Paul Peterson's Memories of Clesson Billado's Farm on Richards Road

[David Shea]

I was pleasantly surprised with this message today from Paul Peterson's Memories of the Billado Homestead on Richards Road off of Georgia Mountain Rd.  As I photographed the mix of buildings I was made curious by what they were once used for.  At the time I feared that the mystery might remain unsolved... until today.  Paul has generously allowed me to publish his warm memories of the time spent as a young man on the farm with his grandmother and grandfather.  I would like to thank Mike McNall for giving Paul my e mail address so that he could clear up this mystery.  If there are others who read this site and see pictures without the related stories, please contact Henry or if they are my photos contact me.  If you would like to see the photos of the farm discussed below go to the barn photos on the photo link of the vtgrandpa.

Here is Paul's story:

Okay to post.  Thanks for all.



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Paul;

Thanks so much for validating my work in photos.  I like you am saddened by the barns that are falling down across the state of vermont.  My goal in photographing them is to preserve them for the next generation.  I can feel your emotion about this property as I read your note.  I would like to post your thoughts on Henry's web site with your permission.  It will only be a matter of time and these buildings will be gone, but memories like yours and photos will preserve them for others.

Thanks again for your note.
David Shea
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 12:32 PM
Subject: Farm on Richards Rd.


Dear Mr. Shea -

I work in Tampa with Mike McNall, a long way from the pictures of Fairfax in space and in time.  The farm on Richards Rd. (that must be the name of the road that goes up alongside the barn to the top of the hill...it never had a name that I know of before) belonged to Clesson Billado.  My grandmother was Clesson's second wife.  She died in 1976 and Clesson in the early '80's, I believe.  This farm belonged to the parents of Clesson's first wife.  Her name was Mildred Elmer and her father was Herbert Elmer.  They are buried down in the Fairfax Plains cemetery.  There is a website on this cemetery with the background of some of the folks buried there.  I think Mr. Elmer was from England.  My grandmother married Clesson in 1953 or 1954.  She had a farm on Buck Hollow Rd. closer to St. Albans with her first husband earlier.  Clesson is over in Jeffersonville buried beside his parents and my grandmother is up in East Franklin buried in the family plot. 

There was another farm on the corner of what I guess they now call McNall Rd. (it was Georgia Hill Rd. before) and this new Richards Road.  That is where the Rowhans' (spelling?) house is.  I am not sure who lives up there now.  I haven't been back much since the 1970's.  Clesson and his first wife lived there and then moved into the brick house when her parents died, as I understand it.  And then the house and farm buildings on this corner farm declined.  Clesson sold that parcel to Raymond McNall. Raymond razed the buildings.   One of the fields there goes way back.  I think it's like 1/2 mile long.  It was a real hayfield!

Anyway, on the buildings in the pictures, Mike said that you were interested in them and how they were used.  The brick house was completely refurbished recently, I understand.  Right down to the brick walls.  There was a two-storey ell in the back that had a summer kitchen on the first floor and two bedrooms up.  And then a breezeway in back of that between the house and a two-storey woodshed.  All of that is now gone as well as a newer garage that was in back of that.  At least I don't see that new garage now.  Apparently there is a new, smaller ell attached to the brick house that I can see in the picture.

 

Looking at the shot that shows the house, the low building on the right was a garage.  This is the building with the roof fallen in.  Clesson and his brother, Clement, built this.  The big barn was built in 1925, Clesson told me.  He participated in that as well.  The little attached building in front of that was the original milkhouse with a water pit into which water from a spring on the hill flowed by gravity to keep the milkcans cool.  Looking at the shot from the rear, the smaller section to the right of the big barn was the "new barn."  It was built by Clesson and my greatuncle, my grandmother's brother, Percy Dudley of Bakersfield, in the 1960's.  Clesson was born in 1903, but he was still trying to stay in business with his herd of maybe 30 to 40 head of Jersey and Guernsey cows in the 1960's.  Rich milk but not much of it.  So when the new rule of 'no more milkcans' came in, he went ahead and built a new milkhouse with a bulktank which looking at the back-view picture is the structure on the right most side (building has some red on it).  Clesson built all this himself.  I helped him salvage wood to make these structures (we took the McNalls' old milkhouse and saved all the wood...straightened nails, etc.!)  He was very old-school and very thrifty.  (Once I was helping him mend the fence along the road down near McNalls'.  A car -- out of state plates -- stopped to ask directions.  I don't know if Georgia Hill Rd. goes through now but it didn't then.  A man said, 'Always something to do.'  Clesson might have said 'yep.'  Nothing more.  The man asked if this was the Georgia Hill Rd.  Clesson nodded.  Only one word in the whole conversation.  He was very typical.  He even made some of his own clothes.  When he came to visit us in Masschusetts, he hand-cut us a cord of wood.  My grandmother said that all he knew how to do was work.  Of course, as a farmwife, she knew quite a bit about that, too.  I am talking more about Clesson because I spent my time with him.  What he did was very interesting!)

