The boulder with the plaque on it (see picture) sits in front of the Proctor Free Library, which was once the site of the Ormsbee home.
The following was written by son Hamilton Ormsbee:
"The library building," he writes,"occupies the site of the house where I was born and made my home until 1875. It was originally owned by a farmer named Pennock, came into the possession of my father, Thomas J. Ormsbee in 1843, and was his home continuously until after the death of my mother in 1890.
"My father was a lawyer, had practiced and been postmaster in Rutland, and had gone West to make a home for his family, when he was summoned back by his brother, Edgar L. Ormsbee, also a lawyer with a taste for geology who had become interested in the marble vein in the valley. Edgar had secured an interest in the marble quarry and the little first mill at Sutherland Falls, and wanted his brother Thomas to take charge of it. My father took the Pennock house and brought his wife there. Four children were born to them there, of whom the two who lived to maturity were Harriett, the late Mrs. Joseph L. Patch, and myself.
"There is still one living link between the new building and the old. My father early in his occupancy trimmed up and staked an elm sapling near his house which had been trampled down by cattle. That elm he often pointed out to me and it is the one which now stands in front of the library entrance. The incident dates the growth of the tree from about 1840.
"My own memories began about 1860, but they include many scenes which show the peculiar fitness of the site to become a public library. My mother was a great reader. Her knowledge of the English classics, indeed, would put to shame most of us today, and the books she and my father had were lent freely to any of the neighbors who cared to read them. When I was eight or ten years old she began reading aloud the novels of Scott in the long winter evenings, a practice which continued for three or four years. One evening, Mr. Smith Warner, our nearest neighbor to the south, came in with one of his boys in the middle of an exciting scene. We begged mother to read on until she got the characters out of their dilemma. With the permission of her guests she did so and they became as much interested in the story as we were. Thereafter the listeners for our evening readings were enlarged by two or three. All I ever knew of Scott I got in that old house by listening and then re-reading the tales I liked best. Father always swore by 'The Antiquary' but mother's favorite was 'The Heart of Midlothian.' I guess mine was 'Guy Mannering.' I know that mother once heard me crying in a violent nightmare and found me going over in my sleep the scene where Meg Merrilies lights the flax in the smuggler's cave. I have often heard mother reproach herself for reading that passage to an imaginative boy before his bedtime.
"At fourteen I went to Rutland to attend the high school and only came home for Saturdays and Sundays. In my first or second winter I came home with some childish ailment which kept me in bed but didn't make me feel very ill. The first morning of that comfortable condition, mother appeared in my room bearing a big red volume, and announced: 'Now, young man, you are going to know some Shakespeare. I am not going to have a big boy like you going around an ignoramus.'
"She began with 'The Comedy of Errors' and I laughed till I cried over the two Dromios. Then followed the comic scenes from 'The Tempest,' the Falstaff scenes from 'Henry IV,' and much of the raillery of Beatrice and Benedick; all things which a boy could enjoy. For years I chose plays for my own reading from which I had heard scenes read aloud, or later, those which I had seen acted. I have heard famous people read from 'Henry VIII' but I have never heard any one put more tenderness and pathos into Queen Katherine than did my mother, reading by the light of a little lamp in that old dining room.
"My mother, however, was not the only reader in the family. My father liked heroic and romantic poetry, Scott, Byron and Campbell. I remember one night when mother was away and he let me sit up late while he read the whole of 'Gertrude of Wyoming' to me.
"My father's passion for thoroughness in his reading met a hard test later, when my mother lost her sight for a number of years and he became her eyes. I came home one Saturday and found him reading a serial installment of 'Daniel Deronda' to her. I knew he did not like George Eliot, but mother loved her. He read her all of that novel as it came out in Harper's, and everything else, from the newspaper to the Bible, including the Episcopal Church service on Sunday mornings. His occasional enthusiasm for Bible reading shocked his wife. She had been brought up to read her Bible a chapter each day, but when father read it aloud to her he read till he grew tired. One Sunday night he read aloud the whole Book of Job, with comments of interest or sympathy which would have been appropriate to a novel of Scott.
