Encyclopedia
Vermont is a
state in the
New England region of the
United States, located in the
northeastern part of the country. The state ranks 43rd in land area at 9,250 square miles and has a population of 608,827, one of the smallest of the 50 states. The only
New England state with no
coastline along the
Atlantic Ocean, Vermont is notable for the Green Mountains in the west and
Lake Champlain in the northwest. It is bordered by
Massachusetts to the south,
New Hampshire to the east,
New York to the west, and the
Canadian province of
Quebec to the north.
Originally inhabited by
Native American tribes , 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, rightful control of the area was disputed by the surrounding
colonies. Settlers who held land titles granted by the
Province of New Hampshire, through their
Green Mountain Boys militia, eventually prevailed. 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. Vermont is one of only three U.S. states to have once been an independent nation, the other two being Hawaii and Texas.
Famous for its scenery,
dairy products and
maple syrup , Vermont has a long history of independent political thinking . The state capital is
Montpelier, and the largest city is
Burlington.
Geography
Vermont is located in the New England region in the
eastern United States and comprises 9,614 square miles , making it the 45th largest state. Of this, land comprises 9,250 square miles and water comprises 365 square miles , making it the 43rd largest in land area and the 47th in water area.
The west bank of the
Connecticut River marks the eastern border of the state with 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 . Its greatest width, from east to west, is 89 miles at the Canadian border; the narrowest width is 37 miles at the Massachusetts line. The state's geographic center is
Washington, three miles east of
Roxbury.
The origin of the name Green Mountains 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. 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.
Vermont is known for its
mud season in spring followed by a generally mild summer and a colorful autumn, and particularly for its cold winters. The northern part of the state, including the rural northeastern section is known for exceptionally cold winters, often averaging 10 °Fahrenheit colder than the southern areas of the state. Annual
snowfall averages between 60 to 100 inches depending on elevation, giving Vermont some of New England's best cross-country and downhill ski areas.
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 ° , at
Vernon on July 4, 1911; the lowest-recorded temperature was -50 °F , at
Bloomfield on December 30, 1933.
History
Prehistory and Precolumbian
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 BCE, at the time of the Champlain Sea,
Native Americans inhabited and hunted in Vermont. From 8th century BCE to 1000 BCE was the Archaic Period. During the era Native Americans migrated year-round. From 1000 BCE to 1600 CE 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. In 950, the Viking explorer, Olaf Tomsson is alleged to have reached the Northern part of the state, where he settled for several years before leaving because of war with the local
Abenaki.
The second
European to see Vermont is thought to be
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 Verts Monts .
Colonial
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 . This settlement and trading post was directly across Lake Champlain from
Crown Point,
New York .
In 1731, the French arrived. Here they constructed a small temporary wooden stockade 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
Connecticut River. The second British settlement was the 1761 founding of Bennington in the southwest.
During the
French and Indian War, some Vermont settlers, including
Ethan Allen, joined the colonial militia assisting the British in attacks on the French.
Fort Carillon on the
New York-Vermont border, a French fort constructed in 1755, was the site of two British offensives under Lord Amherst's command: the
unsuccessful British attack in 1758 and the retaking of the following year with no major resistance . The British renamed the fort
Fort Ticonderoga . Following France's loss in the
French and Indian War, the 1763 Treaty of Paris gave control of the land to the British.
The end of the war brought new settlers to Vermont. A fort at
Crown Point had been built, and the Crown Point Military Road stretched from the east to the west of the Vermont wilderness from
Springfield to Chimney Point, making travel from the neighboring
British colonies easier. Three colonies laid claim to the area. The Province of Massachusetts Bay claimed the land on the basis of the 1629 charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Province of New York claimed Vermont based on land granted to the Duke of York in 1764. The
Province of New Hampshire also claimed Vermont based upon a decree of
George II in 1740. In 1741, George II ruled that Massachusetts's claims in Vermont and New Hampshire were invalid and fixed Massachusetts's northern boundary at its present location. This still left New Hampshire and New York with conflicting claims to the land.
The situation resulted in the
New Hampshire Grants, a series of 135 land grants made between 1749 and 1764 by New Hampshire's colonial governor,
Benning Wentworth. The grants sparked a dispute with the New York governor, who began granting charters of his own for New Yorker settlement in Vermont. In 1770, Ethan Allen—along with his brothers
Ira and Levi, as well as Seth Warner—recruited an informal militia, the
Green Mountain Boys, to protect the interests of the original New Hampshire settlers against the new migrants from New York. When a New York judge arrived in Westminster with New York settlers in March 1775, violence broke out as angry citizens took over the
courthouse and called a sheriff's posse. This resulted in the deaths of Daniel Houghton and William French in the "Westminster Massacre."
