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Pass the Cookies and the Ballots
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That was at Lincoln Precinct, in the oldest building in the village, the 1765 stone Friends' Meeting House. The sign to vote, Janney recalled, was on the front door facing the graveyard. Inside, people voted in the former meeting room. (In 1817, the congregation moved to the present meetinghouse.)
Mabel Taylor and her husband, Lawrence, were caretakers of the grounds, and her kitchen was in a newer, attached wing. "She always had some good soup cooking on the stove, and she offered it to the voters and the people at the table checking them out," Janney said.
"There wouldn't be many that I didn't know, and we maybe had a little friendly talk," Janney said of those she checked off on the register. "The dairy farmers pretty likely came real early but did their milking first. The cows always came first. They left their clocks at the same time, not to interfere with their routine" of milking.
When I asked Janney where people voted, she replied, "Oh, they just went off in a corner somewhere." It was a simpler era.
For further reading, see Wynne C. Saffer's 2002 book, "Loudoun Votes 1867-1966: A Civil War legacy," published by Willow Bend Books.
Eugene Scheel is a historian and mapmaker who lives in Waterford.
