Boulder Hi & Boulder Lo

Behind Pager's house is a lilac garden that Travis created in 1999 in memory of Grandma. Here is Pager standing in the lilac garden in May 2006:

Note Bill's sugarhouse in the background. The thing in the center of the lilac garden is a potash kettle.

The subject of this post is the small building next to the lilac garden. Here are two better photos of the building. The first was taken in June 2000 when the lilac garden was young (and the sun was shining), and the second was taken yesterday (in the rain):


This building has an interesting history. It is currently used for storage. I can remember when we raised chickens in it. During World War II it sat on the hill above the Boyden Farm — Pager says it was intended to be a place where someone could stay to guard the electric power line from saboteurs, but it was never manned. Originally, however, this little building was a tourist cabin at the Big Spring in Smugglers Notch:

The Big Spring is still there, but without any sign or buildings (only a small parking lot). It is opposite the beginning of the Hell Brook Trail. In the 1930s there was a tourist attraction here called Boulder Cabin, and it included tourist cabins. The building behind Pager's house is one of the tourist cabins.

Pager talks about two tourist cabins: Boulder-Hi and Boulder-Lo. But apparently there was also Boulder-Ette and Boulder-Ite as well as a main building named Boulder Cabin. Here is an advertisement that was reprinted by the Cambridge Historical Society in 2006:

The advertisement does not say so, but Pager says the tourist attraction included a stocked trout pond fed by the Big Spring. Overnight guests could catch their dinner and have it cooked for them. (Confirmed in this book, p. 52.)

Boulder Cabin was run by Pearl Shafer and her husband. Before this area of Smugglers Notch was added to the Mount Mansfield State Forest in 1940, it was owned by L.S. Morse, a Cambridge lumberman and mill owner. Pearl was Mr. Morse's daughter. (The area where Smugglers Notch Resort is located was known as Morses Mill. The building now housing the restaurant Stella Notte was a boarding house for the sawmill workers.)

Here is a slightly damaged photo of two of the four tourist cabins at the Big Spring:

On the left is Boulder-Ite, and on the right is Boulder-Lo. Alas, we don't know which one of the four tourist cabins is the one behind Pager's house.

On the back of the building are these 1949 Vermont license plates:

Pager says the cabin came to the farm from the hill near Boydens in 1946.