By Pete Mooney
History is all around us in the Mad River Valley. I live on land to the east, on the Northfield Ridge side of The Valley. Many people will know it as a part of the old Great Lakes Carbon property or, before that, the Ike Folsom Farm. There are interesting stories about each of these. But this story is about an older steward.
There is a very long pasture that runs in front of the property along the East Warren Road. Old time locals have always referred to this as the Berry Flats. I had always assumed this was because of the plethora of raspberries and blackberries that spring up every year along the verges of the field. Long, flat pasture, lots of berries – got it. Berry Flats. Then I started exploring.
At the southern extreme of the property, I discovered two stone cellar holes. One on either side of the East Warren Road. I did some research and identified the cellars as a house and a barn belonging to one Leonard Chester Berry, who owned the land in the later part of the nineteenth century. The Berry Flats name had nothing to do with summer edibles. It was a reference to a long-ago owner. (At this point, old timers will roll their eyes and say I am stating what everybody knows. But to us newbie flatlanders things like this are not obvious. After all, I have only lived here for twenty-nine years.)
Berry was born in Moretown in 1843 and he died on January 12, 1903, just at the dawn of the twentieth century (and only two years after Queen Victoria, who is my start of the twentieth century anchor). He’s buried in the Irasville Cemetery, along with his wife, Mary Quimby Berry, and other relatives. A little digging told me he was a Civil War veteran and fought with Company H, 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters, which was eventually transferred to the 4th Vermont Volunteer Infantry Regiment in early 1865. Volunteers for the Sharpshooters had to pass rigorous shooting accuracy tests, so undoubtedly Berry was a very good shot, perhaps developing his skills hunting here in The Valley. The Sharpshooters had a distinctive green uniform, used a unique breech-loading Sharps carbine rifle, rather than the more common muzzle-loading Springfield musket, and they were often deployed as skirmishers or on other reconnaissance duties. A fairly elite unit. They saw action in many Civil War engagements including the Second Battle of Bull Run, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. For anyone looking for more information on Vermont and the Civil War, Howard Coffin is the authoritative source. There is a lot of detail out there about this storied unit and its controversial commander. Also, Waitsfield author Alice Evans has published a book detailing Waitsfield soldiers’ roles in the Civil War: Our Suffering Brave: Waitsfield Boys and Men in the Civil War.
On Berry’s return he purchased the property here along the East Warren Road and settled down to raise a family, perhaps seeking a more peaceful, quiet life. The cellar holes, the graves in Irasville, and the legacy of the Berry Flats are about the only things left to mark his journey through this life.
There are other cellar holes we’ve discovered over the years here. There is one up a path off of the Bowen Road, not too far from the town forest. It was intriguing because the path up to the holes, presumably one a house and the other a barn, was lined with regularly spaced, ancient Cottonwoods. Someone planted them long ago. A little research identified it as the old Lyman Nutting homestead. Lyman’s daughter apparently married into the family of Moses Stewart, who lived just down the hill at the site of the old Great Lakes Carbon house. For anyone interested, the go-to source on Valley history is Matt Bushnell Jones’ from 1782 to 1908. Someone needs to do a volume from 1908 to 2024.
Both of the cellar hole locations I’ve mentioned are in some jeopardy today. Bowen Road, which was barely a trail when we first arrived, is now a developed road. The properties have been built on and, while the holes still exist, the owners may or may not know or care about the legacy that’s on their land. They have every right to do what they want with their property and, perhaps, this is as intended. These vestiges of a time gone by will be erased with the passage of time, as is everything. As my old backpacking mentors used to say, “leave nothing but footprints.” It is worth taking a moment, however, to think about the vibrant and exciting lives of those who’ve come before us who made The Valley their home and who worked to make it what it is today. We need to honor their passing and live up to their expectations, all of them. Fui quod es, eris quod sum.
Mooney lives in Waitsfield
