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NEW COORDINATES AS OF 10/12/2020: 44 35.324 072 05.388 Small black metal box containing log with pencil and a couple of very small swag. Great views of Miller's Run and the falls. Minor 'bushwacking' may be needed. Rocks slippery in wet weather. Not winter accessible in deep snow. Please be careful with the cache once you find it, and carefully replace it right where it was. Thanks!
**This cache is part of the Vermont 251 Plus 4 Geocaching Club, an attempt to bring caches to each and every town, city and gore in the state of Vermont!** Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 39.8 square miles (103.1 km2), of which, 39.6 square miles (102.5 km2) of it is land and 0.2 square miles (0.6 km2) of it (0.63%) is water. History The town is named for Eleazar Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Through an esoteric and old provision of the college, any full-time resident of Wheelock who is accepted as an undergraduate at Dartmouth may attend the school free of tuition. Standing in the center of the village for many years was the old brick hotel, known as the Caledonia Spring House. In 1893, Myron D. Park, who served four years as a Wheelock selectman, sold the Caledonia Spring House to Marshall Way. The hotel was the site of a notorious murder on May 20, 1896, when owner Marshall Way killed his 44-year-old wife, Ellen Sheldon Way, in the dooryard. According to the St. Johnsbury Caledonian of May 22, 1896, "The little town of Wheelock was thrown into a state of wild excitement last Wednesday evening when the cry went around that Marshall Way had killed his wife. It was a terrible shock to the people of the quiet town, and it may be many days before they recover sufficiently to converse to any length upon another subject." After the murder, the Caledonia Spring House was sold to Alden J. Rennie, owner of several mills in Sutton, Sheffield, and Wheelock. The building was dismantled during the 1990s after falling into disrepair. Wheelock Attractions Years ago many visitors came to stay at the Historic Brick Hotel ( the hotel has since been torn down and moved to Peacham, Vt. ), so that they might drink from the nearby sulfur spring. The spring promotional pamphlet's attested to cures of dispepsia, liver complaint, jaundice, eruptions of the skin, scrofula and other humors, ring worm, salt rhum, barber's itch, piles, costiveness, catarrh, dropsey, Bright's disease of the kidneys, gravel, stone, mercurial sores or diseases arising from nervous prostration. In addition, there were claims of hair growth on heads that had been bald for years. "They pray and they play and they pay, - and that's what they do at the springs." Wheelock enjoyed her new found prominence in the area until around 1902. Then the boom was over, people stopped buying the bottled water and the hotel ceased being a spa. The spring is still spilling forth and I am sure that Wheelock would like another boom like the one in the late 1800's. WHEELOCK, CALEDONIA, VT (Source: Gazetteer of Caledonia and Essex Counties, VT.; 1764-1887, Compiled and Published by Hamilton Child; May 1887, Page 381-388] WHEELOCK lies in the northwestern part of the county, in lat. 44° 33' and long. 4° 50', bounded north by Sheffield, east by Sutton and Lyndon, south by Danville, southwest by Stannard and west by the county line. It is very irregular in outline and contains an area of about six square miles. The circumstances which brought it into a corporate existence are peculiar, and are lucidly set forth by Hon. T. C. Cree, in Hemenway's Historical Magazine, as follows:- “In 1785 the legislature of this state gave, by charter, this town to Dartmouth College and Moors Indian Charity School, institutions situate at Hanover, N. H., one moiety to the college and the other moiety to the school. In the same instrument the town was incorporated, and named after President Wheelock, the first officer of the aforesaid institutions. In the charter it is provided that so long and while the said college and school actually apply the rents and profits of this land to the purposes of the college and, school, the land and tenements in town shall be exempt from public taxes; so that the town has never been called upon to pay state taxes. This, in the mind of the writer, was a great oversight in the legislature, and it is doubtful, whether such wholesale exemption from the public burthens is constitutional. The town enjoys all the rights and privileges of other towns, and yet pays but little of the expense of maintaining the state government. There being no list of real estate returned to the legislature accounts for the smallness of the grand list reported.” The general surface of the town is rough and uneven, though there are no elevations of sufficient altitude to warrant their being designated as mountains. Still there is much land unfit for the purpose of cultivation on account of brokeness. In the southern part of the town there are many fine farms, and a large amount of land possessing a rich, arable soil, while the soil in general is well adapted to the production of grass, making the town a fine grazing territory. The timber is mostly beech, birch, maple, ash, hemlock and spruce. The principal streams are Rapid brook, Miller's run, Fall brook and West brook, which, with their tributaries, form a perfect drainage system. The first mentioned is in the northwestern part of the town, while the other three are in the eastern half, flowing an easterly direction into the town of Lyndon. A continuous chain of hills extends from north to south across the western part of the town, about one sixth of the township lying west of this range. There are two ponds, Wheelock pond, in the southwestern part of the town, and Chandler pond, in the southeastern part. In 1880 Wheelock had a population 829. In 1886 the town had nine school districts and nine common schools, employing two male and thirteen female teachers, who received an average weekly salary, including board, of $6.33 and $4.15 respectively. There were 190 scholars, eleven of whom attended private schools. The entire income for school purposes was $1,575.51, while the total expenditures were $1,422.04, with Miss S. E. Rogers, superintendent. WHEELOCK is a post village located in the northeastern corner of the town, on the stream known as Miller's run. The Caledonia county sulphur springs in this village were once quite noted for their medical properties. The water contains a large per cent. of sulphur. The village has one hotel, one church, a store, machine shop, carriage repair shop, two blacksmith shops, and about thirty dwellings. Samuel Weeks built the first house in Wheelock village, where C. Rogers now lives, also the first saw and gristmill on the same site now occupied, receiving a right of land which included the site of the Present village, for establishing the mills. The brothers Joseph, Erastus and Thaddeus Fairbanks established the first store here, and sold to Ward Bradley.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Pngf zrbj, qbtf ????