Guest post and photos by Gary Irish
Edited and formated by Bernie Paquette
Heritage in Historic Homes: Jericho & Underhill VT. Fire Destroys Landmarks
Part IV Fire Destroys Landmarks
At about 2 o’clock on the morning of January 11, 1891 fire was discovered in the attic at the rear of the old inn. The Burlington Free Press of Friday, January 16, 1891, reported it as follows:
“Another Landmark Gone. The Dixon House at Underhill in Ashes – Loss $12,600, Insurance $8000
“The pleasant hotel at Underhill Flats was discovered to be on fire on Sunday morning at 2 o’clock by persons residing in the vicinity. It had been closed for the winter and was unoccupied, but fires were put into the building on Saturday for the purpose of warming the house. When the fire was discovered the upper part of the ell was one sheet of flame and had made such headway it was soon a mass of smoldering ruins. The main body of the house was soon on fire, and the night being a still one and the building burning from the roof downward, it was three o’clock before the last walls were prostrate. Only one tall chimney remains standing in its stately height as if silently protesting against such sad havoc and desolation. There was so little commotion that people residing almost within a stone’s throw of the hotel did not know of its destruction until morning. Some of the furniture on the two lower floors of the main building was saved. It is supposed that the fire caught from one of the chimneys in the ell. The building was insured by T.S. Peck of Burlington in several stock companies for $6,000 and the furniture for $2000."
“This hotel has been a pleasant resort for many from all parts of New England and it will be with regret that they learn of its loss. It was first known as the Bostwick House, being built by Arthur Bostwick about the year 1803. It was then an unpretentious two-story building but was afterward somewhat enlarged by him. Clark Bostwick of this village was the first child born within its walls. It afterward passed into the hands of Rufus Brown, a son-in-law of Mr. Bostwick, who still further enlarged it by building more sleeping rooms in the ell part. Nearly 25 years ago the property was purchased by L.M. Dixon and by him beautified and enlarged to the commodious house it has since been. Mr. Dixon proved to be an excellent landlord and under his supervision, it was made a very attractive summer resort and was well patronized. About two years ago and after the death of Mr. Dixon, the hotel was purchased by Dr. A.F. Burdick, and by him had been newly painted, papered, carpeted, and furnished throughout at an expense of several thousand dollars."
“In 1832 the barns of the hotel, which stood very nearly where the present ones are situated, were accidentally set on fire by a candle and burned to the ground, the hotel itself barely escaping the same fate. Perhaps some of the older residents may remember the sign which used to adorn the post in front of this old-time hostelry. It was shield-shaped and was painted by a man from Burlington named Wicker. The work was done in the north room over the barroom and the landscape he painted thereon was from the natural scenery of hill, wood, and dale, which the painter could see from the hotel window. On this sign was painted “Bostwick House” in large gilt letters. The other side was adorned with a two-wheeled chariot, drawn by fiery steeds driven by a woman.
A man by the name of Burroughs first drove a stage through this section from Essex Junction through Cambridge to Johnson, the mail having previously been carried by a man on horseback. Mr. Burroughs drove a very unassuming vehicle but about the year 1827 a man named Roswell Butler from Essex came on to the route with “nice yellow coaches” bought at Concord, N.H., and drawn by four horses, and for years the crack of the driver’s whip as he reined his fiery steeds driven at full gallop up the hill to the door of the Bostwick House, was a familiar sound. The railway mail system has obliterated the old-time stagecoach and to the regret of many, the insatiable element of fire has obliterated the pleasant resort for the traveler and the pleasure seeker – the Dixon House.”
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| Site of the Bostwick House, 2018 |
The Green Mountain Press of January 13th had the following card of thanks from Dr. Burdick: “I desire to express my sincere thanks to the village people of Underhill Flats who so promptly responded to the alarm of fire on Sunday morning, and who so ably assisted, at the risk of their lives, in saving property. Especial thanks are due Mr. M.L. Washburn for the coolness exhibited, and for the efficient manner in which he superintended the removal of hotel furniture.”
Mr. & Mrs. B.M. Norris also had a card of thanks in the paper: “We wish to return our hearty thanks to those who worked so hard to save our son’s house from burning during the burning of the Dixon House.”
