Barstow Memorial School in Chittenden is, according to many, one of the finest in the state. For a rural town buried in the hills of Green Mountain National Forest, this seems a little surprising. But the fact that this school is just one part of a legacy left by a family of philanthropists, headed by a man of whom it was said, “To know (him) was to admire him; to know him well was to love him,” may help explain why Chittenden is rich in offerings as well as beauty.
Continue reading
Did you know there could have been a third president with a claim to Vermont?
In 1872, one Horace Greeley, formerly of West Haven and East Poultney, a Liberal Republican candidate endorsed by the Democrats, ran against Ulysses Grant, whom he had formerly supported. Ridiculed by Republicans and attacked in the political cartoons of Thomas Nast in Harper’s Weekly as an extremist and turncoat — he campaigned to pull the Federal troops out of the South arguing the war and slavery were over and that the people should now essentially govern themselves — he only received 43 percent of the popular vote.
Shortly after this defeat, his wife Mary died. Thirty days later, before the electoral vote was cast, Greeley also died, leaving him with the unfortunate distinction of being the only presidential candidate to ever die during the election process.
But this is hardly a fair claim to fame. Continue reading
Vermont When... 