In many ways, Hanover is a quintessential New England town. It has an ivy-covered town hall, a white-steeple church and bells that ring at six o’clock. However, if you take a tour around the Upper Valley, you may notice one recurring New England staple that Hanover lacks: the general store.
Often located within a historic building near the center of town, a general store is a one-stop-shop for anything you might need. Most have groceries, gas, beauty products, hardware, knick-knacks, fresh coffee and a deli, to name a few. Dan and Whit’s General Store in Norwich captures the spirit of the general store best: their motto is, “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.”
Dan and Whit’s has been around since the 1950s, but the building has been a general store with different owners since 1829. According to the general manager Caroline Collub, people call the store “the heart of the town.” In fact, a room upstairs hosted town meetings from 1891to 1939, a staple of New England life. Nowadays, the store serves as an informal town gathering place.
“It’s a shopping experience that makes it easy for the people of Norwich, but it’s also a community place for people to get together,” Collub said.
Laura Hodge, Dan and Whit’s office manager noted that the store is a place where people gather and catch up.
“You see conversations happening all over,” she said.
I can second that statement. As I watched Dan and Whit’s cashier Randall D. White chatting with customers, I could never tell whether they were old friends or complete strangers: She met everyone with the same amiability. When I asked White about the store’s impact on the people of Norwich, she told me about the role it plays in her own life.
“I’m 73, so it can be isolating if you’re just staying at home. The first thing I did was get a job here so that I could get out and be with people,” White said.
White told me that she especially enjoys seeing kids come in.
“Every afternoon around 3:15, the kids come from the grade school,” White said. “They come through in hordes for about 15 minutes, but they’re so cute and very, very polite.”
“It’s a nice, safe spot for kids to go after school,” Collub added.
Another store which is connected to its community, as well as Dartmouth students, is the Lyme Country Store. Due to its proximity to the Dartmouth Skiway, the store has a unique relationship with Dartmouth students. According to its co-owner Tony Pippin, they provide plenty of meals for Dartmouth athletes, especially those on the Varsity Ski Team and Ski Patrol. In fact, on the day I visited, Pippin was providing boxed lunches for the hockey team.
The relationship between Dartmouth and the Lyme Country Store goes back to 1966, when the store first opened its doors in Hanover. Back then, the general store employed many Dartmouth athletes, including Buddy Teevens ’79, former head coach of the football team. Even though the store has since moved to Lyme, the walls are still covered with vintage Dartmouth photos and memorabilia.
At their new location, the Lyme Country Store has become a center of community for the town. According to Pippin, people often meet for coffee and gather at the small tables next to the counter. The regulars are people from “all walks of life,” Pippin said. He serves doctors, professors, carpenters, painters, attorneys and farmers, among others.
Since the nearest grocery stores are in Hanover, Fairlee and Bradford, Pippin told me that residents of Lyme often depend on the country store for shopping staples.
“The town would struggle without it,” he said.
Among all of the general stores in the greater Upper Valley, the Quechee General Store stands out for its specialized product selection and unique clientele. The owners, Mark and Cindy Walker, bought the store from Cabot Creamery in 2020 just before the COVID-19 pandemic. They still stock many kinds of Cabot cheeses, but have expanded to sell a variety of specialty local goods including maple syrup, craft beers and wine. Cindy Walker has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of her stocked products and where they were sourced from. She highlighted products like maple syrup from Richardson Farm in Woodstock, Vt. and maple bacon cheese from the Vermont Farmstead Cheese Company.
“We try to focus on the Vermont products,” Walker said.
Unlike other general stores, the Quechee General Store primarily serves tourists. In the summer, these consist of groups eager to explore Vermont and the nearby Quechee gorge, and in the winter, it’s skiers stopping by on their way to destinations like Killington Resort. They often come for the Vermont Antique Mall, which the Walkers also own, and stay to explore the rest of the “village” complex, including the alpaca farm and various souvenir shops. Mrs. Walker stressed that their store was truly an “experience,” especially in a time when shopping is increasingly corporate and online.
“The more they have to order on Amazon or they go to the big box store, and they come into a place like this, they’re like, ‘oh my god. This is so fun,’” she said.
Whether the store caters to locals or tourists, it’s always that personable, old-fashioned feel that makes the general store so special. Walker captured the charm of this small-town institution best.
“When you go to a general store, you’re always going to get something a little different,” Walker said.
