 I want to start with the Society's third Thursday series. Thank you for coming. My name is Amanda Gusto. I'm a program manager. This is one of, as I said, our third Thursday series. I'm the third Thursday of every month. We have a talk here in the History Museum from September through January and then February through May will be at UBM, Waterman Lounge. As a preview of some things we've got coming up here at the museum in the next couple of weeks, we're in a different space today because we are turning over our smelling room, completely refurbishing it in preparation for the installation of the series statue that was on top of the State House. We'll become part of our current collections and go on display starting, and we're going to throw a big party for her when she arrives and when it opens next Friday on October 25th and then it's open to the public from 4 to 6 p.m. So please come out for that. The next talk in our third Thursday series will be November 21st, and it will be a talk on when the Irish invaded Canada with Christopher Klein, who has written a book about an often little-known incident in which, well, it's pretty much exactly as the title sounds like, a group of Irish men invaded Canada. They'll have to come through the whole story. So it's my pleasure to introduce our speaker today, Adam Voice. Adam has been a lifelong student of history, besides taking an incident in Elderfield, which is the subject of his talk today. He was actively involved for many years with the Williamstown Historical Society in its former hometown of Williamstown, Vermont, and held their very selected positions there in town government, including town moderator. He learned to play the fiddle from longtime Chelsea Fiddler, Harold Luce, who passed away in 2014, and has been involved in nearly every aspect of traditional music and dance history for more than 20 years, including composing more than 100 different tunes. And as you can see, we will have some fiddle music today as part of our presentation. Adam has been a speaker and living history presenter through the humanities in Vermont and New Hampshire since 2001. He's an advocate of antique clocks, and he also maple sugars on his property. Adam is wife Mary Anne, living in West Windsor, Vermont, today, and it's our pleasure to have him here to speak about the Reverend Fields. Thank you, Adam. Very good. Well, thank you. Well, I was always told it is quality, not quantity of audience, so I'm glad that you're all here. I first learned about Elder Field as he was called through my father, and my family has called Williamstown home since around 1785, and there are still descendants there living on the home property. Our family bought what was the Reverend Daniel Field Farm in 1896, and it's been in the family ever since. And so he was kind of this larger-than-life character. Most ministers are a little more than a footnote in any town's history. They'll say, yes, D Field was here for this year, and that's about all that they know about him. Probably my grandfather was an avid teller of these stories, but I never heard him directly tell any of them, but there was only one story that my father told, and that was kind of the lynchpin that got me interested in this character. And down below us, those familiar with Williamstown, there is Williamstown Gulf, which is due south of the village on Route 14, and over the years there have been at least three different buildings in that Gulf that have been referred to as the Gulf House. And this was when the first Gulf House, the Gulf Spring House, was in existence, which was built in 1847 and was burned sometime around 1890, but in the time that Elder Field was living at his farm in Williamstown in the 1860s, it was known as the Gulf Spring House. It was a hotel for tourists basically to take the medicinal waters, supposedly medicinal out behind of the Gulf House. But it was also a gathering place for local men, and these local men might have engaged in such activities as playing cards. I think there was a billiard table in the lobby. They might have also consumed hard cider, and they did a fair amount of swearing. And the proprietor of the hotel tried to crack down on the ladder, and he put this large cast iron kettle in one corner of the lobby, and every time any of them swore, they were supposed to throw money into the pot. In a very short period of time, the pot was filled to overflowing, and so the question became, what were they going to do with the money? And someone came up with a very bright idea of donating it to the church. And specifically, this retired Methodist minister up on the hill named Elder Field, and he had a wife and eight children and a farm to run, so I'm sure he could have used the money. And so they took this pot of money, put it in a wagon, and they went as a delegation up to the field farm, and they found Elder Field there to home, and they gave him this pot of money. Now, like any self-respecting clergyman, he was very willing to accept any donation. And I don't know that Methodist ministers in the 19th century had much of a pension. So he was very glad to, but one of the men in this delegation, probably wished they'd have spent it on more hard cider or something else, happened to speak up and said, well now Elder, if you knew how that money was obtained, you might not be quite so willing to accept it. And so proceeded to tell him how every time they swore, they'd throw money into the pot. And there is Elder Field standing with this pot of money. He didn't have to chase any rainbows to find, and there it was, and he said nothing, which prompted one of the men to finally speak up and say, what say you Elder? And Elder Field said, say, say, what shall I say, but swear on? And so his real name was Daniel Field, but Elder was a term of respect, especially when you got to a certain