From The Connecticut River Valley in Southern Vermont and New Hampshire: Historical Sketches by Lyman S. Hayes, Tuttle Co., Marble City Press, Rutland, VT., 1929, page 356:
THE STORIES OF BARTONSVILLE AND LA GRANGE
The little village of Bartonsville in the extreme northwest part of this town, located on the Williams river, was once a much larger and thriving place, but of which the present generation know but little. Previous to the disastrous flood of 1869 there were two paper mills, two stores, a hotel and blacksmith's shop. Now there is only the small country store and post-office and about fifteen or twenty dwellings.
The village received its name from one of its earliest and most prominent men, Jeremiah Barton, Jr., connnected largely with the manufacturing and farming industries of the place. Quite early in the last century the village had a saw and grist mill located on the upper falls in the river, there being at that time two falls there, each capable of being utilized for power. The river was considerably larger then than at the present time. These mills were at one time owned by Mr. Barton, who came to town about 1830. As a young man he had been a purser on a line of lake steamers on the great lakes. He built the old tavern building which was opened as a hotel in 1841. In 1865 he sold the farm on which he had lived since coming here, located just out of the village. He then became the landlord of the hotel, which he conducted many years. His wife was Sarah Wetherrbee of Grafton, Vt., to whom he was married December 30, 1823. He died at Bartonsville in December, 1879, at the age of 82 years.
In 1851 or 1852 the saw and grist mills were reeplaced by a paper mill, established by the late E. R. [357] Robertson, who later was a prominent manufacturer in Bellows Falls, who had a partner named Dunham of Westminster West. One of the employees in this mill was Albert C. Moore, who was later the senior member of the firm of Moore & Thompson in Bellows Falls. He learned the papermaker's trade in this mill, utilizing his knowledge of the business in the establishment of a business in Bellows Falls which became one of its leading industries.
About 1856 John Stearns and Noyes L. Jackson built a second paper mill on the lower falls, and these two mills furnished the life and activities of the little village until the disastrous flood of October, 1869. This flood changed the course of the river for a mile or more and left these mills, and the village, at some distance, entirely ruining the power that had been the life of the hamlet. When this flood came Albert C. Moore owned the upper mill and had just thoroughly rebuilt it at a large outlay of capital. The mill was to be started for the first time on the very day that the flood came. He was also the manager of the lower mill for its owners, who were the Union Paper Company of Springfield, Mass. From that time the business of the village of Bartonsville declined rapidly, there being no manufacturing or other industries except farming.
Until about 1840 there was a little hamlet known as La Grange, of which present residents know but little, situated upon the plain where is now the town farm, about one-half mile west of the present Bartonsville posttoffice. Until that time it had for some years two taverns, two blacksmiths' shops, a country store and a dozen or more dwellings. Now only four dwellings are in sight. [358] This was a noted stopping place for stages between Rutland and Boston, difIerent ones putting up at each hotel, and business for some years was as promising as that of almost any other village in the vicinity. The utilization of the water power at Bartonsville drew the business to that hamlet, and La Grange gradually dropped out of existence as a village. A post-office was established at La Grange in 1835, and continued two years with Samuel Jackson, the storekeeper, as postmaster. The post-office was established at Bartonsville in 1842.
As an instance of the small streams of this vicinity which formerly carried important mills: In Rockingham village, just beyond the old meeting-house, in the ravine on the road to Rutland, is a brook which at the present time is hardly to be noticed in passing the locality. Some portions of the year it is entirely dry. In the early part of the last century the extensive tannery of Manessah DivolI, grandfather of Natt L. and Oscar J. DivolI, was located on the north side of the ravine, but a few rods from where the old hotel stood. The brook furnished water power for the tannery, as well as for a cider mill, carriage shop and other industries. The tannery was burned in February, 1858, and no trace of it is to be seen now, although the power was used for other purposes for some time after the fire.