 Hi, welcome to CCTV Channel 17's Live at 525, the Preservation Burlington Show. Preservation Burlington's a non-profit 501C3 organization and our mission is to preserve and protect the historic architecture and livability of Burlington through education and advocacy. Ideally more education and advocacy if everything in a perfect world. So tonight I'd like to welcome back Patricia Roigio who's been a guest before who ran the show for how many years? Two, three. Oh, I think it was more like 13 or 14. Ha ha ha! Well, it seemed like that sometimes. Anyway, no, it always does, don't it? It always does, yeah. I know. Thanks for being on the show. I know you were on before and we talked about your whole social media, you know, apparatus and presence and the traveling for history. So do you want to just give viewers, bring them up to speed again and what that all is? Sure, so my YouTube channel is called Traveling for History 1L and Traveling. If I ever do another name for a show, I will not have something where I have to keep telling people how to spell a word. But so I'm also, so everywhere else, so TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, I'm also at Traveling for History with the 1L and on Twitter, I'm traveling for high one. So traveling for HI, numeral one. Okay. I know. Traveling for history is too long. Oh yeah, yeah, of course. Too many characters. Too many characters. Yep, yep. So now how long have you been doing that? I just had an anniversary. I'm starting my third year. Okay, cool. So you've been everywhere. Where have you been since you were on last? Or, wait, what are some of your recent favorites? Great question. I have, I sent some photos over much earlier today on a covered bridge and obviously a regular bridge and then the covered bridge has this. All right, so let me just start with this. Yeah. So this is officially the Cambridge Junction covered bridge and it's also known as the junction covered bridge but originally it was the Poland covered bridge. So why was it called the Poland covered bridge? Who was this Poland guy? Well, he was Luke P. Poland who was a lawyer and then became the chief justice of the Vermont Supreme Court. He became a representative and then a senator in the US Congress. So he was... Around when? So the late 1800s. Late 1800s? Yeah. So when he retired, he came back to Vermont. I think he was in Waterville. I don't see it here but my cheat sheet is in front of me here. So the people in Waterville and the next town, so the next town over from the Poland covered bridge is Waterville and the next town after that is Belvedere and the people in those two towns wanted a shorter way to get to where the bridge is now and that's because Cambridge Junction was a significant railroad junction in the 1800s. In fact, I wanna say this right because two different rail lines were there. It was where the Vermont division of the Portland and Ogdensburg met the Burlington and LaMoyle Railroad. Okay. So they wanted to be able to get to the train. In a short period of time. So to accomplish this, they needed a bridge and a road to get there. So the approach came to Cambridge and Cambridge said, no. And the reason they said that made sense really the most of their residents would not benefit from the bridge and it would raise taxes and speaking as a person who has property taxes, nobody wants more taxes. Yeah, right. Never a popular selling point. Never a popular selling point but Judge Poland took this on in his retirement project and he sued the town of Cambridge. And one, the cost of the bridge was estimated between six, that was going to cost between six and $10,000. And just to get an idea of what that is in equivalent to today's dollars, $6,000 in 1880 would be equivalent to about $176,000 and 10 grand would be just over $293,000 in today's dollars. So not chump change by any stretch of the imagination but they still had to build it. So it's named Poland Covered Bridge for him. Now if you're thinking that once they built this thing he was the first to dance through it. Uh-huh. In, you know. Cut the ribbon and skip and hop and yeah. Unfortunately he died before it was finished. Oh jeez. I know, he died in his hair field but. So, quick question before we go on to another one of your, cause I wanna hear about the other bridge but, so how do you get your ideas? You know, like do you do research first and you go see the thing? Do you stumble on a bridge like this and then you're like, I gotta get the backstory of this. How does that generally happen? So generally, I typically film buildings or structures, bridges or considered structures on the National Register of Historic Places. That's one place I look. I like cemeteries. So I like to go walking in the cemetery. Great. Less so this time of year. And then I sometimes talk about people because sometimes I find interesting stories along the way. Historic markers, I like them a lot. War memorials, I love them. I will say that historic marker videos and war memorial videos are not well watched but I like them so I still film them. I still keep doing them, yeah. Yeah, so still, so. It's a chunk of history. It's a chunk of history and you learn the darndest things from historic markers. I was driving through Montpelier and saw this state marker. So, found a place to park on grass somewhere. And it was a historic marker about this area in North