Orleans High School - Sword Yearbook (Orleans, VT)

Page 20 text:

18 O. H S. SENIOR ANNUAL An Early History of Vermont VALEDICTORY ADDRESS On the morning of July 4, 1609, a Frenchman and his Indian companions glided silently into a beautiful lake which they had not seen before. This French- man, Samuel de Champlain, undoubtedly was the first white man to sail through this lake to which his name was later given. At that time it was known as Lac des Iroquois.” From his canoe he saw the very high mountains to the east and the valley of the lake.” Champlain and his friends spent about three weeks in exploring the lake. This was the first exploration of any part of the state of Vermont by white men. Very few Indians lived in Vermont when the white men first came here. Hunting and war parties would camp all summer in a good place. Some of these places were at Newbury, where the Indians raised corn on the Ox Bow, Seymour Lake in Morgan where there was good fishing, and Shelburne, at the mouth of the LaPlatte River. The pottery and stone implements found in Vermont indicate that both the Iroquois and Algonquins visited, even if they didn’t settle. How- ever, all evidence seems to show that the Champlain Valley was held off and on, now by the Iroquois and now the Algonquins. The Algonquins held the territory until they were driven out by the coming of the Europeans. The Iroquois never left a name of mountain, river or lake. The Indian names we have were given us by the Abenakis. The Iroquois had five different tribes. These were the Mohawks, Oneidas, Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas; known as the Five Nations. Later the Tus- caroras living to the south joined in; then they were known as the Six Nations, Among the Algonquin tribes were: the Pennawok, Massachusett, Mohegan, and the Abenakis. The Coosuck, another tribe of the Algonquins, iived on the broad flats from the Connecticut River to Newbury, known as Coos Meadows, until the white men drove them to Canada. A few Indian villages were continued for some time after the white settlers took possession of the state. The longest to remain were some Saint Francis Indians, formerly the Abenakis, who lived until after the Revolution on the Missisquoi River a few miles below Swanton. A few Mohegans lived near Arlington. There were also peaceful tribes who lived in Vermont. They left no writing. However, pottery and implements have been found to tell us they iived here. These tribes dwelt in small villages seldom of more than five hundred inhab- itants each, enclosed by stockades consisting of one, two and sometimes three rows of posts set upright in the ground and close together. Each tribe had a chief who led in war, directed in hunting, and was considered authority in matters of weight. In times of great danger the tribes of a race united and put them- selves under the leadership of the chief of the most powerful tribe. No full-blooded Indians now remain in the state; but there are still among those counted as white, a few who, more or less, are tinctured with the Indian blood. Champla'n is the person known as the founder of the state. It is said that when first seeing the Green Mountains in the east he said, Vois lcs Verts Monts, which means, See the Green Mountains;” and thus the name, by which these mountains and the state of Vermont has since been known, originated. The first point in Vermont occupied by white man was Fort St. Anne in 1666, on Isle la Motte in Lake Champlain.

Page 19 text:

O. H. S. SENIOR ANNUAL 17 missed the spitoons. As a good teacher Mrs. Leslie told us we couldn’t have candy unless we brought some for all. So someone promptly did. Sooner than we would have believed possible, we were in the Junior High. With Mrs. Chadwick we studied budgets and girls’ physical education, which we thought rather strenuous at times. We certainly thought we were big to be in the high school building, having study halls and homework. We soon changed our minds about the homework, however. In the eighth grade, Miss Litchfield, now Mrs. Houghaboom, had our room. Our teacher thought we were a saucy bunch, and no doubt we were. General Math, was hard, but we managed to get through it and into high school at long last. School spirit got into our blood and the boys won the Junior High Championship at Newport. Our Freshman year was with Mr. Barton, and our high school fun had just started. Of course, we all dreaded Freshman Reception, but it was more fun than punishment. A lot of new faces from Albany, Irasburg, Coventry, Brownington, and Evansville joined the ranks and brought our membership up to thirty-four. This year we took an interesting trip to the freezer locker with Mr. Barton as guide. Our Sophomore year we planned quite a surprise for the Freshies. We really had fun putting on Freshman Reception, visiting the Freedom Train, and putting on our first class play. No Tuxedo” was a swell play even though we didn’t get the cup. We had loads of fun with Mr. Dermody and Miss Morse as coaches, and who doesn’t remember the party afterwards? Our Junior year studies moved on as we made our plans for the annual Junior Prom. By popular request, Mr. Dermody remained as our sponsor another year. We put on a Junior Prom which was a great social success. All of us were happily rewarded for the long hours we had spent drawing and cutting out fish, deep sea divers and fish-net decorations. Our class play, Charity Ball,” was a fine success, as was again the party afterwards at Dermody’s. Our Senior year—the end of high school work and fun. Mr. Dermody decided he could stand it to be our sponsor this last year, which pleased us all. Our final class play, Dad Takes a Rest Cure,” was hard work, but we enjoyed the party afterwards, and now we are looking forward to the day when 25 of us will receive our diplomas. As we look back through the years, some things stand out in our memories. Each one of us remembers different things, special events, but as a class we’re sure we’ll always remember: Freshman Reception; playing post-office at Ron’s birthday party: the day we had a fire at school—and Bill was gone!; Ron’s discovery of the 2 a. m. fire; those basketball games; Bud and Mariam; Bill and Annette; Pete and Brenda; getting our class rings; play rehearsals; Butts;” Kay Morse—a swell person; Junior Prom; Graduation week; Last Assembly; O. H. S.; and most of all, Mr. Dermody and the class of 1950.