age, and since he was retired at the time he lived in Williamstown, he was always known as Elder Field. But other than that story and this top image, which is a charcoal drawing, and we do not know who the artist was, that image used to hang in the vestry of the Williamstown Methodist Church, and my father would point it out and say, yep, that's the minister who lived on our place, and that was really all I knew about it. But it became more curious, there must be other stories, there must be other facts. What happened to him? Where did he learn how to become a minister, etc.? Well, we did discover that in the early 1950s, the original Williamstown Historical Society had a meeting at the Ainsworth Public Library, and the topic was stories of Elder Field, which was led by my grandfather Earl Boyce. And we know that this happened because in the archives of the Historical Society, they have a little brochure, and there was a clipping from the Barry Daly Times, now the Times Argus, that said that yes, this meeting had taken place and stories were exchanged and everybody went home. But it didn't appear anybody had preserved any of these stories. And many years later, my late aunt, she and my uncle, very deep friends of history, especially in the Randolph Center area, Wes and Mim Herwig, she happened to give me some of the writings of my grandmother. And including some diaries and some typed things, my grandmother wrote a number of things for various publications, including a number of stories about Elder Field. And apparently she had been to that meeting in the early 50s and had preserved those stories. And so a little more about him remains. Now loosely defined history is anything that may have happened or actually did. Historians, of course, would like to actually see physical proof, and so you prove the fact from the folklore, the legend and whatnot. We do know again that Daniel Field was a real person born in 1805 in Springfield, Vermont. We know that he joins the Methodist Church in 1824. And sometime between then in 1831, we know that he was called to become a minister, but we don't know that he attended any formal theological training. And we do know his first charge was right here in Montpelier in 1831, working as an assistant to James Templeton. And while he was here in Montpelier, he helped organize the first church at Peachham Corner. Percy J. Jeffords of Williamstown wrote an article about Elder Field in a former publication called The Vermonter Magazine. Now Percy Jeffords was born maybe four years after Elder Field died, and most of the authorities on him seemed to have never actually met him, but he was talked about so often in families that again he became this legendary status, almost akin to Ethan Allen. He was described thusly. While he was a Christian gentleman, loved and respected by all who knew him, he was nevertheless a quaint, original and unique character, a type no longer to be found. Personally he was rather tall and spoke very slowly. The writer never saw Elder Field, but has heard him spoken of so often that he feels almost as if he was an old acquaintance. We know that he also was a poet. He wrote poetry often to mark the occasion of one of his parishioners passing. But he was really an itinerant Methodist minister, meaning basically a circuit-writing preacher, and even though he was assigned to one particular congregation, he might have gone out to two or three other outlying areas, and he very seldom spent more than one or two years, or more than that, at a particular location. He's described this way by the Vermont Methodist conference in a tribute to him after his passing in 1883. He was a man of many rare gifts, with a clear appreciation of divine truth and the duties of the Christian life. He was able by striking illustrations and unique presentation of the truth to stir the conscience and move the heart. He had a sure instinct which enabled him to find the weak point in any argument, and he was able to reveal that weakness with the suddenness of the lightning flashes. Against every form of hypocrisy and unrighteousness, his sarcasm was at once withering and stunning. His power in prayer was often marvelous, and his genial devout, loyal disposition made his presence a benediction even after his active ministry closed. We know that his first marriage was to a Mary Fuller from Linden in 1833, and she appears to have been an invalid for most of the 17 years that they were married. She died in Corinth Corner in 1850, and within three months he had remarried a local girl by the name of Elizabeth Stebbins, about 20 years younger than he was, and so the two of them began a family together. Eventually they had eight children through 1869, and he purchases this farm on what was known as the Brookfield Road in Williamstown today known as Rood Pond Road, and this is an image of the field family. Afterwards you can get a little closer. The family is playing croquet out on the front lawn, and it was taken by a Montpelier photographer by the name of Langdon. The lower two images I got through Ancestry.com, and I found descendants of Reverend Field are now living out in Montana. Even though he was born in 1805, his grandson, now 96, is still very much alive, and that was because by the time that Reverend Field had his youngest child, James Only Field, in 1869, he was about 64, and James Only Field, like his father, didn't start having children until he was in his 40s, 50s, or 60s, so that accounts for how such a large expanse of time goes through, but really only a couple of generations have passed, and they had these images including this one, which is an actual photograph, and so somebody must have created this one from this one circa 1880. So online sources are very helpful in trying to piece together certain things, but ultimately Reverend Field is known for the