Henry Leavitt Ellsworth
Henry Leavitt Ellsworth was a Yale-educated attorney who became the first Commissioner of the U. S. Patent Office, where he encouraged innovation by inventors Samuel F. B. Morse and Samuel Colt. Ellsworth served as the second president of the Aetna Insurance Company, was a major donor to Yale College, a commissioner to Indian tribes on the western frontier, the founder of what became the United States Department of Agriculture. Ellsworth was born in Windsor, son of Founding Father and Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth and Abigail Wolcott. Ellsworth graduated from Yale University in 1810, studied law at Tapping Reeve's Litchfield Law School in 1811. On June 22, 1813, he married Nancy Allen Goodrich with whom Ellsworth had three children, including son Henry W. Ellsworth. In life, he had two subsequent wives, Marietta Mariana Bartlett and Catherine Smith. Ellsworth was named in part for the Leavitts of Suffield, Connecticut. After studying law under Judge Gould in Litchfield, Connecticut, he settled first at Windsor and at Hartford, where he remained for a decade.
In 1811, when he was 19 years old and a freshly minted Yale graduate, Ellsworth undertook the first of several western trips during his lifetime. Ellsworth traveled by horseback to the Connecticut Western Reserve in present-day Ohio to investigate family lands in the region. Ellsworth's father Oliver Ellsworth had purchased over 41,000 acres in the Western Reserve, including most of present-day Cleveland, joining with other prominent Connecticut men snapping up over three million acres sold by the state of Connecticut. Ellsworth wrote a small, uneven book about his experiences entitled A Tour to New Connecticut in 1811. Ellsworth's mission was straightening out irregularities in land sales by the family agent, it was an arduous trip. Along the way Ellsworth made note of attractive vistas, rowdy drunks, solicitous innkeepers and his disappointment in places of which he had heard, like Erie; the journey's rigors were relieved by a meeting with his old friend Margaret Dwight, daughter of Yale president Timothy Dwight IV, visiting family in present-day Warren, Ohio.
"Here too", wrote Ellsworth, "I met with my good old friend Margaret Dwight, we sat down and passed a few hours in social chat." Dwight wrote her own account of her Western Reserve trip, A Journey to Ohio in 1810. Over twenty years in 1832, Ellsworth traveled west again, this time as U. S. Commissioner of Indian Tribes in Arkansas and Oklahoma. President Andrew Jackson appointed Ellsworth one of three commissioners to "study the country, to mark the boundaries, to pacify the warring Indians and, in general to establish order and justice" after Congress's passage of the 1830 Indian Removal Act. Ellsworth travelled to Fort Gibson to investigate the situation. Along the way, Ellsworth made stops in Cincinnati and Louisville traveled on to St. Louis, where he met with explorer William Clark and saw the captured Native American leader Black Hawk, chief of the Sauk and Fox tribe. Leavitt's mission was a complicated one: he was charged with trying to mediate between the conflicting claims of several Indian tribes, who were being forced into an ever-smaller area, in competition with newer immigrants and the interests of the Chouteau family, the powerful St. Louis magnates of the Midwestern fur trade.
Ellsworth was accompanied on the expedition by three companions: author Washington Irving, who recorded his impressions in A Tour on the Prairies. Washington Irving wrote of Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, "this worthy leader of our little band": "He was a native of one of the towns of Connecticut, a man in whom a course of legal practice and political life had not been able to vitiate an innate simplicity and benevolence of heart; the greater part of his days had been passed in the bosom of his family and the society of deacons and statesmen, on the peaceful banks of the Connecticut. In 1835, Ellsworth was elected mayor of Hartford, but had served only a month when he was appointed the first Commissioner of the U. S. Patent Office, an office he held for ten years, from 1835 until 1845, his twin brother William W. Ellsworth was Governor of Connecticut from 1838 to 1842, served as a U. S. Congressman from Connecticut as well. William Wolcott Ellsworth was married to the daughter of Noah Webster, the publisher of the eponymous dictionaries.
