“IT is quite within modern times," says a late writer, "that by observation and experience the knowledge has been acquired for a comprehensive and philosophical conception of the importance of industry as a necessary condition in the evolution of human society;" and it seems to the writer as though our Vermont historians had not to this time conceived the importance of industry in the line of progress. We rely upon education, upon science, and we should; we readily see that the railroad, the telegraph, and the ten thousand inventions and improvements of modern times were the results of scientific inquiry; but we do not so readily see the effects of industry upon the growth of civilization, or that industry is as important a factor in the advancement of social, moral and intellectual as in material progress. There is an interdependence of all the sciences, of all the useful pursuits of life. Some men are more prominent than others, some attract the attention and huzzas of the multitude; but the general results come from the combined action of the whole. With this brief indication of principles, applicable, as we believe, to the subject in hand, we assert that with the light of the present age, the history of a county, state or nation would be incomplete without a full history of its industries.

      The history of the industries of Rutland county well brought out would open a field for study and philosophical research that could but result in gain of knowledge. The writer is well aware that very few readers of history, industrial or any other, have been accustomed to study history in the way indicated. They read history simply for the facts, without regard to cause and effect, and thereby get the mere data, and even that they are less likely to retain than if read and studied as it should be. But this in part has been the fault of the historian; he has not invited his reader to the philosophy of history.

      A few words from Thompson's Vermont will forcibly, bring out the beginning of the history of the industries of Rutland county and of Vermont as well: 

      The first settlers of Vermont were immigrants from the older settled colonies of New England. They were not a roving band that came hither for the purpose of speculation, but were as firmly fixed in habits of steady industry, in the principles of democracy and social equality, in their adherence to Christianity and the cause of education, as any people that ever lived. They had been educated and rigidly disciplined to all this in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and, so armed, they were in spite of their poverty enabled in a few years to make "the wilderness bud and blossom as the rose," and to give influence and direction to the industrial advance of the State and nation.

      This has been the leading industry in Vermont since the State was settled; it is, as said by another, an industry of primal necessity. The early settlers as they came into Vermont found it a wilderness. The entire lands were covered with a forest. They were obliged to provide themselves and families with food to sustain life. They did not bring food with them. They had no means to buy it, and there was none to buy within their reach. They must grow it; they could get it in no other way. Each secured a piece of land, cut down trees and erected a log house for temporary shelter, and then cleared a patch, burned the timber and brush, planted corn and sowed wheat among the stumps, and for a plow used an axe. With this implement they chopped up the earth among the stumps and roots to get it in condition to receive the seed. This was the beginning of Rutland county agriculture, -- of Vermont agriculture. The next year another patch was cut over, the material burned and the ground fitted for the seed in the same manner. Thus the work of clearing up the forest was pushed along as rapidly as these hardy pioneers could do it. They soon began to gather some stock around them, as they could keep it. The hard-wood stumps (beech and maple) soon rotted out, when those who had teams began to use the plow and harrow. The early settlers in a few years were in condition to raise a very considerable amount of wheat, rye, corn, potatoes and flax. They soon got a few sheep and of their wool and flax their wives and daughters made the clothing for their families.

      For the first half century after the settlement of Vermont there was very little improvement in agriculture; in that period, there was, however, a constant increase of production in progress. More arid more of the forests were cut away each returning year, and the newly cleared tracts hurried along into tillable lands as fast as practicable. The increase was in the acreage put into crops; not in the amount of production per acre. The decayed wood and leaves had been accumulating for centuries; vegetable mould kept the lands rich for many years thereafter, before any fertilization was required to put them in condition to bring forth ample crops. The lands produced abundantly for many years with indifferent plowing and no fertilization, except what nature provided.

