History Lesson

There are, of course, rules that guide the traditions of writing, as there are rules for sports, sex and religion. One of those rules seems to be that when one writes, the scenes need to be set, so that the reader can see the main characters in context and understand something about them from an analysis of the place they occupy.  Many years ago, I read a well-regarded book by Carolyn Chute, "The Beans of Egypt, Maine."  Truth to tell, I never got very far in it; I knew from the scene setting what to expect in the rest of the novel, and I wasn't convinced I wanted to read that kind of story. But I am no different from most writers, and I find myself setting the scenes here... come to think of it, I always do that, and I think I always sort of explain it. It's what writer Roger Rosenblatt calls "throat clearing" before you actually start to write. So here's today's harrumph...Hopefully, you will get beyond the point at which I closed Chute's book.

In 1840, Martin Van Buren was President of the United States, followed in 1841 by William Henry Harrison, but Harrison only served one month, having contracted pneumonia. He was succeeded by his Vice President John Tyler. These men set policy for a nation of 17 million people which had grown nearly a third  from the prior census. The influx included those fleeing poverty and religious persecution in Europe and beyond. The census recorded the names of head of household; numbers of free white males and females; the names of a slave owner and the number of slaves owned, and free "colored" persons. But there must have already been flux in attitudes toward slaves as in 1841, the Supreme Court of the U.S. stated that in the case of the slave ship Amistad, the Africans who had wrested control of the ship had been bound into slavery illegally.  

It was a time when the nation's growth was marked by the first wagon trains that left Missouri for California, and the citizens would have been watching the connection by railroad and the invention of the telegraph which was another way of connecting, and in 1845 President Polk announced the Monroe Doctrine that settled the West and established the principle of Manifest Destiny. In 1845 in New York, the Knickerbockers baseball team established the rules of baseball for the first time, and on January 1,1840 the first recorded bowling match took place at Knickerbocker Alleys, New York City.


There were 26 states, and New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia  had populations of more than 1 million people. The map looked like this with the black lines in dispute.


In Vermont, where we live, 1840 saw the early arrival of immigrants from Ireland and Russia who reclaimed agricultural land in yet another boom-bust cycle that has characterized the state for all of its recorded history. There were Welsh immigrants who arrived to work in the Slate Valley to the west, and an agri-industrial base began in the cities and surrounding countryside to the North and East. French Canadians moved South from Quebec and somewhere between 1840 and 1860, one of those early settlers named S. Morison made the Great Wheel (spinning wheel)  that stands in our living room. He lived in a town about 20 miles away and was buried in a Quaker cemetery beside his second wife.

In 1860, President Abraham Lincoln was elected President but had to travel to Washington secretly because of an assassination attempt, and in 1861, the Civil War began. In 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and in 1865, President Lincoln was shot. Between these years, the Homestead Act began, 1000 people died in the draft riots that would have allowed people to pay to escape the draft, and the battle of Gettysburg saw one-third of the 150,000 troops that fought, maimed, missing or dead. Between 150 and 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho men, women and children were killed waiting for their terms of surrender, and the Grand Canyon was explored by the "first scientific team", a contemporary phrase that reflects painfully on our continuing views of Native American history on this land. In addition, Alaska was purchased from Russia, the Ku Klux Klan was founded, the first typewriter was invented, and Women's Suffrage passed in Wyoming.

In New England twenty thousand New England shoe workers (Lynn, MA) struck and won higher wages and M L Byrn patents the "covered gimlet screw with a 'T' handle" (corkscrew).

There were 33 states and the map looked like this:


One more event occurred in 1840. A house was built in Middletown Springs. It was probably simple, and housed a cobbler or leather maker and his family. There are pictures of it in the history of the area. The family added on a second two-story section twenty years later.

Here it is today. It is on a piece of wooded and open land with a view of the town. It is about 3/4 mile from the General Store, Library and Post Office, and the Elementary School that was built in 1904.

Remember that celebration we are planning?  We will be holding it here.  At home.