When he arrived at the Patent Office, Ellsworth found one third of the floor-space in his office occupied by over 60 models of inventions. He found that no list of patent applicants had been drawn up, a deficiency he soon corrected. Acting as Patent Commissioner, Ellsworth made a decision that profoundly affected the future of Hartford and Connecticut; the young Samuel Colt w
Tanning (leather)
Tanning is the process of treating skins and hides of animals to produce leather. A tannery is the place. Tanning hide into leather involves a process which permanently alters the protein structure of skin, making it more durable and less susceptible to decomposition, possibly coloring it. Before tanning, the skins are unhaired, degreased and soaked in water over a period of 6 hours to 2 days; this process was considered a noxious or "odoriferous trade" and relegated to the outskirts of town. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name; the use of a chromium solution was adopted by tanners in the Industrial Revolution. The English word for tanning is from medieval Latin tannāre, deriv. of tannum, from French tan, from old-Cornish tann. These terms are related to a hypothetical dʰonu meaning fir tree in Proto-Indo-European.. Despite the linguistic confusion between quite different conifers and oaks, the word tan referring to dyes and types of hide preservation is from the Gaulic use referencing the bark of oaks, not fir trees.
Ancient civilizations used leather for waterskins, bags and tack, armour, scabbards and sandals. Tanning was being carried out by the inhabitants of Mehrgarh in Pakistan between 7000 and 3300 BC. Around 2500 BC, the Sumerians began using leather, affixed by copper studs, on chariot wheels. Tanning was considered a noxious or "odoriferous trade" and relegated to the outskirts of town, amongst the poor. Indeed, tanning by ancient methods is so foul smelling, tanneries are still isolated from those towns today where the old methods are used. Skins arrived at the tannery dried stiff and dirty with soil and gore. First, the ancient tanners would soak the skins in water to soften them, they would pound and scour the skin to remove any remaining flesh and fat. Next, the tanner needed to remove the hair from the skin; this was done by either soaking the skin in urine, painting it with an alkaline lime mixture, or allowing the skin to putrefy for several months dipping it in a salt solution. After the hairs were loosened, the tanners scraped them off with a knife.
Once the hair was removed, the tanners would "bate" the material by pounding dung into the skin, or soaking the skin in a solution of animal brains. Bating was a fermentative process. Among the kinds of dung used were those of dogs or pigeons; the actual tanning process used vegetable tanning. In some variations of the process, cedar oil, alum, or tannin were applied to the skin as a tanning agent; as the skin was stretched, it would absorb the agent. Following the adoption in medicine of soaking gut sutures in a chromium solution after 1840, it was discovered that this method could be used with leather and thus was adopted by tanners; the tanning process begins with obtaining an animal skin. When an animal skin is to be tanned, the animal is killed and skinned before the body heat leaves the tissues; this can be done by the tanner, or by obtaining a skin at a slaughterhouse, farm, or local fur trader. Preparing hides begins by curing them with salt. Curing is employed to prevent putrefaction of the protein substance from bacterial growth during the time lag from procuring the hide to when it is processed.
Curing removes water from the skins using a difference in osmotic pressure. The moisture content of hides and skins is reduced, osmotic pressure increased, to the point that bacteria are unable to grow. In wet-salting, the hides are salted pressed into packs for about 30 days. In brine-curing, the hides are agitated in a saltwater bath for about 16 hours. Curing can be accomplished by preserving the hides and skins at low temperatures; the steps in the production of leather between curing and tanning are collectively referred to as beamhouse operations. They include, in order, liming, removal of extraneous tissues, bating or puering and pickling. In soaking, the hides are soaked in clean water to remove the salt left over from curing and increase the moisture so that the hide or skin can be further treated. To prevent damage of the skin by bacterial growth during the soaking period, biocides dithiocarbamates, may be used. Fungicides such as 2-thiocyanomethylthiobenzothiazole may be added in the process, to protect wet leathers from mold growth.
After 1980, the use of pentachlorophenol and mercury-based biocides and their derivatives was forbidden. After soaking, the hides and skins are taken for liming: treatment with milk of lime that may involve the addition of "sharpening agents" such as sodium sulfide, amines, etc; the objectives of this operation are to: Remove the hair and other keratinous matter Remove some of the interfibrillary soluble proteins such as mucins Swell up and split up the fibres to the desired extent Remove the natural grease and fats to some extent Bring the collagen in the hide to a proper condition for satisfactory tannageThe weakening of hair is dependent on the breakdown of the disulfide link of the amino acid cystine, the characteristic of the keratin class of proteins that gives strength to hair and wools. The hydrogen
Sheep
Domestic sheep are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals kept as livestock. Like most ruminants, sheep are members of the even-toed ungulates. Although the name sheep applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it always refers to Ovis aries. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are the most numerous species of sheep. An adult female sheep is referred to as a ewe, an intact male as a ram or a tup, a castrated male as a wether, a younger sheep as a lamb. Sheep are most descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia. One of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes, sheep are raised for fleeces and milk. A sheep's wool is the most used animal fiber, is harvested by shearing. Ovine meat is called lamb when from younger animals and mutton when from older ones in Commonwealth countries, lamb in the United States. Sheep continue to be important for wool and meat today, are occasionally raised for pelts, as dairy animals, or as model organisms for science.
