 Hi, welcome to CCTV channel 17 live at 525 the preservation Burlington show Everybody welcome back. We've been on hiatus for a few months because of the holidays and the elections and stuff like that So it's really good to be back Preservation Burlington is a nonprofit 501c3 organization whose mission is to preserve and protect the historic architecture and livability of Burlington I'll memorize this one of these days Through education and advocacy, so the show is a big education component of that and I would like to like Thank David Colley for being here with me It just by way of background. I know that it was it two years ago that or I forget when we did the winter lube the first time This will be our third year this year So we started actually in the height of COVID with our first festival So we couldn't do quite everything was self-directed. Yep But yeah, it was three years ago our first one and that's when we met and we set up the table there Preservation Burlington we've teamed up on the the cemetery tours. Yeah, Greenmount Cemetery tour So we've done two of those which were very well attended. Yeah, very popular Yeah, we love doing those anyway, but anyway, thank you for coming on and doing the show My pleasure. We're gonna do the winter lube again this year Yep, we'll set up the tent and have our stuff and our swag and we'll you know, there'll be hot Coco, oh, we have I'll go through we we have lots of things planned this year So we'll give you some of the highlights as we go along here cool And we'll we'll push that towards the end right because I really want to I Want to thank you for sending me that PowerPoint that you've put together But tell us a little bit about the old east end. Everybody knows the old north end Everybody knows the new north end. Mm-hmm. Not everybody's heard about the old east end and I love your stickers. Yeah Well, you know, that's place names are funny because you know, what was a place name, you know 50 or 100 years ago may not be the place name today. I mean think about the old north end There was no old north end till there was a new north end And so that's as you know, I lived in this neighborhood the old east end for 30 years And it's a place where people really didn't know what the name of the neighborhood was and so when I retired about five years ago I got in touch with a guy named Jim Barr and he lives down on Chase Street and His family has been in that neighborhood for six generations. It goes back to the 1830s And he told me that his family has always referred to that neck of the woods as the old east end and It's had lots of names. So we'll talk about it I've got some slides that show, you know, where it is But you know for people that know Burlington as you travel down Colchester Avenue headed towards Winooski That is the old east end neighborhood and sometimes people think it's even part of Winooski because it's you know Some of the structures of the same the right across the river very similar right next to each other on similar similar histories there So That's why when we started researching it We realized there was unique things about this neighborhood as part of itself and unique to Burlington's history too So that's what that's what got us going on. So they got us going on it So is that what you how did you stumble on the like where was your first interest you retired? You had time on your hands. Yeah, and yeah, and it was really just take I was you know One of the great things about retirement is you get to go for walks and so I started doing walks I live fairly close to Greenmont Cemetery and in Greenmont Cemetery. We know is the Ethan Allen monument. Yeah Yeah, and lots of historic you know Headstones there and so that made me start thinking a little bit more I wanted to know the story about well What was the Allen connection to this neighborhood because I really didn't know that yeah, and and so then Began also in these walks looking at some of the structures and realizing that some of these and one that will take a look At goes all the way back to 1790 on Colchester Avenue. The building's still there today This is just a blacksmith shop. No, this is was called Ames Tavern and it was in 1790 this was the major route to Canada So it's as a tavern. That's where people would stop and you know spend the night get their refreshments and and move on over So while there's probably not very much Anywhere else in that in the vicinity, right? That was that was it actually there was a With a little bit more research it turned out there was two or three other taverns that popped up because it was a little bit of a Place where people congregated because you had to get across the river Yeah, but there was no bridge in the early days and so Ethan Allen's brother Ira Allen started a ferry at across the river to over to the Winooski side And of course that was called Colchester back then. Yeah, and so that's why that that was the connection that This road that it was Colchester Avenue didn't actually extend all the way down to the river As it does today because the bridge wasn't there It curved and that's what is what we call chase street today Okay, and the end of chase Street was where I around fairy crossed over to the Winooski River. Okay. Yeah All right. Well, um, do you do we just pulled up the old east end? So as we talked about where is the old east end? Yeah, it's it's that neighborhood It's it what makes it kind of