time he was in Williamstown and for these stories and anecdotes, and these peculiarities which somehow or other survived. Now one of those peculiarities was back in the days when you had the local one-room schoolhouse, where teachers would board at a neighboring house, and a male teacher by the name of John Farnham lived with the Field family while he was teaching just down the road at what was called the Wolcott School at the time, and Mr. Farnham observed that Reverend Field, Elder Field, had this uncanny habit of whatever was being served for breakfast or lunch or supper, whether it was pancakes or biscuits, that Elder Field would take them and throw them to each plate on the table from a stationary position. We also know that at one point, as ministers often do, his wife held teas, and a couple came to visit, and Mrs. Field didn't have any tea. So she sent one of her younger children out the back door to go and borrow some tea from one of the neighbors, and apparently Elder Field must have known about the tea being borrowed because during the time when they were interacting with the company, he had just finished his tea and he turned to his wife, Elizabeth, and said, I'd like to get another cup of some of that borrowed tea that you got. Somebody once stole some of his turkeys, and he is reported to have said, if I wish I were God, and if I didn't have a place to put those thieves, I would make one and put them in it. Now during various times in the 1840s and late 1850s, when he was a regular minister, and I think that's where this next story comes from, he often would go down to Eastbrook Field, which is just south of Williamstown Gulf and preach a service there, then come back up to Williamstown and do one later in the morning, and that's kind of history repeated itself. I can remember 30 years ago, Williamstown and Eastbrook Field shared a minister, and the minister would go to Eastbrook Field and preach there at 9 or 9.30 and be back to Williamstown by 11. So sometimes history, you know, never changes. And in this particular case, Elderfield had gone down in a two-wheeled high carriage, which in a former time was known as the One-Hoss Shae. And he comes back through Williamstown Gulf and he happens to notice there, you have the second branch of the White River that goes down through Williamstown Gulf, and there on a Sunday morning, one of his parishioners fishing right there in the stream, and Elderfield pulls up and he castigates that parishioner and says, you sinner, you know you shouldn't be fishing on the Sabbath. Well, the parishioner hands this long line of at least 12 fish and gives them to Elderfield, and Elderfield takes the fish and says, well, the poor little fish probably didn't know any better, and he went on his way. Now, not all of these stories were particularly amusing about Elderfield, and I refer to this image from the late Polly Metcalf Goldwaith, and this is in the East Hill Cemetery in Williamstown. She died in July of 1870. And again, Elderfield was a retired minister at that time, but his daughter wanted Reverend Field to preach the funeral sermon, and he was especially known for his funeral sermons in that they were long, they were very impressive, really got to the heart of the matter, so it was not just a dedication of the deceased, but also trying to keep people honest, so to speak. It was a hot July day, and the service had commenced, and then Elderfield began the sermon, and only partway through he just abruptly stops and said, well, there's no point in prolonging this any longer. I can see that there are clouds on the horizon, and I know some men here that want to get home and get their hay in, and so the service is concluded. And the daughter of Mrs. Goldwaith was so incensed, and she never forgave him for the disrespect that he showed for her mother. Now, speaking of East Brookfield, that appears to be the one congregation that we know Elderfield had nothing very good to say about. Many of these churches often were supposed to supply housing, food, maybe some compensation, and some were better than others, and apparently East Brookfield was not one of the better ones, and Elderfield reported to have said, you could comb hell all over with a fine tooth comb and not find such another set of people in East Brookfield. Well, he finally had enough, and he made it known that at a future Sunday, week or two down the road, that would be his last sermon that he preached in that church. And the word got out. Everybody knew what kind of a minister he was and good speaker that he was, and so the church was filled, not a member was absent. And this is the only sermon that we have the entire contents of. He ascended to the pulpit, and he said, this church is the smallest potatoes, the fewest in a hill, and the nearest the surface of any church I have ever seen. That was all. But in later years, when he was retired in Williamstown, the good brothers of the East Brookfield church would come to visit him in Williamstown and ask him maybe once a year, would he come and preach a sermon there? And they asked, well, how much would you have to be paid in order to preach a sermon? And he said, well, for $5, I will preach you a sermon. For $10, I will preach you a very good sermon. And for $15, I will preach you a real rip rower. Well, one time he was asked if he preferred to have a man go to church regularly and pay nothing, or stay at home mostly and pay well. He said it would keep anybody and souls together better to have anybody pay well and stay home. Now, somehow he managed to get himself in the middle of a neighborhood dispute. Two neighbors, the farm directly north was the Dexter Place, to the south was the Hansen Place, and the Dexter cattle kept getting out of their fencing and they would come cruising down past Elder Field's farm and end up at the Hansen