This story by Aaron Calvin was first published by the Stowe Reporter on October 16.
In the 1820s, an early white settler in Vermont named Alexander Seaver constructed a small wooden dam on the Little River in the valley south of Stowe village, then known as Smith’s Falls.
He built a sawmill on the north side of the river and an iron forge to produce cast iron box stoves along with a home and barn. In 1836, new investors acquired the mill and the Seaver’s property. The new ownership included Lemuel and Abel Smith, two brothers who would go on, along with their family members, to propagate new industry in the expanding settlement over the next century or so, opening a grist mill, a starch factory that processed potatoes from the area’s farmers, a window sash, door and blind factory, a wood planing and dressing factory, a woodworking factory and a refitted butter box factory.
When Carrie R. Slayton, a descendent of the Smith family, died in 1971, her notes allowed a glimpse into the founding myth of how Smith’s Falls changed its name.
Her ancestor Lemuel Samuelson had set up a cracked saw blade that his wife would strike with a hammer when she needed to call in the men from their work, but the sound would carry across the valley and was soon employed in general announcement-making.
About a century prior on the other side of the world, Russian Empress Anna Ivanovna commissioned the construction of the Tsar Bell, a massive 20-foot, 222-ton bronze Orthodox bell made from the pieces of two formerly constructed ornaments. The bell, shortly after its completion in 1735, was broken during a fire at the Kremlin, and it fell down into the pit from which it was cast.
The Tsar Bell was so heavy that attempts to resurrect it from its casting pit were unsuccessful until 1836. Early residents of Smith’s Falls would have read contemporaneous news reports about the raising of the bell, and began calling their broken mill saw “The Bell of Moscow.”
When the first post office was opened in 1884 and they were required to name it, according to Slayton, an older resident named Gered Camp joked that “the bell fell and it’s just got to Moscow.” A vote was held on whether Smith’s Falls would take the name Moscow from another Vermont town then-named Moscow, and it was successful — the preceding Moscow changed its name to Calais.
A new historical society exhibit
In the 1970s, Tom Hamilton moved into the historic home where he and his wife still live in Moscow village. He helped lead the production of a new exhibit at the Stowe Historical Society, which, among other collected curiosities and tales from the village’s 200-plus years, tells the story of how Moscow got its name.
Hamilton, who came to Stowe from Long Island as a ski bum who stayed for the long haul, first got acquainted with the history of the village by inspecting the details of his own home.
“The mills came first, and then the people came, the workers came,” Hamilton said. “A lot of these houses were built out of lumber, including mine, from the wood that they couldn’t sell, so if you go to the attic, you won’t see timber that has four sides. You’ll see timber that has three sides and bark on one, so they would give it to the mill workers, and then they would build the houses.”
Much of the exhibit chronicles former landmarks that, unlike Hamilton’s historic home, no longer exist. The Smith’s Falls Covered Bridge, built in 1844, was removed a little over a century later.
When the early industry that defined the village began to fade and was replaced by hospitality, the stately Victorian manse called Pleasant View House was opened in 1876, and a Lake View Cottage on Lake Mansfield was available to lodgers looking for even more privacy. The House burned in 1950.
Though many of the historical structures in Moscow have been lost, some have been rebuilt or repurposed. When Stowe Selectboard member Ethan Carlson sought to rebuild the Moscow general store, he adhered closely to the design of the original building that was built in 1886 and demolished after its closure in 2016. That year, Stowe Electric also acquired the Moscow Mills land and built new offices.
The exhibit contains wooden toys and other artifacts produced at George F. Adams Woodworking Factory, which operated from 1914 to 2003. In 1931, Franklin D. Roosevelt, then governor of New York, called the factory “an excellent example of rural industrialism.”
Early ski hills, predating the rise of the commercial ski industry, a steam whistle from the Adams factory and a bootstrapping baseball team all help bring the past of Moscow back to life.
Though in recent years Moscow Road has become something of a shortcut for northbound visitors looking for the quickest way to Stowe Mountain Resort, the revival of Moscow commerce through businesses like the Sanfo Convenience Store and Carlson’s general store building have encouraged visitors to slow down a little, a historical evolution Hamilton has had a front row seat for.
“When (my wife) and I bought this house in the 1970s, this road was dirt, and we saw 50 cars a day,” he said. “Now, this being — we like to call it The Gateway to Stowe, because it is, there’s no question — now, during busy seasons, we see 5,000 cars a day.”