unique is it juts out into the Winooski River there And the river is is coming in from the the right and going downstream makes this big bend there Everybody who's ever paddled knows that rivers on the inside curve are the most powerful And so that's why the mills were cited the mills were cited on both sides of the river But there was quite a few mills on the burlington side of the river because of the power of the river Taking advantage of that water power. Yeah. Yeah, so You know, that's that's where that that comes from. So this is a view Today now other parts of so what makes the whole neighborhood? Well Some of the original the way the properties were laid out back then they extended from the river Toward the downtown area and these properties You know were you know kind of ended about where east af is today So east af forms one boundary of the neighborhood and then the river forms the northern boundary of the neighborhood and You know approximately uh root 89 Is is it so it's a bit of a triangle Of this neighborhood and you know, we'll talk about some of the connections about how this property was Evolved and developed that made it, you know a common place. So yeah, it's You know, um, we all have heard that ira alan bought up all the land there Right and then so when you say these these plots were divided like that who who divided those plots up He was speculating right right when he bought the lots They were already lined up. So the original charter for burlington, of course was 1763 And the original layout of those lots happened then but he and his brothers ira and ethan and his other brothers formed The onion river land company and they not only bought that land They bought pretty much everything up and down the winewski river So as he uh came to the river and I think we've got a slide there. Yeah Actually one of the quotes from his his autobiography is he called this place that where the where the falls are And this part of the river the land that my soul delighted in And what that vision was was he saw enterprise here. He knew the falls were powerful He knew that the river goes out to the lake and that the lake feeds to canada And so he could see a whole enterprise, you know developing here before anybody saw it He saw a natural highway. He saw a natural highway and and business with canada and that was the only you know business in the area So he and his cousin remember baker Came to the falls in 1772. Wait, I have to say it. I remember remember baker. There you go. You can't forget They were he was cousin to uh, ethan alan and ira alan and um all connecticut boys, right Yeah, oh the litchfield. Yeah Area in fact many of the people we talk about that settled in this area all came from that area They knew each other from that area. So when you know the alans, you know, uh, Saw this as a big business opportunity. They sold it to their friends and they all came and you'll and people intermarried there were you know Sisters were marrying brothers and and all of that. So yeah, it was a tight knit group So they came in 1772 and burlington only had a couple of farms at that point that had been, you know, sold and settled So there was no it was still frontier. Yeah now His vision for this enterprise really Didn't get a chance to get developed They they built a block house and the block house wasn't really to protect them from the Native americans It was to prevent the the yorkers who were also claiming these lands at the same time So that was that was weren't they in the Wasn't the the yorkers. I remember seeing that at the ethan alan homestead. Yes I read did not like I mean, uh, yeah, ethan did not like the yorkers Oh, no, and then that what new hampshire was also laying claim to this area Well, that's with the the the alans had bought their claims and the the claims that were settled here were the new hampshire grants And so the yorkers also particularly in the south southern part of the state south western part of the state Started laying over Their claims as well they claim they owned everything to the connecticut river the yorkers did yeah, and so But they you know the alans that was the beginning of the green mountain boys Was to fight the claims of the yorkers and to try to kick them out. Yes, and that's what ira was doing here in wanouski In fact when they arrived in 1772 There was a yorker survey or party here that they Uh, they they waited for an ambush and they they they told them to leave town and chase them out. They chased them out Yeah, so there was these early things, but then everything went on hold For the revolutionary war because the british were coming down And they're you know, native american allies were were beginning to raid so everybody pulled back to the southern part of the state And this place stayed frontier until After the war and then ira came back in the about 1783 And that's when the real development of mills and all those things, you know started taking place He developed that ferry we talked about and those sorts of things. This is a representation of a map This was done by historian david blow and it kind of represents this part of the town In 1795 and as I talked about if you see the lower part of the picture There's today's cold chester avenue, but it curves into chase street because it's headed on down to the ferry You know to the left of the ferry there Ireland had built a dam and that was that's how they got the power for