St. Johnsbury resident and historian, Bob Swartz described what Lambert Packard’s Main Street in St. Johnsbury looked like in 1906, during St. Johnsbury Rotary Club’s weekly meeting Jan. 6. Packard, an architect and engineer, was born in Coventry, Vt., and lived in Waterford, before learning the carpenter's trade and working for engineers and architects in Massachusetts. He and his family moved to St. Johnsbury in 1866, where he was employed as a foreman by E. & T. Fairbanks & Company (brothers Erastus and Thaddeus), building most of the historic homes and buildings still standing in St. Johnsbury today. As the Fairbanks continued to grow business in town, Packard kept adding buildings, including several residential homes, in strategic areas, most predominantly, the length of St. Johnsbury’s Main Street. Packard died in 1906, so never had the opportunity to see how his creations impacted the future of St. Johnsbury.
