America 250

This edition of Wisdom Stories arrives in a milestone year: our Semiquincentennial.

If you prefer Bisesquicentennial — or, for that matter, Sestercentennial — those work, too. But for simplicity’s sake, let’s call it America 250.

We are officially 250 years into this great experiment in democracy.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how fortunate we were that our Founding Fathers and the framers of the Constitution had Crazy King George III as a cautionary example of what unchecked power looks like. Having lived under the rule of a “Mad King,” they built safeguards into the system to protect the nation. They also knew well the excesses symbolized by King Louis XIV’s gilded palaces.

This may be the year we learn just how well those safeguards hold.

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Quechee is home to one of the most historically significant wooden structures of the Revolutionary period.

The Theron Boyd Homestead was built ten years after the American Revolution and five years before Vermont achieved statehood. The house has endured Vermont’s brutal winters and the shifting tides of economic change, shrinking from an original 500 acres to the 35 acres it sits on today.

Built by the son of the Burch family — the first settlers of Hartland — the homestead once served as a stagecoach stop. It is said that settlers bound for South Pomfret spent the night there before continuing on to establish the town. At its height, the property was a thriving hill farm, producing crops, Merino sheep, Morgan horses, Durham cattle, and copious amounts of maple sugar.

It’s easy to imagine how welcome the glow of a lantern through twelve-by-twelve windows must have been to weary travelers — after days jolting along in a stagecoach, braving brutal winter weather and the uncertainties of the frontier.

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Theron Boyd making dinner

The Udall family purchased the farm at the turn of the 19th century and, in 1830, added the brick ell at the rear of the house. Originally two stories tall, the ell reportedly served as dormitories for Vermont’s first agricultural school.

By the 1860s, the home had become part of the Underground Railroad. Runaway slaves were hidden in a honeycombed chimney concealed behind a picture.

The Cowdry family acquired the property in the late 1800s, and in 1901, Theron Boyd was born in the home.

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In the early 1970s, John Davidson — the visionary behind the Quechee Lakes development — approached Theron about purchasing the farm. According to Theron, Davidson offered him one million dollars for land he intended to use to raise three horses.

Theron’s response was unforgettable. He told Davidson that he didn’t know whether Davidson was “a damn fool, or thought I was one,” and then ordered him off the land.

With that moment, Theron Boyd became a symbol of resistance — and a Vermont folk hero. He was featured in the documentary So Goes Vermont, which played twice daily in Montpelier. As National Geographic later observed, this was a time when Vermonters were sharply divided: those determined to preserve the past, and those eager to subdivide the future.

Theron’s position was never in doubt.

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I began writing this piece on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and it stirred memories of my first Black friend, Carter Crosby.

Carter lived in the Columbia Point housing projects in Roxbury and was part of the METCO program that bused underprivileged city kids into suburban schools. He became my classmate — and my friend — at Scituate Junior High.

One weekend, Carter came to Quechee with me. We had an incredible time. He had never been north of Boston before.

Theron had had little, if any, interaction with Black people. He was shy at first, but he was eager to show Carter the hidden entrance — the hole you climbed into — where enslaved people once hid while traveling north on the Underground Railroad.

What I wouldn’t give to have a photograph of Carter emerging from that hideaway.

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As America turns 250, it is worth remembering that our history is not only written in founding documents or court decisions, but in places like this — farmhouses that stood their ground, hidden spaces carved out of necessity, and quiet acts of resistance passed down through memory.

Democracy, like the Boyd homestead, endures not because it is untouched by time, but because generation after generation chooses to protect what matters. Sometimes that protection looks like saying no to power. Sometimes it looks like opening a door — or revealing a hidden one — and inviting someone else inside.

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HOME

By Christopher Casey Clark

Home
has been now for over 80 years
I’ve worn a path to my room,
up narrow wooden stairs

In my old bed,
I lay my head in the company.
of a fading memory
of how it used to be,
long years ago
in this home…

Winter winds whip thru the
clapboards
they nestle in my bone
but the worst thing about this place
is living here alone
but please don’t take me
from the secrets the walls have
compiled
for they are my everything,
without them
I’m a King exiled
this big old house t’wernt built
to be lived in alone
but it’s all I’ve got
it’s my home.

Alone,
have been now for over 50 Years
the growing fears,
the Christmas cheers
spent on my own

You’d think with all these empty rooms
there would be someone here with me,
but it seems long ago the discovered
a need for electricity

I have seen Vermont’s slow but sure demise
Generations grow weak while they grow wise

No you can’t take me,
from the secrets the walls have
compiled
They are my everything
without them
I’m a King exiled
This big old house Twernt built to be lived in alone
50 Years on my own

It could barely hold out the weather
If the truth be known
But it held my world together
It’s my Home