Page 21 text:

O. H. S. SENIOR ANNUAL 19 Within and around Fort Dummer grew up a settlement which was called Brattleboro. This has been called the first permanent settlement in Vermont, though it is posssible that the town of Vernon, which was then a part of Northfield, Massachusetts, was settled previous to this time. In Brattleboro was born John Sargent, who was probably the first white child born in the state of Vermont. The settlements in Southeastern Vermont did not increase rapidly. There was land to the south, on both sides of the Connecticut River to be settled, but the Indians were so savage and warlike that it was not safe for the few settlers to go away from the town which was already settled. After the French and Indian War it was possible for them to make settlements on the Eastern side of the state. Colonel Jacob Bayley established a settlement which he called Newbury. The first settlement by the English in Western Vermont was in March of 1761. It was when Captain Samuel Robinson of Hardwick, Massachusetts, founded Ben- nington. Arlington was settled in the year 1763; Manchester was settled in 1764 by some people who came from New York. After Champlain fought the Iroquois with firearms and gunpowder, the white settlers, as they came into the region, were subject to frequent and terrible attacks from their savage foes. In an effort to protect so far as possible the French interests, Fort Saint Anne was built on Isle la Motte, one of the large islands on the western shore of Lake Champlain in 1664. There wasn’t any settlement in the Champlain Valley, other than military outposts, until in 1730, a few families came from Canada to locate at Chimney Point where they built a crude fort. The following year they built a more serviceable fort across the narrow lake, on what was latter called Crown Point. They named it Fort Saint Frederic. Carillon, later Ticonderoga, was fortified in 1755. While the French had been moving from the north, the English had come from the south and in 1724, a settlement and a fort were established at Fort Dummer. Other forts and stock- ades were built in the years following, and numerous Indian raids and massacres caused terror and suffering to the settlers. Of a number of settlements during these years, the only one to become permanent was that at Fort Dummer. There were land troubles going on about the time that Arlington and Man- chester were settled. What is now Vermont was claimed by both the state of New Hampshire and also by the state of New York. The governor of New Hampshire at that time had made grants of land of one hundred and thirty-eight townships west of the Connecticut River, when the King of England decided that the eastern boundary of New York, north of Massachusetts, would be the west bank of the Connecticut River. The governor of New York then began to grant land that New Hampshire had already sold to other people, therefore making the settlers on the lots pay for their land again or give it up. There was also trouble between New Hampshire and the state of Massachusetts over the boundary of Vermont. New Hampshire claimed that Massachusetts was placing its state line too far north and was taking in territory that rightfully belonging to her. Those overlapping claims caused much confusion for about ten years, when, in 1740, the King of England ended this dispute by giving New Hampshire even more than she demanded. This took from Massachusetts twenty- eight new townships, between the Merrimac and Connecticut Rivers, besides a large amount of vacant lands. Vermont was the first independent Republic on the American continent. Thus we can see the remarkable degree of initiative shown by these early pioneers in settling the state. Finally after much hard work they petitioned the Union for admission. In 1791 this admission was granted, and we were the fourteenth state to enter the Union. Yvette Mason