Spencer Norton '28: A marrying Old Soul is He
Spencer Norton '28 is a "marryin' man" and mighty proud of it. The last time I saw him in the small Vermont hometown we share, he boasted to me: "I just married number 202 last weekend."
In many places, such an admission would generate quizzical glances from passersby. But not here, because just about everyone knows "Spence" and his unusual avocation.
Spencer Norton is a duly elected and sworn justice of the peace for the county of Addison, state of Vermont. He has been for almost 40 years now. And almost as much as he likes getting people to say "I do" to each other, he loves telling stories about the more memorable ceremonies. He is careful, of course, not to mention any names.
He says he has seen all kinds since he married his first couple back in 1945: military weddings, elopements, and self-planned outdoor ceremonies, not to mention a "shotgun" arrangement or two. Some of the weddings involve local couples he has known for years; others unite strangers who have heard of Spence's work. All a couple needs, he says, is the paperwork and the"I do's."
"I used to get a lot of couples through the Catholic priest, you know," he says, with a grin. "Used to be, don't know if it still is, that a priest's hands were tied if one of the couple was divorced. The rules said they couldn't be married in the church, so he sent quite a number of them over to me."
"Most of mine these days say what the clergy does makes them madder than hell," he says, noting that he lets every couple plan their own ceremony. "Most of mine aren't very well off financially either. They can't afford a big church wedding."
One of his favorite tales is of a couple that got married on a rustic farm they had just bought at the end of a dirt road. "I backed the wedding party up to the end of the field, up to the start of some tall grass. I thought it was all very nice until I got a wedding picture and saw they were standing under a road sign that said 'Dead End.' They thanked me for that."
Another memorable ceremony was one of his fastest. "It couldn't have lasted more than eight or nine minutes," he says. "I could see they were in an awful hurry. I married them right here in my living room."
Spence does not always get paid for helping folks tie the knot, but he usually manages a little food and drink at the reception.
"The first couple I ever had, I think they sneaked out without paying," he says. "Another one asked me what I was owed. So I told him whatever he thought was fair. He gave me two dollars. Now I ask 'What is she worth to you?' and I haven't had a two-dollar wedding since."
Marrying couples in his hometown was hardly what Spence had in mind when he was graduated from Dartmouth 55 years ago. He spent a year in law school, then started work as a securities investor. But when the stock market crashed he made his way back to his father's feed and lumber business in Vergennes, where he worked for 30 years. While there, he met his eventual wife, Ellen, who taught French at the district high school. The two live in this community of 2,000 in a large white house that faces, coincidentally, the Congregational church.
According to the Vermont statutes, written in the days when religious and legal authority was sparse in parts north of Boston, justices of the peace are empowered to perform marriages and investigate child labor (but not on the farm, mind you) and they used to handle some petty crimes (Spence has . got plenty of old tales about "backwoods justice" for folks speeding through town with out-of-state license plates, but that is another story). The justices are also supposed to regulate the freshness of eggs and deal with lumber clogging up the county's rivers and streams. As if these responsibilities were not enough, Spence because of the status conferred on him by his college education, a bit unusual for his generation has been pressed into service in Vergennes as grand juror (an official with power to prosecute violations of town ordinances), lister (a property tax assessor), auditor (examiner of town accounts and compiler of the annual town report), and member of the library committee.
When weddings don't conflict, and he makes sure not too many do, Spence and Ellen root for the Vergennes basketball and soccer teams boys' and girls' both. Every other year or so, he makes the two-and-a-half-hour drive to a Dartmouth home football game, hoping to see Cornell lose because it is the alma mater of the only other Ivy League graduate in Vergennes.
And certainly not least, the "marryin' man" waits for the phone call from couple number 203.
Spencer Norton '28, left, has presided overhundreds of wedding parties in his 40 yearsas a justice of the peace in rural Vergennes,Vt. This pastoral 1981 ceremony was one ofhis favorites because of the unwitting humorous commentary provided by the roadsign in the background.
