Harley Pike's 1930 sugaring off party: maple syrup, hard-boiled eggs, pickles, and lots of friends, plus one last remaining brother, Nathan. Today his sugar shack is gone, but the gathering place remains as a picnic area with vistas of the Connecticut River and New Hampshire's White Mountains.
It’s early March and the water level is low behind Samuel C. Moore Dam, the 178-foot-high earthen barrier in the Northeast Kingdom that holds back the Connecticut River. So low, in fact, that hikers walking across the muddy shoreline are puzzled by stone fences and smooth tree stumps disappearing into the water. In summer they are hidden below some of the lake’s 3400-acre surface.
As energy company TransCanada monitors the snow melt along the remaining 82 miles upriver, the exposed area resembles an archaeological site. In a way, it is. The ordered landscape is what’s physically left of properties that once fronted Main Street in the original river village of Waterford. Excavation, though, occurs in ephemera and the memories of nonagenarians.
According to the 1790 Census my ancestors were listed among the original 10 families working hard to clear virgin forest, dig out rocks, and plant fields. As they constructed sturdy New England capes and buildings in the Federal style, a crossroads emerged. It featured one and two-story homes, a hotel, general store, two-story meetinghouse, school, a tannery, starch factory, saw and shingle mill powered by Hall’s Brook tumbling out of Shadow Lake in neighboring Concord, and workshops for associated tradesmen.
"The Unbuilding of Upper Waterford" appeared in the May/June 2015 edition of Vermont Magazine. If you would like a copy, please e-mail me: Helen@HelenPike.com
As energy company TransCanada monitors the snow melt along the remaining 82 miles upriver, the exposed area resembles an archaeological site. In a way, it is. The ordered landscape is what’s physically left of properties that once fronted Main Street in the original river village of Waterford. Excavation, though, occurs in ephemera and the memories of nonagenarians.
According to the 1790 Census my ancestors were listed among the original 10 families working hard to clear virgin forest, dig out rocks, and plant fields. As they constructed sturdy New England capes and buildings in the Federal style, a crossroads emerged. It featured one and two-story homes, a hotel, general store, two-story meetinghouse, school, a tannery, starch factory, saw and shingle mill powered by Hall’s Brook tumbling out of Shadow Lake in neighboring Concord, and workshops for associated tradesmen.
"The Unbuilding of Upper Waterford" appeared in the May/June 2015 edition of Vermont Magazine. If you would like a copy, please e-mail me: Helen@HelenPike.com