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National Geographic : 1974 Jul
Contents
"Tain't quaint, it's home," say Vermonters to tourists charmed by the swelling landscape and crisp white towns. Villages like Strafford (right), with their plain grace, draw out-of-staters who now own more than half of Vermont. Practical as the Model A chugging across it, this covered bridge at Brandon was put up to keep snow off, not to bring skiers and sightseers in. changed little since it was Poultney, and Greeley worked in a white clapboard house still facing the village green. The blood of a Vermont printer flows in the veins of present owner Helen Hackett Cahill, who-in her words-"come by my interest natural." Pert and pin-curled, she showed me through rooms that she has taste fully refurnished with reminders of the great editor's era and presence. "Wasn't much more than a decade after learning typesetting right here," said Mrs. Cahill, opening the door on a fascinating jumble of memorabilia, "that Mr. Greeley founded the New York Tribune. He urged young people to go West, y'know." SOME VERMONTERS WENT-like Brandon-born politician Stephen A. Douglas and Rutland's steel-plow pio neer John Deere. Others would follow. But many would not. There were fields to clear, Merino sheep to shear, and a demand for wool and wood in mills along Vermont's many rivers. Fortu nately, early Green Mountain boys-who broke the wilderness, turned off trespassers, and twice beat back the British-had sired a hardy breed. In doing so, they endowed this wrinkled little state with a strength, stubbornness, humor, and individualism that-despite dilutants-still make a zesty brew. Today outsiders come miles and spend millions just to sample its unique flavor. A few months earlier I had traveled a winter road, slick as wet chamois, to Burke Hollow to see if time had tempered that live ly local forum called town meeting. This an nual March rite, where any voter's voice may be heard, often generates enough heat to hurry spring thaw. The solemn tone, set by opening prayer and pledge of allegiance (pages 32-3), was soon shattered by a slip of a woman who shot to her feet, brandishing the year-end sum mary of town affairs. "When do we start objectin'?" she shrilled. Her wait was short. Moderator James San derson allowed a burly fellow in boots and mackinaw to speak. "Lookee here, Jim. On page ten. Those figures don't make sense. There's a mis take in there, I can tell you." Jim's eyes raced down the page. "Maybe so, Harry. But didn't you ever make a mistake?" "If'n I had, I sure wouldn't publish it in the town report." I left the arena, reassured. Vermont's natural aptitude for dissent has been honed by years of practice. Almost as soon as settlement started-around the National Geographic,July 1974
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