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.
-
-
Chester A. Arthur: the Fairfield-born president nobody expected
Chester Alan Arthur was born in Fairfield in 1829, became a New York machine politician and, after Garfield’s assassination, an unexpected reformer in the White House.
-
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.
-
Richard Snelling: the Shelburne businessman who governed Vermont five times
Richard Snelling ran a Shelburne manufacturing company before serving four terms as governor and returning in 1991 to tackle a budget crisis. He died in office.
-
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.
-
Calvin Coolidge and Plymouth Notch: the president sworn in by lamplight
Calvin Coolidge was born in Plymouth Notch on July 4, 1872, and took the presidential oath there by kerosene lamp in 1923. The village is now a state historic site.
-
Rudyard Kipling’s Vermont years: writing The Jungle Book at Naulakha
Rudyard Kipling lived near Brattleboro from 1892 to 1896, where he built Naulakha and wrote The Jungle Book. A family feud drove him away.
-
Ethan Allen: the Green Mountain Boy at the State House door
Ethan Allen led the Green Mountain Boys, captured Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 and fought for Vermont’s independence from New York. His statue stands at the State House in Montpelier.
-
Robert Todd Lincoln at Hildene: the president’s son who chose Manchester
Abraham Lincoln’s only son to survive to adulthood built a Georgian Revival summer home in Manchester in 1905. Hildene is now a museum and working farm.
-
Maria von Trapp in Stowe: the real woman behind “The Sound of Music”
Maria von Trapp spent her last four decades in Stowe, where her family built a lodge. Her life differed in important ways from the musical version.
