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A state of the northeast United States bordering on Canada. It was admitted as the 14th state in 1791. Explored by Samuel de Champlain in 1609, the region was first permanently settled by the British in 1724. Claims to the area were relinquished by Massachusetts in 1781, New Hampshire in 1782, and New York in 1790. Montpelier is the capital and Burlington the largest city. Population: 624,000.
Vermonter Ver·mont'er n.
For more information on Vermont, visit Britannica.com.
What we now know as Vermont is believed to have had an Abenaki Indian presence since 9000 B.C., peaking in population during the sixteenth century. Even before direct contact with Europeans, however, Vermont's inhabitants, western Abenakis, were depleted through wars with the Iroquois and by pathogens introduced by Europeans and transmitted through eastern Abenakis from Canada. In 1609, the French explorer Samuel de Champlain became the first European to reconnoiter Vermont, sailing up the lake that bears his name and initiating an alliance between the French and the Abenakis against the English and the Iroquois Confederacy that persisted until the French were driven from North America in 1763.
During that time the struggle for North America kept the region in turmoil, and Vermont attracted few European settlers. The Abenakis, augmented by a southern New England diaspora after King Philip'S War (1675–1677), joined with the French to raid southern New England settlements in the Connecticut River valley during the colonial wars. In 1724, to protect settlers from these attacks, Massachusetts erected Fort Dummer, the first British settlement in Vermont, situated near present-day Brattleboro and west of the Connecticut River. The French were simultaneously occupying the Lake Champlain valley, building forts from Isle La Motte (1666) south to Ticonderoga (1755), but, focusing on the fur trade, they made relatively little effort at colonization. By 1754, New France numbered 75,000 European settlers contrasted with 1.5 million in British America.
Land Disputes and the Revolutionary Era
The French and Indian War (1754–1763), the North American counterpart to the Seven Years' War in Europe, ended with a British victory, and what was to become Vermont fell totally under British sovereignty. The region, inaccurately mapped and sparsely settled, was plagued with conflicting charters and overlapping land claims. Royal decrees at times compounded the confusion. Shortly after a boundary dispute between Massachusetts and New Hampshire was resolved in New Hampshire's favor, New Hampshire was ordered to maintain Fort Dummer or have it restored to Massachusetts jurisdiction. Seizing upon this as having established New Hampshire's border west of the Connecticut River, New Hampshire governor Benning Wentworth claimed his province's boundary extended to Lake Champlain and in 1750 issued a grant for the town of Bennington at the westernmost edge of his claim. At the outbreak of the French and Indian War he had chartered fifteen additional towns, and in 1759, after the French were driven from the Champlain valley, he resumed issuing New Hampshire patents until by 1763 they totaled 138. Meanwhile New York Province, brandishing a 1664 grant by King Charles II to his brother the Duke of York (later James II), maintained that its eastern border extended to the Connecticut River and began issuing patents more remunerative to the crown and occasionally overlapping New Hampshire's.
In 1764 a king's order in council ruled the New York border to be the west bank of the Connecticut River, placing all of modern-day Vermont under New York jurisdiction. New Hampshire titleholders interpreted "to be" to mean from the date of the order in council, thus validating land titles issued before 1764. New York contended the ruling was retroactive and attempted to eject settlers on New Hampshire grants. In 1770 the issue was argued before an Albany County court at which Ethan Allen served as agent for the Wentworth titleholders. The court dismissed New Hampshire claims, and the Wentworth title-holders responded with the Green Mountain Boys, unofficial military units led by Ethan Allen, Seth Warner, and others from western Vermont that used force and intimidation to frustrate New York's efforts at ejection. Many of the Green Mountain Boys held heavy investments in New Hampshire titles. East of the Green Mountains, where smaller landholders dominated, title disputes were resolved through payment to New York of reconfirmation fees, but other issues, particularly high court costs and debt proceedings, precipitated a March 1775 courthouse riot in Westminster that left two dead and collapsed New York authority in the Connecticut Valley.
In April, with Concord and Lexington sparking the American Revolution, New York lost any chance of reclaiming Vermont, especially when Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, along with Benedict Arnold, stormed the British Fort Ticonderoga in New York that May, capturing cannon for the Continental army in Boston and closing the Champlain-Hudson corridor to invasion from Canada until it was recaptured by the British. Shortly afterward the Continental Congress authorized an army regiment of Green Mountain Rangers that fought under the command of Seth Warner. In January 1777 representatives from New Hampshire Grant towns declared their independence from New York and Great Britain and in July drafted a constitution, scheduled elections, and established a government for the state of New Connecticut (estimated population 10,000), later renamed Vermont.
Despite its assertions of independence, Vermont's existence was in immediate jeopardy. That July, British general John Burgoyne, leading an army from Canada to the Hudson River, recaptured Fort Ticonderoga and sent Vermont settlers scurrying south. A rear guard detachment commanded by Seth Warner to cover the retreat from Ticonderoga was defeated at Hubbardton (the only Revolutionary War battle fought in Vermont), but in August the tide turned. New Hampshire and Vermont troops under General John Stark defeated a British force near Bennington. In September, Burgoyne surrendered his army at the Battle of Saratoga (see Saratoga Campaign).