Park, Peelier that was an industrial area. You wouldn't tell it now. I did see some buildings that thought looked like boarding houses. Which would make sense considering it was. Right, it was probably worker housing, yeah. So I hope the people at the state are listening because I know they wonder when they put those markers up if anybody stops and reads them. Well, I'm not the only one but I belong to a whole bunch of Facebook groups. And for the most part I forget which ones I belong to. I tend to post my videos to the appropriate groups and where was I going with that? So, oh. Markers, historic markers. That's right, thank you. So I noticed I went and looked up state historic markers thinking there must be a group for that. Not one in Vermont, on Facebook. And I thought about starting one but oh my gosh, one more thing. Yeah, yeah, just another Facebook group to then moderate. But then moderate, yeah, and administer and all that. They want that headache. Yeah, but they are fun. I know the one, you know, my boat's at Point Bay Marina. It's a beat up old boat. But I drive that way sometimes and there's a marker by the train tracks there. And it talks about, I can't remember the guy's name, but he's also buried in Burlington. He was a naturalist and he's the one that discovered the whale skeletons in Vermont. Oh, Perkins? They may not. No, I can't remember. It's terrible, I can't remember anything. But I remember driving by there and I saw a mention of the whale tail. So I, like you, I pulled over. I got out and said, what the heck, because I was about to play this character in a cemetery tour that Preservation Burlington was gonna do in that fall. And I read it and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's this guy. This is where he found those skeletons. And then he was from Burlington. It was a pretty interesting story. So, okay, so you're really just, you're scanning things for something historic or as you're driving around and you see older historic buildings or markers, you stop and then you start doing, you do the research because I know you videotape these, right? Oh, yes. So do you just hop out and start talking with a selfie stick or do you research it and then go back? What do you do? Well, it depends. If it's really far away, I always hope I have enough research done ahead of time because driving two hours one way is, that's a lot. And I don't typically drive two hours. I was meeting a friend down two hours away from me, but I do drive an hour, hour and a half fairly regularly. But the reason I had done, I found the backstory on this was because the original posting, so when I look at the National Registry stuff is typically through Wikipedia, which is a great starting point. Sometimes that's all I use, but sometimes it leads to more things. And there was a really, in fact, I do have it right here. So this is from Wikipedia. And it said, not everyone was pleased with the new bridge, as noted in a newspaper article on June 15, 1887, quote, Judge Poland has caused the town of Cambridge to be inflicted with a bridge and a road at an expense of $6,000 to $10,000, which as shown will be of no material benefit to anyone, but himself, it will be known as the Poland Bridge, excepted the taxpayers of Cambridge, who will christen it the bridge of size, unquote. Who doesn't love that? So I may need to research, what is this? And, you know, there we have it. Pretty amazing story, but, and actually that bridge has a state of strike marker. Yeah, yeah. Well, there's such a treasure. Covered bridges, you know, I know through Vermont and New Hampshire and Maine, the covered bridges, even upstate New York has a bunch still, but, you know, it's one of those things where, you know, you don't see them every, you know, Shelburne Museum, I get to cross one every day, several times a day, you know. And I know they're just really interesting, the different builders who are a handful of builders working all over the, all over New England, putting them up, you know, getting their $6,000 to $10,000, so. Yeah, that's a, and actually, if I could show another piece of this bridge, let's see. Oh, yeah. All right, so this actually has two truss systems in it. It has a Kingpost truss and a Burr-Arch truss. So either truss would have handled the load and the stability. So the load, when I say load, the deck, whatever is crossing the deck needs to hold up, hold it to that. And then the structure, the stability of making sure it stays in place without leaning and things like that. Either truss would have held it perfectly fine and it carried the load, but by combining them, it's guaranteed. Very overbuilt, very overbuilt. Overbuilt, yes. And then there was a moment, let's see, in 1995, a vehicle struck one of the Kingposts. It was leaning, don't you know, but when this truck hit the Kingpost, it straightened out the lean. But it damaged the Kingpost, so the structural integrity had been compromised. They repaired it, I imagine. They replaced the decking with steel I-beams underneath and they replaced the wood planking and then behind the trusses, there are steel plates. And the Burr-Arch truss that's there is I think there are only nine covered bridges left in Vermont that have a Burr-Arch truss. I want to say, where's this? Jeffersonville. Jeffersonville? The one at the museum is a Burr-Arch truss from, I can't remember, I