While the entire building was burned to the ground, those who responded to the alarm were able to remove the piano and much of the furniture. The furniture which was saved was stored at Thompson's Hall (this was an assembly hall on the second floor of what is today Jacobs’ store on Park Street before that space was converted to living quarters in 1892), and Dr. Burdick soon advertised that “$2000 worth of Dixon House goods will be sold at…private sale” starting on January 26. In the fall of 1896, Dr. Burdick had a new tenement house built on the Dixon House lot, and the next fall, he had another house built there.
An unfortunate “casualty” of the hotel fire was the nearby Calvary Episcopal Church. For many years, summer visitors who stayed at the hotel had been a large part of the support of the Church, located just north of the hotel, and with the loss of the Dixon House, and therefore the summer visitors, the church’s finances suffered for many years after.
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| Calvary Episcopal Church |
Across the street from the Barney Hotel was the site of Fletcher’s storehouse, which about 1848 was fitted up as a store by Erastus Field and Ferdinand Beach. It was next operated by Beach and L.B. Howe from about 1852 to 1866 and then carried on by Henry Field and Hira Percival until 1872. John Percival and Edwin Oakes then operated it until it was destroyed by fire in 1874.
At the time, Orlin Rood’s harness shop stood just to the east of the store, and that also burned in the fire. He soon rebuilt his shop, and in 1881 Wareham Pierce from Jericho Center built a large Victorian commercial block on the site of the old store. He carried on the store until 1891 when it was sold to the Home Market, an incorporated company. They rented one side to first Suter and Lamphere and later to just Charles Suter, who carried on a dry goods business, while the other side was rented to B.A. Donaldson for his grocery store.
Later Donaldson took over the entire store for his grocery business. Meanwhile, the second floor was finished off as offices and the rooms for the Masonic Hall for McDonough Lodge #26, F&AM, which moved here from Essex in 1882. Among the offices there at one time or another were Samuel Clark’s boot and shoe shop, Arthur Bradford’s print shop, Joseph Gouther’s barbershop, and Dr. Bradford’s dentist office, along with the office of the WCTU.
In March 1889 it was reported that M.H. Alexander had rented the three front rooms on the second floor, including the one then used as a barbershop, and had commenced furnishing one of them in elaborate style as a law office, although just the next month, a barber had put in a chair upstairs in Pierce’s Block, next door the M.H. Alexander’s office.
This building was destroyed in a fire that occurred on the night of January 11, 1901 (Ten years after the fire that destroyed the Dixon House). The fire also destroyed Rood’s harness shop (by now operated by Orlin’s son Dennis) adjoining on the east side, and the tin shop and home of Joseph Bissonette on the west.
The lot sat vacant until 1928 when George Ladue purchased it and started to construct a store. But he took a job in the store of George Woodruff across the street and used this building as a garage to house his car while he was working at the Woodruff store. It was sold to Fred Greenough in the early 1930s, and he made it into a small but popular meat market with a few groceries. He added a back room which he used to store ice for the refrigerators.
The property was next sold to Emile Grenier. He was a barber and also operated a woodworking business. He used the front part of the building for his barbershop and enlarged the rear portion to house his wood-turning machines. He later moved to Plains Road, and converted these buildings to living quarters, renting the front building to John Moiles and the rear to the Lessor family.
In the 1940s the buildings were taken over by George Woodruff for his Brown’s River Maple Products business, which used the front building as a shop to sell maple products.
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| Brown's River Maple Products, taken from in front of what is today Jericho General Store |
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| The building behind the Brown's River Maple Products building - you can see just a bit of it behind the other building in the previous picture. |
At the corner of Route 15 and Lee River Road, currently the site of Stanley Knapp’s home, there were two business blocks. On the north was the Chesmore Block, which had been the home of LaFayette Wilbur, a well-known local lawyer, in the 1850s; in the 1870s Spafford Wright had a carriage manufacturing business here; it then was used as a store by Samuel Clark, and later A.A. Chesmore.
On the south was the post office block, thought to have been in use as such by 1798, and later also a store operated by, among others, H.N. Percival, E.W. Curtis, and J.H. May. At the time of the fire, on November 20, 1906, it housed both the post office and the drug store of E.B. Williams, and the upper floors were the home of Dr. W.C. Jackson.
The fire was first discovered in the rear of the Chesmore Block, and in no time the whole block was a mass of flames. The drug store, separated by only a few feet, was almost immediately in flames as well, and both buildings were burned to the ground in less than two hours.
The harness shop of Peter Gomo, about twenty feet to the north, was only prevented from burning by carpets hung over the side and kept wet with water. The Folsom house, on the corner of Plains Road, had the paint on the entire front blistered, and many windows were cracked by the heat of the fire. Most of the contents of the post office were saved, along with the prescription files of the drug store, but little else survived the fire.
