Rutland Daily Herald from Rutland, Vermont • 17

A Hunter's Story was a lot of stuff about posting land and how it would limit the territory the hunters could use And yes I remember that year there was a minor hullabaloo over the state keeping the liquor stores open on Nov 11 Veterans Day the day before the season began That still a state holiday you know I guess the state wanted to sell some booze Lotta folks think hunters needed any booze the night before deer season Crosier photo From the little park in front of the Holstein-Friesian building Main Street looks busy at any time of the day Far to the north is seen the steeple of historic Centre Congregational Church and at right the town oldest firms the Barrows Coal Co The business district is the commercial center for almost all towns In Windham County Brattleboro Profile: Dynamic Melting Pot By TONY BLAND NOTE: A time capsule brings an outdoor reporter to the year 2017 where he encounters a famous outdoorsman who provides this interview reviewing the 1977 deer season and related subjects) Wily Woodsman lifted his aching cold feet onto a chair beside the wood stove filled his pipe and discussed opening of the deer season The day marked the first time in 40 years of deer hunting that Wily Woodsman did not get his buck on opening day Clearly he was unhappy that this record not merely was ended but because he knew he was too old to try to set another record for opening day success Still he was not discouraged Wily Woodsman realized there remained 15 days for him to shoot a buck As a teenager Wily shot his first deer on opening day in 1977 Like most hunters he remembers with clarity that deer and the shot that killed it In fact Wily remembers the incident more clearly now than he did nearly four decades ago As the deer and the shot fade into time becoming more remote like objects seen through reversed binoculars Wily uses the binoculars in his memory to refocus hearing the shot and seeing the falling deer more sharply sure tell you about that said Wily got him on Nov 12 back in But first let me tell how things were in those days You want to know about deer hunting in Vermont you? Sure the newspapers printed a lot of stuff back then they do now about how many deer would be killed I recall in there the season We had this Fish Game Board back then they like what some of the guys was saying about their decisions on trapping seasons and partridge seasons Came out the memo did just before deer season as I recall offering this information so know that the 1977 season pretty much was the same as most others Lotta talk Before that season the department I guess it might have been Kehoe said the deer kill might be around 10000 bucks Now that a pretty good figure for a state the size of Vermont more bucks than we have square miles in Vermont and when you get that many deer it means one buck at least per square mile Not bad Not bad And those square miles include the cities and (he towns the roads and the lakes and whatever a decade before that year though back when I was just a little feller and just got excited when the men dragged their bucks down to the farm and I myself they got more than 17000 one November and a record that been broke that talk about the biologists clearing their ideas with the brass before to the public There much talk that year about what they were say about deer In fact they saying much They did a lot of that in the 1960s though Feller by the name of Day I think it was came over here guess it was 1963 from Maine where they shoot bucks and does too and right away he-began telling folks here in Vermont they ought to shoot Wily reached out a thick hand and lifted the coffee pot off the stove and poured for (See Page2: Deer) changing cosmopolitan population have to search hard to find any Vermont-born people said former local publisher John Hooper has moved from a self-contained trading center serving Windham County to a place to which people have come because they want to live outside the congested metropolitan The town is no longer the pre-rat-race pre-vacation home pre-modern community it was 25 years ago according to Managing Editor Norman Runnion of the Brattleboro Reformer but is a population center changing to meet the social needs of a new era And there is no indication the changing has stopped or is about to stop soon according to Chamber of Commerce Manager SamihaN Northup have quite a way to she said last week judging from the past there will be more She was careful to point out however that any changes occurring will have to be compatible with the environment This latter point was underscored by Town Manager Corwin Elwell He believes there occurs some judicious screening by the chamber and its right arm the Brattleboro Development Credit Corp to develop a stable economy based on diversified industries that do not carry the image around which a low-income population is built Elwell is proud of the cooperation between town government the "ony Bland is a Rutland Herald SHOOTING TRAPPING Oft APPROVED Memos to me too that they was writing about this Johnson fellow very big then in this environmental agency they had of which the Fish Game Department was a part Just before the season Johnson passed around a memo or told the biologists in the-state to clear their opinions with him or the commissioner guy name of Kehoe before talking with anyone have much to do with deer but it came out just before the most distinguished diplomatic post ever held by a Vermonter was as minister to the Court of St From 1885 through 1889 Edward Phelps represented the United States in England then the acknowledged greatest power in the world The appointment according to the Springfield Republican was