WHEELER HOLLOW OR THE WATER WORKS
(NOW THE VERGENNES WATER SHED AREA)

Ed Danyow, the owner of the Elgin Spring Farm, would not let them cross his meadow. To go through the gut off the north side of Plank Road, so they had to swing around the next hill on the south side in meadows to get the water to flow to the city. They crossed the land and woods about 500 yards south of the Plank Road railroad crossing, then along the railroad to Vergennes.

They laid out the roads and drew in crushed stones from the Vergennes stone crusher at the Quarry on Green Street extension. They built a road all the way to the little reservoir and also a turn around made of the crushed stones.

Tony, an Italian, from Boston was the overseer of the project. He took a liking to my father right off. He would bring Dad a bottle of wine and pick me and Dad every weekend and take us up to see what they had done. I was nine years old and nosy. Over Rocker from Burlington was the dirt and dam contractor. Our neighbor's son, Frank Gage, was an equipment operator.

As you go up the road at the west end of the dam that hill on your left was covered with dirt. That dirt was all removed to the ledge and put into the big dam. That hill went almost to the little dam. Going up Wheeler Hollow on the east side of Norton Brook beyond the 2nd log landing were hugh stone walls. These stones were picked up by hand and hand laid on the inside of the big dam.

The little reservoir was built first. They ran 18 inch pipe and cut through the meadow at about 10 feet deep so it would run by gravity. It might have been deeper?

My father and I went up with Tony, the day they turned on the valve to let water flow into the big dam. You should have seen the brook trout go down the tube. Soon after they started drinking water in Vergennes, they got an awful odor. Come to find out the screens at the dams were plugged with dead trout. They changed all the screens but still every so often a minnow would come out of a faucet in Vergennes.

After the big dam was filled with water, a big spring came out of the ground down in the cedar swamp on Harold Farnsworth's property. He had to dig a ditch by hand for about 500 yards to get into a little brook. After they let the water down, it didn't run anymore. Amazing how cracks in a ledge would go for a mile carrying water.

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