become its chief source of supply. A vast amount of lumber reaches Lake Champlain from the Canadian waterways, and Burlington is one of the leading lumber markets of the country. In this part of the lake occurred some lively naval fighting in the War of 1812. Once during that war the The Winooski Valley with Camel's Hump in the distance islet Rock Dundee near Burlington was mistaken by the British for a United States vessel and was peppered with shot. The first steamer used on the lake was launched at Burlington in 1808, only a year after Fulton's successful experiment on the Hudson. This vessel as tonished the spectators by its wonderful performance as it churned its way through the waters at the rate of five miles an hour. The steamers now on the lake offer a most agreeable way of journeying up and down it and Bow Arrow Point between North Hero and South Hero islands getting acquainted with its scenic charms. It is noted both for its superb views and its rare historic associations, and has long been a favorite summer resort. One of the famous old-time dwellers in the vicinity of Lake Champlain was Horace Greeley, who later became a renowned figure in the literary and political world of his day. It was in 1821, when he was not quite ten years old, that his father moved from New Hampshire to West Haven near the southern tip of the lake. The home of the Greeleys was three miles from its borders, and the lake was not in sight, but they could see the morning mists that rose from its surface, and the hills that formed its opposite shore. They were poor, and a staple article of food with them was bean porridge. Horace had a passion for books, and in the evening he spent much of his time reading by the light of the pine-knots blazing on the hearth. Candles were a luxury too expensive to be indulged in. The neighbors attributed his continual reading to laziness, and prophesied that he would not prosper. But he was never idle, and he found various ways to earn money. He gathered nuts and sold them. He would hack away hours at a time at a pitch-pine stump, tie up the pieces in bundles, and carry them to the store, where they could be sold for kindling wood. He went bee-hunting and got honey to sell. In one way or another he always contrived to have a little money, and he spent most of it for books. When he was fifteen he went to East Poultney, about a dozen miles away, and became an apprentice of the publisher of a country newspaper and began to set type. He was an extremely gawky-looking youth, tall and slender, with very light tow hair. At first the other apprentices threw type at him, made saucy remarks to him, and on the third day took one of the large balls that were used to ink the type and made four dabs on his hair. But he went on with his work as if nothing had happened. After that the boys abandoned their pranks, and he and they soon became good friends. He worked at his type-setting barefooted, and with his shirtsleeves tucked up above his elbows. There was a lyceum in the place which had won such a fame as to often attract to its meetings people from a distance of ten miles. It assembled weekly at the little brick schoolhouse. The great feature of the evening was a debate on subjects like: "Is novelreading injurious to society? Is marriage conducive to happiness? Is the Union likely to be perpetuated? Was Napoleon Bonaparte a Horace Greeley, the journalist great man?" Horace was a leading member of the lyceum during the four years he lived in the town, and as a debater was unexcelled in the range and accuracy of his knowledge and in the clear and lively presentation of his arguments. Fairfield, a few miles east of Lake Champlain near St. Albans, was the birthplace of Chester A. Arthur. He graduated from college at the age of eighteen, and three years later, in 1851, became the principal of the academy at North Pownal in the southwestern corner of the state. It is an odd fact that James A. Garfield, whom Arthur succeeded as President of the United States, taught a writing school in the same building not long afterward. He had become a student at Williams College in the fall of 1854, and at the end of the first term earned money by teaching writing in the two months' winter vacation. |