unexpected but deserved Though he was one of the most widely respected lawyers of his time and held the most prestigious foreign post for four years Phelps still remains little known to the people of his home state Phelps is perhaps best remembered as the author of Ballad of Essex the humorous poem which Vermont History lamented the inconveniences the rivalry of the Vermont Central Railroad and Burlington Rutland Railroad caused for passengers trying to make connections between the two With saddened fore and battered hat And eyes that told of blank despair On wooden bench the traveler sat Cursing the fate that brought him there Nine he cried lingered here With thoughts intent on distant homes Waiting for that delusive train That always coming never comes: Till weary and worn cold and forlorn And paralyzed in every function I hope in hell Edward Phelps: Diplomat Lawyer Versifier chamber other community organizations and individuals who offer their time and talents in helping to build Brattleboro The town manager said he has always been impressed with the fact that 1 Brattleboro has very conscientious people involved in public projects a high caliber of involvement by a lot of people had citizen participation long before it became he recalled A town of 12500 inhabitants Brattleboro is the commercial center of Windham County which has a population of 35800 For a good share of the county it is also the medical governmental cultural and social center Serving as the focal point for the entire county it also became a melting pot the center to which people gravitated from many small villages creating a shortage of acceptable housing in the process The town however has been a leader among Vermont communities in addressing its housing problems Elwell said his town was the first in the state to organize a housing authority and completed its first housing project for the elderly some 12 years ago That development had 72 units and since then there has been an 80-unit project and a 25-unit private development The town manager said another private development for the elderly will probably be built in 1978 of 1979 (See Page 2: Brattleboro) departed with more sincere regret than Phelps Phelps had earned the uncommon tribute and during subsequent years further demonstrated his diplomatic ability by serving as counsel for the United States in the Bering Sea controversy His final argument before the international tribunal established to resolve the controversy took 11 days to deliver and the published version filled more than 325 pages In the closing days of1 the first Cleveland administration following the death of Chief Justice Morrison Waite Phelps was prominently mentioned as the next chief justice of the United States Sen Edmunds pushed for his appointment and for a brief time was confident that President Cleveland would send name to the Senate for confirmation However (Patrick) Collins of Boston with certain influential New York Irish Democrats had made very strong protests against the proposed appointment and had assured the President of the loss the Irish vote if he persisted in his choice and that (with) his then pending election (it) would be Cleveland acceded to the pressure Vermont lost its only chance to have a native son on the Supreme Court and ironically Cleveland lost the election A small state without great political weight in presidential politics without the Irish vote or any other major bloc of voters and without many individuals of sufficient personal wealth to buy or support a ministerial post cannot expect to have many natives serving in high diplomatic posts Yet in some cases individual merit can win preferment and despite his middling poetry Edward Phelps earned recognition by his contemporaries a recognition that is too little remembered by those who have followed By BARNEY CROSIER BRATTLEBORO first white settlement 'has blossomed into one of the most economically viable and culturally aware communitiesi in the state absorbing rather than surrendering to the advances of an impatient century The settlers who feared for their scalps while building the first log cabins just north of Ft Dummer have long since given way to sophisticated chamber-of-commerce types who carefully calculate the balancing of the industrial base and nod approvingly at newcomers Workmen who once built organs for the world in six look-alike factories on Birge Street now bind books finish lumber and grind lenses in an industrial setting so well diversified the town rarely suffers the pangs of unemployment characteristic of boom-or-bust one-industry communities Windham County residents who for a century or more came here only on their shopping days now come here just as frequently for concerts theater productions or lectures Brattleboro by all accounts of those most concerned with the community has swung into the 20th Century with a relish has seen rapid change and is looking forward to further change It is a community that prides itself on change and on often being first as far as Vermont towns are concerned in taking a new path indicated bv its ever- Barney Crosier is a Rutland Herald reporter A Silver Gray Whig less adamant about the slavery issue than many other Whigs who were first attracted to the Liberty and Free Soil Parties and then destroyed the Whig Party when they jumped on the Republican bandwagon Phelps became a Democrat As a Democrat in Vermont Phelps had little chance of holding a major elected office and his candidacy for the office in 1880 met with predictable defeat Jnstead of politics Phelps concentrated on the law and earned a reputation as most accomplished lawyer that Vermont has He argued regularly before the US Supreme Court and gradually withdrew