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Six Churches (All Gorgeous) Designed by Ralph Adams Cram

Once the most famous architect of his day, Ralph Adams Cram designed many churches, schools and libraries throughout New England. He also planned much of Princeton University, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the great cathedral St. John the Divine in New York City.

Phillips Church, by Ralph Adams Cram

Ralph Adams Cram

Cram was born Dec. 16, 1863, in Hampton Falls, N.H., to an old New England family. His parents named him for Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Adams.

He became not only a prominent architect but an Anglo-Catholic, or High Episcopalian. He also founded the Catholic magazine Commonweal. Cram headed MIT’s architecture department for seven years. In 1926, he made the cover of Time magazine.

Though an ardent advocate of Gothic Revival, Ralph Adams Cram also designed buildings in the Colonial Revival and Art Deco styles.

Cram died Sept. 22, 1942. Unlike his contemporary, Frank Lloyd Wright, his fame has dimmed. The Episcopal Church, though, celebrates his birthday as a feast day.

Here, then, are six churches designed by Ralph Adams Cram, one in each state. If you know of another, please mention it in the comments section.

Seymour St. John Chapel

In 1924, The Choate School in Wallingford, Conn., had 339 male students and a pressing need for a chapel. (John F. Kennedy would later attend Choate.)

Then-headmaster George St. John wrote in his autobiography, “To run a school without a chapel seemed like running a line for light and power without a powerhouse.”

To raise the $100,000 to pay for the chapel, alumni, parents and friends contributed, as did students who sold bricks for $5.

Ralph Adams Cram designed the chapel in the Colonial Revival style. Choate broke ground for the building in May 1924 and dedicated it in 1925.

Choate merged with a girl’s prep school in 1971 and became Choate Rosemary Hall. In 1998, the school rededicated the chapel and renamed it after the Rev. Seymour St. John, headmaster from 1947 to 1973.

All Souls Congregational Church

In 1911, a great fire destroyed much of Bangor, Maine, including the First Congregational church, which overlooked the central business district. The Third Congregational Church also burned in the fire, so the two parishes joined together to build a new church on the site of the First’s old one.

The two parishes commissioned Ralph Adams Cram, who designed an exceptionally creative (some say odd) Gothic Revival church. He incorporated flying buttresses, a rose window, a slender copper-clad spire, a small bell tower and stone from the Third’s building.

The church, which occupies a city block, once faced a row of stately homes. Today it looks across at offices, gas stations and retail stores.

All Saints Church, Ashmont

One stormy Sunday, a snow squall stranded Mary Lothrop Peabody and her husband Oliver near the small wooden chapel of All Saints in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. They were on their way from their estate in Milton to church. They had just lost a young child. Coincidentally, so had the rector of the All Saints chapel. The storm hit them on Dec. 28, 1879, the Feast of the Holy Innocents.

The Peabodys stopped in the chapel instead of forging on to church in Boston. The sermon moved them deeply. The minister preached, “Rachel, weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.”

Oliver had co-founded the investment bank Kidder, Peabody. He and Mary decided to build a new All Saints church. They, like Cram, were children of Unitarian ministers who became Anglo-Catholics, aka High Episcopalians.

The Peabodys hired young architects, Ralph Adams Cram and his partner Bertram Goodhue. They persuaded the Peabodys (or perhaps they needed little persuading) to revive the Gothic style in the design of All Saints. It was Cram’s first church. Cram biographer Douglas Shand-Tucci said of All Saints, Cram’s first church:

A significant landmark in American architectural history, All Saints’ is, of its type, Cram and Goodhue’s masterpiece, and a model for American parish church architecture for the first half of the 20th century.

All Saints Church

The Episcopal All Saints Church, Peterborough, is one of Cram’s small masterpieces, considered by some to be the most beautiful church in America. It’s set back from the road on four acres in the Monadnock Region of New Hampshire. Ralph Adams Cram modeled it after St. Mary the Virgin Church in Iffley, Oxfordshire, England.

Cram stressed local workmen and local materials – hence, he ordered the building built of granite. Some of the finest Arts and Crafts artisans in the region decorated the interior: woodcarver Johannes Kirchmayer, ironworker Frank Koralewski and stained glass artisan Charles Connick.

