Vermont Part 20

All the various industries have been given an impetus by the railroad system which now meshes the State, and knits it closer to the others of the Union.

With these changes in business and methods, and this constant intercourse with all inhabitants of the republic, the quaint individuality of the earlier people is fast dissolving into commonplace likeness, so that now the typical Green Mountain Boy of the olden time endures only like an ancient pine that, spared by some chance, rears its rugged crest above the second growth, still awaiting the tempest or the axe that shall lay it low; yet as the pine, changing its habit of growth with changed conditions, is still a pine, so the Vermonter of to-day, when brought to the test, proves to be of the same tough fibre as were his ancestors.

From the turbulent day of her birth through the period during which she maintained a separate and independent existence, and during the hundred years that she has borne her faithful part as a member of the great republic, the history of Vermont is one that her people may well be proud of. Such shall it continue to be, if her sons depart not from the wise and fatherly counsel of her first governor, "to be a faithful, industrious, and moral people," and in all their appointments "to have regard to none but those who maintain a good, moral character, men of integrity, and distinguished for wisdom and abilities." So may the commonwealth still rear worthy generations to uphold and increase her honorable fame, while her beautiful valleys continue, as in the long-past day of their discovery, "fertile in corn and an infinitude of other fruits."

FOOTNOTES:

[117] _Geology of Vermont._

[118] _Hearth and Home_, October, 1870.

[119] One of the first of these, named Stevens, was found in his cabin near the mouth of the stream which bears his name, dead on his piled treasure of rich peltry, with a kettle of unavailing medicinal herbs hanging over the ashes of his burned-out fire.