New York's opposition to Vermont's independence and the failure of Congress to admit it as a state until 1791 induced Vermont to assume initiatives associated with a sovereign nation, most notably coining its own currency and maintaining a foreign policy. The Haldimand Negotiations (1781) were dealings with the governor-general of Canada that involved Vermont's return to the British empire in return for British promises not to invade Vermont or New York. The negotiations collapsed after General Cornwallis' defeat at Yorktown. They are still debated as either sincere negotiations or ploys by Vermont to obtain military security. Another Vermont initiative was to annex amenable border towns in western New Hampshire and eastern New York, so-called east and west unions, which aroused considerable New Hampshire, New York, and congressional displeasure. Vermont relinquished control of the towns, anticipating this would promote admission into the United States, but it was not until 4 March 1791, after Vermont "bought itself free" by paying New York $30,000 to settle disputed land titles, that it was admitted as the fourteenth state.
Statehood and Nineteenth-Century Vermont
Statehood marked the eclipse of Vermont's first generation of leaders. Thomas Chittenden, who, save for one year had served as governor from 1778, continued to serve until 1797, but his political allies were succeeded by younger men, legally trained Revolutionary War veterans and more recent settlers who poured into the state from southern New England. The census of 1791 recorded a population of 85,341 and the 1810 census 217,895. The War of 1812 put an end to Vermont's prosperity and population growth. It was the first state without an ocean port, and western Vermont was dependent upon trade with Canada down Lake Champlain. The suspension of this trade in 1808 and then by the war stimulated popular support for smuggling and political opposition to the party of Jefferson as well as the war itself. East of the Green Mountains, the Connecticut River was the principal commercial artery, linking Vermont with southern New England, but the war was no more popular in that area.
A modest prosperity was restored by the mid 1820s after the American consul in Lisbon returned to Vermont with 200 head of merino sheep. By 1840 the state boasted almost 1,690,000 merinos and preeminence among wool-producing states. Sheep grazing, which was possible on rocky uplands and less labor intensive than most other forms of agriculture, stimulated land clearing and emigration. It declined after 1840, the victim of western competition and the lowering of the protective tariff, and dairying began a steady growth. Before 1840 daughters of farm families frequently left the homesteads to work in textile mills, some as far away as New Hampshire or Massachusetts, never to return. After 1840 immigrants increasingly staffed textile mills in Vermont and elsewhere.
The Vermont economy had also been transformed by the Champlain-Hudson cut off to the Erie Canal that opened in 1823. Promoted for its potential to provide access to a wider market for Vermont produce, it instead opened Vermont to western wheat and helped redirect the state's economy toward sheep farming, textile mills, and dairying. The Champlain-Hudson cutoff also loosened western Vermont's ties to Canada and, by reducing the cost and difficulty of immigration, opened the West for settlers from Vermont.
Railroads reached Vermont in 1848, and by 1855 there were over 500 miles of track. Designed to carry freight between Atlantic ports and the Great Lakes rather than to serve Vermont, the railroads nonetheless had a tremendous impact on the state and were the largest Vermont enterprises until the twentieth century. Thousands of Irish entered the state as construction workers, and, along with French-Canadians who worked in textile mills and on farms, constituted almost the entire immigrant population. These new immigrants, mostly Catholic, were often viewed by the almost exclusively Protestant natives as threatening American values. Their apprehensions were heightened in 1853 when the Burlington Catholic Diocese was established.
Economic and demographic disruptions spawned ferment. Vermont became virulently anti-Masonic, electing an Anti-Masonic Party governor and in 1832 becoming the only state to vote for the Anti-Mason presidential candidate (see Anti-Masonic Movements). By 1836 the Anti-Masons gave way to the newly formed Whig Party, and workingmen's associations thrived alongside religious revivals that included Millerites, whose founder was sometime Poultney resident William Miller, and John Humphrey Noyes's Perfectionist Society, founded in Putney. Mormon founders Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were Vermont natives. Temperance and antislavery, both church-rooted movements, had widespread appeal. Temperance societies dated from the 1820s, and in 1853 the state banned the manufacture and sale of liquor by a narrow vote. Not always rigidly enforced, it remained law until 1902. Antislavery enjoyed even broader support. Vermonters, evincing pride that their 1777 constitution was the first to prohibit slavery and provide universal male suffrage, championed congressional antislavery resolutions, state acts to annul fugitive slave laws, and gave rise to the Liberty Party and then the Free Soil Party, which along with the feeble Democratic Party were able to deny the Whigs popular majorities and left the election of governor to the legislature.
