Norwich, Vermont

Norwich is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, in the United States. The population was 3,414 at the 2010 census.[3] Home to some of the state of Vermont's wealthiest residents, the municipality is a commuter town for nearby Hanover, New Hampshire across the Connecticut River. The town is part of the Dresden School District, the first interstate school district in the United States, signed into law by President John F. Kennedy.

The boundaries of Norwich were established on July 4, 1761, when Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire defined the boundaries of townships in Vermont.[4] The first settlers reached the area in 1763 and began to clear the wilderness and erect the first hand-hewn log buildings, wintering over for the first time in 1765.[5] Early settlements occurred along the Ompompanoosuc River. Later, the current village site became settled. The first town meeting occurred in April 1768. The first Congregational church was founded in 1770 and a structure built in 1778. The population grew from 206 in 1771 to 1,158 in 1791 and 2,316 in 1830.[6]

The town was named after Norwich, Connecticut, the state from which the first settlers originated.[7] In the original charter, the name was spelled "Norwhich", but the additional 'h' was dropped shortly after the town was chartered.[8] Originally pronounced "Norritch" (similar to the English pronunciation of the city of Norwich, England), the town name has in more recent times become more commonly pronounced "Nor-wich".

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Underhill, Vermont

The Browns River is the primary waterway within the town and originates as a stream from Mt. Mansfield. It runs southwest and converges in the valley, just east of the village of Underhill Center with two other streams that also originate from the Mt. Mansfield; first with the Stevensville Brook, and then with Clay Brook about 0.5 miles (0.80 km) further. Harvey Brook, Cranes Brook, and Mill Brook draining from other hillsides within the town also converge with the Browns River in Underhill Center.[4]

The town of Underhill contains two villages, Underhill Flats (shown on maps as "Underhill") and Underhill Center. Both villages have U.S. post office buildings and are enumerated with ZIP codes 05489 (Underhill or Underhill Flats) and 05490 (Underhill Center).

Underhill Flats is located on the western side of the town along the Vermont Route 15 corridor, and is a shared jurisdiction with the adjacent town of Jericho. This area is otherwise known as the Underhill Incorporated District (i.e. Underhill ID) and includes the Riverside settlement in Jericho as well as the Flatts settlement in Underhill. The Incorporated District was a unique authorization created by the Vermont legislature.[5] It was listed as a designated historic Village Center; the Riverside Village Center by the former Department of Housing and Community Affairs (now known as the Agency of Commerce and Community Development) in 2010.[6][7] The United Church of Underhill Presbyterian Church, and the Underhill-Jericho main fire station are located on the Underhill side of the district. The majority of the district's geographic area lies within the Town of Jericho.

Westford, Vermont

The area that is today described as Westford, Vermont originally fell within the traditional territories of the Sokoki, Missisquoi, and Cowasuck bands of the Western Abenaki tribes. Newly introduced infectious diseases and attacks by English settlers greatly impacted native populations and prompted their emigration to Quebec by the 1670s, opening the land for settlement by European immigrants. The original charter for the Town of Westford was granted at a cost of £20 (equivalent to £2,689 in 2016) by New Hampshire's provisional governor Benning Wentworth on 8 June 1763 as part of a series of what came to be known as New Hampshire Grants.[nb 1] According to Wentworth's grant, six lots were set aside (3 for religious use, 1 for the town's school, and 2 for Wentworth himself) and the remainder of the land was subdivided among the founding residents. Although officially granted simultaneously with Underhill and Mansfield, the description of Westford's territory is recognized as having been set down earlier due to the fact that their territorial boundaries are defined in relation to Westford's.[4]:189 From their founding, both Westford and Underhill shared many of the same grantees, and settlement between the two towns occurred in concert with families such as the Macombers living in Westford but conducting business on Underhill's Mount Macomber.[4]:190