"An early case of his absorption in secular reading was a sore, if brief, trial to his wife. He came home from a business trip one Saturday and said: 'Mother, I've brought you a new book'. It was 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and, as mother used to tell the story, she looked forward to a delightful long evening, once she had put her supper things away and seen her children safely in bed. When that time came, however, she found father deep in the story and in no mood to lay it down. Mother waited for him to grow tired, but finally gave up and went to bed. Father kept right on until the last page of the story was finished, somewhere before daylight in the morning.
"Can any one imagine a more appropriate place for a public library than on the site of a home saturated with the love of reading as was that one? I can believe that gracious founder of the Proctor Library could have no better wish for its usefulness than that the spirit of the home which it has replaced should become incorporated in the new and handsome building, inspiring those who seek to make it helpful and blessing those who take advantage of its opportunities." (from "Proctor: The Story of a Marble Town" by David C. Gale, pub. by the Vermont Printing Co., Brattleboro, 1922)
The following was written by son Hamilton Ormsbee:
"The library building," he writes,"occupies the site of the house where I was born and made my home until 1875. It was originally owned by a farmer named Pennock, came into the possession of my father, Thomas J. Ormsbee in 1843, and was his home continuously until after the death of my mother in 1890.
"My father was a lawyer, had practiced and been postmaster in Rutland, and had gone West to make a home for his family, when he was summoned back by his brother, Edgar L. Ormsbee, also a lawyer with a taste for geology who had become interested in the marble vein in the valley. Edgar had secured an interest in the marble quarry and the little first mill at Sutherland Falls, and wanted his brother Thomas to take charge of it. My father took the Pennock house and brought his wife there. Four children were born to them there, of whom the two who lived to maturity were Harriett, the late Mrs. Joseph L. Patch, and myself.
"There is still one living link between the new building and the old. My father early in his occupancy trimmed up and staked an elm sapling near his house which had been trampled down by cattle. That elm he often pointed out to me and it is the one which now stands in front of the library entrance. The incident dates the growth of the tree from about 1840.
"My own memories began about 1860, but they include many scenes which show the peculiar fitness of the site to become a public library. My mother was a great reader. Her knowledge of the English classics, indeed, would put to shame most of us today, and the books she and my father had were lent freely to any of the neighbors who cared to read them. When I was eight or ten years old she began reading aloud the novels of Scott in the long winter evenings, a practice which continued for three or four years. One evening, Mr. Smith Warner, our nearest neighbor to the south, came in with one of his boys in the middle of an exciting scene. We begged mother to read on until she got the characters out of their dilemma. With the permission of her guests she did so and they became as much interested in the story as we were. Thereafter the listeners for our evening readings were enlarged by two or three. All I ever knew of Scott I got in that old house by listening and then re-reading the tales I liked best. Father always swore by 'The Antiquary' but mother's favorite was 'The Heart of Midlothian.' I guess mine was 'Guy Mannering.' I know that mother once heard me crying in a violent nightmare and found me going over in my sleep the scene where Meg Merrilies lights the flax in the smuggler's cave. I have often heard mother reproach herself for reading that passage to an imaginative boy before his bedtime.
"At fourteen I went to Rutland to attend the high school and only came home for Saturdays and Sundays. In my first or second winter I came home with some childish ailment which kept me in bed but didn't make me feel very ill. The first morning of that comfortable condition, mother appeared in my room bearing a big red volume, and announced: 'Now, young man, you are going to know some Shakespeare. I am not going to have a big boy like you going around an ignoramus.'
"She began with 'The Comedy of Errors' and I laughed till I cried over the two Dromios. Then followed the comic scenes from 'The Tempest,' the Falstaff scenes from 'Henry IV,' and much of the raillery of Beatrice and Benedick; all things which a boy could enjoy. For years I chose plays for my own reading from which I had heard scenes read aloud, or later, those which I had seen acted. I have heard famous people read from 'Henry VIII' but I have never heard any one put more tenderness and pathos into Queen Katherine than did my mother, reading by the light of a little lamp in that old dining room.
