Show OP P P NI TAIN state ow 4 Y t N little country store in a back room of which calvin coolidge was born prepared by national geographic society washington D C service ERMONT to which the nation ving turned recently ns as the last resting place of calvin coolidge has a story different from that of most of its sister states its story Is more than a recital of statistics it Is more than a review of the number of organs and scales manufactured there annually and for more interesting than an estimate of the number of miles of public buildings which could be faced each year with its marble and granite and roofed with its slate it has elements of a drama it has faced not seven but seventy lean years in the seventy years from 1850 to 1020 the census returns show that the population increased only from to or a little more than 12 per cent during this same period the increase for the united states as a whole was more than per cent in the ten years from 1010 to 1020 1920 the number of vermonters Ver actually decreased yet the future seems bright enough to the men and women of the green mountains the outsider may perhaps be forgiven if he hopes that its prosperity shall be no more than modest and that it shall not interfere greatly with ver monts present status for it Is today one of the most truly american of ou our r states its people have hardly changed in their essential elements in a century barely one oie in nine Is foreign forean born and the majority of these are canadian and therefore american vermontis Ver monts drama Is rooted in that net fact its people are a dynamic lot hard hitting resourceful energetic restless in the census of 1700 1790 it was shown that of the total population of approximately were of english stock aud and 2600 scotch its young men left the oncoming years brought few different factors the names one finds today in vermont were on the earliest records there was little to be candid about it in vermont to tempt immigration in the last fifty years of the past century there was everything outside to tempt emigration the young men left just as young scotsmen go to london iolas rich pral prairies ries called the farmer who had stumbled over vermontis Ver monts rocky hills once famed for merino sheep it became the inheritor of the spanish crown when the royal flocks were dissipated under the threat of napoleons invasion it saw them disappear under the pressure or of necessity sheep held on costly land and fed seven months in the year cannot compete with those grazed on tree free land the year round the estates located in rich bottom lands were held of course but in the pioneer days farmers built cabins on hill shoulders for the sake of the early curly morning reassurance of a neighbors plume of smoke across the vall val ley many of these hill farms became economically impossible today bodaj the dairy cow Is taking the p place lace sheep once held in vermontis Ver monts scheme of things the cow must musi be fed all winter long but she abundantly repays milk trains squeak through the winter snows to gather cans at every crossroad milk trains roar through the early dawn bound for the great eastern cities this achievement has only lately been made possible by the creation of new transportation facilities tier enormous marble industry one shrinks from comparative statements but vermont Is very certain there can be no greater marble quarries in the world had not been thought of tile the dignified statehouse at mont peller the capital was built of granite from the famous quarries which have made vermont the leader among the state in the value of this stone supplied for monumental and structural purposes rich in marble and granite so if one sees nothing else in vermont today he be should see the murble marble quarries and the granite works where arales of skilled men equipped with the latest engineering appliances wrest huge blocks of stone from the states rich mountain sides many families were literally starved out of the village of lowell in northern vermont in the early days wagon trains rains left for kentucky and the western reserve no one then knew of the vast beds of asbestos in that tart part of the state so with tale talc and slate and the other mineral riches which are now being slowly developed nor did anyone suspect that her rounded hills and lovely dales would some time offer a promising vacation ground at a profit to the thousands in the great cities within a few hours ride today vermont Is a cheerful sunny independent little state in which life admittedly presents more difficulties than in the lands wherein one may live on breadfruit but it is more worthwhile worth while it Is distinctly not given to hero worship and it has a humor that might trace to its caledonian pioneers A calm clear commonwealth it is too with a distaste tor for rebellion against constituted authority but with a line fine capacity for it on occasion willing that each shall worship god in his own way intent upon getting the dollars worth but not falsely valuing the dollar hospitable as are few states in these days of the ea easy S y road every town has its peak not a single town in vermont Is without its emi eminence evidence dence there are approximately peaks whose summits are 2000 feet or more above sea level the northeast corner an area perhaps 50 miles by 50 Is in effect a wilderness bears roam there and deer and landlocked salmon are to be caught in lakes rarely seen by man elsewhere the mountains seem more hospitable the tallest mount mansfield feet high can be reached by automobile over good though steep steel roads and all are accessible to hikers this Is a state of lakes too for there are approximately from lake champlain Champl nin miles long between the green mountains an and d tile the adirondacks to mere potholes potholed pot holes gleaming in hill fastnesses fast nesses and of little rapid rivers which slow down here and there into placid reaches where the hungry trout leap at dawn for thirteen years vermont was an independent republic making its own laws maintaining its own army coining its own money it was a contumacious tuma cious and stiff necked community for during this period it was not only in rebellion against england but was wag carrying on a lively private fight of its own with the state of new york and the continental congress A historian records that vermont was never anything but free never a crown colony never yielding allegiance to any province state or kingdom when she was admitted as the fourteenth state to the american union after the revolution evolution ll had bad been won by her loyal aid it was upon her own terms Cham plains voyage iler iier written history begins on july 4 some say july 14 1600 on which debatable date samuel tie de champlain Champl aln discovered the lake which bears his bis name and which Is our largest body of fresh water outside the great lakes on that voyage the de champlain fought with his algonquin hosts against the iroquois and so assured the friendship of the latter powerful tribe to the british who were to come later it has been argued that this may have decided the future over lording of this continent who knows tile the first french settlements on isle la motte were not permanent white men did not come to stay until 1724 when settlers who had seeped in from the massachusetts bay colony built it a blockhouse at fort dummer near the site of the present city of brattle bore here timothy dwight was brn in 1726 three of his descendants through his marriage with mary daughter of rev jonathan edwards were to become presidents of yale this is worth noting because vermont talks more of her men than of her marble or slate or granite |