[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 48 (Monday, April 27, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S3661]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE VERMONT ELECTRICAL COOPERATIVE

 Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to take this time to 
commemorate the 60th birthday of the Vermont Electric Cooperative. 
Beginning on that April day in 1939 when the co-op first brought 
electricity to a family farm in Eden, they have provided an 
indispensable service to generations of Vermonters who were missing out 
on the conveniences of electricity.
  Mr. President, I ask that a short retrospective about the co-op which 
recently appeared in their newsletter be printed in the Record.
  The material follows:

                Happy Birthday Co-op!!--a Retrospective

       Studying by lantern light, milking cows by hand, cutting 
     blocks of river ice for refrigeration--life in Colonial 
     America, perhaps?
       In rural Vermont, this way of life was not so long ago and 
     there are plenty of Co-op members who remember all too well 
     those days before Vermont's Governor George Aiken pioneered 
     the federal legislation that spawned the birth of Vermont 
     Electric Cooperative.
       This year, the Co-op celebrates the sixtieth anniversary of 
     its creation which brought to rural residents of Vermont the 
     conveniences of electricity which many Americans had been 
     enjoying for years.
       More than anyone, Vermont's farmers looked forward to the 
     day when the power poles would march down the road to their 
     own barns and houses. Harold Putnam, of Cambridge, was one of 
     them.
       ``Some of our neighbors closer to town were already on CVPS 
     and we were very anxious to get electricity to the barn and 
     the house. The gas lanterns we were using in the barn were 
     kind of dangerous, the gas-powered milking system didn't 
     always work and it was hard to keep things clean without a 
     constant supply of hot water.''
       The Putnam farmhouse had running water from a spring by the 
     kitchen door to keep food cool. Harold's mother, Maybelle, 
     was especially looking forward to the day when the barn would 
     have its own hot water tank and the endless parade of milking 
     equipment through the kitchen to her sink would finally end, 
     recalled Harold's wife, Lois.
       The Putnams relied on a gravity-fed system to bring cold 
     spring water into a tank in the barn which held milk cans. 
     Until the late 1930's, the Putnams, like many farmers in 
     Vermont, sold their cream to a local creamery. The Putnams 
     worked with the Cloverdale Creamery in Westford on Route 15, 
     where the Burlington and Lamoille Railroad had been stopping 
     since 1887. The cream was then shipped to Hartford, 
     Connecticut. The skimmed milk was fed to pigs and the family 
     sold pork. Just before the advent of VEC, the Putnams began 
     shipping fluid milk, which required not just the cool spring 
     water, but also a steady supply of ice.
       ``We bought our ice from a neighbor who cut ice under the 
     Cambridge covered bridge (the long bridge now at the 
     Shelburne, Museum) or at Halfmoon Pond in Fletcher,'' Mr. 
     Putnam explained.
       For the Putnams, switching to electricity was a fairly 
     simple matter: their barn was already equipped with a milk 
     pump that had been powered by the unreliable gas-powered 
     system. They wired just half the house at first to save 
     money.
       Mr. Putnam took on the task of helping to secure easements 
     for the new Co-op line from the CVPS substation, then at the 
     junction of routes 15 and 104 in Cambridge, out to Poker Hill 
     Road in Underhill.
       Twenty-five miles away from Cambridge, Evelyn and Ernest 
     Earle were milking 20 cows by hand in Eden where the entire 
     town was without electricity.
       The Earles moved to their current home, just off route 118 
     between Eden and Belvidere, a year or so after they were 
     married in 1940. It had been the first house in Eden on the 
     Co-op's very first power line, and Mr. Earle was part of the 
     crew that dug the holes for the poles to carry that first 
     line in 1939.
       The line that supplied power to what is now the Earle's 
     home originated at the first substation built specifically to 
     serve the Co-op. The house still has the wall brackets which 
     held the gas lamps. Most houses had a large table lamp as 
     well with several mantles that maximized the output of the 
     lamp, easily brightening up an entire room, Mrs. Earle said.
       Richard Parker and his brother Henry, who grew up in 
     Lowell, wired many of the buildings served by the Co-op, 
     including those owned by both the Putnams and the Earles, and 
     were later long-time Co-op employees.
       Richard Parker, then 21, remembers the day Governor Aiken 
     came to Eden and turned on the lights for the first VEC line. 
     The inaugural line ran from the new Eden substation through 
     the villages of Eden and Eden Mills, where the first Co-op 
     office was located, to Lowell.
       ``It was quite a gathering--40 or 50 people. The Co-op had 
     tested the lines before-hand to make sure the lights were all 
     working. Governor Aiken threw the switch and the Co-op was in 
     business.''
       It was a warm, sunny day in April 1939. It had taken less 
     than a year from the creation of the Co-op to the 
     construction of the first substation and transmission 
     line.

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