Vergennes (Vermont)

Vergennes
Vergennes Town Hall
Location in Vermont
Vergennes
Basic data
Foundation :	October 23, 1788
State :	United States
State :	Vermont
County :	Addison County
Coordinates :	44 ° 10 ′  N , 73 ° 15 ′  W Coordinates: 44 ° 10 ′  N , 73 ° 15 ′  W
Time zone :	Eastern ( UTC − 5 / −4 )
Residents :	2,588 (as of 2010)
Population density :	410.8 inhabitants per km 2
Area :	6.5 km 2  (approx. 3 mi 2 ) of which 6.3 km 2  (approx. 2 mi 2 ) is land
Height :	59 m
Postal code :	05491
Area code :	+1 802
FIPS :	50-74650
GNIS ID :	1460018
Website :	Vergennes.org
The waterfalls of Otter Creek in the middle of the city

Vergennes [ vɚˈdʒɛnz ] is a city in Addison County of the state of Vermont in the United States with a population of 2,588 (according to the 2010 census).

geography

Geographical location

Vergennes is located in the northwest of Addison County, at the waterfalls closest to the mouth of Otter Creek in the fertile and water-rich plains between the western flank of the Green Mountains and Lake Champlain . The city area is flat.

Neighboring communities

All distances are given as straight lines between the official coordinates of the places from the 2010 census.

• North: Charlotte , 9.3 mi
• Northeast: Monkton , 7.5 mi
• Southeast: New Haven , 5.6 mi
• South: Waltham , 1.9 mi
• Southwest: Panton , 8.0 km
• Northwest: Ferrisburgh , 3.1 mi

climate

The mean average temperature in Vergennes is between -8.3 ° C (17 ° Fahrenheit ) in January and 20.3 ° C (69 ° Fahrenheit) in July. This means that the place is around 12 degrees cooler than the long-term average in the USA. At more than five and a half meters, the snowfall between October and May is about twice as high as the average snow depth in the USA, the daily sunshine duration is at the lower end of the range of values ​​in the USA, and in the period September to December even significantly below.

history

Originally the area of ​​today's Vergennes was part of the towns Ferrisburgh , Panton and New Haven and was settled from 1766. The first permanent establishment in the area was established on the site of today's main town. Since it was disputed whether New York or New Hampshire were allowed to sell the land, there were some disputes, some of which were supported by paramilitary support, as in other places in what was later to Vermont. After the War of Independence, they resulted in the establishment of the Vermont Republic, which was independent of both US states, and after the dispute over the formation of today's state of Vermont was settled.

During the Revolutionary War, the American line of defense was withdrawn in March 1779 to the northern border of the towns of Castleton and Pittsford and the areas to the north of it, including the area of ​​what is now Vergennes, evacuated. It was not until 1783, after the end of the war, that the area was resettled.

From 1786 the port at the waterfall became an important transshipment point for goods that were traded across the lake from and to Canada; An agreement between Ethan Allen and the French in Canada guaranteed that the goods handled here (especially the potash and wood produced here ) were free of customs duties , which made the port an important starting point for the settlement of northwest Vermont. In the same year a wooden bridge for road traffic was built. In the period that followed, Allen took up a project that he had already presented in a letter to the French ambassador in New York, Hector St. John De Crevecour , on May 20, 1785: to build an independent city on the waterfall. On October 23, 1788 Vergennes was in a size of about 400 × 480 rods (corresponds to about 2.0 × 2.5 km) and an area of ​​1200 acres (about 4.85 km²) from the meeting here Towns Ferrisburgh, Panton and New Haven outsourced and placed under its own management. This happened in the administrative form of the city , not, as with all other Vermont settlements, as a town or village . The reasons for this are not known. The constituent city assembly took place on March 12, 1789. The city's name was chosen as a tribute to the then French Foreign Minister, Count De Vergennes.