Mary Lyon Cheney Schofield commissioned the building in 1913 to honor her family. Her first husband, Charles Cheney, was the son of the founder of American Express. He died in 1897, shortly before their third child was born. Her second husband, Harvard professor William Schofield, died in 1920. One of her sons died in World War I. Mary lived until 1947. She, her husbands and her son are interred in the chapel.

Emmanuel Church

In the early 19th century, many residents of South Newport, R.I., couldn’t afford to attend church because they had to buy pew seats. So in 1841, three women from Trinity Church began to hold religious meetings in their homes.

Eight years later, with 88 members, they bought an empty Baptist church. Within three years, the Rhode Island Episcopal diocese admitted Emmanuel Church. The parish soon built a wooden Tudor-style church.

By the turn of the century, the old church needed repair or replacement.

Rhode Island’s prominent Brown family stepped in and commissioned Ralph Adams Cram to design Emmanuel Church in Newport. He later designed other buildings for the princely Browns.

Natalie Bayard Brown built the church in memory of her husband, John Nicholas Brown I. It took two years to build, reaching completion in 1902. Cram’s partner, Bertram Goodhue, designed the rich interior ornamentation, which went wildly over budget.

In the early 1930s, concert organist E. Power Biggs served at the church.

Today, Emmanuel still prides itself on welcoming anyone who wishes to worship.

St. James Episcopal Church

The parish of St. James was organized in the summer of 1826, when Woodstock, Vt., was a prosperous mill town that produced scythes, carding machines, woolens, carriages and tack.

It was built in time for Christmas Eve service in 1827 and consecrated the next year. The founders of the parish bought stone for the church, but discovered quicksand under the land donated for the site. They built a wooden frame church instead, and put a Paul Revere bell in the tower.

In 1907, St. James got the stone church its founders wanted. Ralph Adams Cram designed the building, considered one of his most distinguished smaller churches. He incorporated the brass pulpit and lectern, the marble font and three stained glass windows, one of which came from Tiffany studios.

If you’d like to read more about Gothic Revival buildings in New England, see our story about Henry Vaughan.

Photos: St. James Episcopal Church, AlexiusHoratius~commonswiki; Emmanual Church By Swampyank at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20434397; All Saints Church, By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19104034; All Saints, Ashmont By Jim Roberts – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51960817; Seymour St. John Chapel, Wallingford, Conn. By Daderot (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

This story about Ralph Adams Cram was updated in 2021.

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P.T. Barnum’s Grandson, Herbert Barnum Seeley, Throws the Greatest Bachelor Party on Earth

Herbert Barnum Seeley inherited a large portion of his grandfather P.T. Barnum’s estate, but none of his common sense.

In December of 1896, Clinton Barnum Seeley was getting married. His brother, Herbert Barnum Seeley, decided to send him off with a bachelor party worthy of the grandson of Phineas Taylor “P.T.” Barnum. Grandpa Barnum, circus entrepreneur, had of course created the Greatest Show on Earth.

The party would feature a 17-course dinner, music and drinking. Scantily clad dancing girls would hand out gifts for each of the guests. Herbert Barnum Seeley drew up the guest list from the who’s who of young society – the dissipated offspring of the robber barons and impresarios of the Gilded Age.

Little Egypt

Little Egypt cost Herbert Barnum Seeley his wife

The capstone of the evening was to be a belly dance by a French-speaking dancer of Lebanese descent. Using the stage name “Little Egypt,” Ashea Wabe wowed audiences with her “hoochie coochie” dance.

She had unveiled the dance at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893.

Little Egypt was to do one better for the Barnum grandsons. She would dance and then perform a pose, as in a nude pose the way a model would for a painter. Or, as Little Egypt would later put it, “a little Egyptian pose on a little pedestal in ‘zee altogether’.”

Then Teddy Roosevelt’s cleanup-minded New York Police Department got wind of the party. And at 1:30 in the morning, the cops shut down the big bash at Sherry’s restaurant on Fifth Avenue.

Sherry’s Restaurant in 1899

Herbert Barnum Seeley was charged with indecency. Just how lewd the party grew was never fully exposed, however. Then as now, charges against the wealthy could be silently squelched. And these were.

