History Space: The snow rollers of Peacham

PEACHAM - In a wooded area behind Peacham’s war monuments stands a small barn, long known as the roller barn. It is unremarkable in appearance except for its exceptionally wide double doors. It was built in the late 19th or early 20th century to store Peacham’s snow rollers when they were not in use.

From about 1888 until 1938, snow rollers, hitched behind teams of horses or oxen, were used to pack down snow on Peacham’s roads to keep them navigable. Before that time, snow removal was left up to the locals who used teams of horses or oxen to trample down the snow or drag anything that could push the snow aside: a sled, a bough or a log.

The birth of snow rollers

The advent of snow rollers seems to have coincided with legislation in 1886 giving the state control of major roads and providing financial aid to towns to maintain them. The town purchased the rollers and contracted with local farmers to take responsibility for maintaining roads in each school district. The pay was minimal. The Peacham Annual Report for 1903 records annual payments for rolling and shoveling ranging from $13.20 to $52.80 per driver. In the 1923 Auditor’s Report, the highest payment was $158.20.

The drivers worked in bitterly cold weather, often after dark with lanterns. The son of one such farmer recalls: “Never was there invented a colder and more miserable job than driving a team while sitting on top of the roller exposed to wind, snow and cold.” The drivers equipped themselves with fur or sheepskin coats, hats with earflaps, fur-lined gloves and large buffalo robes to cover their legs. They warmed their feet with heated rocks stored in a metal box.

The practice of snow rolling attracted the attention of other states. A 1906 bulletin from New York notes that:

The practice of rolling snow has been in vogue in Vermont for about 15 years, and is now almost universal, particularly in the eastern half of the State.

The advantage over [other] methods of removing snow is that a hard, wide, level track is made which permits teams to pass one another without danger or inconvenience, the snow being compacted for a width of eight or ten feet, and it is therefore smooth on either side of the beaten paths. . . .

Snow rollers have been in use in various sections of those States [Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine] for 12 years, and the citizens of the towns seem to be unanimous in the opinion that they get better roads with less expense than in any other way.

Department of the State Engineer and Surveyor of the State of New York, Improvement, Repair and Maintenance of Public Highways.

Peacham acquired a tractor equipped with a plow in 1934. During the next few years, tractors and snow rollers were both in use, but after 1938 there were no further records of payment for snow rolling.

Restoring the barn

After snow rollers were replaced by motorized snow plows, the town’s road crew used the barn and surrounding area to store construction materials and equipment. Over the years the barn deteriorated. Much of the post-and-beam structure had broken or rotted away, and the original floor had largely disappeared. In the 1960s a dump truck depositing road materials in the barn attempted to exit with its bucket raised, destroying many of the tie beams on the ceiling and over the door.

In 2005 the Peacham Historical Association considered using the barn to store its collections and hired an architect to assess the barn’s suitability. After receiving his report the PHA abandoned the idea. The selectboard decided to have the barn torn down.

At that point, several people united to try to save this important piece of Peacham’s and Vermont’s history. Other towns had had roller barns but Peacham’s is believed to be the only one still standing. Richard Hovey, a long-time Peacham resident with a passion for restoring old buildings, led the effort. Dick, as everyone calls him, had already restored the eighteenth-century farmhouse he and his wife bought in 1965. He had recently led an effort to restore the old blacksmith shop near the town center, traveling around the state to acquire forges and other equipment and transforming the dilapidated building into a working operation.

Dick Hovey and a few others persuaded the Selectboard to delay destruction of the barn and consider proposals from the public. The board agreed to help them preserve the barn as a museum for snow rollers. It needed a new foundation, a new floor, repairs to the roof, and extensive replacement of timbers. Gradually over the next 10 years, the Peacham community came together to save the barn.

In 2009, the Peacham Conservation Commission financed a major cleanup of the building and its surrounding area, removing trash and debris, including the remains of the rotting flooring, cutting brush and trees to create a clear space around the barn, and grading the land for better drainage. Peacham Pathways, a group involved in creating a walking trail around the village, decided to make the roller barn site the trailhead and helped with the cleanup. Their state grant funded a kiosk and a bench installed at the site.

Members of the selectboard volunteered their time and expertise for the restoration effort. Local builder and selectman Andy Cochran devoted many hours of unpaid labor to the project. He helped clear out rubble inside the barn and shore up the building, replacing damaged tie beams and bracing, and overseeing all the subcontractors’ work. Selectboard chair Annette Lorraine obtained an accessibility evaluation and wrote several grant applications. When these efforts were unsuccessful, she was instrumental in getting the town to budget $30,000 to fund the restoration and enlisted the town road crew for some of the site work. She also designed note cards featuring her original painting of a snow roller in winter; these were sold to raise money for the barn.