Governor Wentworth's land grants in the area that is today Vermont were considered controversial at the time and since the early 1750s New York, which also laid claim to the area, had challenged the validity of town charters granted by Wentworth. Between 1764 and 1770, in a series of legal decisions handed down by England's Board of Trade and the New York Supreme Court of Judicature, New York was found to be the proper jurisdictional body for the area and Wentworth's charters were invalidated. New York immediately began redistricting the area by land patent, putting Westford within the now-extinct Charlotte County (formed 1772), and requiring residents to repurchase their land from New York in order to retain legal title. The residents of Westford (together with residents of the other New Hampshire Grant towns) protested this ruling and petitioned New York for the confirmation of Wentworth's town grants. In response New York declared that it would halt further subdivision of settled areas until clarification of King George III's intent was made clear. Before such clarification could be made, the American Revolutionary War (1775) interrupted matters and shortly afterward in 1777, Vermont seceded from New York and England to form the Republic of Vermont. New York's redistricting was forgotten and Westford solidified its position as a town within Vermont's western County of Bennington (founded in 1779, and later splitting the area containing Westford into Rutland in 1781, Addison in 1785, and ultimately Chittenden County in 1787). Westford would remain part of Chittenden County during the state's 1791 entrance to the United States as its 14th state and through to the present.

Westford is in northern Chittenden County, bordered by Franklin and Lamoille counties to the north. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 39.3 square miles (101.8 km2), of which 39.1 square miles (101.2 km2) is land and 0.19 square miles (0.5 km2), or 0.53%, is water.[3] Prominent waterways include Westford Pond, Pond Brook, Rogers Brook, and the Browns River (on the east), as well as Morgan Brook (in the town's center) and Beaver Brook (in the northeast near Cloverdale).[4]:191 The town has a number of named hills including those named after prominent families (e.g. Duffy and Stewart), and others named descriptively (e.g. Oak,[nb 2] Beech, Spruce, Bald,[nb 2] and Prospect). In her bicentennial work, Vermont Place-Names, historian Esther Munroe Swift suggests that some of the more abstract names of Westford's hills may closely reflect the sentiments of the original English settlers. Swift notes that the process of subdividing down to individual lots was often done in stages with the first few lots representing land suitable for dwellings and tillage, the second group of lots representing pasture land, and the third group representing land suitable only for logging. Swift points to hills like Westford's Number Eleven Hill (never renamed from its original lot number) and Jack Lot Hill as examples of hills whose names reflect the dissatisfaction of their owners with the quality of land.[4]:190

Orleans, Vermont

Roger Enos purchased land in 1820 in the area from Ira Allen, who had been given original grants in the area but may have purchased this parcel from Herman Allen.[4] It was named "Barton Landing", as a reminder that this was the first place where craft could be safely loaded for transportation down the Barton River to Lake Memphremagog. The place was where the Willoughby River entered the Barton River, providing sufficient water for flotation

The railroad reached the town in 1859–1860. Railroad accidents were not uncommon. On November 9, 1909, a crew member was killed in a head-on collision between two locomotives, just north of the rail intersection with Main Street.[5] Near the same place, on March 12, 1913, another head-on collision killed one of the crew.[6]

In the late 1970s, the federal and state governments stopped the village from dumping raw sewage into the Barton River. Orleans' new treatment plant cost $2.8 million, 90% of which was paid for by state and federal governments. The village was able to disconnect its old storm sewers from the sanitary sewage system.[8]

West Rutland, Vermont

West Rutland is a town in Rutland County, Vermont, United States. The population was 2,326 at the 2010 census.[3] The town center, located in the south central portion of the town and where about 87% of the population resides, is defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census-designated place (CDP). The town is part of the Rutland micropolitan NECTA.

The town of Rutland was originally granted in 1761 as one of the New Hampshire Grants and named after Rutland, Massachusetts, the home of the first grantee, John Murrey. It was one of the most successful of those grants because of excellent farmland and gentle topography.

In the early 19th century, small high-quality marble deposits were discovered in Rutland, and in the 1830s a large deposit of nearly solid marble of high quality was found in what is now West Rutland. By the 1840s small firms had begun operations, but marble quarries only became profitable when the railroad arrived in 1851. At the same time, the famous quarries of Carrara in Tuscany, Italy, became largely unworkable because of their extreme depth, and Rutland quickly became one of the leading producers of marble in the world.

Vergennes, Vermont

Vergennes /vərˈdʒɛnz/ is a city located in the northwest quadrant of Addison County, Vermont. The municipality is bordered by the towns of Ferrisburgh, Panton and Waltham. As of the 2010 census the city population was 2,588. It is the smallest of Vermont's nine cities in terms of population, though the city of Winooski covers a smaller area. It was the first city chartered in the state of Vermont.[4]

Vergennes, first settled in 1766 by Donald MacIntosh, was established in 1788,[1] the only one of Vermont's cities not to have been first chartered as a town or independent village. Instead, portions of the pre-existing towns of New Haven, Panton and Ferrisburg, where they intersected at the Otter Creek Falls, were split off to form Vergennes.[1] It is the smallest city (by population) in Vermont.