Instead, the police commission held an inquiry into the evening’s proceedings, airing some details of the debauchery, but protecting the identities of many in attendance.

Herbert Barnum Seeley

The ensuing scandal cost Herbert his wife, who found greener pastures by marrying the son of Boston stockbroker Thomas Lawson. The glare of the coverage also highlighted just how far the apples had fallen from the tree in the famous Barnum family of Bridgeport, Conn.

Herbert Barnum Seeley was no doubt the sillier of the two Barnum namesakes who inherited a large portion of the circus millions. But Clinton was no prizewinner either. Nonetheless, P.T. had shaken the family tree in search of a successor and selected Clinton as the best option.

He took Clinton into the circus business for a very short time – just long enough for the younger Barnum’s laziness and ineffectuality to truly blossom. P.T.’s fellow ringmaster, James Bailey, swore he would break up the company and go forward alone rather than carry the insufferable Clinton with him. The episode, as such things do, ended in lawsuits between Clinton and the circus.

When P.T. Barnum died in 1891, there was then little to urge the clan toward profitable endeavors. Herbert, however, was restrained from his worst instincts by his aunt and brother Clinton who held his inheritance in trust for him. Herbert fought in court for years to remove them from the trust. In 1900, with Herbert approaching 30, the aunt and brother finally stepped aside. They let Herbert get down to the serious business of squandering his funds.

“Now that Herbert Barnum Seeley has come into the possession of a large and scrumptious fortune, he may dine daily, but it is hardly likely that he gives another dinner,” the Boston Home Journal drily reported.

A regular at the summer hot spots of Newport and Narragansett, R.I., Poland Springs, Maine, and Saratoga, N.Y., Herbert Barnum Seeley also traveled regularly to Europe.

Gusto, Then Scandal

Herbert Barnum Seeley embraced his future with gusto. He entered the Army’s military academy at West Point, but dropped out after two years. He went to Mexico to try to find his fortune in mining. When that failed, he took a quick stab at following in his grandfather’s footsteps as a showman. But he lacked an aptitude for that, as well.

Finally, Herbert found his true calling – buying race horses in Europe and America. For a time he prospered, but he eventually got swept up in scandal at New York’s Morris Park and Narragansett. He had to refund bets made on his horses because they weren’t – strictly speaking – trying to win.

Narragansett Park

By 1904, he had been jailed for passing bad checks in Arizona and was selling off bits of P.T. Barnum’s estate left to him. Clinton, who had hung onto more of his money, declined to bail out his brother. Other relatives had to step in.

In July of 1914, his health flagging, Herbert Barnum Seeley checked into a hospital. He died at the age of 43, best known for what the newspapers described as “Seeley Bachelor Party Orgy.”

His obituary noted: “While his passing will bring a thrill to those who knew him in his heyday of prosperity; the services at Mountain Grove cemetery today, where but a few of his kindred were able to gather, owing to their absence in various parts of the world, brings only pangs of sorrow to those closely related.”

This story about Herbert Barnum Seeley was updated in 2022.

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William Barton Goes From Rhode Island Hero to Vermont Deadbeat and Back

Rhode Island’s Col. William Barton seized his place in history in July of 1777 when he slipped into Middletown, R.I. He passed more than 1,000 occupying British troops and kidnapped British General Richard Prescott from the house he occupied.

Portrait of William Barton by James Louis Sullivan now at Brown University in the Rhode Island Historical Society collection.

The news undoubtedly made an impression on the young Marquis de Lafayette, who had just arrived on his first visit to America hoping to join the Revolution. Years later, Lafayette would try to help Barton out.

Barton’s fortunes would take a bitter turn following his daring escapade. He spent more than a decade in a Vermont prison for nonpayment of a small debt to a town named after him.

William Barton

William Barton was born on May 26, 1748, in Warren, R.I. He took up the trade of hatter, which may explain his later mad behavior.

He married Rhoda Carver in 1771, and they eventually had four children. When he learned about the Battle of Bunker Hill, he joined a Rhode Island regiment as an adjutant in August 1775.

By 1777, the British occupied Newport, R.I. Sir Henry Clinton had commanded the occupation, but returned to England and left the high-handed Gen. Richard Prescott in charge.

