisha Otis

Otis donned a top hat, mounted the platform and hoisted it high above the crowd. Once he had the crowd’s attention, he gave the signal for an assistant to cut the cable with an axe. The axe fell, the cable snapped and the spectators screamed – but the platform plunged only two feet.

“All safe gentlemen, all safe,” Otis calmly assured the crowd.

Elisha Otis

Elisha Otis was born in Halifax, Vt., on Aug. 3, 1811, the youngest of six children. He learned woodworking and tool-making on the family farm.

He left the farm and dabbled in a number of businesses: a gristmill, carpentry, freight hauling, carriage making. In 1845 he moved to Troy, N.Y., with his second wife (his first died) and two sons, Charles and Norton. He made dolls for a while.

Then he got a job in Yonkers, N.Y., converting an old sawmill into a bedstead factory. To move debris from the first floor to the upper levels, Otis invented a hoisting platform. It had a spring mechanism that prevented the platform from falling even if the cables broke.

The 1854 Crystal Palace demonstration

He built a few more safety hoists for his boss in 1852, but then the bedstead factory closed down. Otis decided to form his own company. It didn’t do too well. At the end of 1853 the business had $122.71, two oil cans and a secondhand lathe.

Enter Barnum

P.T. Barnum saw the entertainment potential in the hoist platform. He persuaded Elisha Otis to demonstrate his the device in New York City.

P.T. Barnum

The demonstration was so successful the company got orders to build three dozen freight platforms over the next two years. In 1857, the first passenger elevator was installed at 488 Broadway, a china and glass company.

Elisha Otis didn’t have long to live though. He died at 49 on April 8, 1861, leaving the company to his two sons. They carried on capably. Within 11 years, they installed 2,000 Otis elevators in high-rise hotels, office buildings and apartment buildings – made possible by the safety elevator.

With thanks to Here is where: Discovering America’s Great Forgotten History by Andrew Carroll. “Elisha Otis 1853” by an unknown artist, licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. This story was updated in 2022.

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Mary Jean Simpson, Breaker of Glass Ceilings

Mary Jean Simpson, the prim clerk pictured below, was a driven woman who shattered several glass ceilings in her lifetime.

Mary Jean Simpson

The photo shows her in her position as bill clerk in the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Senate, the first woman appointed to the position, which she held from 1926 to 1933.

She was also the first woman to introduce a bill in the Vermont Legislature – that was in 1921 — and the first women’s dean at the University of Vermont.

Mary Jean Simpson

She was born in East Craftsbury, Vt., on July 18, 1988, graduating from St. Johnsbury Academy in 1908. She graduated from the University of Vermont in 1913, taught for a few years and did graduate work at Columbia University in New York City.

In 1924, back in Vermont, she ran for state representative as a Republican and won. That first bill was to tighten a 1921 billboard law.

Fellow Vermonter Calvin Coolidge was president of the United States when she worked as the Senate clerk.

In 1932, Democrats won Congress and the presidency, and Mary Jean Simpson went back to Vermont.

During the Great Depression she administered New Deal programs for women, including the Civil Works Administration, the professional programs of the Vermont Emergency Relief Administration, the Women’s and Professional Division of the Vermont Works Progress Administration and the Vermont’s Civilian Conservation Corps.

University of Vermont

From 1937-54 she served as dean of women at the University of Vermont, where she recruited students for the university’s first nursing program. During World War II she established a scholarship program for returning veterans.

At graduation every year, UVM presents the Mary Jean Simpson Award to a senior woman who best exemplifies her qualities of character, leadership and scholarship. The Simpson Hall dormitory is named in her honor.

A portrait of her hangs in the Fleming Museum. The explanatory text includes an excerpt from a letter she wrote to the parents of daughters entering UVM in 1945. A daughter, she wrote,

…should not let her work pile up, nor sacrifice regular study hours to pleasant social demands, nor give more time than she can afford to ‘dates,’ sports, or other extra-curricular activities… It is expected that the women of the university shall at all times conduct themselves with dignity and good taste.

One suspects those are words she lived by.

Mary Jean Simpson also had a cousin, Jean Simpson, who was quite different and left her mark on Vermont by establishing the John Woodruff Simpson Memorial Library in East Craftsbury. Mary Jean Simpson died in East Craftsbury in 1977.