the more of the power that they needed Plus it created a mill pond behind the uh The dam so the ferry very a lot easier to operate there and so, uh, you know this Their first enterprise really was timbering and building rafts of logs that they could ship to canada And so that that was all being done in in this area at that time. So, um I'm cheating because we talked about this a little bit before we got on here But I see the name rolling place there And you just mentioned these rafts of logs and the timbering and we were talking about so there was so much tall timber here And basically it was called the rolling place because they cut the trees and would roll it down the hill This was behind green mount cemetery. It would roll down through what is today shaman'ska park out to the river and then You know flowed down over the falls and then they'd assemble those rafts really steep right there behind the cemetery Yeah, yeah, so that's and there are a lot of hills, you know up along Uh in the centennial woods area So it was it was all that lumbering that was taken. So that was their first enterprise Dump it into the river and then it would flow down. They would tie it all together Into rafts and big rafts. I mean big enough that they would put shanties on them And they had you know, they would also export like people were making potash and other exports going to canada They take all that up using as barges at the same time. It was kind of like a barge that they chip up there That's that's pretty interesting. Yeah, so There's an example of here's an example of one of those not their raft, but Something of the era that you might see Shipping the everything there. Well It was he had this great vision. Ira had this great vision of enterprise But it didn't always pan out. He was short on money. He was rich in land short in cash And a lot of times these they'd ship all these things to canada. They get them all the way to montreal And you know, they wouldn't get the the dollars that they thought they were going to get so the businesses started, you know He started going into a lot of debt So the interesting part of the story and how it relates to our neighborhood besides ethan alan, which you know, you know, ethan Died he moved to burlington. He lived here for a couple of years and which is the ethan alan homestead today And he died in 1789 that there's a Record of that funeral procession. So he he laid in state at ira alan's house in winewski The green mountain boys came it was supposed to be close to like 10 000 people And it was in february. So the river was frozen They marched across the river and up colchester avenue to the great to the cemetery And it was a cadence where they would stop every ten paces or so and fire a gun In honor of ethan alan, and then they would move on So the other interesting thing about the ethan alan monument is this this year july 4th Is the 150th anniversary of that monument monument. Yeah. Yeah, so we're thinking we're looking for partners Maybe we should put on do another. Uh, yeah a a You know some kind of ceremony. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be fun. So we'll we'll take a look at that So What happened? I mean, you know businesses were starting to go down The rest of the alan brothers died off and ira was the ira and his brother Levi were the only brothers left But the families of the other brothers that died Said they had rights to the property that were bought by this company. And so They ended up suing ira alan to get some of this land now. This is late 1700s Yeah, this is about seven starting in 1795 and moving up to right around 1800 There was a number of court cases that took place over this One of the relatives that sued was a woman named lucinda alan and she was the daughter of heman alan and niece to ira alan She married a guy named moses catlin and the catlins Actually took ira alan's vision But by by winning the the case that they owned this property and the property that's the old east end The catlins took over that whole section where the the mills would be That was their land all the way up the hill including where mary fletcher hospital is You know the uvm hospital and what was mary fletcher. Everybody always thinks of that as being hospital hill But actually the first residents there were the catlin family and back then it was known as catlin hill The catlins were the ones that sold that property to the fletcher's to create the first hospital And these are some of the other dwellings that are in burlington that the You know one of the famous ones is the johnson house on Main street part of uvm. Well that house was originally a catlin house It was located on the corner of prospect and Um main street where the wheeler house is today. Yeah, it moved over to where the The morel building is and then it was transferred over here. So The catlins owned that house and so he had a brother. This was moses catlin and guy catlin They were the the real entrepreneurs Uh that made the mills work in in the early 18 1800s, okay, so this is a representative transition right from the the allen's to the k Right about that 1700s into the 1800s. Now is a new right new generation And actually ira allen sort of left the area in poverty in 1803 and he went to philadelphia And I remember reading about that. Yeah sort of bankrupted So one example of the this is this representation here is the mills right along the river that left side