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."