Women and a Home

First Congregational Church, Brookfield, VT

All the fun came to a screeching halt in Brookfield, VT when Selinda Griswold decided she wanted to borrow books from the library chest.  Selinda was the daughter of Howard Griswold and had been attending the library auctions to help her dad bid out the books.  After the official auctions, Selinda would look over the remaining books, make her selections and have her father borrow them.  

Howard Griswold, however, was a supporter of women’s rights and in 1850 made a motion to allow women to bid on their own books.  The other men, not wanting to be rude, but hardly jumping for joy, agreed. The Brookfield men’s club was over, invaded by the womenfolk who probably would want to discuss the books for hours over cups of strong tea.  As a gender, we seem to be determined to spoil the fun.

Selinda was criticized for being so unladylike as to appear in public alone (which I suppose means ‘without other women’ because there certainly were lots of other men present).  I suspect hanging out in the tavern with the men, even though one of them was her dad, wasn’t considered genteel.  After a few meetings, Selinda was joined by her sisters and, eventually, a few more women gathered their courage and joined them.

Fortunately, in 1867 the library chest moved from the course environment of the tavern to the more suitable setting of the vestry of the Congregational Church.  That must have been a sad day for patrons who enjoyed a beverage or two while they bid for their books.  And in 1881, it moved again, this time to the Masonic Hall.  

It wasn’t until June 7, 1902 that the library was finally made free and public.  The books were moved to the Town Hall and, in 1916, the auction format was discontinued and the library opened once a week for patrons to check out books.

In 1940 Brookfield resident Anna Clark Jones willed her home to the library. After all the years of chaos and disruption the library finally had a place of its own to call home.  The house was renovated to accommodate the books and has stayed put ever since.  No one is complaining about the lighting, the children’s room or the technology.  No one is raising taxes to get LEED certified or commission a historic sculpture in the reading garden.  There are no logos, posters or advertising campaigns convincing residents to come to the library.  There are no lattes.

There is just a small white clapboard cottage in the center of town with a large room for books, a room that is a lot bigger than a wooden box.  And after 221 years, the people in Brookfield know a perfect set up when they see it.  

The Library Chest

Before Vermont became the 14th state,  it was the Republic of Vermont, New Connecticut, New Hampshire Grants and a disputed part of New York.  At one point Ethan Allen even appealed to the Province of Quebec for admission.  

Before becoming officially anything, Vermont was the sight of battles, raids, fires and sneak attacks between the French and the British who built numerous forts over the years throughout the landscape and fought over rights to the valuable land.  It wasn’t until the conclusion of the French and Indian War in 1763 that the territory that became Vermont was officially part of England instead of New France.

After a very colorful and, I confess, confusing history, Vermont was finally granted admission to the Union in 1791 and March 4th is now known as Vermont Day.  Thanks to “Where the Books Are” by Patricia W. Belden,  I learned that a small subscription library in Brookfield was started in that very same year.  The Brookfield Free Public Library now bills itself as the oldest continually operating library in Vermont.

The 48 men who began the library were in search of  “knowledge and piety” (aren’t we all?) and contributed 16 shillings each for the opportunity to bid on books during quarterly auctions.  Ironically, or maybe accidentally on purpose, the library operated out of the Brookfield Center Tavern for its first 75 years of existence.  Actually the tavern was the location of the “library chest”. The chest was a plain wooden box, 4-5 feet long and 2 feet high that held the library’s first treasured volumes.  Belden writes that the chest was kept tightly padlocked in between meetings (I guess in case any drunkards went wild and wanted to read a novel or something).     

According to the Brookfield Historical Society, Reverend A.W. Wild   made a speech on the 100th anniversary of the library, in 1891, and explained how the original system worked.  The men would gather in the tavern a few times a year and pull open the cover to the chest, and “members choose books alphabetically.  But if more than one member desired the same book, the book then went to the highest bidder. This intention seems soon to have resolved itself to the present plan of placing the more popular books on sale at first and making choices afterwards, but all books not bid upon were free until 1849, since which time a charge of 1 cent has been made.”
Wild went on to explain that each member was entirely responsible for their book and if they loaned it to a non-member they were fined one shilling a day.

At first it cracked me up to imagine this kind of scene in modern America, but the more I thought about it, the more familiar it felt.  A group of men, gathering in a bar for an event...sounds exactly like football, baseball, hockey, basketball night in Western NY (or probably anywhere in America)... a great excuse to get out of the cottage or cabin, away from the womenfolk, kids and chores and do some quality bonding with the guys.  “Pray thee, good woman, I must attend to the business at the library society meeting” (we’ve all heard that one before....).

The library actually has a picture of the men surrounding the original library chest which, I am sure, looks a lot more respectable than boisterous Bills fans with their bellies painted red and blue but probably wasn’t that different - just some guys out looking for a good time while the ladies held down the fort and put the kids to bed.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Providence Pays

Photo by Michael McKenney

Vermont is known for its thrift, Yankee ingenuity and ice cream.  I'm pretty sure that wasting anything is considered a criminal act and for good reason.  New England colonists struggled through too many frigid winters and toiled over too many stone walls to waste precious time, energy or resources.  Waste not, want not is a daily way of life that also pertains to buildings.  Vermont is brimming with century-old houses, barns and churches, some gleamingly restored and others hanging on by their last leg.  When buildings do finally take their last gasp, they are typically replaced with conservative structures that blend into their surrounding (if they are replaced at all).  Vermonters are often more content to make do with what they have and improvise to make things work than to go to the trouble and expense of building something new and idyllic (maybe because the landscape already is idyllic?).
In Richmond, V.T. I stumbled on a church that epitomizes this idea.  The Unitarian Universalist Church was built in 1897.  The soaring spire and arching windows first caught my eye - what drama - and then I found these two stunning photographs of the church taken by Michael McKennedy - they look like they’re right off the set of a Tim Burton movie.  You can order prints and cards of these images (along with others).  But the coolest thing is that Unitarians moved on 40 years ago and now the space is a public library and community center.  But wait, it also had another life, for 20 some years, as the town’s elementary school.  And it's still standing - they sure don’t make them like that anymore.

The church was actually sold to Walter A. Griffith in 1957.  He passed it on to the school board and it became the town's school.  A $7,000 bond was passed to create a gym and cafeteria in the old church - imagine eating your pb & j while rays of stained glass sun streamed down around you?  The population outgrew the school/church in the 1980s and a new elementary school was constructed.  By that time the library was ready for a new home and the school district deeded the building to the town.  In 1990 voters approved another bond to renovate the first floor into a library space.  Now the library boasts a second floor with two youth libraries, a large community space with a grand piano (for mustic and dance lessons) and four practice rooms with electric pianos.

Richmond a picturesque town in Northern Vermont (population 4,000), not far from Burlington or the Ben & Jerry’s Factory.  Its real claim to fame is a 16-sided meetinghouse that was built in 1812 by five of the town’s religious denominations (this was way before the Universalists teamed up with Unitarians and struck out on their own) and has been beautifully restored.  The meetinghouse is on the registry of National Historic Landmarks, certainly not to be missed, but when I go to Richmond I’m definitely headed to the library/school/church first.