[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 13214-13215]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             VERMONT PRIDE RETURNS AN ICONIC BUILDING HOME

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Vermonters have long believed that the 
preservation of our history, from buildings to manuscripts to 
celebratory traditions, inform the present and future as much as they 
honor the past. Last month, the people of Orleans County, in Vermont's 
rural Northeast Kingdom, came together to restore an historic school 
house to its original location. What makes this story all the more 
remarkable is that the physical journey to return the schoolhouse was 
undertaken by a team of 40 oxen assembled by residents and chapters of 
the 4-H.
  It was Alexander Twilight's vision, as headmaster of the school, to 
have a central school in every Vermont county that would bring together 
and educate Vermont's students from neighboring towns.
  Born and raised in Corinth, VT, Alexander Twilight studied at 
Middlebury College and became the first African American known to have 
graduated from a U.S college or university. An active community member, 
Twilight was not only an educator, but also served as a local minister 
and politician.
  In Vermont, we take great pride in being a forward-thinking State. 
This progressive nature dates back to the mid-1800s, pre-American Civil 
War, when the town of Brownington in Orleans County was an intellectual 
hub in New England. Twilight, and his beloved Orleans County Grammar 
School, have become a symbol of these times.
  The recent move of the schoolhouse by the pulling of a team of oxen, 
coaxed on by area children as they walked beside the team, would surely 
have delighted Mr. Twilight. I ask unanimous consent that an August 2, 
2016, article from The Burlington Free Press, ``1823 school to move by 
oxen to original site,'' be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                    [From the Burlington Free Press,
                             Aug. 2, 2016]

              1823 School To Move by Oxen to Original Site

                           (By Sally Pollak)

       An 1823 schoolhouse will be returned to its original site 
     Monday when 40 oxen pull the Orleans County Grammar School 
     one-third of a mile down Hinman Settler Road in Brownington. 
     The journey by oxen will take the school from Brownington 
     village to a neighborhood of historic and educational 
     significance.
       The school will return to its place near the Old Stone 
     House Museum, a four-story building that was constructed in 
     1836 to be the school dormitory. The granite dormitory, 
     called Athenian Hall, was built by Alexander Twilight, who 
     served as the school's headmaster from 1829 until a stroke in 
     1855. Twilight died two years later.
       Twilight, who was black, grew up in Corinth and graduated 
     from Middlebury College in 1823. He was the first African 
     American person to graduate from a college or university in 
     this country, according to Middlebury and other sources.
       ``Alexander Twilight actually imagined that this was going 
     to become a big center of learning,'' said Peggy Day Gibson, 
     director of the Old Stone House Museum. ``When he built the 
     Old Stone House as a dorm in 1836, I think he envisioned that 
     this was the first big building. He felt that a central 
     school, a really good institution in every county, was the 
     way to go.''
       The school fell into disuse after the Civil War, the 
     school's account book indicates. It appears the school did 
     not operate from 1865 until 1870, Gibson said. By then, it 
     had moved from its location at Prospect Hill into the village 
     center, Gibson said.

[[Page 13215]]

       ``It was more convenient'' to have the school in the 
     village, Gibson said. The relocation was in keeping with a 
     trend to de-centralize education, a movement that was opposed 
     by Twilight when he served in the Vermont Statehouse, 
     according to Gibson.
       Twilight's election to the Vermont Legislature in 1836, 
     representing Brownington, made him the nation's first black 
     elected official.
       ``Alexander Twilight thought education is better served if 
     you have a very high quality central school,'' she said.
       But local towns, including Barton, Craftsbury, Derby and 
     Glover, began to establish their own schools. ``One by one 
     these towns got their own schools,'' Gibson said. ``They took 
     back their kids and their tax money.''


                  Students from Brownington and beyond

       In Twilight's life, Orleans County Grammar School educated 
     students from Brownington, surrounding farm towns, and 
     Quebec. The dormitory housed 50 students, boys and girls. 
     Twilight and his wife, Mercy Twilight, housed 11 female 
     students on the top floor of their house across the way.
       Students moved to the grammar school after attending one 
     room schoolhouses in their villages through eighth grade. 
     Under Twilight's direction, Orleans County Grammar School 
     taught students from grades nine through the first two years 
     of college. The school offered classes in Greek, Latin, 
     trigonometry, physics, chemistry and other subjects, Gibson 
     said.
       As its curriculum expanded, Twilight saw the need for a 
     dormitory--a building that bears a striking resemblance to 
     Painter Hall at Twilight's alma mater. The building, which 
     opened as a museum in 1925, has Twilight's signature on the 
     back of a fourth-floor door.
       Twilight was a teaching principal who also served as 
     minister of the Brownington Congregational Church. Services 
     were held on the second floor of the school before a church 
     was built in 1841. The church and the school (in its original 
     site) were on either side of the town green.
       Moving the school back to this place will enable the 
     historical society to tell the story of a region more fully 
     and accurately, Gibson said.
       ``There has always been this desire of the Orleans County 
     Historical Society--which owns and manages the museum--to try 
     to get the neighborhood back to its (original) 
     configuration,'' Gibson said. ``To tell the story, the 
     history, it will be great to have the school back here.''
       The enclave of historic buildings in Brownington includes 
     the former home of Samuel Read Hall, a colleague of 
     Twilight's at Orleans County Grammar School. Hall taught at 
     the school and was, according to Gibson, the country's first 
     teacher-educator.
       Hall founded the first teacher training school, which was 
     in Concord. He was the author of the first training manual 
     for teachers published in this country, ``Lectures on School 
     Keeping,'' Gibson said. Hall succeeded Twilight as 
     headmaster.
       (The museum purchased Hall's house in 2005, and restored it 
     in 2008. It is used for a variety of events, including on 
     Monday a barbecue for the oxen teamsters.)
       ``This was a really happening, intellectual vibrant 
     neighborhood, all built during the 1820s and 1830s,'' Gibson 
     said. ``It was a center of progressive education in New 
     England. This was the main road, the stage route, between 
     Boston and Montreal, and this is what was happening.''


                Town gives school to historical society

       Last year at Town Meeting, the people of Brownington voted 
     to give the grammar school to the Orleans County Historical 
     Society, according to Gibson and the town clerk.
       Terms of the gift include the building's continued function 
     as a community gathering place. The Brownington Grange, for 
     example, has met on the second floor of the building since 
     1874, and will continue to do so at the new site, Gibson 
     said.
       With the addition of the school, Orleans County Society 
     Historical Society now owns seven historical buildings in 
     Prospect Hill, built from 1823 to 1841. The Brownington 
     neighborhood is on the National Register of Historic Places, 
     Gibson said.
       The 40 animals that will move the school Monday come from 
     4-H groups in Randolph and North Haverhill, New Hampshire, 
     and from local residents, Gibson said.
       Messier House Moving from East Montpelier will move the 
     building onto the road. The oxen will get hitched to the old 
     school, and start walking.
       ``If the oxen can pull it up the road, it will be smooth as 
     silk,'' she said. ``This is performance art.''

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