41 Degrees North

Our building was built in 1881 and has been home to many great local businesses over the years; we don't want that to change anytime soon. The pride and joy of our interior is the mural painted directly on the south side of our neighbors' wall.

For most of it’s existence, only the second story of the mural depicting the words “Elliott & Foster”, was exposed. Crumbling horsehair plaster covered segments of the second story and the entirety of the first. It wasn’t until some diligent chipping away in the freezing winter of January 2014 that the full wording was uncovered, “Elliott & Foster, Dealers in Agricultural Implements”, and a symbol so distinctive to Middlebury it knocked us off our feet: a “twine binding harvester”.

Ironically it is this piece of machinery that tells us how old the mural is. The twine-binding harvester was first introduced in 1880, and was the first machine of it’s kind to cut and bind grain safely into sheaves using twine. The name appearing on the machine, “W.A. Wood”, stands for Walter Abbott Wood, owner of the Walter A. Wood Mowing & Reaping Machine Company of Hoosick Falls, NY. The company is known today as International Harvester.

The mural was no more than a year and a half old when it was covered up in 1881 by the building of the 104 S. Main building.