The Tin Pail, the Missing Signature, and the Unplowed Acre

The Tin Pail, the Missing Signature, and the Unplowed Acre

A tin lunch pail sealed and bone-dry was dug from a gravel shoulder in Harsen, Vermont, holding an 1891 survey with one signature line left blank - Neil Fleming's. Eleven acres of farmland have lain unplowed for over seventy years because of what Fleming refused to sign; what did he know that made a town stop planting?

In this episode, we follow the paper trail found in a tin pail, archival notes misfiled for a century, and local records that hint at a buried secret; how did a missing signature and a forty-foot land strip connect to an unnamed infant and a vanished woman, and why did it change a community's behavior?

Person: Neil Fleming
Date: May 9, 2019
Location: County Road Seven, Harsen, Vermont
Event: 1891 survey with four signatures and one blank line
Person: Gregory Cole

- The tin lunch pail was lithographed with a locomotive and was found sealed shut in the gravel shoulder on May 9, 2019.
- Inside the pail was a survey dated May 14, 1891, carrying four signatures with the fifth line left blank for Neil Fleming.
- Eleven acres of farmland in Caledonia County have sat untouched for over seventy years following events tied to that missing signature.
- Agnes Pryor deeded a forty-foot strip along the shared boundary to Neil Fleming in October 1875 with no payment recorded.
- Reverend James Hobart's burial register entry in October 1875 lists an unnamed foundling infant with a margin note: "Father unknown. Mother removed from town. See Fleming parcel."

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