Nancy Finishes the Long Trail

Nancy finished hiking the Long Trail today! The photo above is celebrating on the summit of Mount Abraham with family and friends.

Today's hike was from Appalachian Gap south to Lincoln Gap. The photo below is in App Gap at the beginning of the hike, just as the sun was rising:

Emily, Laura, Eliza and Dylan (and their dog Kona) hiked with us from App Gap. It was a beautiful day, with good views. Not much color in the fall foliage yet. This section of the Long Trail is along the top of a ridge with several ski areas on the east side – Mad River Glen, Sugarbush North, and Sugarbush South. Below is the famous single-chair ski lift at Mad River Glen Ski Area:

The photo below was the view from Sugarbush South Ski Area:

There are five 4000 foot peaks in Vermont, and we hiked over two of them today: Mount Ellen (4083') and Mount Abraham (4006'). Mount Ellen has a wooded summit, but the top of Mount Abraham is open. From the Long Trail Guide:

The alpine summit of Mt. Abraham offers one of the best panoramas on the entire LT, ranging from nearby valley farms to New Hampshire's White Mountains, 80 miles east. Due west is Mt. Marcy and its Adirondack neighbors. To the south the Green Mountains may be visible as far south as Killington Peak. To the north, though partly hidden by nearby higher peaks, the Greens may be visible as far as Belvidere Mtn.

We had a beautiful day, but we could not see as far as Belvidere Mountain. The other three 4000 foot peaks in Vermont are Mount Mansfield (4395'), Killington Peak (4235'), and Camels Hump (4083').

Howard, Sue, Bob, Joel, Bill and Donna (and their dog Moia) hiked in from Lincoln Gap and met us on Mount Abraham. The photo at the top of this post shows the whole crew on the summit of Mount Abraham.

Eliza packed cheese and crackers, as well as a cheese board and cheese knife, all the way from App Gap:

We celebrated Nancy's accomplishment in style! There might even have been some champagne and switchel consumed on top of Mount Abraham...

Below is Nancy at the end of the hike in Lincoln Gap:

Congratulations, Nancy!

Today's hike was 11.6 miles. We started at 7:05 AM and finished at 5:20 PM. (We lingered on the summit of Mount Abraham for an hour and 20 minutes.) Nancy's Fitbit registered 35,522 steps, mine registered 38,512.

Nancy is the fourth member of the family to complete the Long Trail. Howard and I and others hiked the LT with Boy Scouts in 1997-2001 (Bob and Joel were on some of those hikes). Laura hiked the LT with Eliza in 2006. Emily hiked the LT with a friend in 2009 (see Emily Hikes the Long Trail). Nancy supported all of those undertakings and hiked portions of the LT herself as part of each of those adventures, but her log of recorded LT hikes for her End to End Journal begins before any of those dates. Nancy's log begins with a short hike to Prospect Rock in 1988, the day before Emily was born.

Who was Emily Proctor?

The Emily Proctor Shelter (photo above) is on Vermont's Long Trail in the middle of the Breadloaf Wilderness. The Emily Proctor Trail is a side trail that leads from USFS Road 201 to this shelter. Who was Emily Proctor?

I wrote about the Proctor family in my earlier post The Proctor Family. Three generations of the Proctor family led the Vermont Marble Company and provided four Vermont governors. Emily Proctor was part of this family. But which Emily Proctor? My earlier post about the Proctor family listed three Emily Proctors, one in each generation:

1st generation: Emily Proctor (1835-1915) was the wife of Redfield Proctor.

2nd generation: Emily Proctor (1869-1948) was the daughter of Redfield and Emily Proctor.

3rd generation: Emily Proctor (1887-1964) was the daughter of Fletcher and Minnie Proctor, and granddaughter of Redfield and Emily Proctor.

The Green Mountain Club (GMC) publishes a book titled Place Names on Vermont's Long Trail. This book says the following (1st edition, 2007):

Emily Proctor Shelter - This shelter, built in 1960 and rebuilt in 1983 and 2002, honors Emily Proctor, for whom a previous shelter was named early in GMC history. In 1914, she gave $500 to the GMC for the construction of three shelters.