"My mother, however, was not the only reader in the family. My father liked heroic and romantic poetry, Scott, Byron and Campbell. I remember one night when mother was away and he let me sit up late while he read the whole of 'Gertrude of Wyoming' to me.
"My father's passion for thoroughness in his reading met a hard test later, when my mother lost her sight for a number of years and he became her eyes. I came home one Saturday and found him reading a serial installment of 'Daniel Deronda' to her. I knew he did not like George Eliot, but mother loved her. He read her all of that novel as it came out in Harper's, and everything else, from the newspaper to the Bible, including the Episcopal Church service on Sunday mornings. His occasional enthusiasm for Bible reading shocked his wife. She had been brought up to read her Bible a chapter each day, but when father read it aloud to her he read till he grew tired. One Sunday night he read aloud the whole Book of Job, with comments of interest or sympathy which would have been appropriate to a novel of Scott.
"An early case of his absorption in secular reading was a sore, if brief, trial to his wife. He came home from a business trip one Saturday and said: 'Mother, I've brought you a new book'. It was 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and, as mother used to tell the story, she looked forward to a delightful long evening, once she had put her supper things away and seen her children safely in bed. When that time came, however, she found father deep in the story and in no mood to lay it down. Mother waited for him to grow tired, but finally gave up and went to bed. Father kept right on until the last page of the story was finished, somewhere before daylight in the morning.
"Can any one imagine a more appropriate place for a public library than on the site of a home saturated with the love of reading as was that one? I can believe that gracious founder of the Proctor Library could have no better wish for its usefulness than that the spirit of the home which it has replaced should become incorporated in the new and handsome building, inspiring those who seek to make it helpful and blessing those who take advantage of its opportunities." (from "Proctor: The Story of a Marble Town" by David C. Gale, pub. by the Vermont Printing Co., Brattleboro, 1922)
The boulder with the plaque on it (see picture) sits in front of the Proctor Free Library, which was once the site of the Ormsbee home.
The following was written by son Hamilton Ormsbee:
"The library building," he writes,"occupies the site of the house where I was born and made my home until 1875. It was originally owned by a farmer named Pennock, came into the possession of my father, Thomas J. Ormsbee in 1843, and was his home continuously until after the death of my mother in 1890.
"My father was a lawyer, had practiced and been postmaster in Rutland, and had gone West to make a home for his family, when he was summoned back by his brother, Edgar L. Ormsbee, also a lawyer with a taste for geology who had become interested in the marble vein in the valley. Edgar had secured an interest in the marble quarry and the little first mill at Sutherland Falls, and wanted his brother Thomas to take charge of it. My father took the Pennock house and brought his wife there. Four children were born to them there, of whom the two who lived to maturity were Harriett, the late Mrs. Joseph L. Patch, and myself.
"There is still one living link between the new building and the old. My father early in his occupancy trimmed up and staked an elm sapling near his house which had been trampled down by cattle. That elm he often pointed out to me and it is the one which now stands in front of the library entrance. The incident dates the growth of the tree from about 1840.
"My own memories began about 1860, but they include many scenes which show the peculiar fitness of the site to become a public library. My mother was a great reader. Her knowledge of the English classics, indeed, would put to shame most of us today, and the books she and my father had were lent freely to any of the neighbors who cared to read them. When I was eight or ten years old she began reading aloud the novels of Scott in the long winter evenings, a practice which continued for three or four years. One evening, Mr. Smith Warner, our nearest neighbor to the south, came in with one of his boys in the middle of an exciting scene. We begged mother to read on until she got the characters out of their dilemma. With the permission of her guests she did so and they became as much interested in the story as we were. Thereafter the listeners for our evening readings were enlarged by two or three. All I ever knew of Scott I got in that old house by listening and then re-reading the tales I liked best. Father always swore by 'The Antiquary' but mother's favorite was 'The Heart of Midlothian.' I guess mine was 'Guy Mannering.' I know that mother once heard me crying in a violent nightmare and found me going over in my sleep the scene where Meg Merrilies lights the flax in the smuggler's cave. I have often heard mother reproach herself for reading that passage to an imaginative boy before his bedtime.
