J. J. White

September 1852

Two Miles Southeast of Burlington, VT

Nathan Landerville intently watched the two men on the road walking towards him.  He recognized them as John Day and his son, Robert.  They walked alongside their two-prized Morgan’s. Nathan directed his partners, Frank and Jacob, to grab the reins of Farmer Staple’s mule and lead it off the main path toward a clearing. The two young men slapped at the mule, desperately trying to move the stolen wagon into a patch of birch and poplar trees at the edge of the clearing.  Nathan felt fortunate there were any trees left in Chittenden County.  In the last twenty years, nearly all of the forests in Vermont were cleared to make way for farms.

From behind a small poplar, Nathan watched the two men disappear over a small hill on the road.  Only the dust, kicked up by the great horses, was visible.

“They are on course to the fair, to show for the prize,” Frank said, as he calmed the mule.

The “Fair,” was the annual Chittenden County Agricultural Exhibition held in Essex Junction.  Nathan, Frank, and Jacob, like the rest of the residents of the area, knew that this was the one-day of the year that all the farms in the county were left unguarded.  The farmers and their families gathered their best livestock, recipes, and rugs to show for competition at the fair.

Earlier in the week, Nathan convinced Frank and Jacob to assist him in robbing the Staples' farm, while the farmer and his family were away attending the fair. The original scheme called for the boys to “scour” the Staples' farm for a large amount of gold coin, hidden on the property.  The word traveled around the county that farmer Staples had made good on the sale of a second farm.  Nathan justified the theft by promising to use the money to finance their journey to California.  Once in California, they would make their fortune in gold prospecting and send “remittance back to the wronged farmer.”

At first, the scheme worked well.  The three young men arrived at the farm to find it abandoned.  After three hours of searching for Staple's money, they decided to steal the farmer's mule and wagon. They filled the wagon with furniture, rifles, china, crystal, and jewelry.  With a full load, they headed southeast, away from Burlington, towards Waterbury, where the goods could be sold.  From there, they would start their journey to California.

South Burlington, VT

1952

“What's that?” Chris asked, pointing at the base of a large birch tree.

“I dunno,” his twin brother, Danny, replied.  “It looks like a hoop they put around pickle barrels.”

Though Christopher and Daniel Hutchinson were twins, few people would guess that to be the case, based on their appearance.  Both had light brown hair and similar facial features, but Chris was three inches taller and about ten pounds lighter.

“C'mon,” Chris said.  “Grab that side of it, and we'll lift it off the ground.”

The boys slid their fingers underneath the rusted iron hoop.  Large night crawlers wiggled out of the indentations left in the ground by the large ring.

“It's gotta weigh fifty pounds, don't ya think, Chris?”

“Naw… It can't be more than thirty.  How do you suppose it got around the tree?”

A large birch tree pierced the center of the hoop and towered another fifty feet up above it.

“I guess the tree grew right in the middle of it,” Danny said.  “What do you suppose it came off of?  A barrel or something?”

Chris dropped his side of the hoop to the ground with a thud.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Chris said.  “I can't believe we've lived here a year and not noticed it before.”

The eleven-year-olds' parents had their house constructed on two acres of heavily wooded land the previous year.  Only about an acre was used by the family, leaving a dormant acre for the boys to explore.

“Danny … go get a hatchet from the cellar, and we'll chop the tree down and get the hoop.”

Danny ran up the slope of the property towards the house when Chris yelled, “Oh, and get Dad's axe too.  Okay?”

“Okay.  I'll get ‘em both.”

Several minutes later, Danny walked down the slope toward Chris, without a hatchet or axe, but with his mother walking alongside.

“Christopher Hutchinson!  What do you thing you're doing, telling Danny to get an axe?  You know you can't use those tools without your father!”  She looked down at the base of the tree. “Now, what's this hoop Danny's ranting about?”

“It’s a barrel hoop, Mom, and it’s probably five-hundred-years old.  The birch tree grew right through the middle of it.  We’re gonna chop it down so we can give it to a museum or something.”

“Boys, it’s just an old wagon wheel rim, probably from some farmer’s wagon that broke down years ago.  It’s not five-hundred-years old, unless the Indians learned how to forge metal, and never bothered to tell anyone.  Now just leave it alone.  Your father doesn’t mow back here, so it’s not hurting anyone.  I’m going to heat up some soup and cook some cheese sandwiches in an hour, so make sure you both wash up before coming to the table.”

Chris waited until his mother was out of hearing range before speaking.

“I’ve got an idea.  We lift the hoop as high as we can up the tree.  When we get it near the top, we’ll swing the birch to the ground.  When we’re at the bottom, the hoop will fall off the top of the tree.”

Danny looked up to the top of the large birch.

“There’s not many branches ‘til you get to the top.  How do we keep the hoop from sliding back down?”