Alas, that does not tell us which of the three Emily Proctors is being honored. All three of the Emily Proctors mentioned above were alive in 1914.

In my earlier post The Long Trail Lodge, I wrote about Mortimer Proctor (1889-1968) who was the son of Fletcher and Minnie Proctor and thus brother of Emily Proctor (1887-1964) in the third generation of Proctors. I mentioned that Mortimer Proctor was twice president of the Green Mountain Club, which built and maintains Vermont's Long Trail. But nothing in that post, either, tells us which Emily Proctor the shelter and trail are named for.

The Proctor family was "the GMC's wealthiest patrons" in the early years of the Green Mountain Club (source: On the Trail: A History of American Hiking by Silas Chamberlin (Yale University Press, 2016), page 119). In my earlier post The Long Trail Lodge, I explained how Mortimer Proctor and his mother gave the Long Trail Lodge in Sherburne Pass to the Green Mountain Club in 1923. But which Emily Proctor gave $500 for three shelters in 1914? Mortimer's grandmother, aunt, and sister were all named Emily Proctor!

Construction of the Long Trail began in 1910 and was completed in 1930. Mileage was added throughout that period. The book On the Trail notes that more than 50 miles of trail were added in 1913 between Camel's Hump and Killington Peak, and goes on to say:

With the additional mileage, the club began to construct log lean-tos that would provide temporary shelter for hikers. The first were built at Birch Glen, at Broad Loaf Glen [sic], and south of Mount Horrid with the private funds of Emily Dutton Proctor, the philanthropist daughter of Redfield Proctor, founder of the Vermont Marble Company and U.S. Senator from Vermont.

(Source: On the Trail, page 118. Should be Bread Loaf or Breadloaf not Broad Loaf.)

Bingo! Emily Dutton Proctor was the Emily Proctor (1869-1948) in the second generation of Proctors. She was Mortimer's aunt. She was a noted philanthropist – known, for example, for collecting foreign-language and picture books for the immigrant workers of the Vermont Marble Company and their children.

I wish to thank John Page, the current president of the Green Mountain Club, for solving this mystery for me by finding the above reference in On the Trail. John further wrote the following to me in an email:

The shelter "south of Mt. Horrid" that Emily Proctor also funded was the original Sunrise Shelter, just south of Brandon Gap. This shelter was replaced in the 1960's by the current Sunrise Shelter with funds donated by Mortimer Proctor. Thus the current Sunrise Shelter appears to be the last remnant of the Proctor family's GMC legacy other than the name of Emily Proctor Shelter.

Full disclosure: I am related to John Page, a cousin. John Page's aunt, Jane Clark Brown, and my father, Harold Putnam, co-authored a book in 2001 titled Cloverdale: An Anecdotal History of A Rural Neighborhood. My sister Beth and I used this book as the basis for a presentation in July for the Cambridge and Westford Historical Societies on the history of Cloverdale. Minnie Robinson Proctor, Mortimer's mother, grew up in Cloverdale. It's a small world.

The Long Trail Lodge

The Long Trail Lodge was built in Sherburne Pass in 1923 and served as a grand hotel on Vermont's Long Trail until it burned in 1968. By all accounts it was spectacular. The Long Trail Lodge also served as the headquarters of the Green Mountain Club, which built and maintains the Long Trail, the oldest long-distance hiking trail in the United States.

Today US-4 passes through Sherburne Pass in the town of Killington. The Inn at Long Trail sits on the north side of US-4 directly under Deer Leap Mountain and continues the hospitality tradition of the former Long Trail Lodge, which had been just across the road. See my earlier post about The Inn at Long Trail, where Nancy and I stayed last month after a long day-hike on the Long Trail. Nancy is finishing hiking the Long Trail this year, and all of the posts on this blog since July have been related to that project.

The Long Trail Lodge was built and donated to the Green Mountain Club by the Proctor family. I have become interested this summer in some of the history of this prominent Vermont family, especially Minnie Robinson from Cloverdale who married into the family in 1886. See my earlier post about The Proctor Family for background and who's who in the Proctor family.

