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Around And About In Addison County-Cornwall

Tuesday August 26, 2008

By M. Stuart Parks

    On November 3, 1761 Cornwall was chartered as a New Hampshire Grant. Its area is twenty-eight and three quarters square miles and it is 374 feet above sea level.

   The origin of the name is not certain.  Some of the grantees lived in Litchfield County Connecticut where there is a Cornwall and there is a Cornwall in England.  Also, King George the Third's father had been the Duke of Cornwall.  At some point in its early history the town had been called Stockwell Corners.  Joshua Stockwell was one of the first store-keepers in town.   

    The town was actually organized on March 2, 1784.  The following men were elected to town offices:  Moderator, Jeremiah Bingham;  Town Clerk, Joel Lindsey; Selectmen, Samuel Benton,  Jeremiah Bingham, Eldad Andrus;  Treasurer, Hiland Hall;  Constable, Barzillai Stickney;  Listers, Nathan Foot, Roswell Post;  Highway Surveyors, Eldad Andrus, Stephen Tambling, William Jones and Isaac Kellogg.  Other officers were added to the list as the need arose, such as Deer-rifts or Reeves, whose duty was to enforce an off-season on deer from January 10 to June 10.  Horse Branders, Tithe-Collectors and Pound-Keepers were also added.

    Cornwall was attractive to men who wanted to engage in agriculture.  The land was very fertile which was great for crops and animal husbandry but had no water power to speak of and shipping, in the form of access to Lake Champlain, was totally lacking.  But farmers need things other than land and so before 1800 there were tanners and shoemakers, a clothier, carpenters, coopers (barrel makers), joiners, saddle and harness maker, and the Tilden brothers, who made spinning wheels.  Soon to follow were tailors, blacksmiths and wheelwrights.  Although several small grist mills were built in the early days none of them was ever particularly successful.

    Sheep breeding, however, was so popular in Cornwall that at one time the town boasted 87 breeders who had sheep for sale and Cornwall was once Vermont's foremost town in prize-winning Merino sheep.  In 1846 Alonzo and Merrill Bingham brought the first French Merinos to Cornwall.  In eight years their sales amounted to over forty-three thousand dollars, a huge sum.    About the same time William Jarvis, who lived in Weathersfield, Vermont and was the United States Consul to Spain, arranged for nine-thousand Spanish Merinos to be delivered to New York.  Thirty of these sheep were placed on his farm and some were bought by the Binghams and the Spanish sheep soon replaced the French sheep.  Wool from these sheep was considered the best there was.

   One of the most extensive sheep dealers in the United States was Cornwall's Rollin J. Jones.  He and the Rockwell brothers took sheep to California by ship most of the way, actually driving the sheep across the Isthmus of Panama.  This was in 1859 and the transcontinental railroad had not yet been built.  Alonzo Bingham began shipping to California that same year.  One hundred and sixty carloads of improved sheep were shipped from Middlebury to points west from 1877 to 1881.  Vermont sheep were so prized that sheep were often brought from New York and then sold as the 'Vermont Strain'.  Charles Wiltherell of Cornwall became the first to export Spanish Merino sheep to South Africa in the 1880s.  George Dimmock of Cornwall became the first to ship pedigreed livestock to South America.  In partnership with Wright and Cartmell he alsoshipped Merinos to South Africa from 1902 to 1914.

  Not to be forgotten are the Morgan horses that were raised in Cornwall such as Ethan Allen, Claremont and Blackhawk.  Rollin Jones and the Rockwells also shipped Morgans to California where they sold for as much as three thousand dollars apiece.  Cornwall's cattle industry was second to none but much smaller.  They were raised primarily for beef.  At the Brighton Market in Boston Cornwall steers were known as Lake cattle and were prized for their meat.

    At one time Cornwall was noted for its orchards.  There was one on almost every farm.  Usually they were planted on two to five acres of land that was not as useful for hay or grain.  The limestone in the soil produced a wonderful flavor and the trees required little care.  However, the 20th century saw the importation of old world diseases such as fungus, or scab, and the coddling moth and other insects and these spurred the demise of most of the old farm orchards and now only traces remain.  Cornwall Orchards made the first commercial planting of Red Delicious in New England in 1910. 

   The first commercial cold storage in Addison County was built by Stuart Witherell in 1944 at Cornwall Orchards.  It was also the first orchard in the county to be dusted from the air. Cornwall seems to have a habit of being the best at whatever it puts its mind to; from sheep to horses to cattle to orchards it has come out ahead in all its endeavors.
         

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