from local practice to specialize in work before the federal courts In 1879 he delivered a notable address on former Chief Justice John Marshall to the American Bar Association and two years later he became its president Phelps had already served as the first president of the Vermont Bar Association From 1881 through 1883 Phelps perhaps anticipating by nearly a century the legal ramifications of the practice of medicine held an appointment at the University of Vermont as professor of medical jurisprudence From 1882 until his death in 1900 except for his years in diplomatic service Phelps was Kent Professor of Law at Yale University The learned Vermonter enjoyed wide respect for his legal erudition and the edition of his principal essays and lectures published by after his death filled a large volume Though Phelps had met Grover Cleveland some years before the New Yorker was elected president in 1884 the Burlington lawyer apparently entertained no thoughts of an appointment in the first Democratic administration since inaugural in 1861 Thomas Bayrd secretary of state and Phelps knew each other through their fathers who had served in the Senate together years before During the summer Before election Secretary Bayard then a senator visited Phelps in Burlington The initial suggestion that Phelps be appointed minister to the Court of St however came from Sen George Edmunds a gifted lawyer who was respected by the leadership of both political parties in Washington As a youth Edmunds studied law in Burlington office and knew his talents well In the complex and interrelated way people and events have of coming together Smalley the Democratic national committeeman at the time of election was the son of David A Smalley farmer law partner When PresidentCleveland inquired about lavailablity Smalley remarked that Phelps would not accept a political office a posture which recommended Phelps to the Democratic chief executive Phelps learned of the impending appointment only a few days before its public announcement though he had heard rumors that he was destined to take George Perkins place in Italy appointment to Great Britain was a great tribute and after his four years in London proved to be a sound decision As he was about to leave England following loss in the election of 1888 he was given a dinner by the Century Club of London His English friends cast aside their standard reserve and Lord Chief Justice Coleridge linked name with his most distinguished predecessors! Buchanan Adams Motley and Lowell and declared that none of these American ministers had Their souls may dwell Who first invented Essex Junction The first stanza was followed by three more each as forlorn as the one before and each ending with the refrain which condemned the founders of Essex Junction to the fiery domain of the Devil Though his predecessor at the Court of St was the distinguished American poet and man of letters James Russell Lowell Phelps did not earn his appointment through his verse He took the path of loyal service to the Democratic Party in a state dominated by Republicans and of the able practice of the law in the highest courts The son of Samuel Phelps a judge on the1 Vermont Supreme Court and US Senator (1839-1851) Edward Phelps was born in Middlebury in 1822 At the tender age of 14 he enrolled in Middlebury College and graduated four years later As so many young educated northern men Phelps headed south to teach In 1842 after one year in the South he quit Virginia He entered Yale Law School which he left after a short stay to study the law in the Middlebury office of Horatio Seymour twice a losing candidate for governor and a long-time US senator from Vermont (1821-1833) The next year Phelps joined the Vermont bar and in 1845 he moved his practice to Burlington Phelps quickly earned a reputation as an extremely able lawyer and a strong Whig In 1851 President Fillmore appointed the young Vermont lawyer then only 29 the second comptroller of the US Treasury After his brief stint in Washington Phelps returned to Burlington and was elected attorney for Chittenden County the only elective office he ever held other than as a delegate to the Vermont Constitutional Convention in 1870 By MULLER During the more than 180 years since Vermont became the 14th state and as one old-timer sourly remarked put its neck in the yoke of union only 15 major diplomatic appointments at the ministerial or ambassadorial level have gone to Vermonters That tiny total counts Ellsworth Bunker four times He has represented the United States in India and Nepal (1956-1961) the Organization of American States (1964-1966) South Vietnam (1967-1973) and as an ambassador-at-large The 15 appointments also include George Perkins record tenure in Italy (1861-1882) and Turkey (1849-1853) twice Only 10 Vermonters have headed US legations Heman Allen was the first when he served in that South American country from 1823 to 1827 President Andrew Jackson rewarded former Gov Cornelius Van Ness of Burlington for his party loyalty with an appointment to Madrid (1829-1836) and years later Henry Clay Ide of St Johnsbury also represented the United States in Spain 1909-1913) Nathaniel Niles headed the mission in Italy as charge affairs (1848-1850) Frank Partridge ot Vermont Marble Co in Venezuela (1893-1894) and Seneca Haselton a distinguished member of the Vermont bar succeeded Partridge for the next year In 1947 Warren Austin left the United States Senate to become the first ambassador to the United Nations from the United States (1947-1953) Perhaps HN Muller is director of the LivingLearning Center and a professor of history at the University of Vermont He will take over as president of Colby Sawyer College next year.