Visitors to the birthplace of President Calvin Coolidge can learn about “Silent Cal’s” boyhood in the sun-dappled hills and valleys of central Vermont.
This piece first appeared in Destination Vermont, a publication of The Vermont Standard.
Calvin Coolidge, apparently, was a difficult man to get to know. The “little red-headed New Englander,” as humorist Will Rogers once called him, had a long resume of public service, but not the gregarious personality that sometimes propels politicians. Although Coolidge was an adept public speaker, the “Silent Cal” moniker that was hung on him during his months as Vice President stuck for years after. An often repeated story says that a woman next to Coolidge at a dinner party told him she’d made a bet that she could get more that two words out of him. “You lose,” he reportedly replied. Throughout his career as a mayor, state representative, governor, and finally President of the United States, he employed a Vermont-instilled frugality with his words as well as his finances.
Coolidge was born in 1872 in Plymouth Notch; his boyhood home and surrounding buildings have been conserved in a State Historic Site. Visitors can learn how Coolidge and his family lived during his growing-up years there, and can for themselves take full measure of the man who often joked about his reputation as a person of few words. When, for example, his successor as the chief executive of Massachusetts noted that he’d spent much more time behind the governor’s desk than had Coolidge, the “little red-headed New Englander” replied, with appropriately terse humor, “you talk back.”
At the homestead and village that make up the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site on Route 100A about 6 miles south of Route 4, “everything is almost exactly as it was” in Coolidge’s time, says Executive Director William Jenney. But while the Coolidge homestead, the one room schoolhouse, the church, the barns and farm shop, and the nearby homes look much as they did 100 years ago, there is plenty that is new, and exciting, at the Site this summer.
There will be two freshly curated exhibits in the multi-million dollar President Calvin Coolidge Education Center that was dedicated last August.
First Pets: the Coolidge White House Animals, which opens on May 28 for the summer, will inform and amuse animal lovers of all ages. Coolidge, his wife Grace, and two sons John and Calvin Junior, all loved pets; the family kept an assortment of birds, cats, and dogs. “Any man who does not like dogs and [does not] want them about,” said the President, “does not deserve to be in the White House.” Visitors can learn about the antics of the white collie Rob Roy, who the President took to his weekly press conferences, and the red chow-chow Tiny Tim, who the President renamed Terrible Tim soon after acquiring him. And the exhibit will also feature a short story “written” by the Coolidges’ pet raccoon, Rebecca. She came from Mississippi as a gift; the sender intended that the animal be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner. The family instead made a fenced-in house for Rebecca in the trees outdoors. Inside the White House, she was free to roam, and reportedly took her meals of shrimp, persimmon, and eggs on the tiled bathroom floor.
In mid-August, the Education Center will open a new, permanent exhibit about Coolidge, his career in politics, and the times in which he lived. While the exhibit is now still in development, Jenney promises that “it will be filled with innovative and interactive displays.” There’s also a schedule of craft and musical events at the Site this summer, and there will be historic farm demonstrations on Wednesdays. Jenney himself will be leading special tours once a week, on different days throughout the summer.
Many 19th and 20th century artifacts at the Site are spread throughout its buildings. Collections Manager Amy Mincher is wrapping up a two year effort to catalog the over 10,000 items. Later this summer, pictures, descriptions, and a history of ownership of most of the objects should be available on a visitor accessible database. One of Mincher’s favorite items is the fringed olive green and beige plaid cloth that was on the table when Coolidge, standing in a small parlor at the homestead, famously swore to “faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States.” Mincher discovered the significance of the cloth, which was folded like a blanket at the bottom of a day bed, when she picked it up and a note fluttered out. “Cover which was on the mahogany topped table,” it read, in Grace Coolidge’s handwriting, “in the sitting room of father Coolidge’s house in Plymouth Vermont on the night of August 3, 1923.” Look for the cloth, refolded and back on the daybed, in the homestead’s Oath of Office room.
The President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site is also home to the Plymouth Cheese Factory. Cheese maker Jesse Werner produces a smooth and creamy cheshire-style cheese using the same recipe and method that Coolidge’s father John used when he opened the factory in 1890. Through viewing windows, visitors can see the once popular but now rare process of hand stirring granular curds during cheese-making, usually a couple of days a week. The Cheese Factory has a country store, open every day, that sells cheese and other gourmet food products. There’s also a gift shop in the nearby Florence Cilley General store, and a restaurant serving breakfast and lunch in the Wilder House.
Just across Route 110A, a stone’s throw up Lynds Hill Road, Coolidge and his family are buried in the Plymouth Notch Cemetery. The President lies with his wife on one side and and his second son on the other. At only sixteen, young Calvin Coolidge, Junior died from an infected blister that developed into septicemia. Up the hill, a few rows behind the highest point in the graveyard, is Achsa Sprague’s tombstone, a modest white slab adorned with a hand offering a crown. Sprague was a well known spiritualist, abolitionist, and women’s rights advocate in the 1850s. The marker of her final resting place bears the inscription “I still live.”
A few miles north on Route 100A, a marked side road that twists eastward through the forrest leads to Coolidge State Park. The park’s 2.5 mile Slack Hill Trail ascends through hardwoods to a view of Mount Ascutney. The trail terminates in a treed picnic area that opens into a sun-dappled meadow, looking out on the mountains that Coolidge cherished. “I love Vermont,” he said in one speech, “because of her hills and valleys, her scenery and invigorating climate, but most of all because of her indomitable people.”
The President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site is open May 28 through October 16 from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm. (802-672-3773) Call the Plymouth Cheese Factory to confirm cheese-making days. (802-672-3650) The Calvin Coolidge State Park is open Memorial Day Weekend to Columbus Day Weekend. (802-672-3612)