      The old wooden plow was used in Vermont for more than half a century after the State was settled. It required more strength of team to draw it than the modern plow and it only "rooted up" from two to four inches of the surface of the ground. All farm implements were then rude and clumsy, and though the entire work of cultivation was simply the persistent use of physical strength, yet the lands on the average produced about twice what they do now. But continual cropping exhausted the elements of production to a great degree and the farmers found their soils deteriorated before they were aware of it. The very simple general proposition did not occur to them that to restore productiveness of their soils they must restore the elements, the plant food, which had lost by this continual cropping for half a century. The proposition, though simple, opens a field for thought, for mental labor in connection with agriculture which the farmers were not then accustomed to, and instead of applying the remedy, they allowed their lands to go on in the downward course of deterioration. By-and-by the inventor and manufacturer awoke and produced a plow with a cast iron mould-board. This, and other improved farm implements  were the first distinctive improvement in connection with agriculture; at in Vermont. The following is taken from the history of the town of Poultney:

      The economy adhered to by the farmers of Vermont for the first half century or more of our history, led them to do all they could within themselves; to raise all they needed for their own use upon their own farms, with sufficient to square up their accounts with the shoemaker, the blacksmith, the cooper, the carpenter, the merchant, and the doctor. Their lands then produced bountifully, but the markets for their produce hardly paid for transportation before the days of railroads, with butter at ten cents a pound, cheese at four or five cents, potatoes at ten or fifteen cents a bushel, and rye and corn at fifty cents. The first specialty in the history of farming in Rutland county seems to have been in Sheep Husbandry.

      The scope of this work is such that only a general outline of the history of this very important branch of farming !industry can be given, but enough we hope to encourage the young farmers of Rutland county that it may be made profitable, if entered into with zeal and made a subject of scientific investigation and constant attention and study.

      The first sheep brought into Vermont were the "native breed," so called, or, as they were sometimes called, the "English sheep." They were a large, healthy, hardy sheep, with long, coarse wool, which supplied the material for Clothing for that day and generation. The pride of the early settlers did not aspire to fine wool clothing. They did not then grow sheep or wool for the market. They were grown for their flesh to eat and their wool for clothing, and now and then a sheep or fleece of wool for a mechanic or tradesman.

      The importation of the Spanish Merino sheep led to the specialty to which illusion has been made in this branch of farm industry. When this breed of sheep was first imported from Spain to this country, or by whom, does not seem definitely settled. The late William JARVIS, of Wethersfield, Vermont, while American consul to Portugal, made large importations of the Spanish Merino to this county in 1810 and 1811. He was not, however, the only importer nor the first one. Colonel David HUMPHREYS, of Connecticut, was an earlier importer of these sheep than JARVIS; but the importations of the latter were largely to Vermont, and the well-known character of Mr. Jarvis, his knowledge of sheep and his enthusiasm in their improvement, enabled him to do more than anybody else in laying the foundation for the success of sheep husbandry in this State.

      The first importations were scattered about and did not attract general attention in Vermont much before 1825. The tariffs of 1824 and 1828, with the growing interest in the Spanish Merino, created an enthusiasm in Vermont in sheep husbandry, and this brought out as a specialty the business of wool growing in this State. A high tariff by Congress had the effect to raise the prices of wool. Manufactories went up on every stream capable of running machinery, as the readers of the various town histories herein will learn, farmers went almost exclusively into the business of wool-growing.

      The inquiry may now properly be made as to the character of the sheep imported from Spain by Consul JARVIS and others. They were doubtless a pure Spanish Merino, they were not as large or as hardy as the old English sheep, but their wool was as fine and pure as any wool ever grown before or since. Their fleeces did not average over three and a half pounds, but the wool was of excellent quality what there was of it.

      Now we come to a very important part of the history of our sheep husbandry, viz., the improvement on the imported Spanish Merino sheep. Such improvement has been made that the descendants of this imported breed are a larger and more hardy sheep and produce an average fleece of nearly, if not quite, three times the weight of the original Spanish Merino. How has this improvement been effected? Undoubtedly the Vermont climate is favorable to that end; our Vermont grasses are well adapted to sheep, and our Vermont breeders have exhibited a measure of scientific study and acquired knowledge in their calling which may well challenge the attention of scientists in any department of industry. In the last few years large sales have been made by the Vermont breeders of the Spanish Merino to parties living in nearly all of the States in the Union. Car loads have been sent to the Western States, California and New Mexico. In fact the Vermont sheep are the standard in this country, and they are obtained for their excellence and to improve the flocks of sheep elsewhere -- we were about to say everywhere. It should not be forgotten that the Spanish Merino has been raised to his present high degree of excellence in Vermont by forty years of hard mental labor on the part of the pioneers in this work, among whom is our own J. A. BENEDICT, esq., of Castleton, in this county. Without disparagement to any among the leading sheep breeders of this county, past or present, may also be mentioned Joseph S. GRISWOLD, of Benson; D. W. BUMP, of Brandon; Albert BRASEE, J. GANSON, and Chandler B. GIBBS, of Hubbardton; Lyman W. FISH, and Harry COLLINS, of Ira; Johnson S. BENEDICT, Chauncey L. BARBER, and William F. BARBER, of Castleton; Volney BAIRD, Pittsfield; Isaac H. MORGAN, Poultney; John H. MEAD, Rutland. Many others have been and are engaged in this industry; but the above are those now prominently following it.