think Cambridge, I'm not sure. It is from Cambridge. It is from Cambridge. I didn't remember, funny, I filmed that one, but it wasn't able to walk in all the way. Oh, okay. It was locked. Oh, you can jump over the fence. Nobody will do anything. There is a hidden camera. There is a hidden camera, I'm sure. But just drop my name and you'll be fine. Oh, so Ron said that, okay. Yeah, he said I'd climb over the fence. He was closer to retirement than now. That's right. Yeah, and then I have one more picture of the Burr-Arch truss. Did I get that right? Yeah. So the light was up high, you know, the openings were up high and this is, I was told mostly so horses wouldn't be afraid crossing the bridges, right? Oh really? I hadn't heard that. Yeah, so, because, you know, mid to late 1800s, getting a horse to walk across a bridge up over a thing was tricky then. So the bridges are often covered part three, two, three quarters of the way up so that they can't see anything and they just go across. Oh, that's an interesting thing. I'll have to remember that. I could be making it up, but I think that's what I've read. Well. So what's this other bridge that you, do you have pictures of this other bridge you mentioned? I do, I do, absolutely. With this regular bridge? Well, yeah, just a moment, oops, yep. So there's this bridge here. This, I know, I wanted to include this, I don't want to talk about the truss overall, but the bridge is beautiful. If you ever have an opportunity to be crossing a bridge as a passenger, because if you're driving like I usually do, trying to do this is awkward and dangerous. But anyway, this is the Douglas and Jarvis parabolic, Douglas and Jarvis patent parabolic truss iron bridge, because it's a nice long name. It is on the National Register of Historic Places, and yes, it has an historic marker as well. Not all national register sites have the marker, that state historic marker. So I love that piece at the top that tells you who built it. Oh, okay. I don't have a clear picture that I don't. It's very steampunk, the bridge. It is, well, it's iron too. I'm guessing turn of the century again, late 1800s, early 1980s. Same year as the covered bridge, actually. Let's see, so William Douglas was from Binghamton, New York, and his bridge used less metal than conventional trusses, so without sacrificing strength. So the lower cost and distinctive shape contributed to its success, and let's see, I know I have a picture from the side, and there we go. Oh, wow. That is a parabolic truss, because it looks like an eyeball. Yeah, I like the crenellation behind the placard up top. Yeah, there's a lot of ornamentation for... Oh, it's fancy-dancy. For what's ostensibly just a utilitarian structure, you know? Yes. Pretty neat. And it's actually in, well, it's two bridges married together, so to speak. So the big part that we see, it's with the upper layer there, that's the parabolic truss bridge, and then there's a pony truss, the one that we see to the left. Oh, yep. And what I love about a pony truss, I love always and never, because I hardly ever get to say those, but I had read that a pony truss will always be a low bridge, and will never have any superstructure over it because it's low. Oh, of course, right. So you have to be able to pass right through it with whatever you're driving, horse and buggy or Mack truck. Well, Mack truck could probably, I'm not sure about the width, but yeah, the bridge is gorgeous, and that's why I wanted to include it, because it's not, I just found it really interesting. It's a pedestrian bridge now, they stopped traffic, and I want to say 1976. What you don't see in this picture is, to the right of it is, I think it's a dam, because when I was there, there were falls going over it, and there's big signs warning people not to swim near there. You know swimming, right? That's always good advice, don't swim near the dam. One would think, yeah, so. Have you seen, I know Bob McCullough was on one, because he did the bicycle book, and then I think prior to that he did one on bridges. Oh, wow. So I had him on here. And it also runs again from the covered bridges all the way through these iron bridges up into the mid 21st century, I guess, up to the 1950s. Just because this structural engineering was adapting and changing so rapidly, it was just, they're really interesting. They are really interesting. They're beautiful. We're talking form and function. It makes, yeah, that's just a beautiful bridge, and yes, the cresting behind it. Yeah, yep, very Victorian, yeah, very Victorian. So what other stuff besides bridges do you love? War memorials, actually. My favorite one thus far was the one I saw in Cornwall, Vermont. They're typically at the town green. Yep, yep. And it's right across from the town hall. Now the town hall in Cornwall is on the national register. And I filmed that, and while I was up there, I had a few other things to film. It's kind of nice sometimes when they're all close together. So the town hall was right there. The parsonage was, former parsonage, was right there across the street. So the town green's in the center. The parsonage, the town hall, easy peasy. I'll just cross the street now. Yeah, yeah. So do you do, so in a situation like that while you're filming for your YouTube channel, do you, is that three episodes that you're getting at one time? Yeah, because a state