Growing Up in Plymouth Notch, Vermont 1872-1895
The Boyhood of Calvin Coolidge: a mini-biography
by Sally Thompson ©1972 CCMF

CALVIN COOLIDGE WAS BORN ON JULY 4, 1872, in a small red house connected to the rear of his father's store. His father, John Coolidge, was postmaster and storekeeper in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, a little settlement of four farms and three homes. There was also a church, a schoolhouse and a blacksmith shop. Nearby, but out of sight, lived a butter tub maker and a shoemaker.

The town of Plymouth had no large central village, but many small communities, like Plymouth Notch, with such interesting names as Frog City, and Plymouth Kingdom. Plymouth had been a large busy town with a population of 1,400 before the gold rush of '49. Western settlement, the Civil War, and the fact that the new railroads did not reach Plymouth had caused the population to drop to about 1,000 by the time Coolidge was ten years old. It is down to less than 300 persons today.

Calvin Coolidge was a wiry little boy with red hair, a white skin with freckles, and ears that stuck out. When he was four years old, and had a new baby sister named Abigail, his father bought the house across the road now called the Coolidge Homestead. It was larger, had a number of barns, a blacksmith shop and, "a considerable number of good apple trees." This remained the family home until it was given to the State of Vermont in 1956, so that the public might visit it.

Coolidge said, "My education began with a set of blocks which had on them the Roman numerals and the letters of the alphabet. It is not yet finished. As I played with them and asked my mother what they were, 1 came to know them all when 1 was three years old. 1 started to school when I was five.

"While in theory I was always urged to work and to save, in practice I was permitted to do my share of playing and wasting. My playthings often lay in the road to be run over, and my ball game often interfered with my filling the wood box. I have been taken out of bed to do penance for such derelictions. . . ." In other words the little boy was allowed to make mistakes, but there was always an interested grownup nearby to see that he corrected them.

As a little boy Calvin spent much time with his Coolidge grandparents who lived in the grey farmhouse that can be seen from the Coolidge Homestead. His grandfather raised many fine horses and often took Calvin with him when he rode on horseback. Calvin's grandmother Coolidge gave him books, and read to him and with him.

After the death of his grandfather when Calvin was six, his father gave up the general store to run the family farm. There were many farm chores for a boy to do. A blacksmith was hired and Calvin says, "He ... was a large-framed, powerful man with a black beard, said to be sometimes quarrelsome. I have seen him unaided throw a refractory horse to the ground when it objected to being shod. But he was always kind to me, letting me fuss around the shop, leaving his own row to do three or four hills for me so that 1 could more easily keep up with the rest of the men in hoeing time, or favoring me in some way in the hay field as he helped on the farm in busy times." The two crops that were being hoed were potatoes for family use and cash sales, and corn for the horses, pigs, oxen, poultry and cows on the farm.

Although Coolidge's father was responsible for the family farm, he was not content to hoe potatoes all day. He was a businessman of ability and character. "In my youth he was also always engaged in the transaction of all kinds of town business, being constantly elected for that purpose. He was painstaking, precise and very accurate, and had such wide experience that the lawyers of the region knew they could rely on him to serve papers in difficult cases and make returns that would be upheld by the courts. . . . Unless it would keep me out of school, he would take me with him when attending before the local justices or when he went to the opening session of the County Court."

Coolidge's mother had been in a horse and buggy accident from which she never recovered. She died when he was twelve, and he missed her very much.

When he was not in school Calvin helped with the farm work. He says, "After the winter work of laying in a supply of [fire] wood had been done, the farm year began about the first of April with the opening of the maple-sugar season. This was the most interesting of all the farm operations to me.

"With the coming of the first warm days we broke a road through the deep snow into the sugar lot, tapped the trees, set the buckets, and brought the sap to the sugar house, where in a heater and pans it was boiled down into syrup to be taken to the house for sugaring off. [Making pails and cakes of maple sugar.] We made eight hundred to two thousand pounds according to the season.