      The cattle of the early settlers were of the "native breed," and not much attempt was made at improvement in Rutland county until after 1830. The Durham was about the first breed introduced in Rutland county in the way of improvement. This, crossed with the native breed, did produce an improvement. It increased the size and beauty of the animals and they were more easily fattened; but it was claimed that it did not improve the dairy, that the Durham cow was no better (if as good) for the dairy than the native cow. But the dairy was hardly made a specialty in Vermont farming until after 1830. Butter and cheese were made from the first, but made to supply the families of those who made these articles, and to pay merchants' and mechanics' bills -- made for home consumption; there was no market elsewhere which demanded these products to much extent. Even up to 1840 butter seldom brought over ten cents a pound, and cheese not over five or six cents. The dairy business in Rutland county began to increase gradually as early as 1834. The mania for wool-growing, which had for a half dozen years existed among the farmers, began to subside, and as that was passing away more attention was given to dairying. The farmers began to keep less of other stock and more of cows. Thus they went on from year to year until nearly every farmer kept either sheep or dairy entire, except his necessary team.

      Associated dairying began in Rutland county in the year 1864. It had then made considerable progress in the State of New York, and especially in  the vicinity of Rome where it originated. Rollin C. WICKHAM established the first cheese factory in Rutland county, in his own town of Pawlet. The next one was established in Middletown and the building erected the same year (1864). Like most other improvements, the system had to undergo opposition, but there is no opposition now. It is the true system of dairying, especially of cheese-making.

      Several foreign breeds of cattle have been introduced in this country during the last twenty-five years, for their supposed excellences as dairy stock. Among them are the Ayrshires, the Jerseys and the Holsteins; there are other breeds, but these are the leading varieties. Each of these is undoubtedly a fine dairy stock, and collectively they have doubtless done much to improve the dairy capacity of this country. But the improvement has not been alone the result of breeding in this country. The scientific and skillful breeder of dairy stock, like the Merino sheep breeder, has improved upon nature; he has improved upon the imported cow. Both our wool-growers and our dairymen have evinced remarkable skill in their callings, and may well stand beside the great inventors of modern times, as benefactors of their race. The yield of butter or cheese per cow has been largely increased in the last twenty or thirty years. The cow has been improved and the facilities for working up the milk so as to secure the entire yield and give a better quality of butter and cheese are now seemingly all that can be asked.

      If the same study and mental energy and persistence that have been devoted to sheep raising and the dairy in these later years, had been given to our worn-out soils, the crop reports would show a much higher figure. But let us hope that we shall soon see two blades of grass where one now grows.

      Vermont horses are also noted for their excellence. The Black Hawks and Morgans first gained their notoriety in Vermont, and the Hambletonians were first known as trotters in Rutland county. We have had our full share of  "fast-horse" men, the most of whom have lost rather than gained money in their chosen occupation. The trotting horse is now the leading attraction at every agricultural fair, and skill in breeding and training in these latter days sends him almost on the wings of the wind. The horse is a noble animal, and the larger class of horses in this county are now bred and grown for the purposes of utility. It satisfies the ambition of some to have a horse that will finish a mile stretch in one or two seconds less time than any other horse; but it does not follow that the horse which comes out half his length ahead is the best horse in the service for which horses are made. Every man is to be commended for his love for a beautiful horse. A fine moving horse, a good carriage horse, a good "roader," a good work horse, a horse which has "bottom" and endurance -- all these are valuable and may well be sought for in breeding and growing this animal. Great improvement has been made is this stock in the last forty years and a fine field exists for further improvement, without attempting to grow up a horse whose only merit is that he can trot a mile in one or two seconds less time than any other horse.

      As our space is limited for the consideration of the subject of the industries of the county we can but briefly allude to mechanics and mechanical work under the head of manufactures.