of historical marker may be on the bridge, but that's a separate video. Gotta love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how long does something like that take you when you're out in the field? How much time do you a lot for, you know, you go to a town green like that that's on the historic register and you've got like three cool things to look at and talk about in video. How long does that take? It takes as long as I can read it without saying stupid things and then having to start over again. Or looking at it and not even knowing what I'm reading. That's awful. Because if I don't say it right, other people are just gonna think it's hollow. Maybe they won't, but they won't. It's not going out live, is it? No. Okay, because I was gonna say you have opportunity to just make it long and you can edit, right, when you get home. I don't know how to edit from the center. Oh, okay. So I would have to chop it up into pieces and, yeah, no. It gets complicated. It does, it does and I'm lazy. So, well, I also have, you know, the most I've ever filmed in one day was 19 videos and 17 made the cut. Oh wow, oh man. I had no more voice. Yeah. You can imagine, that was up in Sheldon, Vermont and I had no more voice. I couldn't actually film anything for a few days because I was sky talking like this. Like I just smoked a pack of cigarettes or like the Godfather. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't know, Michael, what do you think? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's a full day of taping. Oh, yeah, yeah, that was, when I filmed the high school that day, I was filming at 8.30 in the morning and then I drove, I like to drive as far out as I was going to start and then film heading back home. Yeah. So, and then that was, I filmed until something was setting. Yeah, that was a very long day. I don't even remember how many videos I got out of it that day, but I didn't have to go out for a while. And that was the, when I was in callus filming, that was the worst dirt road I've ever been on in my life. It was, no, no, it was mud. Just mud, really? Yeah, it was, yeah, Mike, I have a newer car now. I was gonna say, what are you driving these days? The 2011 Toyota Highlander. Oh, okay. So it's a base model, much fancier base model than my last car was, which has traction control, four-wheel drive all the time, and snow, a snow gear. A snow gear. A snow gear. What's a snow gear? Better than drive. I don't know, it seems to work better in snow, but my car was, I didn't have a snow gear, but my car was sliding to the right towards the trees where there are never guardrails. How much are guardrails? They can't put guardrails on these roads. Yeah, no, they're too much money, they are. They are too much money. More than $6,000 to $10,000, probably. Yeah, it's kind of, that's kind of scary, but putting a snow gear was, I'm not one to pray, but I was praying that, because my next stop on that same road, don't remember the name of it, was downhill. And then, no, there was the fear of getting down the hill and being able to stop when it got down there. And being able to get back out of the road. You're right, turning around and coming back. Yeah, so, because driving up the hill, I was sliding off to the right as well. So I was just, and then locals, it's fun to watch the locals whoosh, whoosh. I think I'll just do five and hopefully I get through this. They know what to expect and they're riding in the slide. They do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's good though, it sounds like you can get almost anywhere now with your new car, new truck. And I feel like I can get to strange places that my car would have said, are you kidding? No, I'm a show car. Yeah, right, right, right. But I do want to share the, the warm of where I was just talking about, had some interesting things on it that I had not seen before. Oh, that's not, wrong direction. So this is the warm of where it's self. Oh, okay. And, And where was this again? Cornwall. Cornwall. That's the town green. It's sitting on, it's, and it's across the street directly from the town hall. And then you'll notice that there are, so above, below the pillar at the, there is that four-sided piece, which has interesting information. Such as this, which is, says World War veterans. So this, this memorial is only the American Civil War and World War I. Oh, okay. It doesn't say the Great War. They usually say the Great War, which is World War I. So the second name on there is Earl H. Lepeer, who was killed at the Verdun Front November 10, 1918. The other man was also killed. Seeming around October, 1918. Yeah. October 13th, it looks like. McClellan. But November 10, 1918, that is the day before the armistice was signed. Ended the war. Oh, geez. Which in the scheme of things, we can look at that in hindsight and say, wow, that's terrible. He died the day before, but it was just another day at the time. Yeah. And so when he took so long for news to travel, people were fighting for a week afterwards, I'm sure. I'm sure. And then another, so, let me see. So. Another side of it. Yeah, all four sides have writing. And so two of the sides have who was killed in different battles. So I thought that was interesting as well. I mean, I've seen that a lot over time. This one though was particularly interesting. This is died in hospital. So, and at the bottom, we