"After that the fences had to be repaired where they had been broken down by the snow, the cattle turned out to pasture, and the spring planting done. Then came sheep-shearing time, which was followed by getting in the hay, harvesting and threshing of the grain, cutting and husking the corn, digging the potatoes, and picking the apples. Just before Thanksgiving the poultry had to be dressed for market, and a little later the fattened hogs were butchered, and the meat salted down. Early in the winter a beef creature was slaughtered.

"The work of the farm was done by the oxen, except running the mowing machine and horse rake. I early learned to drive oxen and used to plow with them alone when I was twelve years old. Of course, there was the constant care of the domestic animals, the milking of the cows, and taking them to and from pasture, which was especially my responsibility.

"We had husking bees, apple-paring bees and singing schools in the winter. There were parties for the young folks and an occasional dramatic exhibition by local talent. Not far away there were some public dances, which 1 was never permitted to attend.

"Some time during the summer we usually went to the circus, often rising by three o'clock so as to get there early. [Watching the big tent go up, often with the help of elephants, was almost as good as the circus show.] In the autumn we visited the county fair. The holidays were all celebrated in some fashion.

"Of course the Fourth of July meant a great deal to me, because it was my birthday. The first one 1 can remember was when I was four years old. My father took me fishing in the meadow brook in the morning. I recall that I fell in the water, after which we had a heavy thundershower, so that we both came home very wet. Usually there was a picnic celebration on that day.

"When the work was done for the day, it was customary to drop into the store to get the evening mail and exchange views on topics of interest."

The Plymouth Notch one-room school which Calvin Coolidge attended had unpainted benches and desks wide enough to seat two scholars. There were about twenty-five pupils. "My teachers were young women from neighboring communities, except sometimes when a man was employed for the winter term." Reading, writing and arithmetic were taught in addition to grammar and United States history. It was important to have a winter term of school as many times this was the only part of the year when a farm boy was free to attend. Calvin attended school very regularly and on time. He was one of the brighter pupils, but made no effort to stand at the top of the class. The stone schoolhouse which he attended was replaced by the present building of wood soon after he graduated from the eighth grade.

At thirteen Calvin went to the Black River Academy in Ludlow, Vermont. This was twelve miles from home and during the school week he boarded in Ludlow. He says, "That was one of the greatest events of my life. The packing and preparation for it required more time and attention than collecting my belongings in preparation for leaving the White House.

"My whole outfit went easily into two small handbags, which lay on the straw in the back of the traverse sleigh beside the fatted calf that was starting to market. The winter snow lay on the ground. The weather was well below freezing. But in my eagerness these counted for nothing.

"I was going where 1 would be mostly my own master. I was casting off what 1 thought was the drudgery of farm life, symbolized by the cowhide boots and everyday clothing which I was leaving behind, not realizing what a relief it would be to return to them in future years. 1 had on my best clothes and wore shoes with rubbers, because the village had sidewalks." The Academy had about 125 students and served as the village high school for Ludlow. Coolidge took the college preparatory course and found that the Constitution of the United States as studied in the course called Civil Government was of very great interest to him.

During his senior year at Black River Academy Calvin's sister Abbey died after being sick only a week with what is now thought to have been appendicitis. Calvin missed her deeply and said, "The memory of the charm of her presence ... will always abide with me."

After graduation and another long summer working on the farm, Calvin went down to Amherst College in the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts to take the entrance examinations. It was his first train trip alone, and on the way he contracted a heavy cold. The examinations did not go well, and his cold grew worse forcing him to return home where he did not recover for two months. "But by early winter I was recovered, so that I did a good deal of work helping repair and paint the inside of the store building which my father still owned and rented. [It was at this time that the counters of alternating butternut and cherry boards were built.] After a few weeks in the late winter at my old school 1 went to St. Johnsbury Academy for the spring term. Its principal, was Dr. Putney, who was a fine drillmaster, a very exact scholar, and an excellent disciplinarian. He readily gave me a certificate entitling me to enter Amherst without further examination . . ."