Place where they would raise havoc. And this went on for some time until Mr. Hansen, the recipient of the Dexter cattle, finally decided that he had enough and he decided to take Mr. Dexter to court. And Elder Field was called by the state's attorney as a witness. And Elder Field didn't want to get into the middle of any dispute. He wanted to have good relations with his neighbors. But he was called onto the stand as a witness and the prosecuting attorney asked, are you familiar with Mr. Dexter and Mr. Hansen's farm? You know where they are. And he said yes. Elder Field, have you ever had any trouble with the Dexter cattle yourself? And Elder Field replied, no. And the district attorney said, well, now come Elder. These cattle from the Dexter farm had to cross your property in order to get to the Hansen's. Are you trying to tell me that you have never had any trouble or been inconvenienced by the Dexter cattle? And Elder Field replied, well, you see the Lord has blessed me with more than the usual number of boys. It is possible that the Dexter cattle may have inconvenienced my boys at times, but never me. Now, as is always the case, as soon as you put out a publication, it nearly becomes obsolete. I had been poking up some of these descendants of Reverend Field. Did they have any letters? Did they have any diaries? Any copies of sermons or what have you? And finally, after the publication came out, I did receive some copies of letters written to Elder Field from possible relatives in Barnard. And also this letter that he wrote himself in 1879 from down in Springfield, Vermont. On October 12, 1879, he is 74 at the time. And we don't really know why he was on this tour. I think it was mostly kind of like an old home tour. He had left home on October 17th, and he writes he doesn't know just when he will be back, but he was preaching in Springfield and he had been to Chester Depot. I would expect he probably went by train and there was no interstate system in 1879. And going by horse and sleigh, horse and buggy at that particular point probably was not all that practical. But he's detailing all the places he's gone and all the people like him so much. He said, I'm not sure that they will let me come home. But anyhow, he gives a rough idea of his itinerary. And then he's writing this to his wife Elizabeth and what children are remaining there at home. Have faith and fortitude and may divinity serve you all and ever from all forms and degrees of evil. My best wishes attend you. My thoughts linger about you. My poor petitions are daily offered in your behalf with two exclamation points. And then apparently his youngest son James Only Field who was 10 years old at the time had supposedly written that he wanted his father to write him a letter. And I think this gives a little bit of a window into the man himself. He wasn't simply this fire and brimstone minister. He writes in the letter to Mr. J. Only Field, my dear sir, I am glad to hear that you wish me to write to you. I think you will grow a good deal while I am gone. Hope you will be a very good boy and learn all the good you can. I guess I shall find something to fetch home for you when I come. And then he includes to the wife and all the rest of the children, my love to you all be of good cheer and serve the Lord, your friend D. Field. Daniel Field died in Williamstown in May of 1883 and even the Montpelier Watchman didn't really give him very much acknowledgement. I mean again he wasn't considered one of the great evangelists of New England but still very sparse in the coverage and all they managed to write is that he had been ailing for some months of diabetes which assumed a dropsicle form. The main facts in his life as a Methodist preacher we are unable to give. We know that for years past he has given up the more active work of the ministry and resided on a farm here in town and this on account of bodily infirmities. That in his day and generation he has accomplished a great amount of good but who can doubt? So anyway that's about what it is but one of the main impetus for putting this little volume together was the people like my father and Percy Jeffords and other people in Williamstown are all gone now and those stories are not being carried forward and if you really search through the archives of the Williamstown Historical Society you probably can find one or two of these stories but nothing much and oral histories in other communities where elder happen to serve make no mention of that and so again there probably are many other stories many other amusing maybe not so amusing stories but this is the culmination and again it's not a very large volume but it's better to have a little something and maybe that also will go to all of us I mean my sister in law jokes to my brother that he needs to develop more membership so he'll have something on his obituary and some people don't have very much of anything probably because of the practicality nowadays newspapers you have to pay for obituary or if it's over so many words but I am going to end with a couple of numbers now I don't know whether Reverend Field would have approved of the fiddle being an old Methodist minister this was considered the work of the devil but we will play a couple of old time hymns on it in his honor any questions or comments? Yes, yes he was still a minister when he began and then he still had two or three after he retired yes, yep the bulk of them were while he was still in the ministry yep, well I do have these booklets available for $5 a piece if you want to know more about it I know that there's a copy I sent to the Vermont History Center but I'll be sure that you get a copy here in Montpellier so you can have one and there probably are other things anything besides the fiddle are possibly available thank you all for spending a few moments this afternoon