Independence, the Vermont Republic, and Statehood
On January 18, 1777, representatives of the New Hampshire Grants convened in Westminster and declared the independence of the
Vermont Republic. For the first six months of the republic's existence, the republic was called
New Connecticut.
On June 2, a second convention of 72 delegates met at Westminster, known as the "Westminster Convention." At this meeting, the delegates adopted the name "Vermont" on the suggestion of Dr. Thomas Young of
Philadelphia, a supporter of the delegates who wrote a letter advising them on how to achieve admission into the newly independent United States as the 14th state. The delegates set the time for a meeting one month later. On July 4, the
Constitution of the Vermont Republic was drafted during a violent thunderstorm at the Windsor Tavern owned by Elijah West and was adopted by the delegates on July 8 after four days of debate. This was among the first written constitutions in
North America and was indisputably the first to abolish the institution of slavery, provide for universal manhood suffrage and require support of public schools. The Windsor tavern has been preserved as the Old Constitution House, administered as a state historic site.
The
Battle of Bennington, fought on August 16, 1777, was a seminal event in the history of the state of Vermont. The nascent republican government, created after years of political turmoil, faced challenges from New York, New Hampshire, Great Britain and the new United States, none of which recognized its sovereignty. The republic's ability to defeat a powerful military invader gave it a legitimacy among its scattered frontier society that would sustain it through fourteen years of fragile independence before it finally achieved statehood as the 14th state in the union in 1791.
During the summer of 1777, the invading British army of General
John Burgoyne slashed southward from Canada to the Hudson River, captured the strategic stronghold of Fort Ticonderoga, and drove the Continental Army into a desperate southward retreat. Raiding parties of British soldiers and native warriors freely attacked, pillaged and burned the frontier communities of the Champlain Valley and threatened all settlements to the south. The Vermont frontier collapsed in the face of the British invasion. The New Hampshire legislature, fearing an invasion from the east, mobilized the state's militia under the command of General
John Stark.
General Burgoyne received intelligence that large stores of horses, food and munitions were kept at Bennington, which was the largest community in the land grant area. He dispatched 2,600 men, nearly a third of his army, to seize the colonial storehouse there, unaware that General Stark's New Hampshire troops were then traversing the Green Mountains to join up at Bennington with the Vermont continental regiments commanded by Colonel Seth Warner, together with the local Vermont and western Massachusetts militia. The combined American forces, under Stark's command, attacked the British column at Hoosick, New York, just across the border from Bennington. The American troops were defending their homes, families and property. General Stark reportedly challenged his men to fight to the death, telling them that: "There are your enemies. They are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow!" In a desperate, all-day battle fought in intense summer heat, the army of
yankee farmers killed or captured virtually the entire British detachment. General Burgoyne never recovered from this loss and eventually surrendered the remainder of his 6,000-man force at
Saratoga, New York, on October 17.
The Battles of
Bennington and
Saratoga are recognized as the turning point in the Revolutionary War because they were the first major defeat of a British army and convinced the French that the Americans were worthy of military aid. Stark became widely known as the "Hero of Bennington", and the anniversary of the battle is still celebrated in Vermont as a legal holiday known as "Bennington Battle Day." Under the portico of the Vermont Statehouse, next to an heroic granite statue of Ethan Allen, there is a brass cannon that was captured from the British troops at the Battle of Bennington.
Vermont continued to govern itself as a sovereign entity based in the eastern town of Windsor for fourteen years. The Vermont Republic issued its own currency, coins and operated a statewide postal service. Thomas Chittenden, who came to Vermont from
Connecticut in 1774, acted as head of state, using the term governor over president. Chittenden governed the nascent republic from 1778 to 1789 and from 1790 to 1791. Chittenden exchanged ambassadors with France, the Netherlands, and the American government then at Philadelphia. In 1791, Vermont joined the federal Union as the fourtenth state–the first state to enter the union after the original thirteen colonies, and a counterweight to slaveholding
Kentucky, which was admitted to the Union shortly afterward.
Vermont had a
unicameral legislature until 1836.
