Ransom W. Towle Letters

We have "discovered" the Ransom W. Towle letters at the Vermont Historical Society in Barre, and though we aren't the first to discover them, it is new for us, and will be new for the VHS, since we are transcribing them for their online Civil War letter collection. 

In the meantime, the White River Valley Players are considering making these letters the center of their fall, 2010 production, and Dick and Dorothy Robson, Mindy Brandstetter, Kathryn Schenkman, Ethan Bowen, and yours truly have had our first collaborative meeting to make sure it is the meaningful discovery that it is.

Why are these letters so meaningful? Kathryn says, "we need a hero, and this man is one. He had a love of family, of fellow man and soldier, and there are a lot of parallels to draw from his Civil War experience." 

There are about thirty letters, and an additional few from Thomas Flanders, E. & A. Washburn, Emma Smith, and "George."

We need your help. There are gaps. We'd like to know more information, if you have any. We have been working on this project for the past three months, and are very familiar with these and other Civil War letters. But what about letters back home? The letters sent to soldiers? We're guessing not that many survived the rainy tents of Northern Virginia, but there must be some! If you have any, or any source ideas, please share them.

Checking Chester's Cairns with Bruce Flewelling

Bruce Flewelling led members of the Rochester Historical Society and other interested parties, including many USDA Forest Service "vets," to stone cairns, long-vanished connector roads, and the site of West Hill's only industrial-strength capitalist, the property of Chester Smith, almost a thousand acres that creeps within reach of Mount Horrid.

"Much of the land was cleared still in the 1930s, according to ariel photos," says Bruce. "Chester had a ledger and my theory is he was the West Hill Bank," said Bruce, who is transcribing these ledgers, which are now part of the permanent collection of the Vermont Historical Society. Chester was the ATM machine on West Hill, swapping labor, like the endless stacking of stones, and "watchin' the pit," for tobacco, shirts, and other Brandon retail items.

"Crossman was growing grass just to sell the seed to the other West Hill farmers," said Bruce.

"On the other side of the mountain--the Bingo side over Jones Mountain."

Map of The Gap

Map showing Goshen Four Corners, Mount Horrid and the Great Cliff, the Neshobe River flowing west, Romance Mountain, Hogback Mtn, the Long Trail and Sucker Brook Shelter (where I fed myself on the best brook trout one morning forty years ago!), and the Great Cliffs of Mount Horrid, with the Smith Brook running East, where Chester Smith's stone cairns--hundreds of them--are located.

This is The Gap. The Dividing Line. Where brooks flow East to join others and become rivers—Branches of the White River (itself a branch—one of 3). And begin West. Out here is also Moosalamoo, a unique land-magement, wildlife area, and town/government partnership with some great goals and ideas, not to mention the fun of non-motorized outdoor recreation and camping area with trails from the challenging to the religious.

The great view from the Cliffs of Mount Horrid allow an even clearer weather channel than VPR’s Mark Green. With an “eye on the sky” westward, you can see the weather coming. Or not. If not, you can see clearly over lake Champlain at the Adirondack Mountains. Down in the valley there, was where Native Americans, including Abenaki tribes, came and went with the seasons for thousands of years.

Schools in West Rochester

There were three schools in West Rochester from 1850 on, the West Hill School (pictured), in District No. 13, the Corner School, in District 14 in Bingo, and the Branch School, in District No. 15 furthest West in Bingo, located in various places--possibly at one time not even in Windsor Co but a half mile over the line into Addison Co, at the foot of Wyman Hill. This was probably due to the activity of the sawmills. Also, the "Amen" church on at the Four Corners (intersection of Route 73 and Bingo Road, in what was once the town of Robinson), served as a school for a while, as well as a church, and served as a place for other functions as well, like entertainment and dances.

See this link West Rochester Schools, with other information about one-room schools. The Rochester Historical Society also has information about Rochester's One-Room Schools. 

Harry Washburn

Stone of Alanson Washburn, in the Bingo Cemetery. Alanson was born in Rochester in 1808, and married Lydia Robinson in 1826. They had a son, Alanson, born 1830. He had five children with his 2nd wife Persis Hodges, who he married in 1836: Evaline E., Julia M., Harry A., Lenora, and Susan. Lenora married Ransom Towle's older brother Rufus Byron.

