One Way to Rebuild the New England Village
The Story of Beaver Meadow
What is happening to the New England town and villagein these days when the growth of cities has called away theyoung people? Can the old conditions be restored? Thedecline of social life and the break-up of community spirithave worked havoc in some localities, but the New England town has always been in the past one of the fundamentals of our civic life. Here is the story of one of theagencies which is grappling with the problem.
NESTLING in the mountains of Vermont, about five miles back of Norwich, is a tiny rural community known as Beaver Meadow. It consists of a small chapel, a school house, and a few widely scattered farms, brought into contact with the rest of the world by the minister who conducts services in the chapel, an R. F. D. route, and the fact that several of the farmers take their milk into town several times a week.
Fifty years ago Beaver Meadow was not a scattered community, nor an unpopulated valley; it was a fairly thriving village. It possessed two stores and a post office, a school of over forty children, two well-attended churches, and a couple score of farm houses. About that time there was a considerable migration westward from all over New England, to see new, cheap, and supposedly better farm lands. Many of the boldest and most adventurous inhabitants of Beaver Meadow cast their lot in with that of other adventurers and left the place. Almost simultaneous with that movement was an exodus of still more of the village's more ambitious to the cities, a result of the desires men always cherish for what they have not.
A NEW ENGLAND TOWN BREAKS UP
Beaver Meadow was not bereft of all its best people; if that had been the case the comeback that has been staged in recent years would have been impossible. But there is no doubt that the community was vastly weakened, and that the weakening was due largely to the emigration to the west and to the cities. With its population suddenly decreased and many of its leaders gone, Beaver Meadow underwent a gradual but very decided slump—more than a slump, a disintegration. The people withdrew to their own homes, forgetting their community life. The post office closed down and was replaced by the R. F. D. The stores were forced by lack of business to shut down. The school slackened in attendance. The churches were absolutely idle. More than merely closing down, the stores and churches were neglected till they fell or were burnt down, and today there is not enough left of the old buildings to tell where they stood.
While even at its worst there were always good people in Beaver Meadow, there were also many who acquired for the neighborhood a reputation for lawlessness and toughness. People were afraid to drive through, especially at night. The sheriff had to be called in once a month or more to settle disputes, often of quite a serious nature. It was also during that period that Beaver Meadow became famous (or should we say notorious?) for its cider brandy. The community ran along like this for years, until, surprisingly enough, a cultured woman bought a summer home there.
THE COME-BACK
It was approximately 1912 when Miss Frances Kerr, a tactful, generous, highly religious lady, thinking Beaver Meadow to be a quiet, peaceful, country hamlet, decided to buy and spend her summers there. Being a woman of no little observational powers she was not long in discovering the true nature of Beaver Meadow, that it was really a pretty tough place. But she stuck! Without making any conscious effort to reform (how we hate that word) the people, without any show of superiority, she met the people and inspired their confidence in her by her sincere and tactful friendliness. The women began to call on her; they saw the way she kept house and noticed little things such as that she had curtains in her windows, and they adopted some of her methods. From her they learned new recipes for their kitchens probably this fact was especially instrumental in spurring the neighborhood on to higher aims. In short, she set a splendid example, and she set it so easily and so naturally that it was the more quickly followed.
After Miss Kerr had spent two or three summers in Beaver Meadow, her religion had been caught and what remained of the former religious sparks of the place had been fanned to a flame by it to an extent great enough to make those people want a chapel. Accordingly Miss Kerr raised money from her friends to buy the materials, and the men of Beaver Meadow, donating their labor, built the chapel which stands today.
For the first year of the existence of the chapel, a Dartmouth student by the name of Brahanna, conducted the services regularly. It is significant also that Prof. Leland B. Griggs, familiarly known as "Doc," still an active member of the Beaver Meadow crew, was present at the first service of the then new chapel in 1914. From the time Brahanna left until the advent of John Dallas to Hanover about ten years ago, the services in the parish were held by various students and faculty members from Dartmouth, and at times by ministers from Norwich.
John T. Dallas, now Bishop of New Hampshire, held services at Beaver Meadow regularly during his stay at Hanover, and made something real and vital of the little chapel. For the past four years, Allen W. Clark, present rector of Saint Thomas' church at Hanover, has been continuing the good work and making a mighty fine job of it.
During the more favorable times of the year, spring and autumn, Mr. Clark and his party make the trip every Sunday. Throughout the winter and early spring, when the snow and mud, respectively, are deep, the trip is made once a month.
A HUMAN JOB
One acquainted with modern cynical trends in undergraduate thinking might expect that a minister making a trip to a backwoods community to hold religious services would experience difficulties in attracting undergraduates to accompany him. On the contrary, Mr. Clark has not only all tie can take with him on each trip; he has a waiting list! Occasionally some excitement is afforded on the trip by way of a car to push or dig out of mud or snow. But ordinarily, though the outward purpose of the large crew is to push or dig, there is no call for volunteers for such services, and those who go do so for the pleasure of joining with a fine group of country people in a simple and informal religious service.
The Beaver Meadow "crew" consists of constants and variables. The constants are Mr. Clark, "Doc" Griggs, Prof. L. B. Mathewson, who plays the piano, and two Dartmouth juniors, who, with trumpet and trombone, complete the "band." The variables are those men who fill up the two or three cars that always make the trip; they range from football players to backstroke artists, to say nothing of a few members of the hardboiled faculty. And very often men go along who can do such interesting things as sing solos, play banjos, and give stereopticon talks.
The size of the Beaver Meadow congregation varies from fifteen to forty, and there are always from eight to fifteen Hanoverites, besides. Beaver Meadow is on the up-grade again, decidedly, and has been for several years. Several new and thrifty families have moved in, and there are still remaining a number of notably fine representatives of the first up-grade era.
The fact that those who want to go out to Beaver Meadow with Mr. Clark constitute a waiting list is a good sign. It shows a real desire on the part of members of a college community to apply religion practically. There can be no hypocrisy, no ulterior motive, in joining the Beaver Meadow crew. No one is bribed or urged into it. And still there is a waiting list. It may be surprising to some to know this.
BEAVER MEADOW CHAPEL
CREW AND CONGREGATION