"At fourteen I went to Rutland to attend the high school and only came home for Saturdays and Sundays. In my first or second winter I came home with some childish ailment which kept me in bed but didn't make me feel very ill. The first morning of that comfortable condition, mother appeared in my room bearing a big red volume, and announced: 'Now, young man, you are going to know some Shakespeare. I am not going to have a big boy like you going around an ignoramus.'
"She began with 'The Comedy of Errors' and I laughed till I cried over the two Dromios. Then followed the comic scenes from 'The Tempest,' the Falstaff scenes from 'Henry IV,' and much of the raillery of Beatrice and Benedick; all things which a boy could enjoy. For years I chose plays for my own reading from which I had heard scenes read aloud, or later, those which I had seen acted. I have heard famous people read from 'Henry VIII' but I have never heard any one put more tenderness and pathos into Queen Katherine than did my mother, reading by the light of a little lamp in that old dining room.
"My mother, however, was not the only reader in the family. My father liked heroic and romantic poetry, Scott, Byron and Campbell. I remember one night when mother was away and he let me sit up late while he read the whole of 'Gertrude of Wyoming' to me.
"My father's passion for thoroughness in his reading met a hard test later, when my mother lost her sight for a number of years and he became her eyes. I came home one Saturday and found him reading a serial installment of 'Daniel Deronda' to her. I knew he did not like George Eliot, but mother loved her. He read her all of that novel as it came out in Harper's, and everything else, from the newspaper to the Bible, including the Episcopal Church service on Sunday mornings. His occasional enthusiasm for Bible reading shocked his wife. She had been brought up to read her Bible a chapter each day, but when father read it aloud to her he read till he grew tired. One Sunday night he read aloud the whole Book of Job, with comments of interest or sympathy which would have been appropriate to a novel of Scott.
"An early case of his absorption in secular reading was a sore, if brief, trial to his wife. He came home from a business trip one Saturday and said: 'Mother, I've brought you a new book'. It was 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and, as mother used to tell the story, she looked forward to a delightful long evening, once she had put her supper things away and seen her children safely in bed. When that time came, however, she found father deep in the story and in no mood to lay it down. Mother waited for him to grow tired, but finally gave up and went to bed. Father kept right on until the last page of the story was finished, somewhere before daylight in the morning.
"Can any one imagine a more appropriate place for a public library than on the site of a home saturated with the love of reading as was that one? I can believe that gracious founder of the Proctor Library could have no better wish for its usefulness than that the spirit of the home which it has replaced should become incorporated in the new and handsome building, inspiring those who seek to make it helpful and blessing those who take advantage of its opportunities." (from "Proctor: The Story of a Marble Town" by David C. Gale, pub. by the Vermont Printing Co., Brattleboro, 1922)
The following was written by son Hamilton Ormsbee:
"The library building," he writes,"occupies the site of the house where I was born and made my home until 1875. It was originally owned by a farmer named Pennock, came into the possession of my father, Thomas J. Ormsbee in 1843, and was his home continuously until after the death of my mother in 1890.
"My father was a lawyer, had practiced and been postmaster in Rutland, and had gone West to make a home for his family, when he was summoned back by his brother, Edgar L. Ormsbee, also a lawyer with a taste for geology who had become interested in the marble vein in the valley. Edgar had secured an interest in the marble quarry and the little first mill at Sutherland Falls, and wanted his brother Thomas to take charge of it. My father took the Pennock house and brought his wife there. Four children were born to them there, of whom the two who lived to maturity were Harriett, the late Mrs. Joseph L. Patch, and myself.