Harry Washburn was Ransom Towle's cousin, friend, neighbor, and fellow soldier. Harry died at Camp Griffin, March 14, 1862, age 21. Ransom notes his ill-health in his letters. "Nov. 26 1861 Headquarters Camp Griffin, Fairfax County Va.

"Your most welcome letter found Camp Griffin last night and found me better than some previous ones though not in very good strength. The great peculiarity of the cases of sickness here seems to be that when the disease has left a person it is almost impossible to regain our strength. There are those here Harry Washburn for one, had the measles some four weeks since and is not able to be out though there seems to be nothing ailing him but a general prostrations. Carlos Carr[1] is another case though he first had typhoid fever. Most of the West Rochester Boys are unable to do duty though none of them [are] dangerously sick".[2]

---

[1] Carlos Wellington Carr, cred. Brandon, VT, age 23,
enl 9/4/61, m/i 9/21/61, 2SGT, Co. E, 4th VVI, pr 1SGT, comn 2LT, Co. I, 7/19/62 (9/29/62), pr 1LT, 5/5/64 (6/11/64), tr to Co. A 2/25/65, tr to Co. C, tr to Co. F, pow, Weldon Railroad, 6/23/64, prld 3/1/65, m/o 5/6/65 (more)
Born: 7/13/1838, Died: 9/11/1914, buried: Pine Hill cemetery, Brandon, VT.

[2] Marshall (1999) writes, “Of the five thousand men in the Vermont brigade, as many as a thousand at a time were sick at Camp Griffin, a ratio far out of proportion to that of the camp as a whole. Among the diseases common at the camp, measles and mumps infected many who had never been exposed before and were now living in close quarters” (p. 48).

Check out this envelope to Mary Washburn that the Vermont Philatelic Society webpage opens to...

Bingo Family Burial Plot

A family burial plot of four stones is in the yard of the Johnson home in Bingo, the farm just past Homer Brown's.

In 1880, neighbors included Alanson & Persis Washburn, Jasper Fuller, Charles Jones, Albert Nason, Cyrus Wyman, and Jake Pendergast. Jake and his wife Ellen were Irish, though Ellen was born in India.

Living with Jake and Ellen in 1880 was their son-in-law Albert (25) and his wife Ellen H. Humphrey (25), and Jake's children, mostly grown--John (28), Rose (20), Fred (22), Alice (18), and Clarence (10).

Bingo Cemetery

There are two public cemeteries in West Rochester today. But in its history, West Rochester, particularly West Hill, were in Goshen before 1848, the Goshen cemetery need be included as a third public cemetery in the history of West Rochester. It's confusing. We're not kidding. And those are only ones knows. There are anonymous field stones that look like grave markers, across from Cold Spring Farm on West Hill. And many believe at least some of the many carins on Chester Smith's land could be Native American burial grounds. What do you think? Probably not, but it would seem reasonable that some of the flatter land in Addison Co certainly could be, as it is in the basin of Lake Champlain, of which Goshen is but the first foothill out.

Besides private family burial grounds like those of the Reynold's, at the Johnson place in Bingo, or the Dutton plots in the Moosalamoo region of Goshen, the West Rochester Cemeteries are

1. Bingo Cemetery, Windsor County, Rochester.
2. West Hill Cemetery, Windsor County, Rochester.
3. Goshen Cemetery, Addison County.

West Hill Cemetery

The West Hill Cemetery, fall, 2009. Dexter Crossman died in the Battle of Cedar Creek. This marker is actually a cenotaph, shared at the front of his parents, Amos and Polly (Wheat) Crossman. Civil War soldiers were the first and last to have their military details on their gravestones. Dexter Crossman is actually buried in Virginia.

Buried here are many of the original settlers of the Land of Goshen. Eri and Lyn Jones, John McGibbon, a veteran of the Mexican American War, Fanny Cary (2nd wife of David Cary) and her children, and David's first wife Clarissa Brown, Mary Smith (Douglas), Viola McGibbon Smith, Joshua and Sarah (Kinsman) Whitney, John O. Whitney, Royal Laird, Ezra and Sabra (Jones) Towle, Mary (Town) Kinsman, Estella Kinsman, Esther Carr, the wife of George Ruff, and others.

