Leduc versus Tatro Road

I always thought the town made a mistake naming the Tatro Road. When we came here in 1932, Oliver Tatro was farming there. Oliver's wife had left him and they didn't have any children. He served as a Lt. in the first war of 1918. He was a real stern, militant person. Didn't make friends easily. He had a bad habit of saying something in a sentence, then finishing he would sniffle through his nose, like a sucking snort. As a very young kid, I hunted woodchucks alot so I went over by his farm because the ledges were a good place for chucks. I would stop in and talk with him and hear his stories of the war.

There was a beautiful house on the east side of the road, with a nice hip roof barn on the west side. It had a ramp right from the road to the haymow.

The listers from New Haven went there to list the cattle and horses like they did at every farm. They found the cattle starving to death and they were unable to get up. Noble Whitney was one of the listers and I remember him coming here to our farm wondering what to do. He said Oliver wouldn't answer the door at the house. That night the barn burnt with all the cattle in it. The first people there said that he sat in the window of the house and watched it burn.

A couple of years later, the house burnt to the ground. Oliver built a small garage and lived in that. Then he had a barn fixed into a heifer barn and had another barn moved over for a fifteen-cow barn He also built a new milkhouse which still stands (2004) on the side of the road. He was back farming again!! His health started to hit him so he had an auction and sold all his cattle except for a bull. He had paid $500.00 for this pedigree bull and he asked my father to take it. He was a beautiful bull. We have a picture of Dad and the bull. We later bought the bull from the bank after Oliver's death. At this time Oliver was spending a lot of time at the Veteran's Hospital at White River Junction.

Having no family he got out of the hospital and took the bus back to New Haven. Then he walked to the farm and took a piece of the hay fork rope and hung himself in the heifer barn.

The town road crew "Peanut" Filion and Albert Conant were cleaning the culverts there and noon time came and they laid on the lawn and had their dinner. After eating Peanut thought he would look in the back window of the barn. Looking in he sees a man's body hanging just inside the window. He went into shock and ran up the road to the dry bridge over the railroad tracks where Albert caught up with him. He was fit to be tied. Rob Stowe was a selectman at the time and had to give permission to remove the body. He stopped here at our farm to have my father, Solon go up with him, so I went along also. He had been hanging for 3 or 4 weeks and it had been warm weather.

This is why we call it the Tatro road still today.

Earl Bessette
Feb. 13,2004