Three generations of the Proctor family led the Vermont Marble Company and provided four Vermont governors. For this post, we are particularly interested in Minnie Robinson Proctor (1865-1928) who married Fletcher Proctor (1860-1911), and their son Mortimer Proctor (1889-1968). Both Fletcher and Mortimer were governors of Vermont, as were two other members of the Proctor family.

The idea of Vermont's Long Trail was conceived by James Taylor in 1909. The Green Mountain Club (GMC) was formed in 1910 to build the trail, completing the task in 1930.

Mortimer Proctor played a significant role in the early years of the GMC. The first four presidents of the GMC were:

1. James P. Taylor 1910-1916
2. Mortimer R. Proctor 1916-1917
3. Charles P. Cooper 1917-1925
4. Mortimer R. Proctor 1926-1933

Thus Mortimer Proctor was president when the Long Trail was completed in 1930, and he was the only person in the history of the GMC to have been its president twice.

The Proctor family was "the GMC's wealthiest patrons" in the early years of the club (source: On the Trail: A History of American Hiking by Silas Chamberlin (Yale University Press, 2016), page 119). When the growing GMC expressed the need for a clubhouse, Mortimer Proctor and his mother, Minnie Robinson Proctor, provided it:

In 1922 came the exciting news that a clubhouse was assured and would be built the next year at Sherburne Pass where the trail crossed the highway. President Mortimer Proctor telegraphed from Los Angeles to Acting-President Cooper, "I wish to donate complete the new Green Mountain Club House to be built near Deer Leap on Sherburne Pass." With his mother, Mrs. F. P. Proctor, he generously gave the land and money to build what was long considered to be the home of the Green Mountain Club.

(Source: Green Mountain Adventure, Vermont's LONG TRAIL, An Illustrated History, by Jane and Will Curtis and Frank Lieberman (The Green Mountain Club, 1985), page 39. Mortimer's father, Fletcher Proctor, had died in 1911.)

The Long Trail Lodge, built in 1923, was no ordinary back-country lodge:

The most agreeable example of rustic architecture on the trail is the Long Trail Lodge opposite Deer Leap in Sherburne Pass, the lodge being the gift of Mortimer R. Proctor and the furnishings the gift of [his mother] Mrs. Fletcher D. Proctor. These two lovers of Vermont, with the aid of Architect [Paul] Thayer, have done something exceptional not only in the appointment of the lodge itself but in the surroundings, and as it is at a junction of the Trail and a main automobile road, it can be more readily reached and seen than it can be described.

(Source: Footpath in the Wilderness edited by W. Storrs Lee (Middlebury College Press, 1941), pages 31-32.)

Visitors never forgot their amazement when they entered the lobby whose walls weren't wood and plaster but a huge fern-covered rock ledge down which trickled a miniature waterfall. The club was particularly pleased with the effect of the dining room. The architect had left bark on the yellow birch beams and had designed a great chandelier of ten lights made of white birchlimbs with shades of birch bark. ... The most astonishing feature of the Lodge was that the Long Trail went right through the building!

(Source: Green Mountain Adventure, pages 39-41.)

On September 12, 1931, a grand celebration was held at the Long Trail Lodge in recognition of the completion of the Long Trail the year before and the "coming of age" (21st birthday) of the GMC:

James Taylor called the lodge – the gift of club president and future governor Mortimer R. Proctor and his mother – the "finest mountain camp in the world." The festivity began with speeches by Governor Stanley C. Wilson, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Will Monroe, Taylor, and others.

(Source: A Century in the Mountains: Celebrating Vermont's Long Trail edited by Tom Slayton (The Green Mountain Club, 2009), page 47.)

The Long Trail Lodge served as headquarters for the GMC for more than 30 years. It was also a grand hotel, but the GMC ultimately tired of the hospitality business and owning a property that was expensive to maintain. The GMC sold the lodge in 1955. Sadly, it burned during a blizzard on November 8, 1968. Mortimer Proctor did not live to see that. He died at age 78 in April 1968.

