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About Rivendell Trails History

The Cross-Rivendell Trail is a hiking trail that ties together the four towns of the Rivendell Interstate School District (Fairlee, Vershire and West Fairlee VT, and Orford, NH). This website uses the Orford portion of the trail and historical research  to link together student learning with the community.

The website was researched and written by Bridget Fariel, a history teacher at Rivendell Academy in Orford, NH. Several community members and historians helped with the work with mapping support from Ned Swanberg.  

Local primary sources, especially town records, the historic census and photographs, form the core of the research. Thanks to the Past by Alice Hodgson was essential in finding these original sources. The photographs are from the collections of the Orford Social Library, and from donations by local community members.  Carl Schmidt, President of Orford Historical Society also provided material and insight.

Published sources include:

Town of Orford, Centennial celebration of the town of Orford, N.H., containing the oration, poems and speeches, delivered on Thursday, September 7, 1865, with some additional matters relating to the history of the place. Manchester, N.H., H.A. Gage, printer, 1865.

Silver, Lewis Mann, Orford, New Hampshire: historical—reminiscent.

Titcomb, A. The Old houses of Orford Ridge, at Orford, New Hampshire, 1936-41.

Child, H., Gazetteer of Grafton County, N.H., 1709-1886, Syracuse, N.Y., June 1886

Copier, E. “Orford High School 100th Anniversary, Hanover Gazette

Dwight, T., Travels in New England and New York., New Haven, S, Converse Printer, 1821 on Sunday Mtn.

Online sources include:

http://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ml86.html
http://www.crjc.org/heritage/N13-6.htm for architectural information about the Ridge history http://architecture.about.com/od/periodsstyles/ig/House-Styles/Federal.htm for information on the Federalist style
http://www.whiteoak.org/learning/furhat.htm and http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/527592 for the history of beaver hats http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/britton.html for Britton
http://www.crjc.org/heritage/N13-5.htm for the history of the bridge
http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~kristin/fambly/Cushman/RobertCushman.html for Robert Cushman history

Funding:

Through funding from the federal Teaching American History program, we are linking local and regional history to the national experience.

The contents of this web site were developed under a grant from the Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

Flow of History
c/o Southeast Vermont Community Learning Collaborative
P.O. Box 300
Brattleboro, VT 05302
1.866.889.0042
flow@learningcollaborative.org

Site Design:

Broadwing Design