HANOVER'S DORMITORY TOWN

A few years ago when I had the pleasure of bringing greetings from Norwich, Vermont, to the Lord Mayor of Norwich, England, I was attempting to explain to an attractive young reporter from the Eastern Daily Express the relationship between Hanover, New Hampshire, and our Norwich. At one point I used the expression "bedroom town" and the face of the young lady brightened as she said, "Oh, I get it now. Dormitory town we call it. So much nicer!" And that is what our Norwich seems increasingly to be.

Fifty or sixty years ago there were certainly some janitors and cooks and Hanover help of one sort or another domiciled across the Connecticut. There may even have been a professor or two. But in 1962 if one started a list of folks who earn a living in Hanover and sleep in Norwich it would be a very lengthy list indeed. In fact, during the hundred years between 1820 and 1920 the population of Norwich showed an overall decrease of about 50%, but starting with the census of 1930 Norwich has, in contrast to some Vermont towns, shown a slow but steady increase from 1300 to about 1800. And for this growth Hanover and especially Dartmouth College and the Mary Hitchcock Hospital and Clinic have been largely responsible.

There are of course several other neighboring towns where many of those employed in Hanover spend the nocturnal hours - towns ranging from Enfield and Hartland on the south to Lyme and Thetford on the north - but Norwich is closest in mileage and in many other ways. Like a dozen or more towns up and down the river, Norwich and Hanover were both chartered in 1761 and settled about the same time. And from those primitive days, long before there was a bridge across the Connecticut, their relations have been generally close and friendly. Even for this business of working in Hanover and sleeping across the river a very early and impressive precedent may be found. We read in Chase's History that when in 1770 Eleazar Wheelock was making his final check of Connecticut River towns with an eye to locating his college, the nearest settlers in Hanover were about three miles back from the river and Wheelock and his party chose to lodge at Captain Burton's Inn on Norwich Plain. Thus Norwich can predate Hanover with the conventional sign, "Wheelock Slept Here."

Some suggestion of the number who have more recently followed Eleazar's good example is furnished by the figures. A rough count of faculty and administrative officers residing in Norwich comes to about sixty, those associated with the hospital and clinic and medical teaching and research come to perhaps another fifty, and those otherwise employed in Hanover to a hundred more. Most of these folk have families and the figures cited could by themselves account for a large part of Norwich's population growth.

Our "dormitory town" may have to admit being a bit low in upper-echelon members of the Hanover hierarchy, though the figures do include the Deputy Provost of the College, a Dean, the Librarian, the Director of Hopkins Center, and the Secretary of the Trustees Planning Committee, not to mention an associate artist in the Music Department and the well-known artist-in-residence, along with several of our more distinguished faculty figures. It is interesting to note that most of these top-flight personages are active on the Norwich scene, associating in one way or another with farmers and storekeepers, janitors and craftsmen of various sorts and thus making our bedroom community a leveling influence in the best sense of that term. The same is in some measure true in Hanover, to be sure, but size does make a difference and in smaller Norwich it seems to be writ large. As one good Norwich neighbor remarked, "Some of the biggest damn fools in Norwich is folks you'd think would know better."

Travel, on wheel or afoot, back and forth to Hanover is at the center of the life of these dormitory dwellers, and has been since the first bridge was opened in 1796. Incidentally, though Norwich had supported the idea of a free bridge as early as 1790, this first bridge, and the next two constructed after it, required the payment of tolls on every day except the Sabbath. It was not until 1859 that Vermonters enjoyed free access to the New Hampshire side over the famous Ledyard Bridge, the fourth bridge on this site and the first free bridge over the Connecticut River. Since both Norwich and Hanover villages are situated on level plains back from the river a trip from village to village requires making a grade in each direction and the query "How's the hill today?", though not as common as in the pre-salt days, is still a part of regular common parlance during the winter months.

Not all travel across the river is of the dormitory variety. A goodly number of Hanoverians - both town and gown - cross over to Norwich to shop, mindful that the village is completely free of parking meters and that store hours extend well toward bedtime. Others come over to eat, for meals have been available since Wheelock found food and lodging in 1770. And still others come to ride or to visit, or just to catch a breath of free Vermont air.

Dormitory-town folk, of course, do not spend all the night hours in bed, and in spite of Hanover's even more crowded calendar of events Norwich does manage to maintain its own social and cultural life. It has its own churches and school - but no high school - and a dozen organizations ranging from Lions Club and American Legion to the Grange and a local historical society. With its problems it has its own politics and its own prejudices, along with feuds - both major and minor. It has its own water system and, keeping pace with the country at large, it boasts several new housing developments. It pumps its own gas and blows its own fire horn and supports its own Norwich Fair. It swims in its own sparkling pool, rides its own bridle trails and skis its own slopes, though its only ski-tow has just given up the ghost - a victim of developments across the river.

As Dartmouth was once a small college Norwich is still a small town and there are those who love her. Her residents can in five or ten minutes' time, if they wish, cross the Connecticut to pleasures and diversions ranging from the rough and ribald to the sophisticated and highly cultured and then just as quickly return to quiet and sleep in this small North Country village. And sleep in Hanover's nearest dormitory town, with Eleazar's soothing spirit to lull one, is sweet sleep indeed!