Maj. General Richard Prescott was a thorn in the side of Rhode Islanders during the British occupation of Newport.

Prescott had already earned a bad reputation for his harsh treatment of American prisoners, including Ethan Allen. In Newport he allowed his men to cut down nearly every tree and use wooden grave markers for firewood. He ordered crops destroyed and people thrown in jail. And when people failed to doff their hats at him, he struck them with his cane, shouting, “Disperse, ye rebels.”

His men hated him as much as the Rhode Islanders did, which would prove his undoing.

In June 1777, William Barton, now a lieutenant colonel, had his headquarters in Tiverton, R.I. An American named Coffin escaped British captivity and made his way to the American lines. He told Barton that Prescott was living on an isolated farm belonging to Henry Overing, and he had forced his attentions on Mrs. Overing. Only a sentry and a few soldiers guarded the house.

The Kidnapping

Coffin convinced William Barton he could capture Prescott. So Barton took five whaleboats and 40 men who knew how to use them, muffled the oars with lambs’ wool and set out for Portsmouth. It took them 26 hours to travel 10 miles in pouring rain. The men had no idea what they were about to do.

Replica of a traditional whaleboat at Mystic Seaport.

They halted at Hog Island near the mouth of the harbor. The rain stopped, and at midnight Barton revealed the plan. After a day of rest, they slipped past the British warships guarding the harbor at night. The men put ashore opposite the Overing property and hiked through rough terrain to the house.

A sentry challenged them, but they quickly overpowered him. The sentry told them Prescott was asleep on the second floor. They found Prescott, though whether Mrs. Overing was with him is lost to history. “You are my prisoner,” said Barton.

“I acknowledge it, sir,” replied Prescott.

Barton ordered him out of bed and hustled him in his nightclothes toward the whaleboats. Thus Prescott earned the nickname ‘The Barefoot General.’

The Overing house, where Barton captured Prescott

Not long after he landed, a boat arrived under a flag of truce carrying the general’s clothing, wigs and perfumes. Eventually the Americans exchanged him for captured Continental Army general Charles Lee.

Vermont

William Barton received a painful leg injury in fighting in 1778 and never fully recovered. He did, however, continue to serve in the Continental Army throughout the Revolution.

But Barton’s orneriness, an asset during his war service, soon became a detriment. To honor his military achievements, the Congress awarded him a French-made decorative gold sword.

He bought land in northern Vermont in a town that now bears his name – Barton. He soon got embroiled in a bitter lawsuit over land that he had sold to two people. The court ordered him to pay $320 in damages.

Stubborn and difficult, William Barton refused to pay – though he could have. For 14 years he stayed in the prison in Danville, Vt., rather than settle his debt.

He had to live in a yard surrounded by chains, where people came to visit him and hear how he captured Prescott. Barton happily obliged.

Lafayette

The Marquis de Lafayette seldom forgot a friend, as he showed when he visited Vermont in 1825 on his final celebratory tour of America.

He had gone to Barton’s home in Providence, where Rhoda Barton told him he hadn’t visited her in 30 years.

Lafayette in 1825

The French hero of the American Revolution then saw Barton during his travels through Vermont. He offered to pay Barton’s debt, but Barton refused. Lafayette then quietly paid it himself.

After emerging from jail at age 77, William Barton found his capture of the British general had became a cause for celebration, commemorated annually. He would die six years later, his reputation restored, and be buried back in Rhode Island.

This story about William Barton was updated in 2022.

Images: Whaleboat By Stan Shebs, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115479.

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Vermonter Henry Martyn Leland – The Forgotten Car King

Vermonter Henry Martyn Leland created two of the world’s best-selling luxury car brands – the Cadillac and the Lincoln. While New England had other players in the early development of the automobile, Leland was the most successful and most underappreciated.

The youngest child from a family of eight in Barton, Vt., Leland focused his whole professional life on precision manufacturing. After a full career that included machining weapons during the Civil War for the Colt firearms company in Connecticut and designing and manufacturing barber clippers, Leland turned his attention to the nascent automobile industry.

Henry Martyn Leland

Leland’s 60^th birthday in 1903 found him in Detroit running a machine shop, Leland & Faulconer Manufacturing Co., which supplied the earliest car makers. Henry Ford and his partners hired Leland to evaluate their struggling automotive plant with an eye toward dismantling and selling it.

