The History of Emerald Lake State Park

One of the unique features found in Emerald Lake State Park is its own cemetery. Located on the hill overlooking the contact station and parking lot, the North Dorset Cemetery holds a detailed chronology of the area. Although not found in history books, the cemetery has interesting tales to tell.

"All you that read with little care,
Who walk away and leave me here;
Should not forget that you must die,
And be entombed as well as I."
Epitaph, Dorset Cemetery, Hannal Collins, 1791

What follows is a glimpse of the long and fascinating history of the Dorset area. What cannot be gleaned from tombstones can be found from local residents and records.

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1769 Zarhariah Curtis, an Englishman, has settled on a large tract of land near Dorset Pond (Emerald Lake). He remains there the rest of his life, raising a family of twenty-five children (birth control was not an issue at that time). Zarhariah's grave is located in a small cemetery located three miles south of here along the roadside.

1776 On July Fourth, a gathering of over thirty town representatives met at Kent Tavern in Dorset. They resolved that their district was "free and separate", serving as the catalyst for Vermont becoming a free and independent State for the next fifteen years.

1785 Isaac Underhill has opened the country's first marble quarry near East Dorset. Thirty other quarrying operations follow, dominating the lives of Dorset citizens for the next century.

1791 The Green Mountain State of Vermont, through a petition of her people, is admitted to the Union as the fourteenth State in the United States of America.

1804 Freedley and Sons begin work in a quarry, south of the park, on the side of Dorset Mountain.

1835 The stagecoach is becoming a familiar sight on the county road as it transports passengers up the valley. (Emerald Lake State Park's trail system incorporates part of the route along the hillside above the camping area.)

1842 The town's Rev. Whitehorn passes away. (Look for that surname among these headstones.) The Imperial Quarry, north near Danby, begins operations. It is the only remaining marble quarry in town operating today.

1851 The "Iron Horse" rides into town on the rails of the Bennington and Rutland (B&R) Railroad. Providing a better means of transportation, the railroad opens new markets for marble and light industry in the area. The demand for large building blocks now out-paces headstones and other "small" marble products

1854 Charles Streeter, of North Dorset, loses both eyes from the premature discharge of a cannon at a Fourth of July celebration in town.

1855 With the new railroad access, Freedley Quarry swings into full operation, becoming one of the the area's largest and longest lived marble producers. Marble is brought down the mountainside on a gravity-fed railway running over one mile long. The stone is then finished at the mill and loaded onto the B&R Railroad for destinations as far away as New York or Philadelphia. (Where train tracks pass under the road two miles south of this park, the stone foundation of the finishing plant can be found in the woods.)

1861 People are now reading the weekly Manchester Journal, as they still do today. The news of 1861 is of the Civil War.

1863 The one room schoolhouse (north of the park on Route 7) becomes part of the district #12 school system, and "the education of the children is in good hands."

1865 Over one hundred and twenty men return to the Dorset area from the Civil War, including Charles Field, Sam Greer, Gil Hart (men wounded in the Battle of Fredricksburg), and Bill Newell (wounded at Petersburg).

1865 David Curtis is busy with his hotel in North Dorset. (Just north of the present motel.) Many of his customers come from the passenger trains stopping daily at the station across the road.

1865 It has been a bad year for the Streeter family. Otis StreeterÕs daughter Eveline, wife of David Gleason, died of consumption (TB), not uncommon in these years. Later in the fall, her brother Franklin is "killed on the cars at South Shaftsbury," in a railroad mishap.

1870 Iron ore deposits from Dorset Mountain provide materials for Florez Allen's iron foundry located next to the railroad station. His father, Welcome Allen, has retired from the business. Florez is also the acting railroad station agent. A small dammed pond provides power to Mr. Griffeth's saw mill, located across the creek from the foundry. The mill superintendent, H. Howard, also owns a small grocery and provisions store in town. (Some of the building foundations are still visable today.)

1875 After changing his marble mill to a saw mill over 20 years ago, Francis Maynard now has a large operation on Mill Brook. Powered by the dam located uphill, the sawmill primarily manufactures spruce and hemlock lumber, and operates a turning and finishing mill for bobbins. (Remains of the dam are still evident today, just north of the State Park.)

