In Episode 371 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore a grave in the woods of West Windsor, Vermont. In 1934, Vermont’s eccentric and snobby poet laureate Daniel Cady built his tomb on a hill so the world would forever have to look up at him. He made his money the old-fashioned way. He married rich.
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Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Theme Music by: John Judd
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The mausoleum of Vermont poet Daniel Cady circa 1934.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[DRIVING]
JEFF: Okay, so we’ll make a right up here onto Strawberry Hill Road.
[BLINKAH]
RAY: Got it. Okay. (BEAT) West Windsor is a quiet section of central Vermont.
JEFF: It is.
RAY: This is small-town New England at its finest.
JEFF: So true. And we’re going to head up here just a bit. (PAUSE) Okay, we can pull over here by the side of the road.
RAY: Okay.
[CAR STOPS / DOORS CLOSE]
RAY: What are we looking for?
JEFF: We’re looking for a grave, Ray. Not just any grave. A mausoleum.
RAY: Why are we in the woods? We passed the Brownsville Cemetery just about a mile back there.
JEFF: That’s true. And there’s a 1960s and 70s icon buried in there… but more on him later. The site we’re looking for is a short hike into the woods.
[HIKING IN THE WOODS]
JEFF: The person we’re looking for is too good to be buried with the common folk down below. We’re looking for the grave of an eccentric… some would say a snob. A local poet named Daniel Cady.
[INTRO]
JEFF: I’m Jeff Belanger. Welcome to Episode 371 of the New England Legends podcast.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Thanks for joining us on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time. We’re always on the hunt for ghosts, monsters, aliens, roadside oddities, and all of the other wicked strange things that make New England like no other place. We get most of our story leads from you so please reach out to us anytime through our website. We love hearing from you.
JEFF: We’ll go looking for this mausoleum madness right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
[WALKING IN WOODS]
RAY: Why would someone want to be buried way out here in the woods?
JEFF: That’s a good question. First, a century ago, this wasn’t woods. It was a grassy hilltop called Strawberry Hill that overlooked town.
RAY: Got it. Here’s a little more background on West Windsor, Vermont. As we said, it’s a small town. The population was just over 1,300 at the last census. The town was established in 1761, and consisted of mostly small farms. Those farms began to flourish in the early 1800s as Merino sheep were brought in to the region. The sheep did well, and the farms grew. It was never a bustling city, but always had a quaint charm to it.
JEFF: A quaint town that inspired people like poet Daniel Cady. A town that drew others to the region in more modern times. People who fell in love with the area to the point of WISHING… upon their DEATH to be buried here.
RAY: Right (UNSURE)…
JEFF: I see our destination up ahead…
RAY: I see a small clearing. There’s a stone mausoleum in the middle with four stone columns in front. It looks almost like a mini Supreme Court building. There’s a black metal railing around the whole structure. The clearing isn’t very large.
JEFF: No, but the ego of the guy inside was. Daniel Cady was born here in West Windsor in 1861. From his childhood until he was 19 years old he worked on a farm earning $18 dollars per month. After that, he decided to go to the University of Vermont. He said of the move, and I quote, “I’ve been giving my hands a chance til’ they’re sore. Now I’m going to give my head a chance and see which will be the sorest!”
RAY: That’s a good line.
JEFF: Right?!
RAY: After graduating college, Cady passed the bar, became a lawyer, and moved to New York City where he practiced law for 20 years. He retired from law in the year 1911 and returned to Vermont where he met and wooed the recently widowed Mary Wells.
JEFF: Wells was wealthy. The two bought a house in Burlington said to be worth over $1 million dollars at the time. With access to all of that wealth, Cady could live in the lap of luxury, travel the world on a five-star budget, and pursue his love of writing poetry.
RAY: Being a learned and wealthy man, Cady earned the reputation as being a snob. But, few could argue about his poetry. People liked it. Though he was an aristocrat, his poetry felt folksy.
JEFF: So let’s head back to the year 1934, and meet Daniel Cody.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: It’s March of 1934. F.D.R. is in the White House, and America is struggling with the Great Depression. The economy isn’t doing well. But Americans are resilient. And F.D.R. seems determined to lead us out of this financial quagmire.
JEFF: Here in West Windsor, Vermont, folks are feeling the pinch as well. Money is short for many, but they press on. Because there’s no other choice.
RAY: Money is NOT short for poet Daniel Cody. For the last 23 years he’s been enjoying his wife’s wealth and writing hundreds of poems—enough to fill six books. He writes about things people in Vermont know about. Like this one entitled “Vermont Dried Beef.” Go ahead and give these lines a read, Jeff.
JEFF: It says, “To turn the trick without default / You take a quart of rocky salt, / Two spoons of saltedpeter, mind, you get the skull and crossbones kind.” (BEAT) So the guy writes about what he likes to eat, among other things.
