The House on Garden Street

Originally printed in the Spring 2015 edition of Rutland Magazine, this article represents only a portion of the information I discovered in my research. It is my hope that one day I’ll be able to add to this story, either in a fuller non-fiction piece or a fictional one (both of which would include a little ghostly action…)

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At the opening of the twentieth century, when a nickel plater named Edgar Wood had risen in society to become an attorney, Rutland was on the verge of complete electrification and bustling with industry. My home, one of the first built on the newly opened Garden Street (renamed Kendall Avenue) in 1887, was home to the Wood family for three-quarters of a century. Its lack of fireplace or chimney, the wrought-iron heating grates, parquet floors, rounded-cornered walls, and molded ceilings are all indications of modernization around 1912, in the midst of an era of great change—for the Woods, for Rutland, and for the country.

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A skating rink?! Fourteen year old Florence Wood was no doubt excited to learn that the opulent Bicycle Club rink, built in 1884, would be within sight of their soon-to-be built family home on a new street bracketed by the grand Baxter estate on Grove Avenue and attorney Redfield Kendall’s lofty home perched high on the corner of Main Street.

What Florence couldn’t foresee was, even before her home was finished, the skating rink would be defunct and within a decade torn down. Neither could she know that the day-to-day life of her little family—the emotional details of which we will never know—would be a reflection of their times in a way only we, in retrospect, can now recognize.

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Tracking up to Lake Bomoseen

The fountain behind Trak-In which was once an attraction at Bomoseen Park.

Part 2 of two stories on the Rutland Trolley. See Part 1 here.

Emerging from the greenery which threatens to envelope it, it looks like a beehive, one of those conical ones that Pooh Bear would get excited about. But it is actually a fountain, and it sits behind the Trak-In Restaurant on Route 30 in Bomoseen. A century ago, this rock formation with its metal water spout was a novelty, which, along with other attractions, drew large crowds to Bomoseen Park.

Bomoseen Trolley Park was the last stop on a spur, which from 1906 to 1918 extended off the main trolley line which ran from Rutland to West Rutland to Castleton Corners (and on to Fair Haven or Poultney). One of many amusement parks

When the trolley tracked through town

Part 1 of two stories on the Rutland Trolley. See Part 2 here.

When the street was dug up in front of Green Mountain Power’s new Energy Innovation Center on Merchants Row in the fall of 2013, the workers hit steel. Hiding just below the asphalt on which we daily drive our (one- or two-person, gas-guzzling, road-hogging) cars, they had discovered tracks to another time: The Trolley Era.

It was a short-lived era in Rutland; approximately 40 years, from 1882 to 1924, with its heyday spanning from 1913 to 1916. But the trolley was an innovation that changed the scenery and infrastructure of Rutland County, where people built their homes, and the way in which they spent their weekends.

Rutland’s Poor Farm

Clearing and marking the Poor Farm Cemetery, Rutland VT

“Boy” White died by “suffocation by strangulation.” William McPherson was “found dead at rear of Tyrell’s shop.”

Who were these people? And what’s the rest of their story?

What about Mary Jane Taylor?

Miss Ross & the Rutland Reformatory

UVM/photo

Some Rutlanders today still remember the women who washed laundry. One remembers going with her grandfather to drop it off and pick it up. Someone else remembered their large vegetable garden, another the candied apples they’d hand out at Halloween. Still others recall eating meals served by the women and singing Christmas Carols alongside them.

Believe it or not, these women they remember were inmates;

Rutland’s Catholic churches’ foundations of rock

Albert J. Marro / Staff Photo
St. Peter Church in Rutland. 04/11/14

Today, a Rutlander’s choice of church isn’t determined by their country of origin or native tongue. All churches now reflect the community in which they reside: a homogeneous melting pot of those who call themselves Americans. But not so long ago — the century spanning from approximately 1830 — this was not the case.

Rutland’s Historical Society, a priceless resource

Rutland Historical Society Anthony Edwards / photo

POLICE REPORT…

Rutland (1905) — George Chaffee, a successful Rutland business man, has been fined for going 10 mph on Center Street!

Chaffee, who constructed the Playhouse — the Paramount Theater— in 1913, and who built and lived in the exquisite structure we now know as the Chaffee Art Center on South Main Street, was one of the first automobile owners in town. And he was also a speed-demon. Well, well.

Vermont Eugenics, the Rutland connection

Prof. Henry Perkins. (UVM / photo)

“One eugenical scheme to purify the state’s polluted protoplasm was bring in a better class of Vermonters — tourists and summer homeowners.”

What is one of the first things you notice when you cross the border back into Vermont? No billboards, right? What about the other features we take for granted: tourist information booths, great hiking trails, summer homes — many, many summer homes — cabins, cottages and even a few mansions. Yes, our tourist industry is one of the major things that keeps Vermont on the map. We have a brand that, thanks in part to various movie references across the decades, is known even internationally. And we are proud of it.

But what if I told you this tourist industry had racist and socially discriminatory roots? That even the construction of Route 7 and the improvement of other highways starting in the 1930s were to make our state more attractive and accessible to the “right” people”?

Rutland: A name to be proud of

As a writer, I am particularly interested in the power of words and language. My graduate research into the transformative abilities of writing looked into the affect words have on us psychologically.

One of the most amazing findings was that of Dr. Masaru Emoto whose research with water changed the way I thought about words and our bodies. He taped various words, such as “love,” “gratitude,” “kill,” and “anger” on different beakers of water. He then photographed the water crystals from each beaker. The results were mind-blowing.

Rutland’s House of Correction Cemetery

Gravestones at the House of Corrections Cemetery on the Rutland Creek Path. (Anthony Edwards / photo)

Frank was a deadbeat dad. Charles was homeless. Rufus was a horse thief. E.S. was black. The other Charles was French. And A.R. was Chinese.

What could these men have in common? The answer is lying along the Rutland Creek Path.