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| Underhill Drug Store, with glimpses of the Riverside Methodist Church on the left. |
The Burlington Free Press, in a November 22, 1906 article, described it as follows: Night Fire At At [sic] Jericho Post Office, Drug Store, Grocery, and Two Dwelling Destroyed
“Jericho Nov. 20 – There is very little left of the business portion of this village. Three times in the past few years fire has eaten in the principal street, the latest calamity coming this morning, when the post office, and drug store and dwelling of William Jackson, with the grocery store of W.W. Chesmore and the tenement above it, were burned to the ground.
“Mrs. Sarah Jackson, who lives with her son, Mr. Jackson, over the post office, was the first to discover the fire, which started from a defective chimney in the unoccupied tenement over the Chesmore store and was then burning very rapidly. She gave the alarm but the flames were already beyond control. The village is without fire protection and little could be done beyond saving what goods could be easily moved.
“Peter Gomo’s harness shop, near the grocery store, was in great danger, but the volunteer bucket brigade managed to save it by constant wetting, water being brought from the river some distance away [Peter Gomo had worked for the Roods, whose shop was destroyed by fire twice – see above]. The north wind was also in favor of the buildings across the street, thus preventing a much more serious disaster.
“People in the village noted a strong odor of smoke early in the evening but thought it came from chimneys. The estimated loss is $10,000, well covered by insurance.”
The fire that wiped out the last of Jericho Corner’s commercial district occurred on April 15, 1963, when the Rotunda Brothers grocery store and the adjacent home of the George Bessette family, formerly the drug store of William and Minnie Jackson, both burned. Ironically, George Woodruff, who had previously owned this store, died the next day.
When the Barney Hotel next door had burned in 1904, the store, only separated by a driveway from the hotel, was saved, and now in 1963, Joe’s Snack Bar, built by Joe Rotunda’s son, Joe, Jr., was again only separated from the store by the same driveway. But as before, when the store burned, the snack bar was saved.
The north side of Route 15 at Jericho Corners, just east of the Brown's River bridge. Left to right - the Jericho post office, probably when Herb Hutchinson was postmaster, now Kozlowski's; William and Minnie Jackson's drug store, formerly E.B. Williams, now part of the parking lot for Joe's Snack Bar; and the former E.B. Williams grocery store, by the time of the photo probably George Woodruff's, and now the rest of Joe's parking lot. I'd guess this dates to the 1930s. the latter two buildings are what burned in the 1963 fire.
This store had been built about 1824 by William Prentiss and Thomas Taylor. From 1832 to 1890, the store was operated by no less than eleven different people. At that time, it was purchased by E.B. Williams, who had previously carried on the drug store in the post office block. Mr. Williams also operated the sawmill on Cilley Hill Road, as well as a coal business, and for over 35 years was the Jericho town treasurer and moderator. He continued the business until his death in 1929 when it was purchased by George Woodruff. He carried it on until selling it to the Rotunda Brothers (Joe and Tom) in 1940.
The brick house next door, which was built about 1815, was originally the home of Horatio Barney, who ran the wool carding mill on Lee River. In the 1890s, E. B. Williams converted the home into a drug store, and after his death in 1929, it was taken over by William and Minnie Jackson. Mr. Jackson not only filled prescriptions but was qualified to examine eyes for glasses. After he died in 1941, Minnie continued the business for a time as a newsstand, ice cream parlor, and bus stop, with prescriptions being sent to Burlington to be filled.
Underhill Fire
About 11:00 am on the morning of August 11, 1906, an oil stove in the home of Walter Grace exploded. Mr. Grace was asleep at the time, and Mrs. Grace was in a hammock in the front yard. By the time it was discovered by Mrs. Hattie Palmer, a neighbor, it was too far advanced for the structure to be saved, Mr. Grace escaping without time to even save his hat.
The house of Dr. Nay, separated by only a driveway, was soon in flames, although the furniture was able to be saved, and it quickly spread next door to the drug store, where only some office furniture was saved.
It was thought at first that the Methodist church next to the drug store could be saved, being protected somewhat by its slate roof, and citizens formed a bucket brigade. However, they were hampered by a lack of water, and the church was soon engulfed as well. The fire spread next to the grange hall on the other side of the church.