In 1854 state government was paralyzed by party fractionalization after passage of the nationally divisive Kansas-Nebraska Act, occurring as it did on the heels of the temperance contest and the 1853 election of a Democratic governor by a legislative coalition of Free Soilers and Democrats. In July 1854, Whigs and Free Soilers convened, agreed upon a common platform and slate of candidates, referred to themselves as Republicans, won a large popular majority, and in 1856 and 1860 led the nation in support of Republican presidential candidates. Vermont's overwhelming support for Lincoln and the Union cause accommodated a wide range of attitudes toward slavery along with an anti-southern bias. In addition to resenting such pro-southern measures as the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Vermonters blamed southern opposition for their failure to obtain a higher tariff and national banking legislation. What most united Vermonters, however, was their support for the Union.
Almost 35,000, one of four adult males, served in the army during the Civil War, and casualty rates were among the highest of any state. The war brought economic prosperity while shifting much of the burden of farm work and financial management to women. In some instances war casualties cost towns almost their entire male populations. The northernmost action of the war occurred in October 1864 when Confederate soldiers crossed the Canadian border to rob St. Albans banks. Although the St. Albans raid provoked heated diplomatic negotiation between Britain, Canada, and the United States, it had no impact on the war.
After the war, the Republican Party dominated Vermont politics. Having saved the Union and enacted a protective tariff and national banking act with critical support from Congressman Justin Morrill, Republicanism became a civic religion, escaping meaningful challenge until the second half of the twentieth century. The state frequently returned over 200 Republicans to a Vermont house (with 246 members) and all 30 of its state senators. Agriculture remained the state's major economic pursuit, with dairy farming shaping its landscape. With the advent of the refrigerated railway car, shipping cream, butter, and cheese gave way to the more lucrative marketing of fresh milk. Sustained by a treaty with Canada, the lumber industry built Burlington into one of the busiest inland ports in the nation. The machine-tool industry in the Connecticut River valley, the platform-scale works in St. Johnsbury, independent marble companies in the Rutland area (consolidated into the Vermont Marble Company by Redfield Proctor), and independent Barre granite operations along with the railroads constituted the bulk of Vermont industry.
Vermont governors, who invariably served a single two-year term, were almost always business-oriented industrialists, some of whom presided over reform administrations. Vermont's political agenda, however, was usually dominated by the legislature. With one representative from each town irrespective of population, farmers were often a legislative majority and always the largest occupational category despite declining numbers. Vermont farms could seldom support large families, and emigration was so common that by 1860 over 40 percent of native-born Vermonters lived in other states. European immigration barely kept the population constant, and while the larger communities gained population, the smaller communities declined to where it became increasingly difficult to amass the personnel and other resources to meet municipal obligations. Soon after the Civil War the legislature began voting to shift expenditures from towns to the state on a need basis. From 1890 until 1931, when a state income tax was enacted, state levies on town grand lists were applied to bolster educational, welfare, and highway resources among the poorer communities.
The Twentieth Century
Efforts to stimulate the state economy through tourism, initially undertaken by the railroads, became a government operation. As the railroad gave way to the automobile, Vermont's transportation network proved inadequate for either tourism or its internal needs. In the fall of 1927 the state suffered a disastrous flood that cost lives, wiped out homes and industrial sites, and destroyed much of the state's transportation network. Within weeks a recovery effort, planned and financed with federal support, ushered Vermont into the era of hard-surfaced roads and state debt to support improvements. Even the Great Depression, however, could not seduce Vermont from its Republican Party allegiance, although the state was an enthusiastic participant in many New Deal programs. Until 1958, Democratic challenges were usually ceremonial. The real contests were Republican primaries.
The first signs of recovery from the Great Depression appeared in 1939 in the machine-tool industry that created a boom in the Springfield area never achieved in the rest of the state, although World War II brought prosperity to most sectors of the economy along with an increased presence of organized labor among both blue-and white-collar workers. There were 1,200 killed or missing in action among the 30,000 men and women who served in the military, and returning veterans contributed mightily to Colonel Ernest Gibson's upset of the more conservative candidate in the 1946 Republican gubernatorial primary. Although more traditional Republican governors succeeded Gibson in office, the state retained his policy of implementing state and federal welfare, education, and construction programs. This policy was accelerated with the election of a Democratic governor, Philip Hoff, in 1962, and the implementation of Great Society initiatives.
In 1965 the Vermont legislature convened under court reapportionment orders. The house was reapportioned down from 246 to 150 delegates with districts determined by population. (Previously, the twenty-two largest cities and towns had housed over half the state's population and paid 64 percent of the state's income tax and 50 percent of the property tax, but elected only 9 percent of the house members.) The senate was kept at 30 members, but county lines were no longer inviolate. Without reapportionment it is unlikely Republicans would ever have lost control of the legislature. Since Hoff, the governor'soffice has alternated between parties, and in 1984, Democrats elected Madeleine Kunin, the state's first female governor. In 1964 it cast its electoral votes for a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time, and since 1992 it has been regularly in the Democratic column. Yet the state has also demonstrated a tolerance for mavericks. In 2000, Vermont's congressional delegation was made up of one Democrat senator, one Republican senator, and one Independent House member. In 2001, Senator James Jeffords left the Republican Party to become an independent, throwing the control of the Senate to the Democrats while attaining favorable poll ratings. Elections during this period have been dogged by controversy over Vermont Supreme Court decisions leading to legislation equalizing educational resources statewide and providing same-sex couples rights similar to those possessed by married couples.