Sheep husbandry is practised throughout the majority of the inhabited world, has been fundamental to many civilizations. In the modern era, New Zealand, the southern and central South American nations, the British Isles are most associated with sheep production. Sheepraising has a large lexicon of unique terms which vary by region and dialect. Use of the word sheep began in Middle English as a derivation of the Old English word scēap. A group of sheep is called a herd or mob. Many other specific terms for the various life stages of sheep exist related to lambing and age. Being a key animal in the history of farming, sheep have a entrenched place in human culture, find representation in much modern language and symbology; as livestock, sheep are most associated with pastoral, Arcadian imagery. Sheep figure in many mythologies—such as the Golden Fleece—and major religions the Abrahamic traditions. In both ancient and modern religious ritual, sheep are used as sacrificial animals; the exact line of descent between domestic sheep and their wild ancestors is unclear.
The most common hypothesis states. Sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated by humankind. C in Mesopotamia; the rearing of sheep for secondary products, the resulting breed development, began in either southwest Asia or western Europe. Sheep were kept for meat and skins. Archaeological evidence from statuary found at sites in Iran suggests that selection for woolly sheep may have begun around 6000 BC, the earliest woven wool garments have been dated to two to three thousand years later. Sheep husbandry spread in Europe. Excavations show that in about 6000 BC, during the Neolithic period of prehistory, the Castelnovien people, living around Châteauneuf-les-Martigues near present-day Marseille in the south of France, were among the first in Europe to keep domestic sheep. From its inception, ancient Greek civilization relied on sheep as primary livestock, were said to name individual animals. Ancient Romans kept sheep on a wide scale, were an important agent in the spread of sheep raising.
Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, speaks at length about wool. European colonists spread the practice to the New World from 1493 onwards. Domestic sheep are small ruminants with a crimped hair called wool and with horns forming a lateral spiral. Domestic sheep differ from their wild relatives and ancestors in several respects, having become uniquely neotenic as a result of selective breeding by humans. A few primitive breeds of sheep retain some of the characteristics of their wild cousins, such as short tails. Depending on breed, domestic sheep may have no horns at all, or horns in both sexes, or in males only. Most horned breeds have a single pair. Another trait unique to domestic sheep as compared to wild ovines is their wide variation in color. Wild sheep are variations of brown hues, variation within species is limited. Colors of domestic sheep range from pure white to dark chocolate brown, spotted or piebald. Selection for dyeable white fleeces began early in sheep domestication, as white wool is a dominant trait it spread quickly.
However, colored sheep do appear in many modern breeds, may appear as a recessive trait in white flocks. While white wool is desirable for large commercial markets, there is a niche market for colored fleeces for handspinning; the nature of the fleece varies among the breeds, from dense and crimped, to long and hairlike. There is variation of wool type and quality among members of the same flock, so wool classing is a step in the commercial processing of the fibre. Depending on breed, sheep show a range of weights, their rate of growth and mature weight is a heritable trait, selected for in breeding. Ewes weigh between 45 and 100 kilograms, rams between 45 and 160 kilograms; when all deciduous teeth have erupted, the sheep has 20 teeth. Mature sheep have 32 teeth; as with other ruminants, the front teeth in the lower jaw bite against a hard, toothless pad in the upper jaw. These are used to pick off vegetation the rear
John Wall Callcott
John Wall Callcott was an eminent English composer. Callcott was born in London, he was a pupil of Haydn, is celebrated for his glee compositions and catches. In the best known of his catches he ridiculed Sir John Hawkins' History of Music. Although ill-health prevented Callcott from completing his Musical Dictionary, His Musical Grammar remained in use throughout the 19th century, his glees number at least 100. Callcott set lyrics by leading poets of his day, including Thomas Gray, Sir Walter Scott, Thomas Chatterton, Robert Southey and Ossian, they include: O snatch me swift for 5 voices SATBarB It was a friar of orders grey for 3 voices SSB In the lonely vale of streams for 4 voices SATB Ella for 4 voices SATB Cara, vale! for 4 voices SSTB Father of Heroes for 5 voices ATTBB The Erl-King - a setting of Goethe's Erlkönig translated into English by Matthew Lewis, author of the Gothic novel, The Monk, the original setting of Drink to me only with thine eyesA number of his glees specify two soprano or treble voices, the second of which has a range appropriate to a female mezzo-soprano or contralto.
