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Can you guess what this little beauty is? I thought I'd add a new fun category to my blog. MYSTERIES! Some will be items, some will be places, some will be historical mysteries. Some I will know the answer to and am testing you...some I need help, suggestions, ideas. Join in!

November 7, 2023 Eric Henderson out of Williamstown (Henderson Hauling & Excavation) does excellent work. He is reliable, careful, efficient and cost effective. Megan & Peter Cooley found him- he put in the new well house for them, helped them with an outside frost-free hydrant, and added gravel to the front driveway to the south. We will continue to use him for removal, excavating, possibly even a new septic system. On 11/7 he removed all of the tires, the old tumbledown shed, trash and debris. So it is starting to look tidy. Also he laid down gravel on the north side of the house to use for heavy equipment. See photos below. The new well house that Megan & Peter had installed earlier in the year:

Any old house has some materials that are considered hazardous waste. Asbestos, once considered a marvel as a fire retardant, is now known to cause health issues if fibers are released- particularly lung damage including cancer. Luckily there are people trained to test for these materials and remove them safely. My husband's brother Peter and his wife Megan, while working with Henderson Excavating & Engineering out of Williamstown, had the house inspected for asbestos by a qualified company up in Burlington, VT, K-D Associates, Inc. in June 2023. Samples were taken and tested from many surfaces (floors, walls, ceilings, window glazing, insulation, building paper, and asphalt roof shingles). The only area found to contain asbestos was the downstairs bedroom which had 9"x 9" tiles. Mid-State Asbestos out of Roxbury, Vermont removed and properly disposed of nine bags of asbestos-containing tiles in July 2023. They were shipped to an approved facility in Ohio. Lucky us, poor Ohio.

Driveway work is our next step. A sound driveway will facilitate the ins and outs of demolition and construction equipment. The driveway is a circular driveway; I always loved that. It has a practicality to it. You can drive in and drive out with no turning around. You can park near the often-used side entrance on the south or you can park around back near the kitchen entrance. I am learning about the expense of a longer driveway. Not surprising…the longer the driveway, the more material is needed. The whole driveway is approximately 350 feet. Eric Henderson from Williamstown will do the work. He has already done the section to the north of the house and he does excellent work. This Google aerial view gives you a picture of how the driveway works. Here's a Google photo taken from Ridge Road, looking up the south entrance to the driveway, house is to the left in the photo, barn is straight ahead at the top of this section. Peter & Megan's abode is on the right. Same view but showing the house. This photo shows you where the barn is in relation to the south driveway entrance (see natural wood building at the top right). Head up the driveway and take a left to the house. Here's a view of where the driveway goes after it passes around the current garage/fireplace room to the back of the house. The main house is on the right here; you can see the kitchen door on the back. And the view along the back from the kitchen door. The well/pump house Peter & Megan installed. Here's the north exit of the circular driveway as it travels back down to Ridge Road, pre-gravel. And the same northerly section post-gravel. And here's a Google view of the same exit (northern section) of the driveway except taken from Ridge Road looking up the driveway. North part of the driveway (far left in this photo) taken from Ridge Road. Here you can see the north driveway section in the foreground and the location of the south entrance near the telephone pole to the far right. Here's to easier access during mud season...Happy January! progress will be made.

Especially important is the SECRET PASSAGEWAY door! It was saved! Part of the metal clasp is still painted onto the door frame (so I have to work on that) but I have the wooden flip knob (my terminology) which looks hand-carved to me. I will try to save as many doors as possible for the new house. How cool to grab a door knob that was handled by relatives long ago and to swing open a door that opens into a newly created replica of a room from 1790 or 1830! I saved this very cool handle, see below... (it was near the top of the stairs on the pine panelling pretending to be a door)...it does look old. I love it. Someone else obviously appreciated it to bother to save it and attach it to the wall. Danny wonders if it was there for Great Gramma Cooley to grab it to help her stability. Here is where it was before I took it off...what do you think? (see handle below)

I got to meet Mark Rosaldo in the town hall in Randolph today. He is the zoning administrator. Picked up the demolition permit and put it on display. OK...so here we go!

Many of my relatives have attended the school at the site just down the road from The Ridge Road House. This school, now Vermont State University, evolved from the Orange County Grammar School (1806) into the Randolph Normal School (1866) into the Aggie School (The Vermont School of Agriculture 1910) into the Vermont Agricultural and Technical Institute (1957) into Vermont Technical College (1962) until its present name change. My first relative who attended this school was my Great Grandmother Josephine (Josie) Farrar Gray Perry. I knew her as Grammy Perry. She went to the Randolph Normal School to become a teacher. I was recently reading a letter she wrote at age 98 to the Normal School after they requested some news from her. She told them about a move from Vermont to Florida when she was a young wife with her husband. This inspired me to do more research using 1907 archived Florida newspapers which led me to new facts about my family during their short-lived move from Vermont. What if they had stayed in Florida? My grandfather might not have met my grandmother in Vermont. I wouldn’t be here today. Harry Cooley and Charles Cooley (both owners of The Ridge Road House) taught at the site- Harry at the Aggie School, as he called it, and Charles at VTC. Photo of The Randolph Normal School ~1894 taken from "Early Photographs of RANDOLPH, VERMONT 1855-1948," by Wes Herwig, 1986, Greenhills Books, Randolph Center, Vermont About the term "Normal School-" in the 1830s the term Normal School was in use for schools that were formerly known as teacher seminaries (today, the modern-day University Education programs for teacher training). The term may come from the French école normale meaning a model school (norma from the Latin meaning a carpenter's square, therefore a rule or model.)[1] Letter from Josie Perry to the Normal School Annual Meeting when she was 98 years old in 1971 [1] Duling, Ennis, “A Persistent and Spirited Controversy: The State Normal Schools and the Education of Vermonters,” Vermont Historical Society, 2022, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://vermonthistory.org/journal/90/VH90_02_Duling.pdf (31, December, 2023)

