Inside the Kingdom

INSIDE THE KINGDOM June 22, 2016 the Chronicle Section B – 20 Pages Old Stone House hosts antique engine show by Jef Barker BROWNINGTON — The Old Stone House Museum saw about 150 visitors on Saturday at its annual Vermont Gas and Steam Engine Association antique engine show. Several association members cranked up their — mostly — gasoline powered engines, some of which are more than 100 years old. Members of the Cars of Yesteryear also showed off about a half dozen antique and classic cars, and at one point during the eight-hour exhibit, there was even a steam engine up and running. Peggy Day Gibson, director of the museum, said that the Cars of Yesteryear group has been coming to the antique engine show for three or four years. The antique engine show “has been going on a long, long time,” Ms. Day Gibson said. “They’re just a group of people who love old engines.” She said that Bob Williams had been running the show at the Old Stone House for Courtney Mead had his cousin’s Fairbanks Model Z engine running in the morning at the Vermont Gas and years, at least as long as she has been there, but Steam Engine Association’s annual gathering at the Old Stone House Museum on Saturday. His mostly restored he died in March. 70-year-old Case tractor can be seen in the background. Photos by Jef Barker Almost, if not all, those participating in the show wore buttons commemorating Mr. he said. “It doesn’t work until you put some “logging up in Westfield mountain, and skidded Williams’ commitment to the Vermont Gas and resistance on the pulley. When you have it out with horses. The head was split wide Steam Engine Association. resistance on it, it fires just like a four-cycle open. Jack Manning and Bill Thorneloe are now engine. “It took a 20-ton wood splitter press to get kind of in charge of the show, Ms. Day Gibson “It’s a nice engine — a really nice engine. the piston out — it was welded right in there, I said. Smooth, doesn’t vibrate. It’s my pet engine.” tell you,” Mr. Whipple said. “I put all new rings Mr. Manning brought a 1.5-horsepower Alton Whipple of Newport brought his 1916, on it, honed it all out, new valves — runs like a Waterloo made engine. “It’s probably from the seven-horsepower, Galloway to the show. champ. nineteen teens,” he said. “It’s not a Waterloo He said a friend, who was a UVM graduate “I’ve got seven engines at home. I gave this engine, but it’s a Waterloo-made engine, and teacher, once asked him how he knows so to my son for his birthday. He’s got six engines meaning that it was made for another company. much about old engines and Mr. Whipple at home.” That’s what a lot of those companies did — they replied, “I didn’t go to college. He said he and his son bring their engines to made engines for other people, then the other “You tear them apart, you learn how they shows, but his son has a summer project in mind [business] would put their name on it. come apart, you fix them, and you put them for the two of them for this particular engine. “You could use it for grinding, churning back together — that’s how you learn. You don’t His son acquired an old fire truck that used to butter, stuff like that,” Mr. Manning said. learn this stuff from a book.” have a water pump in the front. They plan to “There’s a pulley that goes on here — you can “It’ll run on gas or kerosene,” he said. “I run build a frame on the front of the fire truck, “to put on a small pulley for speed or a big pulley it on gas all the time because it’s easier to start belt up to this, to pump water.” for power.” and it’s not so messy.” Courtney Mead, a long time Old Stone He said it’s referred to as a hit-and-miss He got the engine from a friend who lives in House volunteer blacksmith and current engine. “It gets up to rpm and then it coasts,” Barton. His friend found the engine while president of the board of trustees at the museum, brought a hundred-year-old Fairbanks Model Z, 1.5 horsepower gasoline engine. “Back then, most of the farms would have one of these engines, to power any equipment you couldn’t power by hand — whether it was a milking machine or a feed mill,” he said. The engine actually belongs to his cousin David Mead Jr., who recently moved to Barton. “I picked up an International corn grinder in need of restoration — which means a lot of rust,” Mr. Mead said. “I’m going to work on that this summer and get it all fixed up, to belt up to this thing next year, hopefully — if we can get it running right.” He said that the model Z was running well in the morning, but it wouldn’t start in the afternoon. “People like to see engines doing something,” Mr. Mead said. “There are a few guys that have them doing stuff, but a lot of the guys are just hauling the engines around now.” He also brought a 1942, 22-horsepower Case Model SC tractor that he has mostly restored. “We use it at the farm for belting to a threshing machine in the fall, for oats and rye,” he said. When he rebuilt the engine, he scrubbed it Jack Manning said that his 1.5-horsepower gasoline engine is about 100 years old. A flywheel would be down and repainted it, and now just has to scrub attached to the right side of the engine to power anything from a thresher to a grain mill. down and paint the back half of the tractor. IN THIS WEEKLY SECTION, YOU’LL FIND: BIRTHS l WEDDINGS/ENGAGEMENTS l OBITUARIES l KINGDOM CALENDAR l CLASSIFIED ADS l RESTAURANTS & ENTERTAINMENT l REAL ESTATE & AUCTIONS l YOURS FROM THE PERIMETER l RUMINATIONS l AND MORE! Page 2B the Chronicle, June 22, 2016 Ruminations Eating our way through the Florida Keys by Tena Starr down was a maple, bacon ice cream sundae. arrived with black beans and yellow rice. It was When did America get so enamored of bacon, simple and delicious. You were all having a miserable week. It was and why? An ice cream sundae with bacon? Is We basically ate our way through Key West, cold, in the forties, rainy — weather more typical this country hell bent on eating the most which was okay since we parked the car at the of April than June. disgusting things possible in order to get fat and B&B and walked everywhere. It’s hell to find a I was in Key West, where it was in the high develop diabetes? parking spot in Key West. A good meal tended to eighties and sunny with a brisk sea breeze. I got The next morning, we stayed at our little be both preceded, and followed, by a very long up in the morning and sat on the second-floor resort as late as we could before heading south. walk. balcony of an old mansion turned bed and Then we moved on to Sugarloaf Key, which is The food was terrific. We ate roasted breakfast overlooking South Beach and had a cup about 20 minutes north of Key West and artichoke hearts sprinkled with Parmesan, dates of coffee and read a book. Sweating already. considerably cheaper than its southern neighbor. roasted with bacon (this was actually good, and Steve kept checking his phone and telling me But our hosts didn’t have much to offer in the it’s called devils on horseback for some reason), that, at home, the temperature had reached a way of food except pizza. We hadn’t traveled all tiny lamb chops called chollipops, stone crab, high of 47 or some godawful thing like that. You that way to eat pizza, which neither of us love lobster tail with pesto, fresh greens heaped with were probably lighting fires in your wood stoves, anyway, so we headed into Key West. seafood, crab cakes, braised greens and tomatoes, or turning up the thermostat. I was toasty and I was surprised at how little Old Town Key and fresh local fish. sunburned, swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. West had changed. Yes, there are enormous, We were in Key West on Sunday when the Okay. I’m gloating. But there’s no question upscale, chain hotels on the coast, but the center Orlando shootings occurred. Almost instantly, that it was a good week to not be in Vermont. of the town, and some places on its coast, are still signs went up saying, “We support Orlando.” Why we went to the Keys in June is charming. There are still chickens roaming the There was a Gay Pride parade, which we caught something of a mystery. I have a bucket list of streets. just the remnants of. I don’t know if it was places to go, and the Keys, where I’ve been, We had a spectacular late lunch at a impromptu. I think not, but it certainly was wasn’t the highest on that list. Where I really restaurant we happened onto by luck, meaning intensified by the events in Orlando. want to go is the Gulf Coast around New Orleans.

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