I chose to research the human history of my new phenology spot because I had already started to do so in the previous post and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to find any information about my original phenology spot.
Gillett Pond sits in the southeast corner of Richmond and I found its history very interesting as I was researching. The pond originally gets its name from the Gillett family. Asa Gillett moved from Massachusetts to Huntington around 1790 and settled in the southern end of the valley. This would mean that he settled in the area near the town line, probably outside of the scope of this picture. In 1812, he bought a substantial amount of land in Richmond that extended from the north end of the valley. Asa’s land was later sold to his son, Asa Jr. who built his house on what is now Wes White Hill Road, the road that runs through the center of this picture.
The pond dates back to a man-made dam at the outlet which caused this valley to flood. Dams were vital to the economy of Richmond since a majority of their jobs were in mills along the river. By 1820, there were several mills that ground grain, sawed logs, or mounded woolen cloth along the Winooski and Huntington Rivers. As you would suspect, the Pond was formed in the mid-1800s to power a local mill, likely the mill that the sawmill that was built not long after. The exact date or year that the pond was formed is unknown, however, an 1857 map shows a body of water labeled “Gillett’s Pond,” so we can assume that it was flooded before then. In 1869, a sawmill was build just below the pond’s outlet and used this water as an energy source.
The current dam was built in 1902 to stabilize the flow to a small hydroelectric station further down the river at the Huntington Gorge in Richmond. Both the dam and the station were built at this time and this plant provided Richmond its first-ever source of electricity. Later in the 1900s the large woodwork/grist mill/cider mill that had recently closed, became the home of the new Richmond Light and Power Company. The RLPC quickly got investors and two years later started to acquire the land and water rights around Gillett Pond. For the mill, the Pond served as a backup water source for whenever the water level was low in the Huntington River. In order to better streamline their process, the RLPC added a cap with a gate in the outlet of the dam, which significantly increased the water level in the pond. Because electricity was new at the time and especially new to the area, the RLPC investors had no experience in this field, and neither did two of the five workmen that they hired.
Finally, in 1903, RLPC was able to supply power to light Richmond Village at a rate of 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. For comparison, I’ve adjusted this price for inflation to 2020 dollars, which is makes out to be about $2.96. The average cost of residential electricity in the United States is 13.31 cents per kilowatt-hour. That means that electricity in 1903 was 22.25 times more expensive then than it is now. I mean it makes sense, but it’s crazy to me to think how expensive it was versus how cheap it is now.
RLPC was only able to afford one worker at a time to manage the power station, which made running things in times of low water quite difficult. Whenever there was low water on the Huntington River, the only worker would have to trek the 350 ft. vertical hike between the power station and the dam, estimate how much to open the gate, and then rush back down before the water reached the plant. If the worker estimated wrong, they made the trek over and over again until it was right.
The generation of electricity didn’t last long in Richmond. The plant was shut down in 1910, only seven years after it had opened. The dam at the pond was abandoned after the plant closed and the Pond returned to its natural marshy wetland. The resident beavers would sometimes plug the holes in the dam with sticks and branches which caused the water level in the pond to rise, although temporary.
In 1955, the Pond was bought by the Mount Mansfield Girl Scout Council, which is now the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains, which serve both New Hampshire and Vermont. The pond was a popular site for the Girl Scouts to camp, swim, and study nature, which continued until the camp across the road was no longer visited as frequently as in the past. Also as mentioned in a previous post, you can no longer swim in Gillett Pond because of the leeches that live in the Pond.
After a massive flood in July 2013 that wiped out much of the remaining dam, state safety inspectors recommended the removal or replacement of the dam. Residents and the community were devastated to hear this and knew that removal was not an option. In just two short months, they raised the money to buy the land surrounding the pond and began the process of restoring and maintaining the Pond. Over the past 30 years, more than 130 different species of birds have been identified at the Pond, making it one of the most diverse bird-viewing spots in the state. There are many other animals that can be seen in the areas around Gillett Pond, including moose, bear, bobcat, otter, mink, fisher, raccoon, beaver, fox, ducks, geese, songbirds, raptors, frogs, turtles, and salamanders.