Callcott composed solo songs and religious music including psalms and sacred canons. Callcott's daughter Elizabeth married William Horsley who, in 1824, published A collection of Glees Canons and Catches, an edition of his father-in-law's works together with a Memoir of Dr Callcott, his brother, Augustus Wall Callcott, was a noted landscape painter. Sketches of Glee Composers by David Baptie. William Reeves: London, 1896 Free scores by John Wall Callcott in the Choral Public Domain Library Free scores by John Wall Callcott at the International Music Score Library Project This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wood, James, ed.. "Callcott, John Wall". The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne
Derby County F.C.
Derby County Football Club is a professional association football club based in Derby, England. The club competes in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football, has played its home matches at Pride Park Stadium since 1997. Notable for being one of the 12 founder members of the Football League in 1888, Derby County is one of only 10 clubs to have competed in every season of the English football league system and, in 2009, was ranked 137th in the top 200 European football teams of the 20th century by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics; the club was founded in 1884 as an offshoot of Derbyshire County Cricket Club. Its competitive peak came in the 1970s when it twice won the First Division and competed in major European competitions on four separate occasions, reaching the European Cup semi-finals as well as winning several minor trophies. Additionally, the club was a strong force in the interwar years, winning the 1945–46 FA Cup; the club's home colours have been white since the 1890s.
The team gets its nickname, The Rams, to show tribute to its links with the First Regiment of Derby Militia, which took a ram as its mascot. Additionally adopting the song "The Derby Ram" as its regimental song. Derby County F. C. was formed in 1884 as an offshoot of Derbyshire County Cricket Club in an attempt to give players and supporters a winter interest as well as secure the cricket club extra revenue. The original intention was to name the club "Derbyshire County F. C." to highlight the link, though the Derbyshire FA, formed in 1883, objected on the grounds it was too long and therefore would not have been understood by the fans who may mistake it for a Derbyshire FA team. Playing their home matches at the cricket club's Racecourse Ground, 1884–85 saw the club undertake an extensive programme of friendly matches, the first of, a 6–0 defeat to Great Lever on 13 September 1884; the club’s first competitive match came in the 1885 FA Cup, where they lost 7–0 at home to Walsall Town. Arguably the most important match in the club's history came in the following season's FA Cup, when a 2–0 victory over Aston Villa an emerging force in English football, helped establish Derby County on the English football map, helping the club to attract better opposition for friendlies and, in 1888, an invitation into the inaugural Football League.
The opening day of the first league season was 8 September 1888, when Derby came from 3–0 down away to Bolton Wanderers to win 6–3, though the club finished 10th out of 12 teams. In 1891, they absorbed another Derby club, Derby Midland, a member of the Midland League, leaving them as Derby's sole professional football club. Steve Bloomer considered to be Derby County's best-ever player, joined the club in 1892. In 1895, the club moved to a new stadium, the Baseball Ground, which became their home for the next 102 years, it was that the club adopted their now traditional home colours of black and white. Although Derby were inconsistent in the league, they finished as runners-up to Aston Villa in 1896, as well as achieved a number of third-place finishes, they were a strong force in the FA Cup, appearing in three finals in six years around the turn of the 20th century, though lost all three, in 1898, 1899 and 1903. In 1906, Steve Bloomer was sold to Middlesbrough due to financial constraints, Derby subsequently suffered its first relegation the following season, but under Jimmy Methven's management, they re-signed Bloomer and regained their First Division place in 1911.