This story last updated in 2022.

Photo via Shorpy.

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Barre Stonecutters Fight the Spanish Civil War

Barre, Vt., was a hotbed of anti-fascism during the Spanish Civil War, as Barre stonecutters raised money to help the suffering Spanish people.

The Barre Stonecutters, 1902

Barre had a significant population of working-class Spaniards in the 1930s, many of whom left their home of Santander during the first few decades of the 20^th century. They came to work in the granite quarries and stone sheds of Vermont.

Mary Tomasi from the Federal Writers’ Project visited Barre’s El Club Espanol. She recorded her impressions of the Barre stonecutters in an undated report, now at the Library of Congress.

El Club Espanol

The second-story club, founded in 1926, overlooked Main Street and had simple furnishings. Benches lined the walls next to sturdy card tables, and limp red and yellow streamers hung from the ceiling.

Loyalist posters hid the east wall, wrote Tomasi, and a long handwritten list of subscribers hung from the Spanish Red Cross Certificate. “The Spanish Club room breathes Old Spain,” she wrote.

It was one of 176 such clubs in the United States. Members raised money for the Spanish Confederated Society in New York and to the Medical Bureau to Save Spanish Democracy.

A Loyalist poster the Barre stonecutters might have liked.

The Barre stonecutters used the club to socialize, as well. As many as 50 men filled the room in the winter, talking about politics, gossiping, playing card games like briscola, trisette, tutti. One night a month the men cleared out and let the women use the space.

Barre Stonecutters Speak

John Bavine, born Juan Bavine 65 years ago in Santander, told Tomasi the club had taken in $15,000. “Just here in Barre. Oh there are many ways we raise money. Festivals, dances, picnics, Now we even have little stamps…”

Manuel Teral chimed in. “You’ve heard about that ship that arrived in Vera Cruz, Mexico, two weeks ago? With 1,900 refugees aboard. Well it was money from our Spanish-American clubs that got them here-”

All the Spanish stonecutters in Barre belonged to the Stonecutter’s Union. They were disgusted with the men who did not join the union – all French, they said. They knew that belonging to a trade union would get you killed in Franco’s Spain.

Tomasi described how Manuel Teral stepped across the room and took from the wall a photograph of a group of a dozen young men. He pointed out two in the front row. “These are two of our Barre Loyalists who went over to fight for a just cause. This older one was born in Spain but he’d lived here for a good ten years. This younger fellow was born here in Barre. […] What does my friend do? He’s never seen Spain, but he packs up right away, and goes over to fight. He didn’t come back. He was killed…”

Loyalist poster

Money for the Poor Spanish

“We had an ambulance drive a while back,” Manuel said. “Made $656.00 in one night. Last week we had a Spanish fiesta in the Armory Hall. We took up no collections, only straight admission fees. Eighty cents and fifty-five cents. A professional from New York came to dance for us. Mariquita Flores. A small girl, no more than four feet eleven, but could she dance! She’s touring the country, too, for the victims of Fascism. She gets no pay. Her heart is with the Loyalists. All we did was pay her fare to Barre, and her living expenses while she stayed here. There was a crowd there that night. And not only Spanish people. How much did we make, Bavine?”

“I cannot say for sure,” Bavine said. “All the expenses, they have not yet been figure. But I guess there will be a $350.00 more for our poor Spanish.”

Bavine’s wife and children were among the poor Spanish, stuck in Spain. She had taken the children there before the war to see their grandmother.

“It makes me sick and afraid to have them over there,” Bavine said. They send letters back and forth, but they can’t open their hearts or tell the truth about their feelings because all of their letters are opened.

This story about Barre stonecutters was updated in 2021. A previous version incorrectly identified an anti-Loyalist poster as a Loyalist poster. We replaced it with the poster of el Generalisimo. Thanks to Liz Castro for the correction.

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The 10th Vermont Retreat: Charlie George Saves His Little Brother Along the Way

Charles and Herbert George were brothers from Vermont, two of four who enlisted in the 10th Vermont Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. All had musical talent and joined the regimental band.

A Civil War regimental band

The George boys grew up in Newbury, Vt., in a large farming family, the sons of James George and Maria Nourse George. They had three sisters. Their father, who drank and gambled, wasn’t much of a provider. The boys all left home at a young age, two to farm, two to work as telegraph operators.