Leland encouraged the group to instead adopt his engine design and start again. The Cadillac Motor Car Company was born. The company would go through several reorganizations and, in 1909, Leland snubbed Henry Ford and sold the Cadillac to General Motors for $4.5 million.

For the next eight years, Leland ran the company as a division of GM. But in 1917, Leland got into an argument with GM president William Durant. Durant wanted nothing to do with World War I, while Leland wanted to manufacture engines for the military.

1908 Cadillac Model S

Leland quit the car company he had founded and formed Liberty Motors, which supplied the military. After the war, Leland – now well into his 70s – founded the Lincoln Motor Company. Lincolns were fast, powered by eight-cylinder engines.

Leland was an innovator while at Cadillac, introducing the first engine starter. He also standardized the car parts so that when something broke a new part didn’t have to be fabricated from scratch.

Lincoln

But at Lincoln, Leland struggled. His focus remained on precision, but he could not make the cars profitably. In 1922, the firm slipped into bankruptcy. Leland’s old associate, Henry Ford, was waiting in the wings to scoop up the company at a bargain price.

Ford offered $5 million for the company, which had a value of $16 million. The bankruptcy judge forced him to up the offer to $8 million.

1925 Lincoln Model L sedan (Greta Garbo’s car)

Leland stayed on at Lincoln for a time under Ford, but quit when it became clear Ford intended to take his management powers away. Leland continued in business, but the Lincoln was his last car. In 1932, at the age of 89, Leland vowed to his associates that he would never retire until his heart gave out, and later that year it did.

Automotive historians say Leland is largely forgotten today for one simple reason: modesty. Despite being advised to name his car after himself, like most early carmakers, Leland declined. Instead he chose to honor two of historic figures. Cadillac derived its name from Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Cadillac, the founder of Detroit. Lincoln derived its name from Leland’s hero, Abraham Lincoln.

This story was updated in 2022. Images By The original uploader was DougW at English Wikipedia. – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Undead_warrior., Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3756367. 1925 Lincoln Model L Sedan By Rex Gray from Southern California – 1925 Lincoln – Greta Garbo Car – fvl, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23379602.

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The Bristol Fourth of July Parade, From Pious Henry Wight to Rascally Buddy Cianci

The Rev. Henry Wight is the unlikely inventor of today’s raucous Independence Day celebrations and the famous Bristol Fourth of July parade.

A quiet, pious and amiable man, he passed 43 years of his life ministering to the same church in Bristol, R.I. The town remembered him for his decency and devotion to its people — and still celebrates the Fourth in the style he originated.

henry wight

Wight probably couldn’t have been more different than another prominent Rhode Islander associated with the famous Bristol parade: Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci. The city’s longest serving mayor liked to crash the parade in spectacular fashion — when he wasn’t in prison.

Henry Wight

Henry Wight was born in Medfield, Mass., on May 26, 1752, and graduated from Harvard. He also served as a soldier in the American Revolution.

Henry Wight, godfather of the Bristol Fourth of July parade

Buddy Cianci was born in Cranston, R.I., on April 30, 1941, graduated from Fairfield University and earned a law degree from Marquette. He served as a second lieutenant in the Army’s military police corps.

Buddy Cianci

In January of 1785, the First Congregational Church of Bristol, R.I. hired Henry Wight as its new pastor. Only five ministers had led the church previously. With just 36 people in the congregation, Wight was handed the keys to a newly built church building and encouraged to get on with building it up.

In his first year at the First Congregational Church, Wight determined the town of Bristol should observe Patriotic Exercises on the Fourth of July. He led the ceremonies in 1785 with a speech and call for reflection on the veterans who won the war and celebration of the new nation’s freedoms.

Cianci first won election as mayor of Providence in 1974, but he had to resign 10 years later after pleading no contest to a felony charge. He had kidnapped a Bristol contractor, Raymond DeLeo, and tortured him with a lighted cigarette because he thought the man had an affair with his wife.

The Bristol Fourth of July Parade

Bristol had already celebrated the Fourth in an informal way. In 1777, a British officer heard sounds from across Narragansett Bay.