"There is still one living link between the new building and the old. My father early in his occupancy trimmed up and staked an elm sapling near his house which had been trampled down by cattle. That elm he often pointed out to me and it is the one which now stands in front of the library entrance. The incident dates the growth of the tree from about 1840.
"My own memories began about 1860, but they include many scenes which show the peculiar fitness of the site to become a public library. My mother was a great reader. Her knowledge of the English classics, indeed, would put to shame most of us today, and the books she and my father had were lent freely to any of the neighbors who cared to read them. When I was eight or ten years old she began reading aloud the novels of Scott in the long winter evenings, a practice which continued for three or four years. One evening, Mr. Smith Warner, our nearest neighbor to the south, came in with one of his boys in the middle of an exciting scene. We begged mother to read on until she got the characters out of their dilemma. With the permission of her guests she did so and they became as much interested in the story as we were. Thereafter the listeners for our evening readings were enlarged by two or three. All I ever knew of Scott I got in that old house by listening and then re-reading the tales I liked best. Father always swore by 'The Antiquary' but mother's favorite was 'The Heart of Midlothian.' I guess mine was 'Guy Mannering.' I know that mother once heard me crying in a violent nightmare and found me going over in my sleep the scene where Meg Merrilies lights the flax in the smuggler's cave. I have often heard mother reproach herself for reading that passage to an imaginative boy before his bedtime.
"At fourteen I went to Rutland to attend the high school and only came home for Saturdays and Sundays. In my first or second winter I came home with some childish ailment which kept me in bed but didn't make me feel very ill. The first morning of that comfortable condition, mother appeared in my room bearing a big red volume, and announced: 'Now, young man, you are going to know some Shakespeare. I am not going to have a big boy like you going around an ignoramus.'
"She began with 'The Comedy of Errors' and I laughed till I cried over the two Dromios. Then followed the comic scenes from 'The Tempest,' the Falstaff scenes from 'Henry IV,' and much of the raillery of Beatrice and Benedick; all things which a boy could enjoy. For years I chose plays for my own reading from which I had heard scenes read aloud, or later, those which I had seen acted. I have heard famous people read from 'Henry VIII' but I have never heard any one put more tenderness and pathos into Queen Katherine than did my mother, reading by the light of a little lamp in that old dining room.
"My mother, however, was not the only reader in the family. My father liked heroic and romantic poetry, Scott, Byron and Campbell. I remember one night when mother was away and he let me sit up late while he read the whole of 'Gertrude of Wyoming' to me.
"My father's passion for thoroughness in his reading met a hard test later, when my mother lost her sight for a number of years and he became her eyes. I came home one Saturday and found him reading a serial installment of 'Daniel Deronda' to her. I knew he did not like George Eliot, but mother loved her. He read her all of that novel as it came out in Harper's, and everything else, from the newspaper to the Bible, including the Episcopal Church service on Sunday mornings. His occasional enthusiasm for Bible reading shocked his wife. She had been brought up to read her Bible a chapter each day, but when father read it aloud to her he read till he grew tired. One Sunday night he read aloud the whole Book of Job, with comments of interest or sympathy which would have been appropriate to a novel of Scott.
"An early case of his absorption in secular reading was a sore, if brief, trial to his wife. He came home from a business trip one Saturday and said: 'Mother, I've brought you a new book'. It was 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and, as mother used to tell the story, she looked forward to a delightful long evening, once she had put her supper things away and seen her children safely in bed. When that time came, however, she found father deep in the story and in no mood to lay it down. Mother waited for him to grow tired, but finally gave up and went to bed. Father kept right on until the last page of the story was finished, somewhere before daylight in the morning.
"Can any one imagine a more appropriate place for a public library than on the site of a home saturated with the love of reading as was that one? I can believe that gracious founder of the Proctor Library could have no better wish for its usefulness than that the spirit of the home which it has replaced should become incorporated in the new and handsome building, inspiring those who seek to make it helpful and blessing those who take advantage of its opportunities." (from "Proctor: The Story of a Marble Town" by David C. Gale, pub. by the Vermont Printing Co., Brattleboro, 1922)
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