The latter, labeled the Civil Union Act (2000), was the first of its kind in the nation, and observers attributed its passage to the state's evolving demography and economy. Native-owned industries have been absorbed into conglomerates, and IBM, which moved into the state in 1957, has become Vermont's largest private employer. Economic development attracted additional growth. In 2000, Vermont's population stood at 608,827, with two thirds of the growth since 1830 occurring after 1960. The interstate highway system brought Vermont to within a few hours of over 40 million urban dwellers. Tourism grew rapidly. Skiing spread from its 1930s roots to mountains and hillsides irrespective of environmental degradation or the ability of the local government to provide essential services. In 1970, Republican Governor Deane Davis gained approval of Act 250 to mandate permits requiring developers to prove the project's ecological soundness. Despite flaws and opposition, Act 250 and subsequent modifications have proven salutary.
A related effort has been made to retain Vermont's pastoral landscape of rapidly disappearing dairy farms. From 1993 to 2000 the number of dairy farms decreased from 2,500 to 1,700, with most of the decrease among farms of fewer than 100 cows. Yet because average production rose to 17,000 pounds of milk per cow per year, production increased. Some farmers participated in a 1986 federal program to curb overproduction by selling their herds to the federal government and subsequently selling their land to developers. In 1993 the National Trust for Historic Preservation designated the entire state an "endangered place." Nonetheless, farmland preservation projects that utilize differential tax rates and conservation trusts have been operating with some success.
With a population less than 609,000, Vermont is the second-smallest state in the nation, boasting the least-populated state capital and the smallest biggest city of any state. With a larger percentage of its population living in communities of fewer than 2,500 than any other state, it lays claim to being the most rural.
Bibliography
Albers, Jan. Hands on the Land: A History of the Vermont Landscape. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000.
Anderson, Elin L. We Americans: A Study of Cleavage in an American City. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1937. Reprint, New York: Russell and Russell, 1967. Burlington in the 1930s.
Bassett, T. D. Seymour. The Growing Edge: Vermont Villages, 1840–1880. Montpelier: Vermont Historical Society, 1992.
Bellesiles, Michael A. Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993.
Bryan, Frank M. Yankee Politics in Rural Vermont. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1974.
Gillies, Paul S., and D. Gregory Sanford, eds. Records of the Council of Censors of the State of Vermont. Montpelier: Secretary of State, 1991.
Graffagnino, J. Kevin, Samuel B. Hand, and Gene Sessions, eds. Vermont Voices, 1609 Through the 1990s: A Documentary History of the Green Mountain State. Montpelier: Vermont Historical Society, 1999.
Kunin, Madeleine. Living a Political Life. New York: Knopf, 1994.
Ludlum, David M. Social Ferment in Vermont, 1790–1850. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939. Reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1966.
Roth, Randolph A. The Democratic Dilemma: Religion, Reform, and the Social Order in the Connecticut River Valley of Vermont, 1791–1850. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Shalhope, Robert E. Bennington and the Green Mountain Boys: The Emergence of Liberal Democracy in Vermont, 1760–1850. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
Sherman, Michael, ed. Vermont State Government Since 1965. Burlington: Center for Research on Vermont and Snelling Center for Government, 1999.
Facts and Figures
Area, 9,609 sq mi (24,887 sq km). Pop. (2000) 608,827, an 8.2% increase since the 1990 census. Capital, Montpelier. Largest city, Burlington. Statehood, Mar. 4, 1791 (14th state). Highest pt., Mt. Mansfield, 4,393 ft (1,340 m); lowest pt., Lake Champlain, 95 ft (29 m). Nickname, Green Mountain State. Motto, Freedom and Unity. State bird, hermit thrush. State flower, red clover. State tree, sugar maple. Abbr., Vt.; VT
Geography
The forested Green Mts. constitute the dominant physiographic feature of Vermont. They consist of at least four distinct groups, all traversing the state in a generally north-south direction. Largest and most important are the Green Mts. proper, which extend down the center of the state from the Canadian border to the Massachusetts line, rising to Vermont's highest peak, Mt. Mansfield (4,393 ft/1,339 m). The Taconic Mts., occupying the southwestern portion of the state, contain Vermont's important marble deposits. East of the Green Mts. and extending from the Canadian border to somewhat below the middle of the state are the Granite Hills, so called because of their valuable stone. The fourth group, sometimes called the Red Sandrock Hills, extends along the Vermont shore of Lake Champlain. In E Vermont there are also isolated peaks or monadnocks not connected with the principal ranges.