By early summer of 2015, the restoration was substantially complete. The building had a new concrete foundation, the sides of the barn were repaired, and a new hardwood floor was installed. Battery-operated lighting was in place. A temporary ramp was acquired to provide access to people with disabilities. The following year a new side entrance was built with a permanent ADA-compliant ramp.

While the barn restoration was in process, Dick and others began inventorying snow rollers remaining in Vermont and acquiring as many as they could for the museum.

The Snow Roller collection

The oldest roller in the Peacham museum, acquired from the town of Rupert, is simply a solid log fitted with an axle enabling it to turn freely. Later rollers were constructed of wooden staves, with metal or wooden wheels at either end. They typically had two separate barrels on a single axle, which improved maneuverability on turns. A horizontal stationary wooden frame around the roller supported the axle and stabilized the vehicle. The driver’s seat was mounted above the roller, and a long pole connected the roller with the team pulling it. Sometimes a ballast box filled with rocks was mounted on the frame behind the roller to take some weight off the team. The rollers varied in size from 2 to 6 feet in diameter and from 4 to 12 feet in length. The larger the roller’s diameter the greater the depth of snow it could handle: a roller could compact a snow accumulation roughly equal to half its diameter.

Peacham probably had six to eight rollers at one time, but they had vanished long ago. Some had been left outdoors after they were no longer needed and disintegrated. Others were burned and the metal parts salvaged during World War II. To acquire rollers for the museum, the group contacted Vermont historical societies, antiques dealers, auctioneers, and anyone else who might have information.

The first roller they found in 2008 was a modern replica. They raised about $3,000 from local donors to purchase it, but the following year they discovered a large antique roller built in the neighboring town of Barnet and owned at the time by a collector in Coventry. They used the funds they had raised to purchase that roller instead. Allen Thresher, Jr., a landscaper and major supporter of the project, transported the roller to Peacham and worked on restoring it. The Barnet roller is the largest one in the Peacham museum and the second largest in Vermont. Until the roller barn was ready to accommodate the roller, it was stored in a neighbor’s barn.

By the summer of 2010 the group had acquired three more rollers from towns around Vermont and stored them in various Peacham barns. In the following years, more rollers were added to the collection; some were donated or loaned and others were purchased with donated funds. Dick Hovey’s daughter, Valerie Chimienti, tells how they acquired the latest one. A snow roller was being auctioned off at a West Barnet farm and her father had given her a maximum sum to bid on it.

And I bid it right up to that number, and the guy standing right beside me was meeting that number every time. The second I bid, he bid above me. It turned out that he was one of the kids in that family. He’d been to the snow roller barn and knew what it was, and he wanted to keep it. I spoke with him afterwards and told him who I was and why I was bidding on it. I said we’d like to have it for the barn if he ever lost interest in it. And I got a call the following Monday and he was willing to let us use it [for a few years].

The Snow Roller Museum

The Peacham Snow Roller Museum had its official opening on July 4, 2015. That morning the large Barnet roller appeared in Peacham’s famous tractor parade, with Dick Hovey and his daughter Valerie Chimienti in the driver’s seat. Allen Thresher towed the roller to the museum after the parade as he had done with all the other rollers. Scores of people flocked to the museum that day to view the collection and they continue to come whenever the barn is open.

Other Vermont museums and historical societies have a single snow roller on display. The Peacham collection has eleven rollers from the towns of Barnet, Corinth, East Montpelier, Fayston, Glover, Lunenberg, Northfield, Royalton, Rupert, Troy, and West Barnet, plus a snow roller axle from Williamstown. Some of the rollers, like the large Barnet roller, have been restored but most were left in the condition in which they were found. Dick Hovey and his daughter plan to continue adding to the collection.

The museum collection includes not only full sized rollers but also miniature models, historic photographs showing snow rollers in use, and implements and accessories including a buffalo robe and feed bag. Dick and Valerie produced a book, “Snow Rollers of Vermont” published in 2015, filled with photographs, and information about every aspect of the history, construction, and uses of snow rollers.

The museum can be visited every July 4,on Fall Foliage Day (first Thursday in October), and during Winter Carnival in mid-February. See Peacham’s website http://www.peacham.net/snowroller2.pdf for more information.

It is worth a special trip to see this monument to a vanished period of Vermont’s history and to the community whose members generously contributed their time labor, and financial support to preserve that history.

Jane Alper is secretary of the Peacham Historical Association.

Acknowledgments: I could not have written this article without the information provided by Dick Hovey and Valerie Chimienti in person and in their book, “Snow Rollers of Vermont.” For anyone interested in the subject the book is an invaluable resource. It can be obtained by sending a check for $20 (plus $7.25 in postage if you would like it mailed) to Richard Hovey PO Box 183, Peacham, VT 05862. It is also available from Amazon. Others who contributed information are Annette Lorraine, Andy Cochran, Jutta Scott, and Barry Lawson. Jock Gill, Dick Hovey, and Valerie Chimienti provided most of the photographs.