I wish to thank the Green Mountain Club, especially President John Page and Executive Director Michael DeBonis, for the references in this post – for suggesting books in print that I could purchase, and for lending me books that are out of print. I recommend the following books for anyone wishing to do further research:

Green Mountain Adventure, Vermont's LONG TRAIL, An Illustrated History, by Jane and Will Curtis and Frank Lieberman (The Green Mountain Club, 1985). See pages 39-41, 60-61, 66, 72-73. There are photos on many of these pages. This book was written in recognition of the GMC's 75th anniversary.

A Century in the Mountains: Celebrating Vermont's Long Trail, edited by Tom Slayton (The Green Mountain Club, 2009). See pages 47, 52. There is a photo of the interior of the Long Trail Lodge on page 47 as well as considerable information about the lodge, especially the grand celebration on September 12, 1931. This book was written in recognition of the GMC's 100th anniversary.

So Clear, So Cool, So Grand: A 1931 Hike on Vermont's Long Trail, by James Gordon Hindes (The Green Mountain Club, 2008). See pages 2, 33-37. This is one of the first accounts of a Long Trail end-to-end hike, undertaken by James Gordon Hindes (1909-1973) in the summer of 1931, between his junior and senior years at Dartmouth College, together with his fraternity brother John Eames. The Long Trail had been completed just the year before. The young men arrived at the Long Trail Lodge on July 18 and left on July 20. They were enchanted by it. Their visit was two months before the grand celebration noted above. The photo at the top of this post is from page 2 of this book, an undated view of Pico Peak and the Long Trail Lodge from Deer Leap Mountain, courtesy of the Vermont Historical Society.

The Proctor Family

The Proctor family was prominent in Vermont history. The town of Proctor, just north of Rutland, Vermont's second largest city, was named for this family. High quality marble deposits in this area were quarried by the Vermont Marble Company from the 1880s to the 1980s. Three generations of Proctors led the Vermont Marble Company and provided four Vermont governors:

1st generation: Redfield Proctor (1831-1908) founded the Vermont Marble Company in 1880. He had been a colonel in the Civil War and governor of Vermont 1878-1880. He went on to be Secretary of War 1889-1891 and a United States Senator from Vermont 1891-1908. He married Emily Jane Dutton in 1858.

2nd generation: Redfield and Emily Proctor had five children over a period of 20 years: Arabella (b. 1859), Fletcher (b. 1860), Fanny (b. 1863), Emily (b. 1869) and Redfield, Jr. (b. 1879). Both sons were governor of Vermont: Fletcher Proctor (1860-1911) was governor 1906-1908 and Redfield Proctor, Jr. (1879-1957) was governor 1923-1925. Fletcher Proctor married Minnie Robinson in 1886.

3rd generation: Fletcher and Minnie Proctor had three children: Emily (b. 1887), Mortimer (b. 1889) and Minnie (b. 1895). Their son was governor of Vermont: Mortimer Proctor (1889-1968) was governor 1945-1947.

Why am I writing about the Proctor family? Two things about the Proctor family are connected to subjects that I have been blogging about this summer.

First, the Proctor family played a significant role in the history of the Green Mountain Club and Vermont's Long Trail. Nancy is finishing hiking the Long Trail this summer, and all of the posts on this blog since July have been related to that project.

Second, Minnie Robinson Proctor came from Cloverdale. My sister Beth and I mentioned Minnie in our presentation about the history of Cloverdale that we did together in July for the Cambridge and Westford Historical Societies.

In our Cloverdale presentation, Beth and I said about Minnie: "Cloverdale was always proud of its own First Lady of Vermont." We talked about the wedding of Minnie Robinson to Fletcher Proctor at the Robinson house on the Cloverdale Farm in 1886 (photo above). We knew that she married into a prominent family. We knew that her father-in-law had been governor of Vermont. We knew that her husband, and their future son Mortimer, would become governors of Vermont.

At the time of our Cloverdale presentation, I did not know about the connections between the Proctor family, including Minnie herself, and the Long Trail. I write about those connections in the next two blog posts: The Long Trail Lodge and Who was Emily Proctor?