In 1914, they were again relegated, but won the Second Division to earn promotion, though World War I meant they had to wait until 1919 to play First Division football again. After two seasons, they were relegated yet again in 1921. However, the appointment of George Jobey in 1925 kick-started a successful period for the Rams and, after promotion in 1926, the club became a formidable force, with high finishes from the late 1920s and all through the 1930s, including finishing as runners-up twice. Derby were one of several clubs to close down after the outbreak of World War II but restarted in the early 1940s, in part due to the persistence of Jack Nicholas and Jack Webb. Aided by the recruitment of Raich Carter and Peter Doherty, who had both been stationed in Loughborough during the war, Derby were one step ahead of the opposition when competitive football resumed with the 1946 FA Cup and won their first major trophy with a 4–1 victory over Charlton Athletic; the league restarted the following season after a break due to World War II and, under the management of Stuart McMillan, as well as twice breaking the British transfer record to sign Billy Steel and Johnny Morris to replace Carter and Doherty, finished fourth and third in the 1948 and 1949 seasons before a steady decline set in and the club was relegated in 1953, after nearly 30 years in the top flight, again in 1955 to drop to the third tier of English football for the first time in their history.
Harry Storer led Derby back into the second tier at the second attempt in 1957, though the club progressed no further over the next decade under either Storer or his successor, former Derby player Tim Ward. In 1967, Brian Clough and Peter Taylor led them to their greatest glory. Having clinched the influential signing of Dave Mackay, Derby were promoted to the First Division in 1969, finished fourth in 1970, were banned from competing in Europe due to financial irregularities in 1971 and won their first Football League Championship in 1972. Though Derby
Derby
Derby is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, of which it was traditionally the county town. At the 2011 census, the population was 248,700. Derby gained city status in 1977. Derby was settled by Romans – who established the town of Derventio – Saxons and Vikings, who made Derby one of the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw. A market town, Derby grew in the industrial era. Home to Lombe's Mill, an early British factory, Derby has a claim to be one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution, it contains the southern part of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site. With the arrival of the railways in the 19th century, Derby became a centre of the British rail industry. Derby is a centre for advanced transport manufacturing, home to the world's second largest aero-engine manufacturer, Rolls-Royce. Bombardier Transportation are based at the Derby Litchurch Lane Works and were for many years the UK's only train manufacturer.
Toyota Manufacturing UK's automobile headquarters is south west of the city at Burnaston. The Roman camp of'Derventio' is considered to have been located at Little Chester/Chester Green, the site of the old Roman fort; the town was one of the'Five Boroughs' of the Danelaw, until it was captured by Lady Aethelflaed of Mercia in July 917, subsequent to which the town was annexed into the Kingdom of Mercia. The Viking name Djúra-bý, recorded in Old English as Deoraby, means "Village of the Deer". However, the origin of the name'Derby' has had multiple influences; the town name does appear as'Darbye' in early maps, such as that of John Speed, 1610. Modern research into the history and archaeology of Derby has provided evidence that the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons would have co-existed, occupying two areas of land surrounded by water; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that "Derby is divided by water". These areas of land were known as Norþworþig and Deoraby, were at the "Irongate" side of Derby. During the Civil War of 1642–1646, Derby was garrisoned by Parliamentary troops commanded by Sir John Gell, 1st Baronet, appointed Governor of Derby in 1643.
These troops took part in the defence of nearby Nottingham, the Siege of Lichfield, the Battle of Hopton Heath and many other engagements in Nottinghamshire and Cheshire, as well as defending Derbyshire against Royalist armies. A hundred years Bonnie Prince Charlie set up camp at Derby on 4 December 1745, whilst on his way south to seize the British crown; the prince called at The George Inn on Irongate, where the Duke of Devonshire had set up his headquarters, demanded billets for his 9,000 troops. He stayed at Exeter House, Full Street where he held his "council of war". A replica of the room is on display at Derby Museum in the city centre, he had received misleading information about an army coming to meet him south of Derby. Although he wished to continue with his quest, he was over-ruled by his fellow officers, he abandoned his invasion at Swarkestone Bridge on the River Trent just a few miles south of Derby. As a testament to his belief in his cause, the prince – who on the march from Scotland had walked at the front of the column – made the return journey on horseback at the rear of the bedraggled and tired army.