This being the first anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the Rebel Colonies, they ushered in the morning by firing 13 cannons, one for each colony, we suppose. At sunset, the rebel frigates fired another round of 13 guns, each one after the other. As the evening was very still and fine the echo of the guns down the Bay had a grand effect.

But since Wight initiated the first formal patriotic exercises, it gave Bristol, R.I, its claim as birthplace of the Fourth of July celebration. For 40 years, Henry Wight would continue leading these ceremonies, which soon included the Bristol Fourth of July parade.

The Bristol Fourth of July parade. Note the red, white and blue stripe down the street.

As mayor, Cianci brought the Bruins hockey team to Providence and created an Arts and Entertainment District. He also started the annual WaterFire celebration in downtown Providence. And year after year he marched in the Bristol parade, though the town explicitly told him not to.

Providence during the WaterFire festival.

First Congregational

The Congregational Church, under Wight’s leadership, became a place where the poor visited for food and medicine. Others sought Wight’s advice on practical matters. He was a lifelong reader with a good knowledge of Greek, Latin, mathematics and science. He served for 40 years on Brown University’s governing body, its Board of Fellows.

Wight did not shy from bringing political discussions into the pulpit, even when his opinions cost him members of the congregation. He practiced medicine as well as religion. He routinely called on sick members of his congregation and provided them with remedies as well as spiritual counsel.

Cianci won re-election in 1991, seven years after his resignation. He worked as a talk-show radio host in the interim. During his second term, which lasted until 2002, he was credited with revitalizing downtown Providence. But he had to resign again following his conviction on racketeering charges. He served four years in federal prison, returning to the airwaves after his release. He hosted a television show called The World According to Buddy and wrote a book called Politics and Pasta.

Cianci also launched a brand of pasta sauce, called Mayor’s Own Marinara Sauce. He said proceeds would go to scholarships for Providence schoolchildren. They didn’t.

Henry Wight died in 1838, 10 years after his retirement from full-time ministry. He had married twice and fathered seven children along with the Fourth of July celebration we all know today.

Buddy Cianci died of colon cancer in 2014 after serving as Providence mayor for two decades. He married and divorced once, fathered one daughter and had quite a few girlfriends.

Buddy Crashes The Bristol Fourth of July Parade

Bristol’s 231st annual Fourth of July parade in 2016.

Sometime in the early 1800s the now-2.5-mile Military, Civic and Firemen’s Parade began.

In 1975, Providence’s new mayor, Buddy Cianci, started fighting with parade organizers. Under the rules, only federal, state and Bristol town officials could participate. He came anyway, usually riding a horse.

The Bristol Town Council banned him from the 1980 parade and the police threatened to arrest him. But when Cianci arrived in a helicopter, Miss Rhode Island greeted him. Paradegoers, who numbered 300,000, cheered, giving him hugs, kisses, handshakes and cold drinks. The police had to let him march.

He missed some parades because of his legal troubles. In 1984, after his first felony conviction, he didn’t march. Instead, a clown dressed in a prison uniform carried a ball and chain to ridicule him. Then in 1997 Cianci brought along an entourage of law enforcement officers squirting the crowd with water rifles.

Buddy Cianci marched in his last Bristol Fourth of July parade in 2002, after his conviction for RICO conspiracy. The parade passed the home of the contractor he’d tortured, where a large party was held every year. As Cianci walked past, partygoers began singing to the tune of For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.

For he’s a RICO felon…which nobody can deny.

Today Bristol’s Fourth of July celebration officially starts on June 14th, Flag Day, and ends with the parade on July 4th. In between are concerts, fireworks, a drum corps show, a firefighters muster and a Fourth of July ball.

This story updated in 2022.

Images: Bristol Fourth of July parade By Kenneth C. Zirkel – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49912345. Bristol parade with center line By TwoSheds (talk) (Uploads) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109547000. Buddy Cianci By Sharperimage0 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89148498.

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The Spanish Sheep Craze That Forever Changed Vermont

In 1809, a man named William Jarvis sent a flock of Spanish sheep to America and altered the landscape and the economy of Vermont. The shipment of prized merino sheep eventually turned Vermont’s subsistence farmers into wealthy ranchers, fed the new woolen mills and deforested the landscape.