Grange Hall, formerly a store, was beside the Methodist Church in Riverside. The "Park & Grange Hall Underhill" photo also shows the grange hall, but far enough away to give you an idea of its location. You can see what was the Congregational Church, now the United Church, behind it, what was Dr. Burdick's house on the left, and through the trees just a hint of the brick store.
As the seriousness of the fire was realized, word was sent to Burlington, where a special train was made up in 20 minutes by conductor J.L. Berry, with engine 328 under the control of engineer H.H. Knox and fireman George Fortier hauling a flat car on which had been loaded a fire engine. The train left Burlington at 12:55 with nine firefighters and arrived in Underhill in only 35 minutes. The fire engine was located beside the Creek behind Dr. Burdick’s house, and a hose soon run to the scene of the fire. Volunteers were able to pull down the horse sheds behind the church, which prevented the fire from spreading to other nearby homes, some of which had their roofs covered with wet blankets to protect them from the sparks. Several times both the Barrows store and the Congregational church did catch fire but were quickly extinguished before serious damage.
A picture of the scene after the fire of August 1906. Note the blankets on the roof of the house in the center background, kept wet to keep that house from catching fire. And you can see the church and store in the left background that did catch fire, but which were put out and the buildings saved.
Soon after the arrival of the fire engine rain began to fall, and the firemen were able to return with their engine to Burlington about 5 pm. Total loss from the fire was put at $15,000.
The Burlington Free Press of August 16, 1906, reported it thus:
Large Fire In Underhill Methodist Church and Several Other Buildings Burned Started by Oil Stove Explosion
“Underhill, Aug. 12 - A most disastrous fire swept through Underhill Saturday. The fire originated at the home of Walter Grace caused by the explosion of an oil stove. The alarm was given but before help reached there the house was in flames. The next to take fire was the residence and drug store of Dr. W.S. Nay. By this time in answer to [the] telephone, a good many men from the adjoining villages responded but the fire had made such headway under the impetus of a strong south wind with the facilities at hand it was impossible to cope with it. The two remaining buildings between that and the park were the Methodist Church and Grange hall, which were both burned. It was only by the most strenuous efforts of those present that the fire was held from crossing the street. Dr. Burdick’s, Harmon Howard’s residences and H. Barrow’s store, and the Congregational Church caught fire several times but were extinguished.
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| Park and Grange Hall |
“An engine was sent for from Burlington but did not arrive in time to save any of the buildings.
“The losses will be heavy but partly covered by insurance. Mr. Grace did not save any of his household effects. A large part of Dr. Nay’s furniture was carried out and part of the drug store stock.”
When the Pierce Block was built in Jericho Corners in 1881, W.N. Pierce had part of the upper floor finished as a Masonic Hall, and in June 1882 the McDonough Lodge #26 moved to Jericho from Essex. On January 11, 1901, the building was completely destroyed by fire. This resulted in the Lodge moving to the upper floor of Dr. Nay’s drug store in Riverside. Now just over five years later, they were burned out once again.
Rebuilding soon began, both on a new structure for the Methodist Church and a new home and drug store for Dr. Nay. The upper floor of the new drug store included a new Masonic Hall for the McDonough Lodge, which they occupied until purchasing and renovating the former Baptist church in Jericho Corners for their lodge in 1929.
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| Dr. Nay's new house, built beside the drug store after the fire. Today the home of Peter and Kate Mitchell. |
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| Dr. W. Scott Nay |
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| Former Underhill Fire Station |
Hector Marcoux, who had just sold his grocery store on Park Street to the Jacobs family, was the next owner of the drug store.
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| Hector Marcoux |
He remodeled it, including adding a soda fountain, also selling books and stationery, and at this time converted the former Masonic rooms on the upper floor into living quarters for his family. At this time, prescriptions were no longer filled in the drug store but were sent to the Terminal Pharmacy in Burlington (operated by Melville Maurice of Underhill Center) to be filled. In 1953, the drug store was sold to Mr. Agius of South Burlington, who remodeled the drug store area into the Underhill Restaurant, lunch, and newsstand, which he operated for a short time. He then sold to the Snow family, who lived there about a year and a half before selling the building to Bruce Ward. He operated it as Ward’s Luncheonette in the early 1960s. It has been used as apartments since then.
~Gary Irish
View the MMCTV video of my program on The Flats/Riverside that I presented for the Chittenden County Historical Society on December 5 as part of the rollout of Volume 3 of the Jericho Town History, now available for viewing at: https://archive.org/details/gary-irish-underhill-flats-history-12052021
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