Editor’s note: This commentary is by Bob Wilson, a freelance writer from Saxtons River who has written 14 books, including the second edition of “Vermont Curiosities,” scheduled for publication this spring. He has also written for The NewYorkTimesMagazine.com,
and Tennis and New York magazines.
[M]ark Bushnell’s “Bizarre Tale of Hibernation Is a Mystery” was a story I read in the Feb. 5 edition of VTDigger. Something about Bushnell’s article sounded vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t until the last page, when he mentioned Allen Morse as the creator of the hibernation story, that I made the connection. The entry about the Morse Farm in the first edition of my book, Vermont Curiosities, went like this:
We’d heard about Burr Morse — his farm, his eight-generation sugaring operation, his farm store, his wit and wisdom. But when I told Burr about “Vermont Curiosities” and that I wanted to hear a couple of the stories that had made him famous, he backed off a bit.
“I’ve got a monthly column to write,” he said. “My second book will be coming out soon.” I got the feeling Burr wanted to save this material for his own projects and was leery of diluting his brand. He suggested I talk to his brother Elliott — “just as good a storyteller,” he said — who would be available on the day photographer Victoria Blewer and I were to drop by. Not having heard Burr in action I can’t accurately compare the two raconteurs. We did enjoy that hour we spent with Elliott, though.
We were greeted in the cross-country ski warming room, cross-country ski trails being another Morse enterprise. It was July and we were in no need of warming, but we sat down to a great view of the mountains and meadows to the south. Elliott began with a historical introduction to his family, who got their start in Calais, a few miles north.
At this point I interjected a “pronunciation time-out” for non-Vermont readers, which went like so:
Calais is pronounced CAL-us … Get over it. Elsewhere in the state, Berlin is pronounced BUR-lin; Barre, BEAR-ee; Leicester, LES-ter; Montpelier, mont-PILL-yer; and Charlotte, shar-LOT. … I said get over it. (End interjection.)
Anyway, Elliott’s great-great-great-great-grandfather framed Calais’ Old West Church in 1823. “It’s exactly as it was then,” said Elliott. It’s never had electricity, never had water or bathrooms. And we hope that never will change.” He plunged directly into his Old West Church story.
Elliott had indeed read the VTDigger story, so I asked him first about three of the family members mentioned in it: Allen, Benjamin and Robert.
In 1843, there was this group across the country called Millerites, led by William Miller, who came from the New York shore of Lake Champlain. Disciples of Miller, a former U.S. Army captain and unordained minister, claimed to have discovered when Jesus Christ would return to earth, as stated in the Bible. “His mathematics told him the world would cease to exist on New Year’s Eve, 1843,” continued Elliott. “Millerites were quite widespread across the country, and there was a large group in Calais.
“So that summer, of course, they didn’t put up any hay or food for the winter, because they thought they wouldn’t need anything. In fact, a few gave away their farms, including their horses and cows. And on New Year’s Eve, in 1843, they went to the Old West Church dressed in their white Ascension robes. They put a grandfather’s clock in front of the altar, and they waited. It was so crowded that some couldn’t get in and just looked through the windows. They thought at the stroke of midnight it would all be over. … But it wasn’t.
“So they waited a few minutes, and then quite dejectedly walked away — because of course they had no horses. And then the Reverend said, ‘Well, I guess I made a small mistake.’ So he set a date for the following year, and when the same thing happened, that was the end of it. Now, some of these people moved in with relatives. Others found shacks to live in, and that’s where they ended their days.
“’Well, they didn’t string up Reverend Miller. But that religion disappeared, only to evolve into today’s Seventh Day Adventists.”
Elliott moves right along. “Then there’s the story of the human hibernation. It was a way people in my great-great-grandfather’s day discovered to freeze older people for the winter — because there wasn’t enough food for them — and then thaw them in April so they could help with the planting, as well as the fall harvest.’”
(But then, as I wrote:) Sorry, out of space. For the rest of that story, you’re going to have to wait for the next edition, or hear it from Elliott.
So not having heard Elliott’s version, I thought it only fair to let him weigh in from the Morse family perspective. I caught up with him in Sharon the following Friday morning, where he was helping with a Boy Scout fundraising drive. Elliott had indeed read the VTDigger story, so I asked him first about three of the family members mentioned in it: Allen, Benjamin and Robert.
Elliott agrees that Allen was one of the first — perhaps the first — to tell the human hibernation story. He also says that Benjamin’s witnessing the blue flame rising from a grave was a likely happening — with, as was mentioned, the decomposition of the bodies and the resulting gas escaping into the atmosphere — with lightning one of several possible trigger points to result in a flame. He likewise is in touch with second (“or maybe third”) cousin Robert in Colorado, who has confirmed his own recollection of the event.
As to the obvious question hanging at the end of the Bushnell narrative, Elliott is objective. “People are known to be frozen today for thawing later. But of course they’re already dead, and must be brought back to life years from now. That may work; we don’t yet know. The human hibernation story, though, is just that — a story. Storytelling is something the Morse family has done for the last three centuries or so, and hope to be doing for three or four more.”
And that’s the way this entry will read when it appears in the second edition of “Vermont Curiosities” this spring. The new book will be in full color with a new design, and will include a number of links to video footage at the end of many of the included essays, profiles and anecdotes. This will include the Morse Farm story, by the way, at the end of which will be a YouTube link to a scene of Otis the Goat, pulling his lunch — with his teeth, in a bucket attached to a pulley-and-rope contraption — up to his feeding platform 15 feet above the ground.
