Theron Boyd dies at 88; Assured Farm was Saved by Eamonn Sullivan, March 22 1990 Southern Vermont Bureau Woodstock, Vermont---- Theron Boyd, who successfully fought the onslaught of development on his 28 acre farmland by the Quechee Lakes Corp., VT died Wednesday morning. He was 88. Boyd died at about 1:30 a.m. at the Mertens House, a Woodstock community care home, according to Susan Skaskiw, Boyd's guardian for the last three years of his life. Shaskiw said a small service for Boyd will be held at 1:30 p.m. Friday at the Cabot Funeral Home in Woodstock. A reception for Boyd's friends will be held at the Mertens House after the ceremony, Skaskiw said. In the last few years of his life, Boyd became well known in his battle to save his 200 year old home and farmland from encroaching development. He gained the support of state officials and several local people in his fight. Boyd became well known about four years ago in a court battle to regain title to his land. The land was deeded to a family friend, Elizabeth C. Henault, on condition that she take care of Boyd. That condition was violated, some said, when Boyd was found by a friend one winter passed out in an outhouse. Attorney Peter Welch, of Hartland, began a fight in 1983 to regain Boyd's title to the land. The lawsuit was successful. The parties announced a $100,000 settlement halfway through a court trial. "He was a wonderful man, totally unfazed by the development around him and his own insistence in preserving his land the way it was," Welch said Wednesday. "He was a simple man in the profound meaning of the word." Boyd withstood some extremely lucrative offers for his land, Welch said. Today, because of Boyd's efforts and efforts by state and local land trust officials, the farm land and the 18th century Georgian home remains. It is surrounded by the sprawling Quechee Lakes project. Skaskiw said Boyd died of natural causes at the home. Boyd had few living relatives, but Skaskiw said she was trying to contact a half-brother before Friday's services. The Vermont Land Trust sold most of the property to the state Division for Historic Preservation in January. The $600,000 sale consisted of a $300,000 state appropriation, a $160,700 grant from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, and the rest came from private donations. The other eight acres of the property was held by the land trust to be sold if Boyd needed it to pay his $100.00 a day Mertens bill. In 1988, most of Boyd's furniture and other possessions were sold at auction to help pay for his care. Boyd was born in this home in 1901. The house remains essentially unchanged from the 18th century, including a lack of central heat and plumbing. State officials say they will restore the home as an historical exhibit. The home was once a stop in the underground railroad for escaping slaves, a stage coach stop and the site of the state's first agricultural school. It is worth an estimated $1 million. For More see http://www.clanboyd.info/state/Vermont/famhist/theron/index.htm **********************************************                     *** Archaeologists Begin Dig *** No Rare Treasures are unearthed at Theron Boyd House Quechee----An incongruous collection of antique bottles, a very old shoe, and an empty aluminum can for caffeine free Tab share space on a table inside Theron Boyd's 1786 house. Outside, archaeologists blend old and new as they sift through the soil with modern tools in their search for buried treasures and clues about the history of the Quechee homestead. Archaeologists have yet to find any rarities in their excavations around Theron Boyd's 200+ year old barn, but the team is hopeful that digs around the house will be more fruitful. Boyd, a stonemason and farmer, died in March at 88 years. The state owns the his Georgian-style house, a barn, a sugaring house and 28 acres. Allen Yale, administer for the site, said the team of archaeologists and volunteers is puzzled by the sterile ground around the barn and is beginning to wonder why the group is not unearthing more artifacts. One theory Yale is considering is that the barn, although it is 200+ years old, may have been moved to the Boyd site from elsewhere around 100 years ago. Also the group has found ashes in one of the layers of earth around the barn, so Yale said he is also considering the possibility that a fire may have destroyed an earlier barn where the standing one rests. But, he said, he just can't be sure. "We're sort of puzzled finding sterile soil quite early......We expected a lot of artifacts," Yale said last week as he walked among the toiling volunteers. But reaching into the pocket of his blue jeans, Yale pulled out a large, hand-wrought nail with square edges. Although not quite a treasure, the nails from the late 18th century are part of the homestead's long history. This weekend the team began digging around Boyd's main house, Yale said, where they expected to find "more glamorous things." But all they found were more nails and pottery chips. The group's major find in the barn, he said, was a wooden ox yoke. Glass, bottles, and cups are noticeably absent because "you don't take crockery out to the barn," he said. Strolling inside a kitchen door at the main house, Yale looked down and predicted that this sector would yield the greatest findings. In the 18th century, " he explained, "people weren't as tidy and they would through their garbage out the back door. We expect this will be a rich area." Strolling around the house, Yale said "This is a very exciting property because so little has changed," Reaching up to run his hands over the clapboards, he pointed out that they were feathered in 18th century fashion and were originals. Hooks around the windows, he said, show there used to be shutters, and supports outside the front door bespeak the absence of a once-present porch. One of the decisions Yale said he has to make when the house is restored is exactly what should be restored. The porch, for example, was a later addition to the original house. The house's interior presents Yale with a similar quandary in deciding what period to restore. A big fireplace in the kitchen, for example, was at first used for cooking as an open hearth. In later years was filled in with bricks and a wood stove was installed. Having trouble deciding what story the fireplace should tell, Yale is toying with the idea of leaving half of the fireplace filled in with bricks and clearing the other half to show the dimension of the cavernous hearth. Even if the archaeologists find few antiquities in the ground, the house is filled to its seams with relics. At the top of the time-worn staircase is a bedroom with a 1937 Old Farmers Almanac and downstairs in the pantry are shelves of aged bottles, china, pots, cutlery, spices and tins and bottles filled with medicine. One blue and white tin of Watkins Antiseptic Cream boasts that it is good for what ails you; collar and saddle galls, barb-wire cuts, cracked skin, cuts, itching and bleeding sores, proud flesh, running sores, sore nocks, sore shoulders." The cure-all was made by J.R. Watkins Company----"The largest company in the world." Yale said the team of excavators will be digging around the house this weekend and continue the work daily until June 22. Anyone who wishes to volunteer may speak to Yale on site. The excavation of earth around the house is being done so that a contractor may come in and stabilize the two old structures which will be opened as a museum. For more on this old home and a photo see: http://members.valley.net/~connriver/V11-16.htm My maternal 3rd great grand uncles, William + Margaret HANNAH and his brother, Benjamin BURTCH + Sarah or Sally STRONG, built this house in 1786 in Quechee, Windsor, VT, in 1786. http://www.clanboyd.info/state/Vermont/famhist/theron/index.htm http://members.valley.net/~connriver/V11-16.htm