Wolf monument re

(From left to right) Peter Cross, Mark Sweeney and Richard Stahl pose in front of the newly-erected wolf monument. The group – together with Michael Foerster and St. Albans city workers – completed the project last week.

ST. ALBANS — The Wolf Monument on Aldis Hill is standing back up.

It’s not known exactly when the 1,700-pound stone tablet from the 19th century had fallen over and sank into Aldis Hill, but its resting place had gotten the attention of Peter Cross about a month ago when he was hiking near the summit of St. Albans’ central hill.

To give it a fix, he and a few volunteers decided to re-erect the monument by setting it back up.

Three trips later, after getting some help from the City of St. Albans public works department, the crew was able to move the monument four feet and onto the ledge where it was originally placed.

“We anchored it with steel rebar and hydraulic cement, so I hope it’s going to be there a long time,” Cross said.

The Wolf Monument on Aldis Hill highlights the killing of a gray wolf that had allegedly been eating sheep in the area. It reads: “On this spot in the year 1839 Lawrence Brainerd shot a grey(sic) wolf which had been ravaging the northeast part of Franklin Co. The great beast measured six feet in length.”

It can be reached by hiking to the top of Aldis Hill and venturing to its northeastern side. A small path north leads to the stone.

As for Lawrence Brainerd, he was a local politician heavily involved in the Republican-led abolitionist movement in Vermont, and he served briefly as a United States senator after spending his career as a sheep farmer and later businessman. His daughter, Ann Eliza Brainerd, married railroad executive J. Gregory Smith, and some theorize it was Mrs. Smith who had the monument erected.

According to former reporting, the monument was erected thanks to “the city’s public spirited women … There was much excitement at that time of the slaying of the animal.”

“It looks like an old granite headstone,” Cross said. “They must have used a mule or horse to get it up there. … They drilled the rock but not very deep. It was all done by hand back then. We used a gasoline powered drill, and it still took a while.”

The Wolf Monument has fallen down and been replaced multiple times through the decades due to natural wear and vandalism.

A 1916 newspaper article from the St. Albans Daily Messenger describes how a group of young men – W. H. Hatch, F. B Brooks, N.S. Miller. F. E. Preston and C.E. Pell – had means of moving and fastening the rock to a nearby ledge after it had fallen down.

Two years later in 1918, a newspaper editorial published by an unknown author called for someone to re-erect the monument after vandals had again kicked it over.

“In some way (the monument) gives one a glimpse of the dangers and hardships undergone by the old pioneers who laid the foundation of the Old Green Mountain state,” the author wrote. “A look into the past, as it were.”

The volunteers who helped Cross included Richard Stahl, Mark Sweeney and Michael Foerster.

Written By

Josh Ellerbrock covers the western side of Franklin County and specializes in state government, politics and community news. Prior to moving to Vermont, he reported from Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio and Colorado.

Thanks to the civic minded volunteers who restored this iconic monument of our local history. This is a landmark that I show visitors and others to our community and the local trails.

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