RAY: If you put a recipe in a poem, folks might remember it better.
JEFF: His most popular book is Rhymes of Rural Vermont Life. It came out in 1919 and featured 114 mentions of Vermont locations and items. The book sold 1,000 copies in the first two weeks of publication alone.
RAY: Cady is also passionate about education and literacy. He gives impassioned speeches to school and town boards encouraging them to put more funds toward reading programs and literacy classes.
JEFF: He’s a popular guy. A local celebrity. For his fans, Cady embodies Vermont and New England life. And some of that fame has gone to his head.
RAY: How so?
JEFF: Well, he received honorary awards from Norwich University and the University of Vermont for his poetry. Since then… he’s taken to calling himself DOCTOR Cady. Even though he has no doctorate.
RAY: Got it.
JEFF: Now 73 years old, Cady is thinking about his next chapter. Also his final chapter. He wants a final resting place worthy of his achievements and stature. That’s when he sets his sites on the pasture of a West Windsor farm where he spent his boyhood. The hilltop sits about 1,000 feet in elevation with a spectacular view of the town below, and Ascutney Mountain across the valley.
[SHISELLING ON STONE SOUNDS]
RAY: Cady spares no expense. The outside of the mausoleum is made of Woodbury granite, while the sarcophagus inside is made of Ascutney green granite and modeled after Napolean’s sarcophagus in Frace. The whole project costs him a whopping $38,000 dollars to complete.
JEFF: With the mausoleum completed, Cady writes in a letter to his friend, quote “People will have to look up to me whether they want to or not.”
RAY: Yup. He’s obviously full of himself.
JEFF: It’s April first when Cady draws his last breath. His body is laid into his costly mausoleum where the world below can see him. But the mausoleum alone isn’t enough. Along side his mausoleum, he left a plaque embossed in bronze. Go ahead and give it a read, Ray.
RAY: Okay… uhhh… Uhhmmm. “In hoc sepulcro-parvum sed apton…” I can’t read this!
JEFF: The whole thing is in Latin… except for the last two lines.
RAY: The last two lines say, “If thou dost read the Latin language stay. If mute, return on some more scholar’d day.” So I guess we have to come back after we learn Latin?
JEFF: I think that’s his message. And that brings u to today.
[TRANITION]
RAY: Well, it’s been 90 years since we read that plaque by the mausoleum… and we still don’t know Latin.
JEFF: We don’t. By the way, the $38,000 dollar price tag for the mausoleum would be over half a million in today’s money. Though the man may have been a rich snob, his work was loved by man, and he’s still honored up in these parts with his own day: Daniel Cady Day.
RAY: Either way, he was memorable. Even if a forest grew up around his final resting place and ruined his view.
JEFF: Or ruined the town’s view of him… depending on who you ask.
[HIKING IN WOODS]
JEFF: I think we should head down the hill and swing by the Brownsville Cemetery just around the corner.
[CAR DRIVES OFF / ARRIVES / DOORS CLOSE]
RAY: This is a pretty cemetery right off the side of the road. This is where we’ll find that 1960s and 70s icon buried?
JEFF: We will. We’ll find him here on the northern edge of the cemetery property. Though he wasn’t born here. And he didn’t even die in town, upon his DEATH… his WISH was to be buried in West Windsor, Vermont where he and his wife had a vacation home in a local farmhouse.
RAY: Any hint as to who it is?
JEFF: He’s an actor… and if he ever got out of his grave it would be a GREAT ESCAPE.
RAY: Okay…
JEFF: Here he is… by that bench.
RAY: No way! Charles Bronson!
JEFF: Yeah!
RAY: I get it now… Death Wish. Great Escape. Two of his biggest movies.
JEFF: He and his wife had a place in town and wanted to be buried here. And though Charles Bronson was a big name in Hollywood and all over the world, he’s here in Brownsville Cemetery with all the common folk… who forever have to look a thousand feet up Strawberry Hill to see the resting place of Vermont’s eccentric and snobby poet laureate, Daniel Cady.
[OUTTRO]
RAY: And that takes us to After the Legend where we dig deeper into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
JEFF: After the Legend is brought to you by our mighty mighty patreon patrons! This is the way media works today, friends. We prefer to work for you compared to a network. The more patrons, the more we can offer. So we’re asking for just $3 bucks per month. And for that you’ll get early ad-free access to new episodes, you’ll get our entire archive of shows, discounts on merch, plus bonus materials and content that no one else gets to hear. Please head to patreon.com/newenglandlegends to sign up, or click on the patreon link in the episode description.
To see some pictures of Daniel Cady’s mausoleum, and the man himself, click on the link in our episode description, or go to our website and click on Episode 371.
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Until next time remember… the bizarre is closer than you think.