with the The circle around it is a group of buildings and was called the flowering mill So the first one there was an 18 I think 1813 and then floods fires they keep having to rebuild that that uh that mill on the corner But it by the late 1800s it looks something like this So this shot that you see is looking into wanouski. That would be the wanouski bridge And the building to the left over right there is the flowering mill. So this was shot in about 1880s One other note for this building just a little after this picture was taken The uh, they put in electric dynamo. It was the first municipal electric production in burlington and in vermont off the wanouski river off the wanouski river right there And uh, it was running electric trolleys that were going along riverside abbey So that was uh, that was one of its claims to the fame there, which we really want to go back to soon, right? Exactly, exactly. Yeah, we had we had a whole network of them. So, you know, that was these are just some more examples of old Buildings that are still there today But and I think that was the part that really intrigued me when I retired is just walking around all of a sudden really Wow, this is buildings from 1810 this building's from 1822. Yeah And what they were used for that the root what's labeled there is the rubenharman store is a domino's pizza Right on the corner there the blacksmith shop I remember seeing that at the design advisory board. Yeah, um, yeah And they did a lot of work and a lot of renovations in there. There's another restoration contractor. Did it? Yeah The gaming room is down there now, right the board room the board room. Yeah, yeah, and that was the building they raised Because after the flood they built a new road And it was it was only a one-story building at the time and then they they've raised it's actually three stories You see two above grade. Yeah, and then it goes one below grade there the hill. Yeah Yeah, and the tavern that I mentioned is that one at 411 Colchester Avenue. Yep, and uh, that That was one of the first taverns or one of that group of taverns that was sprang up That's the earliest one that we know of okay And edwin chase house on 21 chase street. Love that. That's uh, that's the home of jim bar the family who has Six generations living in the neighborhood. So it's got quite a bit there. So There's more to learn I mean so much. Yeah, there's so much to to dive into there And I know you know since I've been here about 25 years or so I've always ended up down in that neighborhood either working for folks or you know and It's just it's just fun the way it meanders and you know the roads It's not really a grid, you know, it's just kind of follows the lay of the land It did from the original roads And and you know the housing that really sprung up there A lot of it's from the late 1800s because that's when the mills took off. So the you know These were sort of small scale mills that the catlin family had so you might have 10 to 40 people But then when the large mill started the biggest mill one of the biggest mills came in in 1836 And then of course the civil war really increased the demand And so all that housing there was for workers, you know, for the for the big explosion big industrial area You know the industrial revolution was happening right there. Exactly. Exactly. We've got we've got a few more minutes. Um Let's see. This is okay. You've got this up. Let's talk about This is some of the things we've done. There's the green the tour of green mount cemetery. We're going to do an ira Ethan Allen thing now that we know that's coming up Um It was just a there's your sticker. I love that logo. Yeah, that's kind of a who did your logo One of the members of our group, uh, holly hickman. Uh, she's actually a professional and you know She does this as a profession, but she's a volunteer in our group and Just as she when she moved into the neighborhood she went around She said I need something that gives us a feel for the neighborhood But we did the survey of the neighborhood and we said that 90 of the people didn't know what the name was So we formed a group and it's called the old east end neighborhood coalition And you know we started sponsoring some of these events. We have a mural that's that's you know We put up and and doing the winter festival. Yeah, so Yeah, so we have a few minutes to talk about the yeah, let's let's let's get into that because that's coming up soon too Right, right. It's uh, it's going to be february third. Yeah, it's a friday evening So that's going to be five to seven. Yeah, and then the next day february fourth It goes from 10 to two. Yeah now it takes place in shamanica park And we try to have a whole slew of activities So we'll we'll talk about here to try to attract people down to the park But it's really a celebration. Is bernie really going to be there? We always get them to sit on the roof That's terrific. That's great That was the first year that that that meme was really pretty popular Right, right one of the first things we did we we have a really good working relationship with berlington Parks and recreation. Yep. Yep. And so we you know, we we got together with them saying can we do some things that try to decorate the barn Because there's a barn in this park and it's you know part of that original, you know farmland that was producing flower for the mill you know wheat and flour and So we we uh, we we put