The rivers of Vermont (the only completely inland state of New England) flow either into the Connecticut River or into Lake Champlain. The Winooski rises east of the Green Mts. and cuts directly through them to Lake Champlain. Grand Isle county, comprising several islands and a peninsula jutting down into Lake Champlain from Canada, is connected to Vermont proper by causeways.
Vermont has a short summer and a humid, continental climate, with abundant rainfall and a growing season that varies from 120 days in the Connecticut valley to 150 in the Lake Champlain region. Winter brings heavy snows, which usually cover the ground for at least three full months, but because the state's good roads are almost always kept clear, this season no longer forces complete isolation on rural communities. With its rugged terrain, much of it still heavily wooded, Vermont has limited areas of arable land, but the state is well suited to grazing (the Justin Morgan breed of horses was developed there).
Every summer thousands of vacationers are drawn by the scenic mountains and the picturesque New England villages, while climbers attempt the many accessible peaks and hikers take on the Long Trail that runs the length of the state along the Green Mt. ridge. In the winter thousands of skiers flock to the slopes at Mad River Glen, Bromley, Stowe, Stratton, and elsewhere. Montpelier is the capital,
Economy
Dairy farming has long been dominant in Vermont agriculture, although it has declined somewhat. Apples, cheese, maple syrup, and greenhouse and nursery products are important. The state's most valuable mineral resources are stone, asbestos, sand and gravel, and talc. In the areas around Rutland and Proctor is a noted marble industry, and at Barre the famous Vermont granite is quarried and processed.
The manufacture of nonelectric machinery, machine tools, and precision instruments is important. The textile industry, once dominant in Burlington, has declined, but the manufacture of computer components, food products, pulp and paper, and plastics has helped to compensate for this loss. Cottage industries have long thrived in Vermont, making a variety of products from knitwear to ice cream, while captive insurance companies (insurance companies owned by the companies they insure) are more recent and growing industry. Tourism is also vitally important to the state economy.
Government, Politics, and Higher Education
Vermont is governed under a constitution adopted in 1793. The state legislature, called the general assembly, consists of a senate with 30 members and a house of representatives with 150 members, all elected to two-year terms. The governor is elected for a two-year term; in 2003, Jim Douglas, a Republican, succeeded Democrat Howard Dean, who retired after serving since 1991. Douglas was reelected in 2004 and 2006. Vermont sends two senators and one representative to the U.S. Congress and has three electoral votes.
The state's traditional devotion to the Republican party was evidenced in the presidential elections of 1912 and 1936, when Vermont was one of only two states in the union that voted Republican. This has changed, however, as the state's liberalism in cultural and environmental matters has turned it away from the Republican party. Since 1991, the socialist former mayor of Burlington, Bernard Sanders (who runs as an independent), has represented Vermont in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Among Vermont's institutions of higher education are Bennington College, at Bennington; Middlebury College, at Middlebury; Marlboro College, at Marlboro; Norwich Univ., at Northfield; the School for International Training, at Brattleboro; and the Univ. of Vermont, at Burlington.
History
French Vermont
The first European known to have entered the area that is now Vermont was Samuel de Champlain, who, after beginning the colonization of Quebec, journeyed south with a Huron war party in 1609 to the beautiful lake to which he gave his name. The French did not attempt any permanent settlement until 1666, when they built a fort and a shrine to Ste Anne on the Isle La Motte in Lake Champlain. However, this and later French settlements were abandoned, and until well into the 18th cent. the region was something of a no-man's-land.
Benning Wentworth and the New Hampshire Grants
Fort Dummer, built (1724) by the English near the site of Brattleboro, is considered the first permanent settlement in what is now Vermont. However, Vermont's history may be said to have really begun in 1741, when Benning Wentworth became royal governor of New Hampshire. According to his commission New Hampshire extended west across the Merrimack River until it met “with our [i.e., the king's] other Governments.” Since the English crown had never publicly proclaimed the eastern limits of the colony of New York, this vague description bred considerable confusion.
Wentworth, assuming that New York's modified boundary with Connecticut and Massachusetts (20 mi/32 km E of the Hudson River) would be extended even farther north, made (1749) the first of the New Hampshire Grants—the township called Bennington—to a group that included his relatives and friends. However, New York claimed that its boundary extended as far east as the Connecticut River, and Gov. George Clinton of New York (father of Sir Henry Clinton) promptly informed Governor Wentworth that he had no authority to make such a grant. Wentworth thereupon suggested that the dispute between New York and New Hampshire over control of Vermont be referred to the crown. The outbreak of the last of the French and Indian Wars in 1754 briefly suspended interest in the area, but after the British captured Ticonderoga and Crown Point in 1759, Wentworth resumed granting land in the area of present Vermont.
