Another cold night. We've had lots of sunshine today, but it's been cold and started off very windy. We've been busy inside all day, so the temperature really didn't matter. We have only a sifting of new snow, so Fred didn't need to do the driveways, and the good news is there's no large snow amounts due for at least a few days. Tonight, our cat, Woody, carefully settled himself in front of the fire between two chunks of wood. He's aptly named, I guess. He often uses the pieces of wood as a pillow, but tonight they were placed just right for him to make a comfortable, warm bed. Now he's beside me on a little desk where we keep his rug. He spends a lot of time helping me when I'm working on the computer.

Bonnie Dannenberg wrote an article for the latest Cabot Chronicle in which she quoted the Rev. Fred Blodgett's description of the old snow rollers used years ago to keep the roads in winter. He also wrote that roads were kept by neighborhoods, generally designated by school districts.

The article reminded me that at one time there were 14 school districts in Cabot. Each neighborhood - wherever there was a concentration of homes - would have a school. Often it was in someone's home and the teacher might be anyone who had a bit of education. Schools were kept only a few weeks, depending on the weather, whether the children were needed to help work the farms, and the availability of a teacher.

For many years the roads were kept by groups of neighbors, sharing the work as best they could. People could provide man hours or materials in lieu of paying taxes to the town. The tools were whatever the farmers had available - shovels, rakes, hoes, horse-drawn plows to make ditches and water bars, harrows and wooden drags to smooth the road. The system worked well and each district took pride in their roads. Later, when the town decided to have a road crew and one man to oversee the work, there were complaints that only roads in and near the village were properly cared for and the outlying area roads were the last to get attention.

During the winter, roads were rolled. There were large double rollers pulled by four or six horses. The drivers sat high on the rollers, unprotected from the weather. They must have been grateful when someone invited them inside to warm up. When the roads became too drifted for the horses to go through, the men would shovel or sometimes make another road through a field or the woods where it was sheltered from the wind and the snow wouldn't be as deep or drifted.

There were "winter" roads and "summer" roads. The road that is now Rt. 2 between West Danville and Marshfield was rerouted in the winter, and people traveled on Molly's Pond until spring thaws made it too dangerous to be on the ice. I imagine people took shortcuts across Joe's Pond, too, when traveling from Cabot Plain or Walden area to West Danville during the winter. The stage from Cabot (see picture at right) ran regularly to Marshfield. Slow, cold way to travel.

Later, when the Town of Cabot got their first tractor plow, it was still not an easy task to keep the roads open in the winter. The picture on the right below was taken coming up Rt. 215 from Cabot towards Walden. The drifts were often very deep and hard and the plow would first make a narrow cut and then let the big wings out to roll the snow back to widen the road so vehicles could pass, at least in some spots. It wasn't unusual that a driver would have to back up to a wide spot in the road in order to let an approaching vehicle pass. There wasn't a lot of traffic, fortunately, and nobody went anywhere without their tire chains and a shovel. Horses managed those roads much better than cars or trucks.

It sure looks as if back when these pictures were taken there was a lot more snow to deal with, but perhaps it was just that the equipment wasn't as efficient and people didn't know how to build roads or take care of the snow as they do today. Or a combination. I know that when I was a kid and lived on Cabot Plain, it wasn't uncommon to be snowbound for several days until they could clear the roads. Even when I first went to work in St. Johnsbury in the early 1950's, there were times when I'd come home on a weekend and not be able to get out to go back to work on Monday. It was sometimes hard to convince my boss in St. Johnsbury, where there was no weather, that there was a blizzard going on just a few miles away on Cabot Plain. I think he always suspected I planned my visits back home to take advantage of those storms . . .