the lights on the barn We also make these lanterns that we decorate with vellum lanterns and they have these little led candles And they get lit all around the park. So that friday night we have a lot of illumination going on Yeah, we're trying to you know say it's winter, but let's bring some light into the really fun. It's a it's a great You know, it's a great time. Oh the fire pit. We have a very popular You know, we were able to get it get permits from the city for the fire So we keep that going we you know, so it's a nice place for people to congregate They bring the parks and recs brings a bunch of stuff like snow shoes and skis for folks to try out We have snowshoes skis sleds all for free, you know, it's in the park is really good for beginners because It's flat Yeah, and so we cut some trails to make it easier by the trees Come down a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, there's the ski slope. You know, we have refreshments. So there'll be hot cider You know hot chocolate, you know cookies and there'll be some chilies and things like that to munch on There's two groups that play so we have a sample to kata, which is a salsa band lots of rhythm You maybe remember that from last year and they come out. It's you know, last year it was 25 this year It's gonna be 15. It's gonna be cool cool out there. You wrap yourself up bundle up But there's places to go you can go in the barn. We have that open. So it's a nice warming area We've got this nice in there. Yeah. Yeah, there's restroom in there if I remember there is there's two two restrooms in there We've been working with some of the seniors organizations and they're bringing some folks down Transporting them down and some of them are going to try out some of the skiing. So Yeah, that works turns out. But yeah, this was a couple shots of people just enjoying, you know being outside Yep in in a warm. Yeah and bonding and like you said the first year was covet So everybody was desperate to like interact and be in an outdoor safe space where you could like hang around You know just have fun. Yeah, you know, it's really good back out there. That was great. No, this is gonna be um We we've still got three minutes. So if you have more pictures, but I you know, I really Hopefully we're gonna do this again soon because I mean we've got so much to talk about and it's been really fun collaborating with you guys You know preservation burlington, you know, sometimes we feel like a little bit Sequestered over there, you know, either we're dealing with advocacy stuff We're trying to come up with like the next walking tour or something and to know that there's another group out there That's got the same interests You're doing all the heavy lifting for the history and you know and pulling events together It's really fun for us to I think there's a lot of opportunities to collaborate and what we keep finding every time We do these events is that people are always Really pleased, you know to learn about this and to participate in this and can we do more of this And people are saying can we do this in our neighborhood and and so it's it's great. It's it's something that's really You know been well received Yeah, yeah, we have to work together and we have to encourage the new northenders to get their group together I'm sure there's plenty of history out there too. Yeah, you know, there's this whole wave of development that happens You know and and people and that's the bigger thing You know people think of burlington they think of downtown and a little bit they think of the the old north end So the famous chunks of where the density is, you know, but but what you guys have brought to the table and all this research You've done it just shows. I mean it's Arguably our older history, you know, you're that's where burlington really started Well in some ways we try to pitch it as the birthplace of burlington Right But because of that attraction of the mills and the river that's where the enterprise started Long before the burlington waterfront got underway. Yeah those late 1800s You see the the lumber and then yeah, but prior to that it was starting up here in the river where it was a natural highway You know, yeah, that's pretty neat. Yeah, and there's some interesting stories Maybe another thing that we can think about for the future the black snake affair. Are you familiar with that? Oh, yeah That's that kind of took place in our neighborhood too with some of these same Characters the catlins were involved in that as well. So maybe the names familiar. Yeah Yeah, so we might explore that we have another show or two I think you know, I just again, thanks Dave for coming on My pleasure. I'm doing this. I'm really looking forward to to the winter loot. It's gonna be fun this year And it's it's free. We just encourage everybody to come out and enjoy the afternoon or the evening Yeah, yeah, it's great. And I'd like to thank everybody for tuning back in To cctv live at 525 the burlington preservation burlington for more information on burlington The history our tours and events or to get a marker for your historic house Go to preservation burlington.org And we'll pull up the um, you guys have a website too, right? I think it's on the screen right now There it is right now old east end btv dot com So you can go to those two places and learn about a lot of stuff and the things we're doing together Thanks everybody for tuning in