In my last post, we saw how iron production in Brandon went from little more than a cottage industry with town support to large-scale mining and manufacturing with significant social and environmental impacts. An 1854 map from the Agent’s Report of the Brandon Iron and Car Wheel property shows their village facility at the time, which encompassed much of today’s downtown. The Railroad Car Wheel factory was across Center Street from the furnace, foundry, and coal shed. A walk to the bank or post office would take you between the two — most likely a noisy, smelly, and dirty excursion.

Another portion of the Agent’s Report shows the blast furnace and smokestack. A portion of the furnace wall is visible behind today’s Smith Block from the Neshobe River side. Slag and other by-products of iron production were conveniently dumped into the river.

However, the times were a-changin’, even if Bob Dylan’s birth was a century in the future.

Early settlers in Brandon and most of the American colonies were heavily influenced by interpretations of the Bible that emphasized man’s domination over nature. In particular, Genesis 1:28 references God’s command to Adam to “subdue” the earth and have “dominion… over every living thing…” For millennia, Europeans viewed the bounty of the Earth as endless and intended for man to use as he wished. As ideas to the contrary started to emerge, they were opposed fiercely.

Frenchman Georges Cuvier was a devout Christian who is generally recognized as the founder of the field of paleontology. His examination of many fossils, including both French and American woolly mammoth bones, led him to conclude that many species which once inhabited Earth were now extinct. His “Essay on the Theory of the Earth,” published in 1813, formed the basis of the theory of extinction, generally accepted today as scientific fact. At the time, this was rigorously opposed by Thomas Jefferson, who argued that God had made nature complete and that mammoths must still be roaming around somewhere, undiscovered. For his part, Cuvier avoided direct confrontation with Christian doctrine by asserting that extinctions must have been caused by the Great Flood.

New England’s Ralph Waldo Emerson had a different take on both nature and biblical teachings. His 1836 essay Nature suggested that nature was an embodiment of God, not an “other” to be subdued. For Emerson, nature was not separate from man, but a necessary part of mankind and living a spiritual life. Of course, Ralph Waldo surely enjoyed the benefits of mining and deforestation, but he recognized that there were limits to the subjugation of nature in part because it was God’s creation and not man’s to destroy.

Two 19th-century Vermonters built heavily on this emerging conservationist movement: George Marsh and Rowland Robinson. Marsh was born in Woodstock and received a law degree at UVM before serving as Vermont’s congressional representative from 1843 to 1849. However, it was his experience abroad serving 21 years as the Minister to Italy and his travels in the Middle East that formed his conservationist ethic. He documented that many parts of the Middle East we think of today as having been arid deserts since time immemorial are actually the results of deforestation caused by man. His 1864 text Man and Nature stated that "the operation of causes set in action by man has brought the face of the earth to a desolation almost as complete as that of the moon." He also theorized 150 years ago that the destruction of forests leads to climatic changes, including periods of drought, more serious flooding, and rising atmospheric temperatures. Who knew?

Ferrisburgh farmer, abolitionist, and writer Rowland Robinson watched the impact of deforestation closely here in Vermont. In his 1880s essay "Hunting Without a Gun," he wrote about the destructiveness of industrial deforestation and land conversion and the consequent loss of spiritual richness: “Wherever civilization and improvement have, for a hundred years or so, laid hands upon the country which God made and man for the most part spoils, there is but little woodland left but that of second growth, and this is yearly dwindling, as some new industry arises and calls for trees of size and kind before of little value. Such woodlands, if they have not the grandeur and solemnity and mystery of the primeval forest, have beauty and their seasons of silence and some secrets of their own to keep from the world at large.”

I was not able to find evidence of conservationist thinking in Brandon in the 19th century, but it is reasonable to conclude that the ideas of these two prominent Vermonters were known in the community.

Meanwhile, ownership of the Forest Dale furnace had been organized as the Green Mountain Iron Company. Due to declining forests and charcoal supplies, and out-of-state competition, modifications were made to the furnace to allow for operation using anthracite coal. According to Rolando (2000), the modifications weren’t enough to allow for continued production, and the furnace stopped operating later that year. It was reopened in 1864, the same year that Marsh published Man and Nature, probably due to an increase in demand for iron fueled by the Civil War. It closed for good shortly after the war’s end.

It would be nice to think that conservation and scientific inquiry led to the end of the deforestation caused by iron production. But it was more likely the result of running out of trees, competition with rich iron mines in the Midwest, and a shift to coal as a fuel for smelting ore. However, the ideas of Marsh heavily influenced conservationists such as John Muir and played a large role in the creation of Adirondack Park and the national park system. And today, Brandon has the benefit of the best water in Vermont in large part because of the mature, robust, and resilient forests that grew following the end of the charcoal-production era, and a local and national conservation ethic heavily influenced by Vermonters.

Next time, we’ll dive into the myth and mystery surrounding Brandon’s enigmatic Frozen Well. Also, later in June, Wolf Tree Forest will be hosting an evening of woodlands and woodfired pizza. More information here.