Then war broke out, and the brothers — Charles, Jere, Osman and Herbert — joined at various times. A description of the Union Army’s musicians underscores their role in the war effort:

The town also had suffered fearful ravages from war, and now a Union army was marching through its streets, every band and every drum corps playing the stirring but to southern ears hateful air, “John Brown’s body lies mouldering in the grave…” the bands always struck up this air, as if to taunt the inhabitants with the memory of their victim.

The 10th Vermont

The brothers participated in the Battle of Monocacy near Fredericksburg, Md., on July 9, 1864. Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early had led his forces on a rampage from the Shenandoah Valley into Maryland. He wanted to divert Union forces from Gen. Robert E. Lee, under siege in Petersburg.

The Confederates did defeat the Union forces under Gen. Lew Wallace, forcing a retreat. The 10^th Vermont fought valiantly under Col. William Wirt Henry, who was wounded in the battle

Afterward, Charles wrote to his wife about the battle – some of the hardest fighting and marching of the war. They marched through dust to Fredericksburg and arose early on Saturday, July 9, he wrote. They then formed the line of battle at 8 a.m., drew rations and started ‘fighting like tigers.’

During the battle they were peppered with shells and bullets as they tried to help the wounded. The rebels overpowered the Union forces, who then took flight. They marched all night and until 4 p.m. the next day, wrote Charles, covering 40 miles on their way to rejoin their division.

Charles and Herbert

During the retreat, Charles stuck with Herbert who wasn’t well, carrying his things and leading him by the hand. Herbert wouldn’t have made it otherwise. They slept for four hours and then prepared to resume the march. Herbert threw away his knapsack and everything but his rubber blanket. They made coffee with cold water strained through a towel and hardtack before starting out again. Herbert soon gave out. He staggered and fell. Charles found a ride for him.

They reached Relay House in Maryland, from where they wrote home.

On July 14, 1864, Herbert wrote:

Dear folks at home

Just a word–I am all tired out & cant seem to get rested any although we have been here doing nothing for 3 days. We went up to Frederick & fought the rebels — got whipped & had to retreat 40 miles in a hurry. Such a hard march I never had. I’ll tell you all about it when I feel like it. I came near falling out & being taken prisoner. My first Bass player was taken prisoner & the other one is sick. Two others sick & I’m about sick so the Band is played out for a day or two. Our regt is pretty small now. Only about 200 muskets and guess it will fall short of that. We are now ordered to move somewhere but can’t tell anything about were.

Write often
in haste,
J. Herbert

With thanks to Bully for the Band: The Civil War Letters and Diary of Four Brothers in the 10^th Vermont Infantry Band, edited by James G. Davis. This story was updated in 2022.

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Flashback Photo: Rural Life in Lincoln, Vt., 1940

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Lincoln, Vt., church raffle

The caption to this photo, now stored in the Library of Congress, reads, “Raffle of a ten-pound bag of sugar conducted to raise funds for the church. Band concert. Lincoln, Vermont.”

Lincoln, Vt., band concert

Here’s the band concert that we presume happened at the same time as the church raffle. Boys also pitched pennies during the festivities.

Lincoln, Vt., farm woman

This is a photo of a farm woman washing clothes in her motor-driven washing machine. Louise Rosskam took these photographs in July 1940 as part of the Farm Security Administration, a New Deal agency that fought rural poverty. The photography program, which portrayed poor farmers and their environments, produced iconic pictures that influenced public opinion.

Lincoln, Vt., country store

“Bicknell & Carpenter, General Merchandise” is the name above this country store in Lincoln.

Lincoln, Vt., general store proprietor

Lincoln, Vt., was named after Benjamin Lincoln, a major general in the American Revolution who ran against George Washington for president. The town was first settled by Quakers around 1795.

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Gregarious Grace Coolidge, Who Filled in the Silences

Grace Coolidge burst out laughing when she glanced through a boardinghouse window and spotted her future husband shaving in long underwear and a hat. Their relationship – and his political career – would be marked by her ebullience, which filled in his silences.

Grace Coolidge, official White House portrait

Decades after his death, it was revealed Calvin Coolidge’s silences resulted from intense social anxiety throughout his life. Grace made up for it, becoming one of the most popular First Ladies in history.