Chris put his arm around Danny’s shoulder and pointed to the top of the tree.

“We’ll go slow and hook it on the branches all the way up.  Okay?”

“Okay,” Danny replied.

1852

All had gone well for the three thieves, until they damaged a wheel on the wagon while trying to avoid John Day and his son.

“The spokes are snapped, Nathan,” Jacob said, as he broke a small piece of the turned wood off of the wheel.

“Remove the wheel, and we will repair it at my father's barn,” Nathan said.  “Jacob, take the mule, and then return in a week.  Then we will proceed to Waterbury.”

Jacob and Frank removed the wheel after bracing the wagon with dead birch trees.  They rolled the broken wheel a few yards away, where it came to rest in a small gully.  The huge iron rim on the outside of the wooden wheel clanged as it hit a small stump.

Jacob leaned against the wagon and removed an apple pie, previously displayed in Mrs. Staples' kitchen.  Frank and Nathan each took a large portion of the pie from the tin pie plate. Jacob stopped eating and pointed towards the ground near a small outcrop of maple trees.

“A cub.  It's a cub, Nathan.”  A small brown bear cub ambled towards the broken wagon to investigate the strong aroma of the pie.

“Where's the mother?  Look sharp, boys,” Nathan said, as he reached in the back of the wagon for the Robbins and Lawrence rifle he brought along in case, “trouble finds us.”

A huge brown bear, galloping at a quick pace, raced directly towards the men.  The bear veered off slightly and crashed hard into the mule.  The mule kicked at the bear as it tried to defend itself from the attack.  One missed kick of the mule struck Nathan's temple, killing the young man.  Nathan dropped the rifle on to the wagon. The rifle hammer released and fell on the small percussion cap.  The cap ignited the gunpowder, shooting the lead miniball out of the rifle barrel and into Frank's chest.

Jacob had seen none of these events.  When he first saw the bear charge towards the mule, he threw down the tin of apple pie and ran towards the clearing.  When he reached the gully at the foothill of the pathway, he turned momentarily to look back at the small forest.  He saw the large bear shoot out of the forest, her head steady and locked on to Jacob as she quickened her pace.  Jacob screamed as he climbed out of the gully, up onto the path, and ran as fast as he ever had, towards Burlington. 

The bear kept up the chase for a few hundred feet along the path, until she tired.  She turned back towards the forest where she saw her cub licking the last of the apple pie off his nose.

1952

Chris climbed the skinny black branches of the birch tree until he was about five feet above the ground.  Danny lifted one side of the hoop up to Chris, where his brother latched it on a branch.  Danny climbed over the hoop and his brother, up another five feet.  When he had a good footing, Chris lifted the hoop up to Danny, who rested it on another branch.

The boys continued the process until the thirty-pound hoop latched securely on a large branch, forty feet from the base of the tree. The boys climbed six more feet to the top of the tree and locked their legs on the swaying tree.

“Oh, wow!” Chris exclaimed.  “I can see all the mountains from up here.  You ready, Danny?”

“Yeah,” Danny replied.  The twins grabbed the skinny neck of the top of the birch tree with both hands and flung their legs out into the crisp Vermont air.  The top of the birch bent in a perfect arc until the boys’ feet nearly touched the ground.  The tree moaned and cracked under the combined weight of the wagon wheel rim and the twins.

“Bounce, Danny!” Chris yelled.  “Keep bouncing until the hoop slides off… Bounce!”

“I am bouncing, you jerk!” Danny yelled.  “It’s stuck on a branch!  I gotta let go Chris.  My underarms hurt!”

“Okay, let go on three,” Chris said.  “One … two … three!”

The twins let go of the top of the tree at the same time.  The birch catapulted back until it was in its original upright position, the wagon rim still hanging precariously on a black branch near the top of the tree.

Chris and Danny Hutchinson stood at the base of the tree and stared up at the hoop.  They shook the tree for over a minute, but the hoop stayed latched on the branch.

“It’s stuck good,” Danny said.  “Mom will kill us if she sees that. Let’s shake it again.”

 “No…let’s go.  It’ll fall by itself the next blizzard.  C’mon, Danny!”

Danny looked one last time at the hoop, grabbed the base of the tree in a bear hug, and shook it vigorously.  Just then, he saw a shiny piece of metal, reflecting the noonday sun, about three feet from the tree.  The object had dislodged itself from the ground when the big birch snapped back upright. As he leaned over to reach for the shiny object, the thirty-pound wagon-wheel rim broke free of the branch and careened down the tree trunk, missing Danny Hutchinson by four inches.

Chris ran back to his brother.  “Are you okay, Danny?”

“Yeah, boy, that was close!  I was trying to dig this out when the hoop fell.”

Danny held an old rusty pie tin.  It was a pie tin dropped there one-hundred-years earlier by a frightened mule thief … Jacob Hutchinson.