In 1764 the British authorities upheld New York's territorial claim to Vermont. New York immediately tried to assert its jurisdiction—Wentworth's grants were declared void, and new grants (for the same lands) were issued by the New York authorities. Those who held their lands from New Hampshire resisted, and a hot controversy, long in the making, now exploded. New York and New Hampshire land speculators had the most at stake, with the New Hampshire grantees, first on the scene, having the advantage. Regional pride among the New England settlers played a large part in creating resistance to New York authority. Chief among the leaders of this resistance was Ethan Allen, who organized the Green Mountain Boys. New York courts were forcibly broken up, and armed violence was directed against New Yorkers until the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, when the British became the major threat and common enemy.
The American Revolution and Independent Vermont
At the beginning of the Revolution, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys captured Ticonderoga, and Seth Warner took Crown Point. In Jan., 1777, Vermont (as its citizens were soon calling the region) proclaimed itself an independent state at a meeting in the town of Westminster. Chiefly because of the opposition of New York, the Continental Congress refused to recognize Vermont as the 14th colony or state. The convention that met at Windsor in July reaffirmed Vermont's independent status and adopted a constitution, notable especially because it was the first in the United States to provide for universal male suffrage. Thomas Chittenden was elected the first governor.
The Green Mountain Boys under Seth Warner and John Stark made an important contribution to the American cause with their victory at Bennington in Aug., 1777 (see Saratoga campaign). Later, Ethan Allen and his brother Ira Allen, acting on their own, entered into devious negotiations with British agents, possibly with the intent of annexing Vermont to Canada. The talks were inconclusive and ended when the Americans finally triumphed at Yorktown in 1781. For ten years Vermont remained an independent state, performing all the offices of a sovereign government (such as coining money, setting up post offices, naturalizing new citizens, and appointing ambassadors) and gradually becoming more and more independent.
Statehood, at Last
Not until 1791, after many delays and misunderstandings and, most important, after the dispute with New York was finally adjusted (1790) by payment of $30,000, did Vermont enter the Union. It was the first state to be admitted after the adoption of the Constitution by the 13 original states. In the next two decades Vermont had the greatest population increase in its history, from 85,425 in 1790 to 217,895 in 1810. As in the earlier days, most of the settlers migrated from S New England, and, since the more desirable lands in the river valleys were soon taken, many of them settled in the less hospitable hills.
Although the Embargo Act of 1807 aided the development of many small manufacturing establishments, it was bitterly opposed in Vermont for its disruption of the profitable trade with Canada. The War of 1812 was unpopular in Vermont as it was in the rest of New England, and during the war extensive smuggling across the Canadian border was carried on. Vermont was threatened by British invasion from Canada until U.S. troops, under Thomas Macdonough, won (1814) the battle on Lake Champlain.
At this early period in its history, Vermont, lacking an aristocracy of wealth, was the most democratic state in New England. Jeffersonian Democrats held control for most of the first quarter of the 19th cent. Beginning in the 1820s political and social life in Vermont was considerably affected by the activities of those opposed to Freemasonry, and in the presidential election of 1832 Vermont was the only state carried by William Wirt, candidate of the Anti-Masonic party. Anti-Masonry agitation was soon succeeded by even more vigorous efforts in behalf of another cause—the one against slavery.
The Mexican and Civil Wars
In the Mexican War, which it viewed as having been undertaken solely to increase slave territory, Vermont was very apathetic. However, no Northern state was more energetic in support of the Union cause in the Civil War, and Vermonters strongly favored Lincoln over Vermont-born Stephen Douglas. One of the most bizarre incidents of the war was the Confederate raid (1864) on Saint Albans, a town which, after the war, also figured in the equally bizarre attempt of the Fenians to invade Canada in the cause of Irish independence.
The Changing Economy of Vermont
The economy of the state, meanwhile, was in the midst of a series of sharp dislocations. The rise of manufacturing in towns and villages during the early 19th cent. had created a demand for foodstuffs for the nonfarming population. Consequently, commercial farming began to crowd out the subsistence farming that had predominated since the mid-18th cent. Grain and beef cattle became the chief market produce, but when the rapidly expanding West began to supply these commodities more cheaply and when wool textile mills began to spring up in S New England, Vermont turned to sheep raising.
After the Civil War, however, the sheep industry, unable to withstand the competition from the American West as well as from Australian, and South American wool, began to diminish. The rural population declined as many farmers migrated westward or turned to the apparently easier life of the cities, and abandoned farms became a common sight. The transition to dairy farming in the 20 years following the war staved off a permanent decline in Vermont's agricultural pursuits.
Since the 1960s, Vermont's economy has grown significantly with booms in the tourist industry and in exurban homebuilding and with the attraction of high-technology firms to the Burlington area. In recent years, prosperity has to some degree conflicted with concern for environmental issues. Nonetheless, the state has been active in attempts to preserve its natural beauty, enacting very strict laws regarding industrial pollution and the conservation of natural resources.
Bibliography
See Federal Writers' Project, Vermont: A Guide to the Green Mountain State (3d ed. 1968); R. N. Hill et al., comp., Vermont (1969); A. M. Hemenway, Abby Hemenway's Vermont, ed. by B. C. Morrissey from the 5-volume Vermont Historical Gazetteer of 1881 (1972); C. T. Morrissey, Vermont (1981); T. D. Bassett, Vermont: A Bibliography of Its History (1983); H. A. Meeks, Vermont's Land and Resources (1986).
