Thaddeus Fairbanks: the St. Johnsbury inventor whose scale built a town
Thaddeus Fairbanks patented the platform scale in 1831. The fortune it made his family paid for St. Johnsbury’s Athenaeum, its academy and its museum.
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Elisha Otis: the Halifax farm boy who made elevators safe
Elisha Otis was born in Halifax, Vermont, in 1811. His safety brake, demonstrated in New York in 1854, made passenger elevators and skyscrapers possible.
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John Deere’s Vermont roots: the blacksmith from Rutland and Middlebury
John Deere was born in Rutland in 1804 and learned blacksmithing in Middlebury before heading west to Illinois, where his steel plow made his name.