William Jarvis

William Jarvis was a Boston Brahmin who built a successful trading house dealing in European commodities. He got to know Lisbon, Portugal, well, and served as Thomas Jefferson’s consul to Portugal from 1802 to 1811.

Spanish Sheep

Jarvis discovered a secret closely guarded by the Spanish: Their merino sheep produced fine, thick wool that was soft, water-resistant and long-fibered.

Merino sheep

When Napoleon invaded Spain, Jarvis took advantage of the resulting chaos and sent thousands of merino sheep out of the country. He was, in a sense, a 19^th century version of Ben & Jerry’s.

He sent a staggering number of sheep to America. According to the Vermont Merino Sheep Breeders Association in 1879, 15,767 merino sheep arrived on the East Coast from Spain from 1810-11. Ships carrying the Spanish sheep arrived in Boston, New Haven, Portland, Providence, New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk. Jarvis even sent eight to Jefferson.

Weathersfield, Vt., around 1900

In 1811, Jarvis bought an estate in Weathersfield, Vt., near his relatives in Claremont, N.H. He brought thousands of sheep, along with Spanish shepherds and dogs to tend them. He evolved into a zealot for the merino sheep, giving speeches, lending money to farmers who wanted to raise them and buying an interest in a woolen mill in Quechee, Vt.

His timing was good. The local production of wool simply couldn’t supply the emerging woolen industry. Farmers had tried and failed to figure out how to improve the breed of sheep. Several others attempted to promote the Spanish sheep, but no one really paid attention.

Then came the economic crisis caused by the Embargo Act of 1807 and the Nonintercourse Act of 1809. Wool factories could no longer buy wool from Britain, and farmers could no longer sell their grain overseas.

A flock of Vermont merinos

Merino Mania

Merino mania then seized Northern New England, especially Vermont. Textile manufacturers paid farmers $2.00 for a pound of merino wool, while common wool sold for 37.5 cents a pound. Common sheep sold for $2, while Merino rams sold for as much as $1,500 each.

Farmers stopped growing wheat and grain and started raising the Spanish sheep. They cut down thousands of acres of trees because the sheep needed the land for grazing.

The craze subsided by 1823. Isaac Holmes wrote, in An Account of the United States of America, derived from actual observation, during a residence of four uears in that Republic; including Original communications,

The sheep or Merino mania has now subsided. Four or five years ago, the sum of 1500 dollars was paid for a ram of the Merino breed. One thousand dollars was a very common price for an animal which would not now sell for fifty.

Boom and Bust

But the Spanish sheep, now known as the Vermont Merino, was here to stay. By 1830, Merino sheep were Vermont’s principal livestock, and Weathersfield was one of the richest towns in New England. The character of the sheep changed, too. In 1812, the average fleece of a Vermont sheep was 6 percent of the animal’s weight. By 1844, the average fleece of a Vermont sheep – with all those Spanish genes — was 15 percent of its weight, and by 1865 it rose to 21 percent.

Over the next decades, sheep farmers were subject to booms and busts. Wool prices plummeted because of competition from huge farms in the western United States, Australia and Argentina. Protective tariffs on wool also declined. Prices fell from 57 cents a pound in 1835 to 25 cents in late 1840, and two-thirds of Vermont’s sheep were killed between 1846 and 1850. Many farmers went out of business.

There were nearly 4 million sheep in New England by 1840, but half as many by 1860.

Civil War

A second wave of Merino mania struck in the 1860s. Cotton was scarce and wool was needed for military uniforms. The sheep population doubled in some places. Some Vermont Merinos rams sold for as much as $5,000. A breeder named George Campbell took his prize Vermont Merinos to Hamburg, Germany, for an agricultural fair in 1863. He brought 12 sheep, the only Americans there, and they beat out 1,761 Merinos, some from the Royal French flock, for two first prizes and one second.

William Jarvis wasn’t alive to witness the second craze for Spanish sheep. He died in 1859 and was buried in Weathersfield. A merino sheep was inscribed on his tombstone.

This story about Spanish sheep last updated in 2023. If you enjoyed it, you may also want to read about the Guernsey cow and her passionate followers here.

Image of Merino ram: By Cgoodwin – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7697403. Flock of merino sheep in snow By Pixture2016 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50266283.

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