Here, Thomas Macdonough built and armed the fleet that would defeat the British on Lake Champlain during the War of 1812. The Monkton Iron Company (which was at the time the largest iron works in the nation) manufactured the fittings for Macdonough's fleet, as well as most of the cannon shot used by the United States Army in the north. The ore used was mined in nearby Monkton. USS Saratoga, USS Eagle, USS Ticonderoga, and USS Preble were built or refitted in Vergennes as a part of that fleet.[6]

Westminster (town), Vermont

Westminster is Vermont's oldest existing town and was chartered in 1735.[3][4] The Court of Common Pleas (established 1768) of the County of Cumberland (established 3 July 1766) of the Province of New York was moved to the town of Westminster in 1772.[5] It was the site of the Westminster massacre in March 1775, in which two men were killed attempting to prevent New York provincial officials from exerting their authority over the area in the long-running dispute over the New Hampshire Grants.[6][7] On January 15, 1777, a group of Vermonters met in the Westminster courthouse to declare the independence of the Republic of New Connecticut (later renamed the Republic of Vermont).[8][9]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 46.1 square miles (119.5 km2), of which 46.1 square miles (119.3 km2) is land and 0.04 square mile (0.1 km2) (0.06%) is water.

The New England Central Railroad has track rights through the town. Amtrak's Vermonter passenger rail line runs through Westminster but does not stop in town. The closest stations are Bellows Falls to the north and Brattleboro to the south.

Pittsfield, Vermont

Granted on November 8, 1780, the town was chartered on July 29, 1781, to Samuel Wilcox and 129 others. Pittsfield was named after Pittsfield, Massachusetts, which itself had been named in honor of William Pitt. It was first settled in 1786. The town proved suitable for grazing livestock because of its mountainous terrain.[4] Indeed, in the 19th-century, humorists attributed the invention of the one-legged milking stool to Pittsfield, "...as a means of conquering a stern difficulty."[5]

The Farmhouse pictured in this 1915 Postcard to the left still stands and was converted in 1960 to The Fleur De Lis Lodge, for travelers and skiers to stay. Six rooms remain in the original farmhouse, while seven more rooms were added to the new section above the great room.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 20.0 square miles (52 km2), all land. Set among the Green Mountains, Pittsfield is drained by the Tweed River, a tributary of the White River.

Saxtons River, Vermont

Saxtons River is an incorporated village in the town of Rockingham in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 565 at the 2010 census. For over a hundred years, Saxtons River has been the home of Vermont Academy, an independent secondary school. Most of the village is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 as Saxtons River Village Historic District.[3]

Saxtons River was first settled in 1783, but growth was extremely slow. A meeting house was built and the village cemetery established in 1810, and the first textile mill was opened at the Middle Falls (now officially named Saxtons River Falls) in 1815. The village bounds were determined by the town in 1820, and it was formally incorporated as a village in 1905, which is overseen by a Board of Trustees elected by registered voters of the Village. From 1900-1924, Rockingham's two incorporated villages were linked by the Bellows Falls & Saxtons River Railroad, an electric train system. The company created Barbers Park, east of the Saxtons River about halfway between the villages, to which summertime crowds took the trolleys to baseball games and amusement rides. Although Saxtons River village had a long history of industry (in particular successful textile operations, as well as saw mills, a grist mill, tannery, and distillery), much of it had failed by the 1920s. Located mostly inside the Village boundaries, and a strong influence on the character and economy of Saxtons River, is Vermont Academy, a private, co-educational high school founded in 1876. Vermont Academy established an annual Winter Carnival early in the 20th century, contributing to the creation of New England's winter recreation culture. Student enrollment is around 230.[4] After a period of decline in the mid-20th century, many of the older buildings, such as the Saxtons River Inn, were restored and rehabilitated.[5]

As of the 2010 Census,[1] there were 565 people in 210 households in the village. The population density was 1,130 people per square mile (434.6/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 94.65% White, 1.6% Asian, 0.4% African American, 0.5% from other races, and 2.5% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.85% of the population.