As a boy Calvin Coolidge had been so shy that he found it very hard to come into the kitchen and be introduced when his father was talking with business visitors. At Amherst he did not make friends quickly, but by the time he was a senior he had been invited to join the fraternity of his choice and was also chosen to give a humorous address at graduation. He graduated with honors in 1895. Several of the friends he made in college he later appointed to responsible positions when he was President, and they were very helpful to him.

Calvin again spent the summer helping on the farm at home and expected to go to a law school. However, there was an opportunity to go into the law office of Hammond & Field of Northampton, Massachusetts, and he accepted. He had visited in Northampton many times while he was nearby at Amherst College. Hammond & Field were not only good lawyers, but they were public-spirited citizens who took much interest in local politics. Coolidge acted as their clerk and got his education in law by looking up facts for the lawyers and studying in their library. After twenty months of study and work he passed the examinations and was admitted to practice before the courts of Massachusetts. He was twenty-five years old.

He soon established his own law practice and also entered local politics. He was very conscious of what his lengthy education had cost his father and said, "I worked hard during this early period.... For three years 1 did not take the time to visit my old home in Vermont, but when 1 did go 1 was City Solicitor. My father began to see his hopes realized and felt that his efforts to give me an education were beginning to be rewarded."

Calvin Coolidge, the promising young lawyer and active politician, met a young woman from Burlington, Vermont, who was teaching at the Clark School for the deaf in Northampton. She had large, dark expressive eyes, and a frequent friendly smile. She seemed to be the exact opposite of shy, reserved Calvin, but they fell in love and were married in 1905.

Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge had two boys, the first named John, and the second, Calvin. Soon after the birth of John, their father was elected to serve in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Following that he became Mayor of his home city, Northampton. After two terms as mayor, he became a Massachusetts senator, and eventually the President of the Senate. He served three terms as Lieutenant Governor, and then became Governor in 1918. This steady rise- was doe to his great popularity with the voters, but behind that was much hard work. Coolidge always knew what he was talking about. In addition he faithfully followed his theory that he would get more votes by talking about what his party, the Republican, would do, than to run down candidates of the opposing party.

Coolidge had many hard problems while he was lieutenant governor and governor of Massachusetts, because the greatest war ever known up to that time was being fought. Following World War I there were riots of hungry people who could not find work, and strikes by those whose jobs did not pay enough for them to meet the rapidly increasing prices of the day.

A strike of the police in Boston and the sharp statement from Governor Coolidge that, "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time," made his name known across the country. Two years later the Republican party nominated him for Vice President. He and his party won, and on March 4, 1921, Warren G. Harding was inaugurated as President, and Calvin Coolidge as Vice President of the United States.

In August, 1923, the Vice President and his family were visiting his father at the Coolidge Homestead. President Harding died on August 2, but the Plymouth general store, which had the only telephone, had closed for the night and no one answered when it rang. Finally the telephone operator in Bridgewater sent her husband by automobile with a copy of the telegram to Coolidge saying that the President had died. He arrived at the Coolidge home about midnight.

Reporters and local politicians soon began to arrive, and at 2:47 a.m. on the morning of August 3, 1923, Calvin Coolidge's father swore him in as President of the United States of America, in the family sitting room.
After completing the term of President Harding, Calvin Coolidge was elected and served as President for a full term of four years. During this time he was greatly saddened by the sudden death of his son Calvin, Jr. from blood poisoning. It started from what appeared to be a harmless blister. Today the deaths of Coolidge's mother, sister and son, could be prevented.

Calvin Coolidge was not an inspired dreamer, for himself or for his country. Three of his greatest qualities were sound common sense, complete honesty and the courage to fight for what he believed was right. There were no great issues or wars during his Presidency, and he will stand out more for what he was than for what he did.

On March 4, 1929, Herbert Hoover became President and the Coolidges returned to their small home in Northampton. Calvin Coolidge was very tired and seemed old. They soon bought a house where the constant stream of sightseers would not keep them from rocking on the porch, but after only four years of retirement, Coolidge died on January 5, 1933. He was 61 years old.

This biography for school children has been prepared by THE CALVIN COOLIDGE MEMORIAL FOUNDATION, INC.