An 1854
Vermont Senate report on slavery echoed the Vermont Constitution's first article, on the rights of all men, questioning how a government could favor the rights of one people over another. The report fueled growth of the abolition movement in the state, and in response, a resolution from the Georgia General Assembly authorizing the towing of Vermont out to sea. The mid to late 1850s saw a transition fron Vermonters mostly favoring slavery's containment, to a far more serious opposition to the institution, producing the Radical Republican and
abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens. As the Whig party shriveled, and the Republican party emerged, Vermont strongly trended in support of its candidates, first on the state level and later for the presidency. In 1860 it voted for
President Lincoln, giving him the largest margin of victory of any state.
The Civil War
During the
American Civil War, Vermont sent more than 34,000 men into United States service, contributing 18 regiments of
infantry and
cavalry, 3 batteries of light
artillery, 3 companies of
sharpshooters, 2 companies of frontier cavalry, and thousands in the regular army and navy, and in other states’ units. Almost 5,200 Vermonters were killed or mortally wounded in action or died of disease. Vermonters, if not Vermont units, participated in every major battle of the war.
Among the most famous of the Vermont units were the 1st Vermont Brigade, the 2nd Vermont Brigade, and the 1st Vermont Cavalry.
A large proportion of Vermont’s state and national-level politicians for several decades after the Civil War were veterans.
The northernmost land action of the war, the St. Albans Raid, took place in Vermont.
See the main article Vermont in the Civil WarPostbellum era and beyond
The two decades following the end of the American Civil War saw both economic expansion and contraction, and fairly dramatic social change. Vermont's system of railroads expanded and were linked to national systems, agricultural output and export soared and incomes increased. But Vermont also felt the effects of recessions and financial panics, particularly the 1873 Panic which resulted in a substantial exodus of young Vermonters. The transition in thinking about the rights of citizens, first brought to a head by the 1854 Vermont Senate report on slavery, and later Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in changing how citizens perceived civil rights, fueled agitation for women's suffrage. The first election in which women were allowed to vote was on December 18, 1880, when women were granted limited suffrage and were first allowed to vote in town elections, and then in state legislative races.
Large-scale
flooding occurred in early November 1927. During this incident, 85 people died, 84 of them in Vermont. Another flood occurred in 1973, when the flood caused the death of two people and millions of dollars in property damage.
On April 25, 2000, Vermont legislators passed and Governor Howard Dean signed into law HB847, a law providing the state sanctioned benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian couples under the title Civil Union.
Demographics
Population
| Historical populations |
|---|
Census
year | Population |
|---|
|
| 1790 | 85,425 |
| 1800 | 154,465 |
| 1810 | 217,895 |
| 1820 | 235,981 |
| 1830 | 280,652 |
| 1840 | 291,948 |
| 1850 | 314,120 |
| 1860 | 315,098 |
| 1870 | 330,551 |
| 1880 | 332,286 |
| 1890 | 332,422 |
| 1900 | 343,641 |
| 1910 | 355,956 |
| 1920 | 352,428 |
| 1930 | 359,611 |
| 1940 | 359,231 |
| 1950 | 377,747 |
| 1960 | 389,881 |
| 1970 | 444,330 |
| 1980 | 511,456 |
| 1990 | 562,758 |
| 2000 | 608,827 |
According to the
U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2005, Vermont has an estimated population of 623,050, which is an increase of 1,817, or 0.3%, from the prior year and an increase of 14,223, or 2.3%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 7,148 people and an increase due to net migration of 7,889 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 4,359 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 3,530 people.
Race and sex
Vermont's population is:
Among the 50 states and the
District of Columbia, Vermont ranks:
Ethnicity
The largest ancestry groups are:
Residents of British ancestry live throughout most of Vermont. The northern part of the state maintains a significant percentage of people of French-Canadian ancestry.
In the last two decades, the Burlington area has welcomed the resettlement of several refugee communities. These include individuals and families from South East Asia, Bosnia, Sudan, and Tibet. These communities have grown to include non-refugees and in some cases are several generations in the making.
Religion
Like many of the neighboring states, Vermont's largest religious affiliation in the colonial period was Congregationalism. In 1776, 63 % of affiliated church members in Vermont were Congregationalists. At the time, however, most settlers were not church members because much of the land was wilderness. Only 9 % of people belonged to a church at the time. The Congregational
United Church of Christ remains the largest Protestant denomination and Vermont has the largest percentage of this denomination of any state.
Today about three-fourths of Vermont residents identify themselves as
Christians. The largest single religious body in the state is the
Roman Catholic Church. A Catholic Church survey in 1990 reported that 25% of Vermonters were members of the Catholic Church, although more than that self-identify as Catholics.
Overall, Vermont's current religious distribution is:
- Christian – 74%
- Roman Catholic – 39%
- Protestant – 34%
- Other Christian – 1%
- Jewish