State in the northeastern United States; one of the New England states. Bordered by Quebec, Canada, to the north; New Hampshire to the east; Massachusetts to the south; and New York to the west. Its capital is Montpelier, and its largest city is Burlington.
Local Time: May 16, 3:20 PM
Strain of merino sheep introduced into Australia from the United States of America.
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| State of Vermont | |||||||||||||
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| Official language(s) | None | ||||||||||||
| Capital | Montpelier | ||||||||||||
| Largest city | Burlington | ||||||||||||
| Area | Ranked 45th | ||||||||||||
| - Total | 9,620 sq mi (24,923 km²) |
||||||||||||
| - Width | 80 miles (130 km) | ||||||||||||
| - Length | 160 miles (260 km) | ||||||||||||
| - % water | 3.8 | ||||||||||||
| - Latitude | 42° 44′ N to 45° 1′ N | ||||||||||||
| - Longitude | 71° 28′ W to 73° 26′ W | ||||||||||||
| Population | Ranked 49th | ||||||||||||
| - Total (2000) | 608,827 | ||||||||||||
| - Density | 65.8/sq mi 25.41/km² (30th) |
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| - Median income | $48,508 (19th) | ||||||||||||
| Elevation | |||||||||||||
| - Highest point | Mount Mansfield[1] 4,393 ft (1,340 m) |
||||||||||||
| - Mean | 1,000 ft (300 m) | ||||||||||||
| - Lowest point | Lake Champlain[1] 95 ft (29 m) |
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| Admission to Union | March 4, 1791 (14th) | ||||||||||||
| Governor | Jim Douglas (R) | ||||||||||||
| U.S. Senators | Patrick Leahy (D) Bernie Sanders (I) |
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| Congressional Delegation | List | ||||||||||||
| Time zone | Eastern: UTC-5/-4 (DST) | ||||||||||||
| Abbreviations | US-VT | ||||||||||||
| Web site | www.vermont.gov | ||||||||||||
Vermont (IPA: /vɜrˈmɒnt/) is a
state in the New England region of
the northeastern
Originally inhabited by Native American tribes (Abenaki, and Iroquois), the territory that is now Vermont was claimed by France but became a British possession after France's defeat in the French and Indian War. For many years, control of the area was disputed by the surrounding colonies, notably between New Hampshire and New York. Settlers who held land titles granted by these colonies were opposed by the Green Mountain Boys militia, which eventually prevailed in creating an independent state. Vermont became the 14th state to join the United States, following a 14-year period during and after the Revolutionary War as the independent Republic of Vermont.
It is the leading producer of maple syrup in the United States.[2] The state capital is Montpelier, and the largest city is Burlington.
Vermont is located in the New England region in the eastern United States and comprises 9,614 square miles (24,902 km²), making it the 45th largest state. Of this, land comprises 9,250 square miles (23,955 km²) and water comprises 365 square miles (948 km²), making it the 43rd largest in land area and the 47th in water area. In area, it is larger than El Salvador and smaller than Haiti.
The west bank of the Connecticut River marks the eastern border of the state with New Hampshire (the river itself is part of New Hampshire). Lake Champlain, the major lake in Vermont, is the sixth-largest body of fresh water in the United States and separates Vermont from New York in the northwest portion of the state. From north to south, Vermont is 159 miles (256 km). Its greatest width, from east to west, is 89 miles (143 km) at the Canadian border; the narrowest width is 37 miles (60 km) at the Massachusetts line. The state's geographic center is Washington, three miles (5 km) east of Roxbury.
There are six distinct physiographic regions of Vermont. Categorized by geological and physical attributes, they are the Northeastern Highlands, the Green Mountains, the Taconic Mountains, the Champlain Lowlands, the Valley of Vermont and the Vermont Piedmont.[3]
The origin of the name Green Mountains (French: Verts monts) is uncertain. Some authorities say that they are so named because they have much more forestation than the higher White Mountains of New Hampshire and Adirondacks of New York. Other authorities say that they are so named because of the predominance of mica-quartz-chlorite schist, a green-hued metamorphosed shale. The range forms a north-south spine running most of the length of the state, slightly west of its center. In the southwest portion of the state are the Taconic Mountains; the Granitic Mountains are in the northeast.[4] In the northwest near Lake Champlain is the fertile Champlain Valley. In the south of the valley is Lake Bomoseen.
Several mountains have timberlines: Mount Mansfield, the highest mountain in the state, as well as Killington are examples. About 77 percent of the state is covered by forest; the rest is covered in meadow, uplands, lakes, ponds and swampy wetlands.
Areas in Vermont administered by the National Park Service include the Appalachian National Scenic Trail and the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock.
Cities (2003 estimated population):
Although these towns are large enough to be considered cities, they are not incorporated as such. Largest Towns (2003 est.)