      One historian tells us that the axe and the plow were the most primitive of manufactures, another historian said, that "a woman with a pair of hand cards, the great and little wheel, one of which was turned by the hand, the other by the foot, made the outfit for the earliest manufacturing establishment in Vermont." It is perhaps of no great importance here to discuss the question whether axes and plows or the spinning-wheel, were first made. It is probable that in Vermont the axe was first used. The first thing done on the settlement was to cut down trees on a space large enough to build a log house upon, and the settlers could not have done that without axes. They did have an axe when they began, and that was about all they did have of farm implements; the axe, if we may say so, was the pioneer's tool. The axe used by the early settlers was a rude implement with a helve, as Horace Greeley once said, "like a pudding-stick." The wooden plow, the first used in Vermont, we have already described. The early settlers were obliged to have clothing as well as something to eat, and every household very soon furnished itself with the hand cards, the wheels named, and a loom, all of a rude character; but with them (kept perhaps in the same room in which the family ate, drank and slept) the women of the household carded and spun wool and made the clothing for the family.

      Saw-mills were about the first mechanical establishments propelled by water power. The settlers occupied the log dwellings no longer than they were obliged to; but they could have no other until they could saw boards and planks from their plentiful timber. Quite early the saw-mills went up on all of the streams in Vermont, and the settlers began the erection of frame houses. Details of these early mills will be given in the histories of the various towns.

      About the year 1800, and in some towns a little before that time, carding machines and fulling mills were erected, which were then regarded as a great improvement. At the carding machine the wool could be transformed into rolls ready for the spinning-wheel and the flannel could be colored and fulled, ready to be made into coats, jackets and trousers for the men and boys. Soon there was another advance in this direction. There were woolen and cotton factories established, factories where, strange to say, they could take wool and run it through the various stages in the same mill and it would come out finished cloth. The "spinning-jenny" was a wonderful machine and how one man could run a hundred spindles while the good housewife could run only one, was a marvel. Many of the early carding and cloth mills of this county will be noted in the subsequent town histories.

      About 1800 iron ore was discovered in Brandon, Chittenden and Tinmouth, and great hope was inspired as to its becoming a source of future wealth. Furnaces were established in Brandon and Tinmouth at which stoves were made, which gradually superseded the old-fashioned fire-place. 

      The manufacture of pot and pearl ashes was a prominent and very early industry. The forests had to be cut down and burned, thus furnishing a source of manufacture without cost. The sale of the product supplied the settlers with a medium of exchange for household necessities which was of great value when money was very scarce.

      Jno. BURNAM, who is elsewhere mentioned in these pages, established a starch manufactory at Middletown, about the beginning of the century, using potatoes for his stock. It was quite a success; but in common with very many other early manufacturing shops in the county, was carried off by the great flood of 1811.

      Manufacturing was quite brisk in Rutland county for about a quarter of a century prior to 1830, which included woolen and cotton goods, stoves and iron ware, whisky and cider brandy. The manufactories of those goods in this county were quite numerous during that period, but diminished rapidly after 1830, a result due largely to the fact that the county lacked railroad transportation to distant markets and could not, therefore, compete with others who were more fortunately situated.

      The railroads have now revolutionized the industries of this county, as they have wherever they have been built and sustained; they became almost a necessary condition of our existence. It is not quite forty years since the first railroad was put in operation in Vermont. "Cheap transportation" says a modern writer, "is the instrument and the test of civilized progress. In proportion as men can travel quickly, easily and cheaply, and can carry goods and material quickly, easily and cheaply, very nearly in that proportion do wealth, and intelligence, and happiness, that is, civilization, advance."

      As already indicated, it was not contemplated in this chapter to go minutely into the histories of the industries which have been pursued in Rutland county; they will be more fully described in later pages of the work. We, intended only to give a general outline, and at the same time to enforce as well as we could the importance of a knowledge of the subject. We do not underestimate the history of men; but even that cannot be understood without a knowledge of man's position and the influences which surround him. No one will deny that the advance in this region, in wealth, in prosperity, in all that pertains to civilization, in the last fifty years, has been without a parallel in history.
 
 

"History of Rutland County Vermont with Illustrations & 
Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men & Pioneers"
Edited by H. Y. Smith & W. S. Rann, Syracuse, N. Y.
D. Mason & Co., Publishers, 1886
History of Rutland County
Chapter XII.
(pages 162-170)

Transcribed by Karima, 2002