1880 Tim Daisy (75 acres), George Petty (80 acres), John Keating (40 acres), Austin Ladd (169 acres), and widow Luther (wife of Elias, 350 acres) are all farming in the North Dorset area.

1881 Orrin Whitney is representing the town in Montpelier, and is in partnership with Charles Luther in a monument and headstone manufacturing business. Back home, Merril Baker has a business making Vermont cheese. (Located near the present motel office.)

1882 John Curtis is the Postmaster for North Dorset while farming 100 acres.

1889 By now, most of the marble quarries are closed or closing (some holding on until 1917). Most marble now comes from north of here in the West Rutland/Proctor area due to the superior quality and easier accessibility as compared with local quarries. (The Vermont Marble Company is still a major industry of the area. Proctor, the "Marble Capital of the World," is the home of a comprehensive marble exhibit open to the public.)

1900 The Imperial Quarry in Danby is lowering its quarried marble blocks down the mountainside to the B&R tracks. (Today, trucks drive directly into the quarry and then transport the blocks north to be finished in Proctor.)

1918 Robert Alfred Shaw purchases a large piece of land along the lake shore and leases the water body (formerly called Dorset Pond, today's Emerald Lake) from the state for his private use.

1921 Within three years, Shaw has purchased several other land parcels in the area, accumulating over a thousand acres and incorporating them into "The North Dorset Farms" with Fred Harwood as supervisor.

1930's "The North Dorset Farms" (buildings of which remain today at the State park entrance) keep a fine herd of Guernsey dairy cattle, and ship their milk to southern markets by train. In the dead of winter it is not uncommon to see Fred Harwood and his farm crew cutting ice from Emerald Lake for summer storage. In early spring, Mr. Harwood can be found gathering and boiling maple sap from the farmÕs large sugar bush (maple tree grove) to make syrup and sugar. The "Montrealer" passenger train drops off guests to Shaw's beachhouse in the warm summer months. While away from his beloved estate, Shaw has a well iced container of fresh cream shipped weekly by train to his New York residence.

1940's Things are ever changing. Men are off fighting another war, World War II.

1950's The railroad no longer stops in town, although limited freight service passes through. The old station is moved closer to the highway to serve as a gas station. The plans of North Dorset Farms have come to an end with the untimely death of Robert Shaw, who wanted to create a publicly endowed recreation area on his land. In the final settlement with the estate of Shaw, the State of Vermont purchases close to 1,000 acres (500 now exist as a park, and the other 500 are across the main highway as Emerald Lake State Forest) for $62,000 in 1957. Development soon begins with the removal or renovation of many of the structures. The main house, moved to the lake from town by Shaw, becomes the Ranger's quarters. The three car garage becomes quarters for seasonal help, and the beachhouse is destroyed, leaving only the old Octagon House so familiar to many campers until it was torn down in 1969.

1959 Hartford Woolens (a Vermont Mill operation) converts the old one-room schoolhouse into a woolen mill outlet. The schoolhouse, serving the community for close to a century, had been abandoned in favor of the larger, more complex educational system.

1060 Emerald Lake State Park is opened to the public. Facilities include a beach, picnic area, and a 34 site camping area (Area 'A'). Bill Eagan is the first Ranger (Called "Caretaker" back then).

1961 A second area opens another 35 sites (Area 'B').

1962 Section 'C' is completed, with 19 sites, and area 'A' is expanded, bringing the campsite total to today's 105 sites.

Today, the saw mills and foundry are gone. The quarries remain only as water-filled pits like those beside the road in Dorset (Route 30), or as waste piles along the mountainside visible from the main highway (Route 7). The railroad station now sits idle, the schoolhouse is an antique shop, and the cheese plant, no longer in operation, has been incorporated into the motel complex. Several old homes are gone, having been burned, torn down, or even moved, such as the Dorset House now found at Shelburne Museum. A few families provide rooms for travelers, hunters and skiers. The motel operator provides rooms and housekeeping units. Local kids sell ice from their freezers, not ice cut from the lake, and dig worms and night crawlers to sell to campers and fishermen in the area. The State Park caters to over fifty thousand people each season, providing opportunities for camping, swimming, picnicking, boating, fishing and hiking.

North Dorset's industrial base is no longer marble quarrying, farming or lumbering, but tourism.

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Prepared by, Bruce Brown, Park Ranger (1973-1974),
with interviews with Mrs. Fred Harwood

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