The WPA Guide to Vermont by Federal Writers' Project

Author:Federal Writers' Project
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781595342430
Publisher: Trinity University Press

TOUR 1F: From CANADIAN LINE (Sherbrooke) to JUNCTION WITH US 2, 49.3 m., State 114 and 102.

Via Canaan, Bloomfield, Guildhall.

Maine Central R.R. parallels the southern end of the route.

The road is four-fifths gravel, one-fifth hard surface.

THIS route parallels the northern part of the Connecticut River Valley. The valley is broader here than it is farther south, and the mountain walls that hem it in are loftier. For the major part of the route the great White Mountain Range to the east, though in New Hampshire, is scenically an important part of the trip.

Canadian Boundary, 0 m. The route enters the United States on State 114 at the modern Customhouse in the township of Canaan, the most easterly point in Vermont.

CANAAN (alt. 1042, pop. township 906), 1.6 m., is a small village across the Connecticut from West Stewartstown, New Hampshire. All of these river valley towns are dual settlements built up on both sides of the river which in actuality constitute single towns or villages except in matters of government. The Maine Central R.R. follows the northern Connecticut on the New Hampshire bank, but serves the towns on the Vermont side as well. Canaan is centered about a green Common with a fountain and the inevitable war memorial. A fire in the spring of 1936 destroyed the only hotel and several other buildings, leaving the little town scarred and somewhat unsightly.

Left from Canaan on State 102 is BEECHER FALLS, 2.2 m., another port of entry into Vermont from Canada. The village is supported mainly by thriving furniture mills.

South of Canaan the fine view across the Connecticut is typical of the myriad vistas to the east throughout this route.

At 2.9 m. is a State Fish Hatchery (R), a white wooden building with a system of cement raceways in front where the young fish, hatched indoors in winter, can be seen during the summer months. Like most Vermont State Hatcheries (five in number), this one, since its establishment in 1914, has been devoted almost solely to maintaining and increasing the stock of lake and brook trout in Vermont waters. On the inside walls of the hatchery, what at first appear to be actual mounted fish are in reality wooden models realistically carved from cedar by a former employee.

Between 7.5 m. and 8.5 m. the countryside is so closely settled as to constitute a kind of nameless straggling farmhouse village. Just south of this point the distant mountains of eastern Vermont seem to block the route to the south.

The hard surface ends at 10.1 m. The road, closely following the river, becomes more winding at this point. Now the larger part of the fertile farmlands lie on the Vermont side of the dividing Connecticut, now on the New Hampshire side. These level meadows contain countless small depressions which after a heavy rain become a patchwork of glinting pools.

BLOOMFIELD (alt. 912, pop. township, 418), 24.1 m., is a small village across from North Stratford, New Hampshire, a junction of the Maine Central and the Canadian National R.

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