It started raining last night sometime in the middle of the night and continued for most of today. It wasn't much of a day for either hiking or motorcycle riding. (Been there, done that for both of them. Why do it if you don't have to).
After breakfast and showers (the showers here take quarters but a pretty good), we unhooked Speedy from the trailer and drove off to Woodstock, site of Vermont's only National Park, the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. We spent most of the day visiting it and the adjoining Billings Farm and Museum, a working dairy farm owned by the Woodstock Foundation.
Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller is an unusual concept for a National Park (aside from its unwieldy name) as it consists of a large house and a small forest connected with three individuals who were influential conservatitionists for their times.
George Perkins Marsh grew up on the land. His father build the original brick house. While he never lived there as an adult, he became a Vermont congressman, then a career diplomat in the Middle East and Italy, initially appointed by Abraham Lincoln. As a result of the environmental changes he saw in Vermont while growing up and then the results of long-term similar practices in the Mediterranean, he wrote one of the earliest books, Man and Nature, describing the impact of humans on the environment and what was needed to be done to prevent the destruction of the environment...it's too bad that we still haven't learned.
Perkins brother, Charles, sold the home and land to Fredrick Billings. Billings was a self-made son of Woodstock. While Marsh and Billings were contemporaries, they never met, Marsh was from a wealthy family, Billings from a poor one. Billings trained as a lawyer and made the fortuitous decision to move to San Francisco during the gold rush. When he arrived, he was just about the only lawyer in town. He became quite wealthy as a result. After a successful career in the west, he moved back to Woodstock and bought the Marsh property.
By that time, Vermont was in the throes of destroying is land. Much of the old-growth forest had been clear cut and turned into sheep pasture, which, in turn, denuded the thin soil, The rains did the rest, eroding the land into the rivers. This is what Billings returned to.
As a reader of Marsh's book and having been experienced in the conservation efforts in the west (he was involved in the preservation of Yosemite), he decided to try to turn things around. In addition to expanding and totally renovating the home, he developed one of the early programs of scientific forest management in the country, replanting the clear cut hills on his property and managing it as a renewable resource. He converted his bottom land into a dairy farm, importing Jersey cattle as its basis. After his death, his work was continued well into the 20th century by his wife and daughters.
This brings us to the third name on the park—Rockefeller. Laurence Rockefeller married Mary French, who was Billings' grand-daughter. They purchased most of the land and the farm from the other descendents of Billings. It became their home in Vermont.
Rockefeller was committed to environmental conservation and recreation. The Rockefeller family was one of the prime contributors of the land for Acadia National Park. Laurence and Mary Rockefeller purchased large tracts of St. John in the US Virgin Islands and gave it as the Virgin Islands National Park, They restored and gave the land in Grand Tetons National Park known as the Rockefeller Preserve. Finally, after preserving the Billings home and woodlands, they gave them to the Park Service as a Historical Park dedicated to the study of conservation history.
The home has been preserved as the Rockefellers left it. They, in turn, preserved most of the interior and furnishings and art as Fredrick Billings decorated it. The hidden infrastructure is up-to-date, but it is pretty stunning inside. We didn't get a chance to walk the rest of the property as it was a bit wet, but there are 20 miles of carriage roads and at least that length of forest trails in the park and adjacent conservation lands owned by the town and the Vermont Land Trust.
The Billings Farm is another story. It isn't part of the National Park, but a working dairy farm and museum. The foundation that owns it was set up by the Rockefellers. The farm's centerpiece is an award-winning herd of Jersey Cows which provide milk used by the Cabot co-operative to make cheese. They also have a small herd of sheep, chickens and three pairs of draft horses. They have two large barn complexes, one for the animals and one which is the museum.
The cow barn was pretty impressive, as it was filled with cows today. They keep them inside during the day in the hot weather and turn them out at night. They seemed pretty conent in their stalls munching away. They have a staff looking after them, answering visitor questions and letting visitors up close (Jersey cows have sweet temperments, soft coats and raspy tongues—at least the sample we met). The barn also has a milk processing room, a calf nursery, a trophy room showing off the many awards the herd has garnered (now we know how our office was used; it was called the trophy room), a separate set of stalls for the horses and a pair of steers training as oxen, and, finally, a chicken barn with about a dozen hens of various heritage breeds.
The fields around the farm are mostly pasture. There were some of the horses, the sheep and small groups of young (dry) cows and heifers grazing. The rest of the land is planted in corn.
The musuem has a permanent collection of farm life in Vermont from the period before motorized mechanization. Who knew there were so many farm implements and so much work. It may date me, but some of the horse-drawn gear I remember being still used in the 60's on PEI, where I spent the summers as a child.
In addition to the museum building, there is also the farm manager's house. It is furnished as it would have been during Billing's time. Unlike the mansion, one can wander around inside. They still have a working kitchen, wood-stove and all. Today they were demonstrating early recipes. It sure did smell good in there.
After our visit to the historic park and farm, we wandered into downtown Woodstock for an afternoon coffee. As we started our walk in the drizzled, the skies opened up and it poured the entire time we were in town. After a stop at the Daily Grind (their coffee is a bit too much of a dark roast for our tastes, particularly in their brewed coffee), we stopped in a succession of bookstores, general stores and consignment shops, as much as to get out of the rain as to browse.
After browsing downtown Woodstock, we headed back to camp. By the time we arrived, the rain had let up. It looks like it may be a dry day tomorrow. Either a ride or walk is in the offing.
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