Dan & Whit’s is a community leader during Covid.
Dan Fraser begins 19 Days of Norwich to benefit the Haven.
Jack and George Fraser are honored by the Vermont Grocers Association as Retailers of the Year.
Vermont’s bottle deposit law causes Dan & Whit’s beer sales to drop 55% as sales shift to New Hampshire.
Left to right: Carroll – dry goods, Whit Hicks, Grace Hicks, Bunny Fraser, Dan Fraser, Linda Conrad,Larry Smith – beer and wine , Don Ballam – meat dept, John Fraser – seated
Whit retires and Dan Fraser buys Hicks’ interest in the business. Frasers’ General Store, Inc. was formed. Sons George and Jack Fraser end their careers in the U.S. Army and enter the family business. Third addition to the back was built.
Whit Hicks, John Fraser, Dan Fraser, meat manager Donny Ballam, and clerk Jessie Stanley.
Store expansions with checkout area, meat and hardware departments, and loading dock. The house next door was razed to expand the parking lot.
This is the house that was razed for the parking lot.
Fraser & Hicks buy the property. The store name changes to Dan & Whit’s.” after Fraser and Hicks decide to stay open until 10:00 and sell beer, wine, and guns. Merrill was opposed to these practices and insisted they change the name.
Dan Fraser and Whit Hicks
Hicks & Fraser receive an award from Gulf Oil.
Leon Merrill sells the business to Dan Fraser (employee since 1933) and Whitney “Whit” Hicks (employee since 1932). Wood heat replaces the coal and oil furnaces.
In an interview with Whit Hicks, he shared: “I went to work at Merrill’s General Store in 1932 and Dan Fraser came a year later. We used to run a delivery cart. That is, we used to go up to different houses in the morning, and take orders. We’d sit in the kitchen and talk to the lady of the house and we’d tell her what specials might be on…. After taking orders all morning, we’d go to the store and put the orders up and then deliver them that same afternoon.”
Loren’s brother, Arthur Henry Merrill, and his wife, Ada, purchased the store. Their son and daughter-in-law, Leon and Florence Merrill became the owners in 1948.
The large room above the store, known as Union Hall, was the site of town meetings from 1891 to 1939. 
One resident remembers “elbowing your way through the atmosphere, which was half tobacco smoke–from cigars, mostly–and half the fragrance from the manure on people’s boots.”
Union Hall above the store on the left. Dining Room in the Inn on the right.
The Newton Inn and general store building were re-built soon after the fire.
In 1889 Union Block, as it was called, was destroyed by fire. There E.W. Olds had been operating a post office, dry goods store and grocery. “Everything in the building was lost, post office and the entire contents of a heavily stocked country store, excepting the ledger which was in the safe and was preserved.” Farmers who were about their chores, saw the fire or heard the bells and came running to help. The college bell was rung and the Hanover Engine came. Several wells were run dry as they worked to save the hotel and neighboring house.
On the day the news arrived in Norwich that Lincoln had been assassinated, “old men in the village stood in front of the store unashamedly weeping.”
The store was a central space for the entire community. It was a gathering space for news —especially in times of hardship.
In the 1860s there were at least three businesses in the store building on the first floor.
Union Hall, the Union Hotel, and the Currier House. Photograph by S.P. Burnham
John Wright first developed the block in 1829 which was known as Franklin Hall. The Norwich Bookstore, located at the south end of Franklin Hall, was also an apothecary. Downer and Burton operated a general store in the north end of the building.
Upstairs, Franklin Hall hosted dinners, cotillions, and other social events, many of which were associated with the American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy.
