22 Main Street

Isaiah Page built this house in 1897
and signed his name on the back shed wall.
He owned the general store across the street,
and was postmaster, Town Clerk and Treasurer.

His wife, Ellen, lived here until her death in 1903.
Isaiah then married his second wife
who lived here until his death in 1911,
when the place was sold to the Gibsons.

Fred and Agnes Gibson retired from the
Gibson family farm in Ryegate VT in 1927.
They moved to Monroe and bought this house.
Agnes died in 1933 and Fred in 1943.

Two black-and-white exterior photos taken
in 1936 show a three-tone paint scheme.
From scraping clapboards and trim,
I learned they were white, dark green and gray.

George and Emily Bort bought the place in 1940
after their farm up the road burned down.
An auction poster to sell off their livestock
and equipment now hangs in the kitchen.

When George died in 1947, Emily converted it to a
boarding house for teachers from the academy across the river.
She installed a primitive fire alarm system and dead bolt locks
on each of the four upstairs bedroom doors.

Roland and Pauline Marcotte bought the place in 1969.
He was a truck driver for Kilfassett Farms in Ryegate VT
and caretaker of the North Monroe cemetery.
He built a tiki bar in the room where I’m sitting.

Dexter and Laura Johnson bought the house in 1979
as a retirement home and rented it out for several years.
They made a lot of improvements but
my father’s death in 1989 kept him from ever living here.

The Town Clerk told me about a police raid
that found marijuana plants drying in an
upstairs bedroom which had been painted black.
That tenant skipped town.

The cranky owner of the general store rented the house
while his store was being rebuilt after a suspicious fire.
He made such a fuss about the taxes on his new store
that the next town meeting voted the town dry.

Another tenant who lived here with her daughter
installed white shag wall-to-wall carpeting
both upstairs and down before she moved
back to West Virginia to care for her dying son.

The house sat empty for 13 years until
we bought it from my step-mother in 2005.
There was no heat or running water due to broken pipes
and it took us 6 months to repair everything.

My son, Scott Johnson, who is an accomplished carpenter,
spent many weekends working with me on the house.
His work and creativity turned it from
a run-down old house into a beautiful home.

This room was one of two parlors—
the one with the double French doors.
It’s now a home office with
two Macs, wifi and phones.

I wonder how many of the previous residents
during the last hundred and twenty years,
made love or bounced babies
on their knee in this room where I sit.