A lotting map of Burlington. Courtesy of University of Vermont Special Collections.
PART 2: From 1777 to 1791, Vermonters governed themselves while waiting for statehood.
by Kyle Neece, Community News Service
This July marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. But Vermont did not become the 14th state until 1791, after fighting for admission into the country instead of becoming part of present-day New York.
While major events, like the Battle of Bennington and the Siege of Fort Ticonderoga, are well-known, smaller histories exist in the soils of many cities and towns in Vermont. The way places like Burlington, Bradford and Windsor developed in their early years gives context to the formation of the Green Mountain State.
Burlington
Burlington was first chartered in 1763. It was named an official town by Benning Wentworth, governor of the Province of New Hampshire. In 1772, Ira Allen began surveying and mapping lots of the land in preparation for settlers. The first European settlers arrived in 1773.
“Typically, the first homes were built in the wilderness,” said historian Glenn Fay, who serves on the board for the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum in the city’s New North End. “Burlington in the 1770s was an old-growth forest on a hill, with a huge ravine from the Winooski River cutting diagonally through the Hill Section.”
Before European settlers arrived, the land was stewarded for generations by the Abenaki.
“We know there were Indigenous people living here,” Fay said.
During the American Revolution, many residents left Burlington to fight, delaying official settlement in the area until after the war ended in 1783.
Local resources such as the waterfall in Winooski and local pine forests helped the city rapidly develop. The cleared land in Burlington brought fertile soil for high-yielding crops and farming.
Early official settlements have been traced to Burlington Bay, which, along with Lake Champlain, served as a hub for transportation and trade. At the time, land travel was limited to a bridle path that ran from Castleton to Burlington, along what is now Route 7. According to Fay, the path was less than ideal, moving over stumps, rocks and through swamps.
“Land access was terrible. Water access was the main mode of transportation. There was a lot of lake traffic, and it was all by sail until the early 1800s,” Fay said.
Vermonters traded with Boston, New York and Canada. Exports included lumber, potash and crops or beef in some cases. Imports included milled wood, which Burlington used to develop.
“You did have sawmill lumber coming up the lake from other places. So, increasingly, a frame house — maybe not as well-insulated as a log cabin — was a step up. That’s where you saw the building of early houses that are still here, like the Ethan Allen house, the Pomeroy house on Battery Street and the Stephen Pearl house on Pearl Street,” Fay said. “This whole area was not developed at all. There were maybe one or two farms in the area of what is now Battery Park.”
Burlington also had a diverse population.
“We know there were people of color living here. We know that there were huge populations that came from Italy and Ireland to work on the docks, in shipbuilding and as laborers; in fact, they comprised up to 60% of the population by the early to mid-1800s,” Fay said.
But in its early years, Burlington didn’t have many settlers. The city’s population was only about 300 people by 1790. At this point, a lot of towns in the southern part of the state had populations of over 1,000 people.
Bradford
The first European settlers arrived in Mooretown, present-day Bradford, in 1765. The town was officially chartered by Royal Gov. Sir Henry Moore in 1770, and the charter included land grants for 57 families.
A map made by Colonel John Peters of what he thought to be his chartered land in Mooretown (present-day Bradford). Photo by Kyle Neece.
The earliest infrastructure in Bradford was built along the Waits River. But the area would often flood, and as a result, the town’s housing and infrastructure eventually moved to slightly higher elevations.
The main infrastructure of the town included homes, a dam, mills, factories and farmland. Once roads were established, Bradford became a commercial center, using the Waits River to power various production systems like grist mills and farmland.
Most other towns established at that time had a commons, a central location for grazing or militia practices. But Bradford didn’t.
“Because it was down in this hollow along the Waits River, no common was established,” said Larry Coffin, a historian for the Bradford Historical Society.
During the Revolutionary War, life became difficult for many families. As long as military activity took place in Boston, Bradford residents felt unsafe and open to attack.
“There was a real fear that the Connecticut River Valley was the route that any invasion would take. They would come down the Connecticut River Valley, and Bradford would be in its way as troops from Canada went to Boston,” Coffin said. “Once the action shifted to New York, some of that fear went away, but it never went away completely, especially because a fair number of men from Bradford joined the revolution and were away for periods of time.”
Windsor
Windsor was chartered as a town in 1761 by New Hampshire Gov. Benning Wentworth, who granted land to around six dozen families. The first settler, Steele Smith, arrived in 1764 from Farmington, Connecticut.
The town’s main infrastructure consisted of homes, farmland, three brooks and some trade shops. Windsor was considered a high-production town because of its vast farmland, sawmills and gristmills, and it was easy to trade along the Connecticut River with other settlements.
The Old Constitution House in Windsor. Once known as Elijah West’s Tavern, it’s now a historical site within the town. Photo by Kyle Neece.
Windsor also had a town center, where citizens would gather.
“The village center would have looked like a village. Private homes, activity and people on the street coming and going on business affairs, coming into town, leaving town, small gatherings, town meetings, and church or Sabbath services,” James Haaf, a historian for the Windsor Historical Society, said. “The farming aspect would be represented by farming goods coming in and livestock roaming through.”
Windsor is the birthplace of Vermont’s constitution, which was written at the Elijah West Tavern, a building that still stands today. Windsor was also the place where Vermont declared itself an independent republic, which operated for more than a decade before Vermont became the 14th state in 1791.
Windsor and other towns around the state have changed a lot physically since the 1700’s. However, Haaf said, some things haven’t changed.
“A community — whether present-day or 300 years ago — is still made up of individuals who have the same basic focus. Transportation changes and lifestyles change, but there is always the desire to function, succeed, care for family, earn respect and maintain personal beliefs,” Haaf said.
Community News Service is a University of Vermont journalism internship.
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