Until 1847, West Hill was called Old Philadelphia. Hunters still say, "Let's go up to Old Philadelphia to hunt bear!"

Goshen Cemetery

Jacob Carey (also spelled Cary) stone in foreground, McGibbon stone, background.

Photo taken March 5, 2010.

There are also family plots, one for the Dutton family pictured on the Moosalamo site.

West Hill and the Land of Goshen

What's West Hill have to do with Goshen? Before 1847, West Hill was part of the town of Goshen. It wasn't until 1847 that a large tract of land--11,600 acres--was parceled off to the town of Rochester.

This included the already settled West Hill, called Old Philadelphia, as well as parts of Bingo. For this and other reasons, West Hill's early settlers came from Goshen, and more "the Brandon side of things than the Rochester side," said Rochester historian Marcus Blair pointed.

Goshen also owns it's own "national forest," with so much land there is "kickback" to the citizens...maybe maple syrup or some wood.

Many of the names in the West Hill cemetery are the same as the Goshen cemetery. But so far, the greatest monument to Goshen, with all due respect to the eagerness of the residents who so faithfully and selflessly gave their lives to both the Rebellion and the Revolutionary Wars, is discovering Elsie Masterton, who ran the famous Blueberry Hill Inn, and published the even more famous Blueberry Hill Cookbook.

Her daughter Laurey recently put out a cookbook--a tribute to her cooking and her mother, called Elsie's Biscuits. Another daughter Heather was a Rochester selectman awhile back, whose beautiful voice the Rochester Town Band has backed, and a talented actress in White River Valley Productions, and ... so much more. I'm so glad she's more than just any Facebook friend...but a real friend!...that I know her, and know how much she gave to Rochester.

I am currently reading Off My Toes!, a tragically hillarious account of Elsie's adventures running the Blueberry Hill Inn with her beloved husband John, raising her three daughter's and their experiences with one-room schools in Goshen. This book has totally blown me away--it's the first book I've read aloud to my wife in a decade!

Free download of Off My Toes!

Lieut. Ransom W. Towle

Lieutenant Ransom W. Towle wrote thirty-nine letters to his parents back in West Rochester, where his father, Rufus, was postmaster of the West Rochester post office.

Ransom W. Towle, Co. E. 4th VVI, was wounded at Savage's Station, captured at Weldon's Railroad, and held at Libby Prison. On his way to the confederate prison in Andersonville, Georgia, he escaped June 18, 1864. He reached Federal lines in West Virginia, July 19, 1864. He wrote of his daring escape in a narrative, reenlisted, and within two months was mortally wounded at the Battle of Winchester, Virginia, on 9/19/64--a chest wound, and died the next day 9/20/64. He is buried in the Bingo Road Cemetery at West Rochester, Vermont, where there is a handsome obelisk and GAR marker.

Robinson at the turn of the Twentieth Century

Over half of these buildings are gone. Robinson was a mill town with some large sawmills, in Robinson, up in Bingo (the area that you will find if you don't make the 90-degree turn that Route 73 makes and continue straight on the dirt road), and along Brandon Brook at the foot of West Hill, up Chittenden Brook, and along Brandon Brook as the road climbs towards the gap towards Mount Horrid.

West Rochester Post Office

West Rochester, which includes the "town" of Robinson, five miles west of Rochester, once home of several sawmills, "Bingo," the area beyond along the West Branch of the White River, and West Hill, were thriving communities in the 1800s and early 1900s, and while still on the Google Earth map, Robinson now is only a few houses.

There were two post offices in West Rochester/Bingo/Robinson, the first, called West Rochester, was established May 27, 1848, a year after this land had changed from being part of the land of Goshen, in Addison County, to becoming part of Rochester, in Windsor county. Rufus Towle, an early settler of Goshen, and a selectman and state representative from that town (which has never had a post office) was now postmaster of West Rochester. The post office was discontinued April 27, 1874.

In the early twentieth century, another post office was created in the same area that was now called Robinson after one of the large sawmill owners, also lasting but a few decades.

Image is a xerox on file at the Barre Vermont Historical Society, in the historic and beautiful Spaulding Building. There is also an excellent new blog on Vermont Postal History, by Glen Estus. The Vermont Philatelic Society also has a website, and opens to an envelope addressed to Mary Washburn may figure into our Ransom Towle story. Stay tuned.