Vermont has a continental moist climate, with warm, humid summers and cold winters, which become colder at higher
elevations.[5] It has a Koppen climate classification of Dfb, similar to Minsk, Stockholm and Fargo.[6] Vermont is known for its mud
season in spring followed by a generally mild early summer, hot Augusts and a colorful autumn, and particularly for its
cold winters. The northern part of the state, including the rural northeastern section (dubbed the "Northeast Kingdom") is known for exceptionally cold winters, often averaging 10 °
In the autumn, Vermont's hills experience an explosion of red, orange and gold foliage displayed on the sugar maple as cold weather approaches. This famous display of color that occurs so abundantly in Vermont is not due so much to the presence of a particular variant of the sugar maple; rather it is caused by a number of soil and climate conditions unique to the area.
The highest-recorded temperature was 105 °F (41 °C), at Vernon on July 4, 1911; the lowest-recorded temperature was -50 °F (-46 °C), at Bloomfield on December 30, 1933.
| Monthly Normal and Record High and Low Temperatures | ||||||||||||
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rec High °F | 59 | 63 | 84 | 91 | 94 | 96 | 101 | 98 | 95 | 87 | 69 | 62 |
| Norm High °F | 25 | 31 | 43 | 51 | 64 | 76 | 81 | 78 | 71 | 54 | 36 | 28 |
| Norm Low °F | 4 | 10 | 22 | 30 | 43 | 55 | 60 | 57 | 50 | 33 | 15 | 7 |
| Rec Low °F | -38 | -35 | -18 | 9 | 24 | 36 | 41 | 38 | 21 | 4 | -16 | -32 |
| Precip (in) | 0.61 | 0.63 | 0.68 | 1.99 | 4.01 | 4.06 | 4.07 | 4.00 | 3.95 | 2.48 | 0.66 | 0.62 |
| Source: USTravelWeather.com [1] | ||||||||||||
Vermont was covered with shallow seas periodically from the Cambrian to Devonian periods. Most of the sedimentary rocks laid down in these seas were deformed by mountain-building. Fossils, however, are common in the Lake Champlain region. Lower areas of western Vermont were flooded again, as part of the St. Lawrence Valley "Champlain Sea" at the end of the last ice age, when the land had not yet rebounded from the weight of the glaciers. Shells of salt-water mollusks, along with the bones of beluga whales, have been found in the Lake Champlain region.
Little is known of the pre-Columbian history of Vermont. The western part of the state was originally home to a small population of Algonquian-speaking tribes, including the Mohican and Abenaki peoples. Between 8500 to 7000 BC, at the time of the Champlain Sea, Native Americans inhabited and hunted in Vermont. From 8th century BC to 1000 BC was the Archaic Period. During the era, Native Americans migrated year-round. From 1000 BC to AD 1600 was the Woodland Period, when villages and trade networks were established, and ceramic and bow and arrow technology was developed. Sometime between 1500 and 1600, the Iroquois drove many of the smaller native tribes out of Vermont, later using the area as a hunting ground and warring with the remaining Abenaki. The population in 1500 is estimated to be around 10,000 people.
The first European to see Vermont is thought to have been Jacques Cartier, in 1535. On July 30, 1609, French explorer Samuel de Champlain claimed the area of what is now Lake Champlain, giving to the mountains the appellation of les Vert Monts (the Green Mountains). France claimed Vermont as part of New France, and erected Fort Sainte Anne on Isle La Motte in 1666 as part of the fortification of Lake Champlain. This was the first European settlement in Vermont and the site of the first Roman Catholic Mass.
During the latter half of the 17th century, non-French settlers began to explore Vermont and its surrounding area. In 1690, a group of Dutch-British settlers from Albany under Captain Jacobus de Warm established the De Warm Stockade at Chimney Point (eight miles or 13 km west of present-day Addison). This settlement and trading post was directly across Lake Champlain from Crown Point, New York (Pointe à la Chevelure).
In 1731, more French settlers arrived. They constructed a small temporary wooden stockade (Fort de Pieux) on what was Chimney Point until work on Fort St. Frédéric began in 1734. The fort, when completed, gave the French control of the New France/Vermont border region in the Lake Champlain Valley and was the only permanent fort in the area until the building of Fort Carillon more than 20 years later. The government encouraged French colonization, leading to the development of small French settlements in the valley. The British attempted to take the Fort St. Frédéric four times between 1755 and 1758; in 1759, a combined force of 12,000 British regular and provincial troops under Sir Jeffrey Amherst captured the fort. The French were driven out of the area and retreated to other forts along the Richelieu River. One year later a group of Mohawks burnt the settlement to the ground, leaving only chimneys, which gave the area its name.
The first permanent British settlement was established in 1724, with the construction of Fort Dummer in Vermont's far southeast under the command of Lieutenant Timothy Dwight. This fort protected the nearby settlements of Dummerston and Brattleboro. These settlements were made by the Province of Massachusetts Bay to protect its settlers on the western border along the