The smaller barn in front of the big barn (now looking at the picture showing the house) is the horse barn.  That is the oldest barn.  Clesson had a 1927 Dodge in there.  And the upper opening on the left contained an old sleigh.  There were doors on these openings then.  Clesson never threw anything out.  There was henhouse attached to the back of this barn.  I can't see it in the picture. 

The shed in back of the big barn / "new barn" which is now falling down was just for storage.  Clesson had lumber in there.  There were still other little buildings I don't see.  There was an outhouse behind the garage that appears to be gone.  And a little shed for sapbuckets.  Clesson liked to build little buildings. 

Well, this brings back so many memories.  Everything must change, but when I think of all the work Clesson and my grandmother did on this place and how much it meant to us, now that it is a ghost of its former self I feel kind of empty....a little like these old buildings myself.  But, still, it is nice to call back all those wonderful times in my mind's eye.  If you are the person who took the pictures, thank you for that. 

Paul Peterson[/b]

[Henry]

The story Paul tells about straightening nails reminds me of my Dad.  I'm not sure if my sister still has it or not, but for many, many years I remember Dad used to throw all the nails he found in an old rusty milk can and whenever he needed a nail, would paw threw the old nails until he found one approximately the right size he wanted, take his hammer and pound it out straight on an old iron anvil.  I don't ever remember seeing any new nails around, just the old rusty bent ones.  He even had some of the old time square nails in there.

I have a metal box with compartments in it down cellar where I used to save screws.  They are still there, but I find it much easier to drive down to J & L Hardware and pick up exactly what I want.  Oh yes!!!  I still have some nails left over from when they built my house, now let me see, that would be 1968.  Most of them are those galvanized roofing nails.  Would of had Brad Meunier use them when he put the roof on my addition and built the new garage, but he used some kind of new fangled power nailer.

Anyhow Paul, we old Vermonters still save perfectly good trash.  Have a great day and I truly enjoyed reading about Clesson.

[Henry]

Hi All,

Happened to think when I made my reply to the other post that back about 40 years ago I wanted to buy some Maple Syrup and someone told me Clesson Billado had some to sell.  Well, to verify his grandson Paul Peterson's thoughts on his grandfather, Clesson did not go in for the fancy lithographed cans most maple syrup producers use.  You had to bring your own container.  I don't remember what I brought for a container, but it almost seems to me that the barrel (s) of syrup were on a porch or something similar and he drew the syrup from the 55 gallon drum for me.  Cost I believe was $5 a gallon back then.  I then took the syrup home and Maryann put it in smaller containers, then stored it in our big 21 Cubic Foot Freezer.

In one of Paul's communications there was mention of a Eugene Bergeron living on the Buck Hollow Road.  I would be interested in knowing also which farm that might have been.

[David Shea]

Henry:
I posed the same question about Paul's family farm on Buckhollow.  In a later e mail he sent me this description on where to find it.  I am not quite sure what house he is describing, if anyone knows please help us out so pictures can be taken.

And the ones that you might take of the Buckhollow property.
 
Yes, the farm on Buckhollow Rd. is still there...after a fashion.  I have not been there for many years and I can hardly remember it.  My grandmother, Cora, who was Clesson's second wife, lived on the Buckhollow property with her husband, Eugene Bergeron.  The house they lived in burned a year or two after she sold the farm to her son and so did the barn either before or after.  My uncle, Ronald Bergeron, lived there for a time until he moved to a farm down in Swanton that had all level land.  (Swanton was a good farm but nowhere near as pretty as Fairfax.)  Anyway, Ronald built a small house on the Buckhollow farm that had two front doors very close to each other.  I expect it's still there.  It might be on the left side of the road as you go up Buckhollow Rd. from the main road (104?) down to St. Albans.  But I could be wrong on that.  I have heard of the Barkyoumbs whose name I saw on one of your pictures.  So it is probably near that.  I think the house is on one side and the barn on the other.  But neither of these buildings would have been the ones of my grandparents' day.  I don't remember too much of this place...only the house with the two doors, and that it was pretty.
 
My grandparents, Eugene and Cora, had lived previously in the Berkshire area.  Sampsonville, etc.  (That is why she is in E. Franklin now.)  My grandfather was a very good farmer and the banks had him run farms they foreclosed on in the depression.  So they moved every few years.  Then around 1942 I am guessing, a 400-acre farm with a good house (I have seen pictures and it was a nice one), a barn, cattle, and whatever implements farms of that day had (he never had a tractor...died in 1950), became available for the price of $5500!.  They bought it and were very happy there until he got cancer and died.  So this farm never figured very large in my childhood experiences - the family left it in the early '60's as I remember it.  Clesson's farm is the one where I spent the time. My grandmother had married Clesson a year or two before I was born in 1955.  I showed Mike a picture of me standing in a crib in the kitchen there.  In the background was an RL Vallee (heating oil, I think) calendar with December 1955 showing. 
 
Thank you.  Paul