The American public followed her fashion choices at weekly photo ops. They read about the Coolidge menagerie in the White House, enjoyed her exploits on the hiking trail and joined in her enthusiasm for the national pastime.

When her 16-year-old son died suddenly, they sent her thousands of letters of sympathy.

‘I am going to be married to you’

Grace Coolidge was born Jan. 3, 1879, in Burlington, Vt., the only child of Andrew Goodhue, a steamboat inspector and mechanical engineer, and Lemira Barrett Goodhue.

She graduated from the University of Vermont at Burlington and taught deaf students at the Clarke Institute for the Deaf in Northampton, Mass., for three years before her marriage.

She was actually involved with someone else when she first dated the dour young attorney who’d just moved to Northampton. They went to a Republican rally.

Calvin and Grace Coolidge, about 1918

He proposed by stating, “I am going to be married to you.”

She agreed, but her mother didn’t. They were married on Oct. 4, 1905, over her mother’s vehement objections, during a plain ceremony in her childhood home.

Politics

The Coolidges initially lived in a Northampton hotel. When it went out of business, they bought linens from the hotel and used them even in the White House, despite the hotel monogram.

In 1906 they rented half of a duplex they’d live in for two decades.

During the early years of their marriage, Grace Coolidge raised their two sons, John and Calvin, Jr., in Northampton while Calvin pursued his political career in Boston. He did spend two years in Northampton as mayor, from 1910-11, but most of the time from 1907 to 1921 he lived in a dollar-and-a-half room in Boston and came home on weekends.

Grace’s quiet life was interrupted in 1921, when her husband became vice president of the United States. She was abruptly shoved into the spotlight, and Cal quickly recognized how much her gregariousness helped him.

He set limits on her, though. He wouldn’t let her wear pants, drive a car or ride in an airplane. When a comment appeared in a newspaper about the jodhpurs she wore while horseback riding, he told her “…you will get along at this job fully as well if you do not try anything new.”

The White House Brings Grief

John Coolidge, 1924

Early in the morning of Aug. 3, 1923, the Coolidges were vacationing at his family home in Plymouth Notch, Vt., when they received word that President Harding had suddenly collapsed and died. Grace lit a kerosene lamp and watched while her father-in-law, a notary, administered the oath of office to her husband.

During their stay in the White House, the animal-loving Coolidges kept a menagerie: dogs, cats, birds and even a raccoon named Rebecca. Grace held weekly photo ops, and the public avidly followed her: She went to the movies and concerts, wore the latest fashions and campaigned for the Red Cross and the Clarke School for the Deaf. She hiked, swam and listened to sports on the radio when she wasn’t attending games. If she couldn’t get a football game on her crystal radio she went to the White House telegraph room for scores.

You can watch a video of Grace Coolidge with Helen Keller here and in her first talkie newsreel here.

Grief

In July 1924 her 16-year-old son Calvin died when a blister developed into blood poisoning. On the five-year anniversary of his death, Grace Coolidge published an original poem, ‘The Open Door,’ in Good Housekeeping magazine. It began,

Calvin Coolidge, Jr.

You, my son,
Have shown me God.
Your kiss upon my cheek
Has made me feel the gentle touch
Of Him who leads us on.

For most of the 1924 presidential campaign, she and her husband were in mourning. Grace became a rabid baseball fan at about that time, frequently attending Washington Senators games. Later in life she had a season pass to Red Sox games. She sat near the dugout and chatted with the players. In 1948 she sent a quarter and a Post cereal box top to get a genuine Red Barber baseball guide. She got a letter from Red in return (and the guide).

By 1928 President Coolidge’s health was deteriorating, and he decided not to seek reelection. They moved back to the two-family home they rented before moving to Washington. Finally, to protect themselves from sightseers, they bought a large home on the Connecticut River with a gate.

Calvin Coolidge died of a heart attack on Jan. 5, 1933. Grace Coolidge lived as an active widow for the next 25 years. She often attended Red Sox games at Fenway Park, supported her favorite charities and toured Europe in a car, which she drove herself. She also flew in planes.

Grace Coolidge died July 8, 1957 in Northampton, Mass. She is buried next to her husband in Plymouth, Vt.

With thanks to the National First Ladies’ Library. This story was updated in 2022.

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