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Bristol Interesting Places

Tuesday June 3, 2008

By M. Stuart Parks

 The Bristol Money Diggings:  Around the year 1800, or so the story goes, an old Spaniard named DeGrau arrived at the foot of South Mountain to find the large quantity of silver that had been mined and hidden there when he was a boy.  The silver had been Hidden by DeGrau's father and others but had to be left when the group had no way to transport it in the face of a coming winter.   DeGrau spent some time digging but finding nothing he eventually left.  About 1840 a group of men came from the Canadian borderand  actually sold stock to the public promising one hundred dollars worth of treasure for every one dollar they invested.  Twelve years and ten thousand dollars later they too left empty-handed.  In 1934 a man from New Haven went to the same spot and using dynamite pretty much blew the place apart and left with nothing.  

   Barker Charcoal Kiln:  Not far from the money diggings are the ruins of the Barker Charcoal Kiln.  In its day this was a sophisticated kiln.  It was a stone enclosure about ten feet high and twenty feet square and the stones were mortared  in place.  Hardwood was piled inside and burned slowly to produce the charcoal.  The amount of air allowedto the fire controlled the burn and was regulated by a system of holes in the walls of thekiln which could be filled with bricks to close off the draft.  As late as 1981 the south side of the kiln was still in almost perfect condition.

   Lake Winona:  Three miles north of Bristol village at the base of Hogback Mountain lies Lake Winona, better known to the locals as Bristol Pond.  In 1931 Truman Varney was serving in the Vermont Legislature and enacted a bill to change the name to Lake Winona in honor of his grand-daughter.   By either name it is a glacial lake and was probably much bigger at one time.  The arrow heads, spear heads and pottery shards found there
clearly indicate that a group of Indians may have lived there and at the least used it for a hunting area.    The pond has long been a favorite of fishermen.  The most common fish in past years have been pike, pickerel, bull pout, perch and sunfish.  

   Bartlett's Falls:  It's a rare person in the Bristol area who has not been to Bartlett's Falls on a hot summer day.  And many a mother has held her breath while the kids jumped off the rocks into the deep pools.  Many years ago the area around the falls was owned by the Central Vermont Public Service Corporation which had an electric plant farther down the river, but the damn and wheelhouse were at Bartlett's Falls.  Low water in the summer and over-aged equipment eventually closed the plant.

   Lord's Prayer Rock:  There seems to be no doubt that the famous Lord's Prayer Rock came into being because of two men, Joseph C. Greene and W.N. McGee.  There are, however, two different stories of why it did.  One is that, as a boy in the mid 1800s, Joseph Greene took logs from the mountain top in South Starksboro down the mountain  to the sawmill in Bristol.  This was a dangerous job.  There were nine bridges to cross and the logs slid off the wagon easily.  When Joseph reached “the big rock” he knew the worst was over and he said a prayer of relief.  Years later, after seeing some hieroglyphics on rock in Egypt he came home and hired W.N. McGee to chisel the Lord's Prayer on the big rock.   The other story is equally as interesting and has been handed down from one generation of local residents to another.  The beginning is the same:  Woodsmen would bring their logs down the mountain to the sawmill in Bristol but they encountered a very large mud hole, presumably in the area of the “rock”.  There the woodsmen would use considerable profanity trying to get their teams out of the mud and his was why Dr. Greene had the Lord's Prayer chiseled into the rock.  Either story is worth retelling.The information in this article was taken from “History of Bristol, Vermont  1762-1980”.

   The book can be found at the Lawrence Memorial Library in Bristol and there are other interesting Bristol places to read about.  A library card is $23.00 a year or $11.50 for six months.  The library has a wonderful children's area.        

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