Those Watering Troughs

Back in the days when horses were the principal means of transportation in rural Vermont almost every village had its watering trough. Indeed, many towns had a number of watering troughs distributed throughout the town. This was especially true in those towns with more than one population center.

For many folks the horse was part of the family. It is not simply by chance that hundreds of old Vermont family pictures include the family driving horse standing proudly beside the farmer. It was the horse that pulled in the load of hay, carried the family to the village to trade or attend church, or even powered the treadmill of the saw rig when laying up the winter's fuel supply.

While some watering troughs were provided by obliging farmers, others were maintained by the town, rent being paid from town funds to those who took care of them.

Village watering troughs served not just the traveling public. For one extended period in the 19th century many villagers kept a family cow in the barn behind their homes. It was not an unfamiliar sight to see someone leading a cow down the road to the trough twice a day for watering.

And watering troughs provided a great method of supplying a public good while at the same time demonstrating personal philanthropy. When the local boy or girl left town and became a great success in the world, how better to share that success with the home folks than by erecting a massive watering trough with their name carved on the front.

Today what troughs remain are relics, sometimes filled with flowers by the local garden club. But if one looks carefully, here and there along the highways and byways of our state, one can still find peeking out from the underbrush along the road, a pipefull of spring water visible from the highway. 

--by Weston Cate, Jr.

Source: The Potash Kettle, Quarterly Publication of the Green Mountain Folklore Society, Vol. 49, No. 3, Spring 2001.