I would like to contact the Samuel Day family (ancestors) to let them know about the house. Anyone know them? Please try and pass this information along! Researching on ancestry's website today to see who was living in the Ridge Road house, I could access the 1910, 1920, and 1930 censuses. Fascinating. And to see Harry Cooley (and his parents and family) just down the road on the farm in the census from 1920 onwards...it feels like time travel. 1910: Samuel Day (47), Wife Carrie (Caroline Pray) (36), Ruth (10), Roland (9), Margaret (6), Lester (1) 1920: Samuel Day (56), Wife Carrie passed away in 1917, Ruth (20), Roland (18), Marguerite (16), Lester (11) And ten years later when Lester, the youngest child would have been 21, Sam was remarried and already had three children with his new young wife (40 years his junior): 1930: Samuel Day (67), Wife Elizabeth (27), Mary (9), Russell (7), Dorothy (5), and nephew Robert Pray (his first wife's relation) as a hired man (23) I found a photo of Sam Day in the newspaper when he died in 1953, the same year Harry Cooley bought the Day house. Sam would have been 90. 1910 census: 1920 census: 1930 census:

With all the memories there

I can clearly remember this sentiment growing up in Vermont. You were a real Vermonter or you weren’t. It was pervasive and no one thought about whether this was OK or not. It was just a basic truth. After we moved to Massachusetts my husband wouldn’t change our car registration from those green plates until we were pulled over by an Amherst, MA policeman who told us gruffly, “get that updated!” We still have the plates in the house. But now, 45 years later, having lived more years in Mass than in Vermont, are we still real Vermonters? My husband points out that Western Mass should have been part of Vermont- just extend the east/west borders of VT straight down into Massachusetts where we live. But what about this sentiment- of being a real Vermonter? Yes, it’s pride of place and love of the many attributes of the Green Mountain State. But it’s also exclusionist. It’s a silent agreement that if you are a real Vermonter you understand things that an ‘outsider’ won’t. It is a quiet resolve that they will never be a real part of the place. It becomes a sort of ‘Us vs. Them’ approach to life. As I age I see the world as smaller and belonging to no one. We all just live here together. If we move back to Vermont will we be real Vermonters again or somebody from ‘down country?’

Harry Cooley ~1960 at his house, this house, The Ridge Road House. He would have called it The Day Place, having bought it from his friend and neighbor Sam Day. (see aerial map below). Photo of Harry found with his second wife Bernice's things from the 1960s at the Ridge Road House recently. She most likely took this photo. His parents bought what became known as The Cooley Farm on Ridge Road in 1910. Later when Harry was married he moved into the Hill House with his wife Gertrude in 1917 which became known as the Little House. Here you can see from north to south the juxtaposition of the Cooley Farm, the Hill Farm, and the Day Farm (the Day Farm being the location of the house in this blog- The Ridge Road House). Information from: Harry H. Cooley, "Farming, An Autobiography," Korongo Books 2020, The essays collectively titled "Personal Reminiscences"were originally published 1978, "Randolph Vermont Historical Sketches," by Harry H. Cooley, edited by Miriam Herwig.

Please give your input. (Comment in area below the post.) It’s quite a while in the future before we have to decide this but…do we go with a local builder or prefabricated building. The only way I’d even consider prefab is if #1 it is a company with a great reputation and track record, #2 it is a Vermont company, #3 the end product looks like a house not a box. We are considering using Huntington Homes which fits all three of the above criteria. My heart says use a local contractor. My concerns with that are costs continually rising over time, a contractor who is pulled between several jobs, and the process being very long (with us not living in Vermont to oversee it). Huntington Homes gives a fixed cost. They claim to cost less per square foot because of their buying in bulk, working inside to build which cuts down on work stoppages, and repeated experience with similar designs. Even their non-custom home designs can be changed (rooms moved around, for ex. at no extra charge) which makes it easier for me to ultimately match the old Ridge Road House. One must keep in mind other costs however, such as site costs (though our site being already developed will be less than the usual), and the foundation cost. Another cost with this prefab option is the ‘buttoning up’ charge where you do have to find an available local contractor who is willing to do the finish work on the house including any porches or garages. Here is a house in Monkton, Vermont which is a good example of a finished Huntington Home that you wouldn’t guess is prefabricated. Here is one of their stock home designs called Buck Hill (see below) with some of the basic design features that are similar to the Ridge Road House. Notice the upside-down V-shaped dormer on the front. I would move the garage to the north side (opposite what it is in this photo since I want the south side to be for living not for parking). I have some reticence with this since it would be a change from the original design of the existing house. I would also move the porch from the left to the right in this photo above which would more closely match the original house. See photo of the original house below.