North Calais Village has always been defined by its relationship to the water. Situated at the outlet of Mirror Lake, it sprung up in the early 1800s around the sawmill and grist mill powered by the lively brook that flows from the lake to the Calais lowlands. Even after local villagers stopped relying on the pond for physical energy, they continued to draw spiritual energy from it. Village residents have swum in its clear waters, boated on its placid surface, fished its depths, walked its shores, and picnicked on its banks for more than 200 years.
That relationship grew even stronger when Memorial Hall was built on a promontory on the southern shore in 1885. Nature had designed an extraordinary spot for such a building—a glacier-carved point flanked by sparkling coves and the high, wooded slopes that ring the pond—and the people of North Calais were clever enough to recognize that.
Memorial Hall was built by veterans for veterans, their families, and their community. On April 10, 1883, 17 Civil War veterans living in the neighborhood of North Calais joined together to form Stow Post 29 of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.). Stow Post was named to honor the sacrifices of Alonzo and Eliza Stow of North Calais, who lost three of their four sons in the Civil War.
The veterans, including Theodore Stow, the one surviving son, met in the District No. 10 schoolhouse then across the road from what is now the State fishing access for Mirror Lake. By the end of that year, the Post numbered 33 veterans.
In 1884 a fire destroyed the schoolhouse. Orlando Leonard, a charter member of the Post living on Jack Hill Road, then arranged to obtain the nearby southerly point of land on the lake from Wareham Chase, provided Leonard “shall build within five years, a good substantial building, thirty by sixty feet … and two or more stories high … to be known as and used as Grand Army or Memorial Hall, and for other public uses such as is common for such buildings.” Local women organized Stow Women’s Relief Corps #36 as part of the G.A.R. to support Post 29 and fundraise for the Hall.
Work began in the spring of 1885 with considerable grading of the site. Alvah Teachout and Charles W. Bumpas “struck the first and last blows on the building,” primarily assisted by Loudas W. Haskell, Charles H. Burnap, and Clinton DeWitt Ormsbee, local veterans all. Haskell had been Corps Mechanic for the 11th Vermont.
Timber was cut from the Woodbury side of Foster Hill and sawn at the North Calais village sawmill. The community celebrated progress on the leveled site with a picnic and cornet band tournament that August.
Memorial Hall was finished and dedicated on Memorial Day, 1886. All Calais residents and others were invited to bring fresh flowers to the Hall for a memorial service for the fallen, and the Post then distributed the flowers to veterans grave sites in local cemeteries, a tradition carried on for many years thereafter.
In 1888 the Post roll rose to 49 veterans, local G.A.R. chapters of the Sons of Union Veterans (the Sons) and Women’s Relief Corp (WRC) formed, and the Memorial Hall Association received tax-exempt status from the Vermont legislature. Beyond Memorial Day observances and Post meetings on Saturdays before each full moon, the Hall quickly became a focus for community events in northern Washington County. Over the next fifty years the Hall hosted 4th of July celebrations and other holiday fairs and parties; formal balls, promenades and dances “for young and old;” productions by local dramatic clubs and “literary entertainments”; band concerts, picnics and harvest suppers; not to mention weddings, funerals, and Sunday sermons, such as that given February 9, 1898, by Rev. Elizabeth H. Goldthwaite.
As Memorial Hall sustained this round of weekly, monthly and seasonal community events, ownership of the Hall passed on June 15, 1892 to “Comrades of the Stow Post” which included Stow Post 29, the local Sons, and the Stow WRC #36. A horse barn for up to 60 horses was built west of the Hall in 1895, and a two-story porch was added to the east face of the Hall about 1910.
After the First World War, a granite memorial just outside the Hall honoring all Calais veterans from 1776 through 1918 was dedicated on Armistice Day in 1921, becoming an additional focus of Memorial Day and after 1926 Veterans Day commemorations. Hall ownership passed to the Sons and the WRC in 1916 with the WRC becoming sole owner and caretaker after the Second World War.
Despite the 20th century changes in rural life that came with the automobile, radio, and electricity, the Stow Women’s Relief Corps, comprised of the granddaughters of the veterans and other local women, continued the work of managing the Hall for community events and commemorating the sacrifices and service of veterans. They hosted Memorial and Veterans Day events with schools and other local groups and annually placed over 244 flags on veterans’ graves in local cemeteries. In 1948 they sold land to the Vermont Department of Fish and Game in order to create the public boating access. To pay for upkeep of the property, they organized community suppers and rented the Hall for weddings and other private events. And after the 1991 Gulf War, the WRC updated the Calais Veterans Memorial to include the names of all Calais men and women who have served since 1918.
Memorial Hall continued to serve as the centerpiece of social life for Calais and neighboring towns into the early years of the 21st century. As Weston Cate asked in his 1999 book Forever Calais, “Is there a citizen of Calais over 40 years of age who has never been to a dance at Memorial Hall?”
But by 2015, it became apparent that the 130-year-old Hall could no longer host events without extensive structural repairs, as well as safety and ADA-access improvements. In the summer of 2017, the surviving members of the Women’s Relief Corps, faithful stewards of the Hall, decided that the time had come to pass the baton to the next generation.
Answering the call, a group of Calais residents reached out to the Women’s Relief Corps to share their goal of preserving and protecting this essential landmark and continuing its legacy. They registered the North Calais Memorial Hall Association (NCMHA) as a nonprofit with the State of Vermont and assumed ownership of the property in 2019. Plans for a complete restoration began immediately.
While fundraising continued through 2020 and 2021, the Calais architect Ryan Edwards was engaged to design the restoration and spearhead the process. Construction began in 2021 with a lifting of the building and a complete replacement of the foundation and support structures, and continued in 2022 with a full restoration of the interior and exterior. Work was completed in 2023, and the first events in ten years were held that June.
The North Calais Memorial Hall Association is indebted to the patriotic and community-minded Calais organizations who have stewarded Memorial Hall for 138 years, and we are thankful for the opportunity to renew and revitalize traditional uses of Memorial Hall and its lands. We look forward to new dances on its hardwood floors, new weddings on its grassy banks, and new generations of kids testing the chilly waters of Mirror Lake for the very first time.