Derby and Derbyshire were among the centres of Britain's Industrial Revolution. In 1717, Derby was the site of the first water-powered silk mill in Britain, built by John Lombe and George Sorocold, after Lombe had reputedly stolen the secrets of silk-throwing from Piedmont in Italy. In 1759, Jedediah Strutt patented and built a machine called the Derby Rib Attachment that revolutionised the manufacture of hose; this attachment was used on the Rev. Lee's Framework Knitting Machine; the partners were William Woollatt. The patent was obtained in January 1759. After three years and Stafford were paid off, Samuel Need – a hosier of Nottingham – joined the partnership; the firm was known as Need and Woollatt. The patent expired in 1773. Messrs Wright, the bankers of Nottingham, recommended that Richard Arkwright apply to Strutt and Need for finance for his cotton spinning mill; the first mill was driven by horses. In 1771 Richard Arkwright, Samuel Need and Jedediah Strutt built the world's first commercially successful water-powered cotton spinning mill at Cromford, developing a form of power, to be a catalyst for the Industrial Revolution.
This was followed in Derbyshire by Jedediah Strutt's cotton spinning mills at Belper. They were: South Mill, the first, 1775; the Belper and Milford mills were not built in partnership with Arkwright. These mills were all Strutt financed. Oth
Shaftsbury, Vermont
Shaftsbury is a town in Bennington County, United States. The population was 3,590 at the 2010 census; the town was chartered on August 20, 1761. It was named after the Earl of Shaftesbury. In June 1843, escaped slaves hid at a Shaftsbury farm, in the first recorded instance in Vermont of the Underground Railroad. Shaftsbury is located in Bennington County along the western border of Vermont. To the north is the town of Arlington, to the east is the unincorporated town of Glastenbury, to the south is the town of Bennington, the county seat, to the west are the towns of Hoosick and White Creek in New York. Shaftsbury includes the communities of South Shaftsbury. Lake Shaftsbury State Park is located around Lake Shaftsbury. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 43.2 square miles, of which 43.1 square miles is land and 0.08 square miles, or 0.21%, is water. Most of the town drains southward to the Walloomsac River, while the northeast corner, including Lake Shaftsbury, drains north to the Batten Kill.
Both rivers are part of the Hudson River watershed. As of the census of 2000, there were 3,767 people, 1,450 households, 1,078 families residing in the town; the population density was 87.4 people per square mile. There were 1,574 housing units at an average density of 36.5 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 98.73% White, 0.21% Black, 0.05% Native American, 0.29% Asian, 0.16% from other races, 0.56% from two or more races. Hispanic of any race were 0.90% of the population. There were 1,450 households out of which 34.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 63.2% were married couples living together, 8.0% had a female householder with no husband present, 25.6% were non-families. 19.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.8% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.60 and the average family size was 2.99. In the town, the population was spread out with 25.8% under the age of 18, 5.3% from 18 to 24, 27.5% from 25 to 44, 28.4% from 45 to 64, 13.1% who were 65 years of age or older.
The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.2 males. The median income for a household in the town was $45,139, the median income for a family was $52,083. Males had a median income of $36,118 versus $25,776 for females; the per capita income for the town was $22,035. About 4.0% of families and 6.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.1% of those under age 18 and 5.3% of those age 65 or over. The Selectboard is the body that has general control over the affairs of the town; the Selectboard performs three functions: Legislative - enacts local ordinances and policies. Administrative - prepares and presents the budget, oversees all town expenditures, supervises personnel and controls town buildings and property. Quasi-judicial - determines private rights in such areas as laying out and reclassifying highways and hearing appeals as the local board of health and as the local liquor control commission.
In Shaftsbury, the Selectboard serves as the water board, overseeing the operations of the Shaftsbury Water Department. Current members of the Selectboard include: Tim Scoggins - Chair - 3-year term expires 2018 Art Whitman - 2-year term expires 2018 Ken Harrington - 3-year term expires 2019 Tony Krulikowski - 3-year term expires 2020 Joe Barber - 2-year term expires 2019 Lake Shaftsbury State Park is an 84-acre park surrounding Lake Shaftsbury, it became a state park in 1974, has group camping, a developed beach, play area, picnic area. Andy Newell, US Nordic skier and Olympian Irving Adler, mathematician and educator Joyce Sparer Adler, literary critic and teacher George L. Buck, Wisconsin state senator and businessman Jonas Galusha, sixth governor of Vermont Jacob M. Howard, US senator from Michigan Norman Lear, television writer and producer Gideon Olin, US congressman from Vermont Henry Olin, US congressman from Vermont and sixth Lieutenant Governor of Vermont Robert Frost, American poet, writer of Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening and Fire And Ice Town of Shaftsbury official website City-Data.com