Local Block 5

Dairy farms ringed Burlington and Winooski in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Farmers delivered large cans of milk to local creameries, where it was bottled, capped, and sent out for delivery.

Owner Edward Roy’s first business venture as a milk dealer was a grueling seven-day-a-week job. Farmers from Essex and Colchester, Vermont, delivered cans of milk by 3:00 a.m. Edward and his wife, Laura, would bottle and cap 300 bottles of milk and cream to deliver to households by 6:00 a.m. Because the milk was not pasteurized and refrigeration was unavailable, it required daily delivery to stay fresh. Their horse, Old Molly, who knew the route by heart, pulled a wagon in summer and a sled in winter through Winooski and the eastern neighborhoods of Burlington.