have Alva K. Barlow, who was quote, hung by gorillas. I know. Yeah. Pack some famous names. Mayo, I work with a Mayo. Yeah, there are names I certainly recognized. Good New England names. Yeah. And then I just want to also talk about my favorite, the favorite place I had to date I have filmed. And let me just get all the way. This is all time favorite? So far. All right, so this is the place. This is the School Brick House Museum, the Georgia Historical Society Museum in Georgia, Vermont. It was the district number eight school. It is on the National Register of Historic Places. I filmed this picture and where I filmed it, I stood inside Route seven. I don't recommend that at all, by the way. That was very scary tractor trailers coming by and I was kind of hoping I wasn't gonna get the instant weight loss. Don't step back. Yeah, instant weight loss. Whoa, suddenly thin. But, oh, wrong picture. So I was talking to Cindy Plouffe, who is the president of the Georgia Historical Society. And when I was there, she just suddenly started this impromptu tour of the place. Oh, great. McCord, and then she has said that she didn't want to be in the pictures. That's fine. If you watch the video, you'll see her hands because she was pointing at things and when she was showing off the, those bottles you were just seeing, that was part of a barber shop. There's yours truly with the camera. Stop, treatment, yep, Lucky Tiger. Yeah, but she had opened one of the doors and she was showing off the linens that were still inside. It was phenomenal. And this is all within the school building. Yeah, it's the seasonal operation. It's, yeah, they're open every Saturday from July 9th to September and one to 3 p.m. And then they have another building that we're supposed to get together this season. It's not open the way the other building is to the public. You have to schedule appointments. Special appointment. Yeah, so she's going to show me that. It was funny, filming in Franklin County, I filmed three different historical society museums. The St. Almond's Museum, which is an historical society museum, the Georgia Historical Society Museum and the one at Sheldon, their historical society museum. I had never before seen a treadmill that an animal would walk on to make things work until I was at the St. Almond's Museum and then I couldn't stop seeing them. I had never seen them before. The Historical Society Museum and the Winnisky one at the Mill doesn't have anything like that and why would it? It was Winnisky. But those are the three sure had it. And I giggled when I was filming the Sheldon Historical Society Museum. I was like, oh my God, another one. That's fine, I thought those only existed in cartoons. I didn't know. I know, where's the anvil too, right? That's right, right. But these were some of the places I filmed, but I do upload every day of the week. You do? I do, because I'm a glutton for punishment. Yeah. And I'm trying to film some more from home because who wants to be out in weather like today? Although, how much did we get? Three, four inches? It wasn't really. Yeah, something. It was probably a little more, I think. My driveway, I shoveled my roof today because it's a flat roof. And it's generally fine, but there's one spot where if it starts to melt, it'll leak into the house. So I just shovel it off, you know. But yeah, and it felt like five or six inches. It was pretty high up there, you know. But yeah, so when you make, so you get your footage, you go home, do you send an email blast out to anybody? Do you have an idea of how many viewers you have? Because I know on this show, we have three. Well, I have 386 subscribers to my YouTube channel. And then I'm on Instagram. Right, the others, you tag on all the others. Well, I have, so when most of my videos are premiere videos, which means also all videos go live at 12.30 a.m., Eastern daylight time. And the ones that say premiere on them have a live chat attached. So it's a chance to talk to yours truly. Interact, ask questions. There you go, interact and ask questions with still yours truly. So, although I was asleep for the one that went live this morning, I was just, fell asleep at 6 p.m. And then- It was a snow day. Oh, it was a snow brain. So, but anyway, I do, I am usually awake and we do chats and it lasts as long as a video is live. Fun. Yeah, it can be, yeah, it sure can be. So yeah, there's that. And then so before that goes live, I post to Facebook. I have my personal Facebook and then my Traveling for History one. I post to Instagram, I post to TikTok. Well, I think, you know, before HGTV picks, scoops you up or the National Geographic TV scoops you up. I wanna keep inviting you back just so you can fill us in on some of the stuff you've seen between times we've sat down. I know if we had more time, it'd be fun to have you just come in here and do five, 10 minutes of the latest, greatest thing you've done, you know. But thanks again, Patricia. It's always pleasure having you on the show. Well, thanks for having me. It's always fun to come back. It's always fun, it's always fun. And I'd like to thank everybody for tuning in to CCTV live at 525 in the Preservation Burlington Show. For more information on Burlington history, our tours, events to get a marker for your historic house, go to preservationburlington.org and we'll see you next month. Thanks everybody.