Ralph Secord’s house was built by hand from ground up by Edward Fenton Wood Jr. on an unpaved road on the Sutton side of the Sheffield-Sutton route called “Gold Mine Road” in Sutton, Vermont.

Rocky & Alice Stone’s house is a log cabin design by a manufacturer, but it was built by Edward Fenton Wood Jr. on Wood Hill Road in Sutton, Vermont.

Hammond’s house was a small colonial house purchased by the Hammond family from Connecticut.

They contracted Edward Fenton Wood Jr to renovate the house and add an extension on to the house.. Also, Woodie built by hand a “field store” chimney on the left side of the house to provide a fireplace in the living room. Over the many years the ground which was near a pond could not hold the field stone chimney and so it had to be removed.

The Sutton Fire Department accepted a donation from Ralph Seacord and Rocky Stone and their wives in honor of Edward Fenton Wood Jr. John Wood and Eloise Wood Samuels accepted the gift on behalf of the Wood Family. (See photo above)

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The town of Sutton was called Billymead and granted to Jonathan Arnold and associates on February 26, 1782. Named for Arnold’s son, William, it probably meant Billy’s Meadow. People from Lyndon and other nearby towns as well as from New Hampshire settled Billymead.

By 1810 William’s bullying and drunken behavior made him into an undesirable neighbor and citizens of the town disassociated themselves from him and found a new name. A resident who had come from Sutton, Massachusetts, suggested “Sutton” which was accepted at a town meeting. The state recognized the name change in 1812.

The Sutton Grange Hall, also used for Town Meetings, was built in 1917 and burned around 1937. It was rebuilt on the same location and now houses the grange hall and fire department.

The King George School (KGS) was a private year-round coeducational therapeutic boarding high school in a rural location in Sutton, Vermont. the affluent and mostly out-of-state parents whose high-school-age kids attended the therapeutic boarding school in the Northeast Kingdom. The 300-acre campus with sweeping vistas of the Green and White mountains has been on the market for almost a decade.

Some of the structures date back to the 1920s. Nearly all were ungraded in the 1990s when the Brown Schools of Austin, Texas, bought the former dairy farm and converted it into a private coed boarding school where performing arts and woodworking classes taught by Michael Middleton, his grandson, were taught there. It employed over 50 people including Edward Fenton Wood Jr for his woodworking skills.

Woodie helped to renovate and convert the large barn into recreational space for the school. A massive two-story horse barn, which sits on the upper campus near Sheffield Wind Farm, was converted into a campus community center and recreation room with billiards and Ping-Pong tables.

On the lower campus, there's a huge, three-story white barn topped with a cupola. Originally built to store hay in the loft and farm equipment below, the barn still holds rows of exercise machines left from its school days.

The Sutton school was the only Brown school that remained open after bankruptcy. During the 2005 bankruptcy, Universal Health Services of King of Prussia, Pa., bought KGS and operated it until its closure in June 2011.

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As a hard woking Black man with a family, Woodie never sat still:

Three Brothers Garage in Lyndonville utilized his mechanical skills in the garage for clients’ auto mechanic repairs.

Olsen Construction Services, a Northeast design-build contractor located in Lyndon Center hires architects and engineers to the carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and subcontractors who implement design ideas. They contracted hired him for his carpentry and masonry skills on several dams projects in Vermont and New Hampshire and other design projects.

Pelletier Potato Farm owned by Edwin Pelletier & Sons was located in Sutton, Vermont became an employer for Woodie. He worked as a seasonal potato picker on the Pelletier Farm for several months out of the year while waiting for work with his skill sets, . Pelletier Farms is based in Maine where the Maine Potato is famous.

As stated Edward Fenton Wood Jr. was a hard working Black man. He was sought for various carpentry jobs and was hired to make renovations on a lot of building in Sutton, Lyndon Center and Lyndonville, including the Sutton School.

Covered bridge access Lyndon Center needed structure repair work.

Edward Fenton Wood Jr contracted Tuberculosis while working on several dam projects for Olsen throughout counties in Vermont (Waterford Dam) and New Hampshire (Littleton Dam).