Dr. Ernest Fenwick Johnstone

Always willing to admit our mistakes, we originally cited the poem, No Vermonters in Heaven, and credited it to "Anonymous". Since then, we've had the good fortune to learn the real author of the poem. See our Folklore section for an updated and correctly attributed version of Dr. Johnstone's poem. Below is some information provided by the great, great grandchildren of Dr. Johnstone.

Dr. Ernest Fenwick Johnstone was born in Waterville, Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada on April 12, 1867. He later moved to the states, living in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont. He earned degrees at the University of Michigan in law and later in dentistry. He was listed as an lawyer on his marriage certificate to his first wife Edna (Gray) in 1894. But it seems the trade he applied most was as an "Extraction Dentist." He traveled around with horse and buggy in Orwell, Bristol and a few other small towns in Vermont, pulling teeth. In later years it is said he traveled in his Model T, with a tool box full of teeth and extracting tools, applying his trade. 

He and Edna had one child, Mildred Silvia. Ernest and Edna divorced at some point and Edna and their daughter moved on to southern California. Ernest married again in 1909 to Jessie (Mossman). They also had one daughter named Guenyth. Ernest died in Bristol on April 7, 1938 and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Bristol, Vermont.

According to Mrs. Johnstone: "He was driving over Rochester Mountain in the fall of the year (1914). It was in horse and buggy days, and he had ample opportunity to review the beauty about him as his horse eased his way down the mountain. Dr. Johnstone was always a lover of nature, and his great regard for it often overflowed in spontaneous verse as was the case with 'No Vermonters in Heaven.'"

Source:  Kathryn Arnold-Stauffer, great, great granddaughter of Dr. E.F. Johnstone, December 2001.

Source: A History of the Town of Orwell, Vermont, Dedicated to all citizens - Past & Present; compiled and organized by the Orwell Historical Society, 1988.