Dog River Crier, # 8, Fall, 1977, Julia McIntire, editor.

More from Mr. Hassett's memoirs.

Mr. Hassett remembers a two story structure in Center Village, with an apartment above a tin shop occupied by S. Warren Steele. "I well remember the night when it was whispered through Center Village that William Blood had died in the apartment above the tin shop and thereby hangs the story of Blood's Hotel.

Blood's Hotel: "During the long tenure of Bill Blood as proprietor it was an oasis for the thirsty souls in the Sahara of thirsty souls during Neal Dow's Prohibition Law under which Vermont suffered for fifty years. In those days it used to be said that Prohibition was better than no liquor at all.

"Just what manner of man this Mr. Blood was, I do not know but I know the whisperings and mutterings of the Center folk when they carried the body covered with a white sheet across the road, struck terror to my soul. No matter what manner of men were left, one frightened boy was sure an evil man had made his exit. Yes, Blood's Hotel: Many a community housewife waited supper many a night while her better half tarried at Blood's Hotel where good cheer, good talk and surcease from care were always to be had. No need for the wife to ask where her errant spouse had been. One new she knew by the way she rattled the tins and pans on the back of the stove when she put the 'warmed-over vittles' on the table.

"Nevertheless Blood's Hotel (before Bill Blood's tenure as a landlord and afterwards) played a big part in community life. According to Gregory, the first tavern was established by Ebenezer Frizzle, also the builder of the old tannery which used to stand on University Park and the 'Substantial Home', now the home of the Green Mountain Family Practice.

"In 1890, roughly the date of these reminiscences, the hotel at the Center Village was still an important social center because of its famous dance floor…The hotel was built in two sections which ran parallel to the main road with the well kept elliptical park enclosed with a neatly painted white board fence. Here Gregory could have given the date of construction but omitted it as he did so many other key dates in his history. There were some secrets of construction that went into the plan of the floor, giving it a particular resilience with the bucks and boys, the old men and maidens of the day. The fiddler called the tunes as the dancers romped through the mazes of the Virginia Reel, Money Musk, Fisher's Hornpipe and Hull's victory. The last-named probably came in with the War of 1812. Needless to add, neither the Waltz, nor the Schottische, nor the Polka (had) yet reached Northfield. Among the old timers who used to strut their stuff with vim and vigor were Ed Shattuck of Randolph, Tim Blanchard of East Roxbury, George S. Averill of Central Street and the imponderable Joe Rice who celebrated his hundredth birthday by jumping in the air and clicking his heels twice.

"To the north of the hotel at the curve of the road (was a) very large horse stable with a long double row of mangers facing North and South. That completed the setup for a well organized country tavern of the olden days. This writer years ago gave to the Town Clerk's Office a copy of an invitation to a dance at the Center Village Tavern in 1818. The Committee of Arrangements comprised such dashing young blood as Elijah Smith Jr. and Adolphus Denny, 2nd, all of whom died of old age more than a hundred years ago. The dance was set to begin at one o'clock in the afternoon with intermission for supper and no terminal hour was suggested. 'Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.'

The old hotel ceased to be a dance center when its owner, Professor C. C. Brill, longtime Norwich faculty member, cut the hall into bedrooms when an increase in cadet enrollment made Jackman Hall inadequate. The property was also used as a Norwich Mess Hall, operated, among others by George W. Dunham and J. C. Donahue. It later burned down.