User Home Pages Bridgewater, Vermont: From the beginning
Bridgewater, Vermont: From the beginningUpdated August 10, 2013 | HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF BRIDGEWATER BRIDGEWATER is a central-western border town of the county, lying in lat. 43° 37' and long. 4° 22’ bounded north by Barnard, east by Woodstock, south by Plymouth, and west by Sherburne, in Rutland county, the length of the western boundary being, by charter, eight miles, that of the eastern seven miles and a half, and of the northern and southern six miles each, giving an area of forty-six and one-half miles. The charter was given to Seth FIELD and his associates, July 10, 1761, in sixty-seven shares. The surface of the town is very uneven, except along the several streams where there is much level intervale land possessing an excellent soil. Among the many hills Mt. Hope, in the western part of the town, and Bald Mountain, in the southern part, are the most prominent. Though the highlands are in some parts quite ledgy, they contain many excellent farms, and afford excellent pasturage for cattle, sheep and horses. Here the timber is mostly spruce and hemlock, while the lower land abounds in maple, beech, birch, etc., from the first of which large quantities of sugar is annually made. The territory is watered by Quechee river and its numerous tributaries, many of which afford excellent water privileges. The Quechee rises in Sherburne and flows easterly through the southern part of this town into Woodstock. There was a time, however; when the river probably flowed into Black river instead of the course it now occupies. Extending from Stockbridge to Ludlow, following along the western line of Bridgewater, is a range of high land, which has no break except where the river now crosses it, through a deep gorge. West of this ridge is an unusually prominent valley which was doubtless once the bed of the Quechee when it flowed into Black river. There is also evidence that there was a blocking up of this gorge some time during the alluvial period, for the accumulations of coarse materials at the head of the stream in Sherburne are very great. One of these hills of modified drift arrests attention by its striking appearance. It occupies the middle of the valley like an island in a lake. Probably the bottom of this valley was filled a hundred feet or more with detritus, when the river flowed into Black river instead of coming to Woodstock, and it is likely that this hill of drift materials is only a remnant of that deposit. The rocks entering into the geological formation of the township are various. Nearly three-quarters of the territory, from the west line, is made up of rocks of the talcose schist formation. This immense bed, however, is cut by a narrow range of clay slate, extending nearly the whole length of the town from north to south, while in the southwestern part there is a bed of saccharoid azoid limestone. Next to this schistose rock, extending from Barnard to Plymouth, is a range of gneiss, having a mean width of about one mile. All of the rocks in the township east of this latter range are known as calciferous mica schist. There are also two quite considerable beds of steatite, or soapstone, in the western part of the town. In the summer of 1851, Matthew KENNEDY discovered gold in a gangue of quartz that traversed the slate ledge above mentioned. He did not disclose the fact however, until he had secured a title to the land, in September, 1852. Upon examination, it was found that gold existed in three or four veins of quartz, within the space of eighty rods; whereupon the “yellow fever" broke out in the community, and raged with unabated fury till a sale of the property was made to Ira F. PAYSON, Charles J. KANE and Simeon M. JOHNSON, in 1853. This company erected a crushing-mill and placed in it an engine for working the crushers, stampers, washers, etc., and in June, 1854, made the first experiment of separating the gold from its matrix of quartz. Various reports were afloat in the community respecting the amount of gold obtained per week from the qua |
James M Perry
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