Petersville School
District #15 - Petersville School
The reservoir in the Southeast corner of Cabot, known as the Marshfield Reservoir, covers what was once a small community called Petersville. "Marshfield Dam" and "Marshfield Reservoir" are misnomers. The dam is located in Cabot and all the waters of the reservoir, and all its shoreline, including 650 acres, are located in Cabot. Green Mountain Power, which owns these properties, is Cabot's second largest taxpayer . . .The power generating plant alone is located in Marshfield.
"The first clearing was begun here by Reuben ATKINS, in 1825, on the farm where his son Henry ATKINS now lives. There being a school-district formed here in 1858, Peter LYFORD, one of the selectmen, went over to organize the district, since which the locality has been called Petersville. It has 4 dwelling-houses, 1 school-house and a saw-mill. It lies on the Molly brook road, 2 miles from Marshfield village." (Hemenway)
"Fred LAMBERTON had a sawmill where the dam is now . . .SHATNEY lived towards the upper end. Wayne MORSE lived the last place up the hill . . .Andrew CORLISS had a place up there . . .My father [Oliver SICELY] bought two or three of the houses, tore 'em down and built houses with the lumber . . . " -- Roy SICELY
"I can remember the people that lived there. There was a big farm where the water is now. A big red barn and a Thomas O'BRIEN lived there . . .And there was a HARTSON that had a house . . ." -- Dwight CLARK
In 1925 the Town of Cabot, school district No. 15, sold 1/8 acre "with the buildings theron heretofore used as a School House" to the Molly's Falls Electric Light and Power Company. It took 17 land transactions "in order to permit such discontinued portion to be flowed by a reservoir to be created by a dam to be constructed by Green Mountain Power."
When the hydroelectric reservoir was built on Molly's Brook, the small community called Petersville virtually disappeared. The school was discontinued sometime around 1912.
"The only thing that might not be under water was the foundation to the school house -- which are just building blocks set up, you know. Then you don't any more than get up onto the road before you come to the road that went over to the GARNEY place . . . That went right down through there and of course that old road's all under water. Bridge and everything." -- Everett ENNIS
Gertrude CHANDLER taught there in 1904; later, Elsie WALBRIDGE taught at Petersville. When she taught there, the ENNIS children, Ruth MEARS, Phyllis MORSE, Carroll, Jerome, Stanley, George, and Elsie FOSTER, Julie and Henry BASHAW were her students.
Quotes - Source "Cabot, Vermont A Collection of Memories From The Century Past" A Publication of the Cabot Oral History Committee - 1999 Excerpts from pp - 157 & 161
Book available. $20.00. Order from President Bonnie Dannenberg of the Cabot Historical Society.
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