By adding another area from the Town of New Haven, the area was increased considerably on November 1, 1791, but the same area was split off again on October 31, 1796 to found the Town of Waltham . However, the settlers in Waltham were initially denied the right to send their own representative to the Vermont House of Representatives; their interests were represented by the MP from Vergennes.

In 1808, business people from Boston discovered the city as a suitable location for steel production. They founded a company, the Monkton Iron Company , bought large pieces of land along the stilling basin of the waterfall, built large coal bunkers and, from 1809 , produced steel from the iron ore brought in from Monkton and from self-produced charcoal, which was smelted in nine workplaces .

On June 18, 1812, the United States declared war on Great Britain , in particular because of attacks on its citizens and merchant ships . They tried several times unsuccessfully to conquer the British part of Canada; the fighting on the Canadian border took place primarily in the Great Lakes to the west. In the summer of 1813, the young officer Thomas Macdonough was appointed commander of the small fleet of American sailing ships on Lake Champlain. He looked for suitable winter quarters for his ships and found them in Otter Creek, about 1 ½ km from its mouth, and built a fort to secure the fleet at the mouth. To supplement his fleet, Macdonough set up in Vergennes, directly below the falls and in Neighborhood of the blacksmiths, a shipyard where his fleet and a. 10 armed rowing boats were increased and cannons made; also other hardware and the gunpowder needed. The flagship of the fleet, the USS Saratoga , is said to have been keeled and completed here within 14 days. When the English attempted a counter-invasion in the fall of 1814, they chose Lake Champlain as the invasion route into the interior of the Confederation. On September 11th, Macdonough stood in their way at the Battle of Plattsburgh . In a two-hour sea battle, he defeated the British ships and thus prepared the way to the peace of Ghent on December 24, 1814: Both opponents had proven to be equal, neither side had land gains. Vergennes had become a naval base. However, the ore deposits in Monkton were largely mined; most forges were therefore closed in June 1816.

The military yard built by Macdonough also accepted civilian orders after the end of the war. The steam boats Phoenix (1815), Champlain (1817), the Congress (1818) and the second Phoenix (1820) were laid down here; more steamships followed. These ships gradually replaced the sailing ships on Lake Champlain that had previously made trade between Canada, New York and Vermont possible. However, after the Monkton Iron Company closed , Vergennes' economy stagnated. It was not until the opening of the Champlain Canal in 1823, which connected the Hudson River with Lake Champlain, and the establishment of a military complex for the US armed forces, the Champlain Arsenal , in 1828 that the industry boomed again. Vermont's first bank, State Bank , was founded here in 1827 and became the National Bank of Vergennes in 1865 . Until about 1830, Indian groups pitched their tents on a nearby island in the river every summer. Then the port of Vergennes developed into a central Vermont hub for trade between the cities of New York state along the Hudson River and for the greater part of the city. This development was supported by the construction of the railway line through the Green Mountains, which was opened in 1847.

It was not until around 1900 that the town's industrial development flagged and increasingly shifted to the greater Burlington area. Today Vergennes is first and foremost a local center for rural areas that is trying to transform itself into a tourist attraction. The Champlain Canal also plays a role here, having lost its role as a route for goods traffic since the 1970s and is now primarily used as a waterway for recreational yachtsmen.

The main employer of the place and at the same time the second largest employer Addison Countys is a subsidiary of the UTC Aerospace, formerly: Goodrich Corporation , with 700 employees.

religion

There are seven parishes in the village: several Catholic and one Methodist , Episcopal and Christian Reformed churches. There is also a congregation of the Assembly of God in town.

Population development

Census Results - City of Vergennes, Vermont
year	1700	1710	1720	1730	1740	1750	1760	1770	1780	1790
Residents										201
year	1800	1810	1820	1830	1840	1850	1860	1870	1880	1890
Residents	516	835	817	999	1,017	1,378	1,286	1,570	1,782	1,773
year	1900	1910	1920	1930	1940	1950	1960	1970	1980	1990
Residents	1,753	1,483	1,609	1,705	1,662	1,736	1.921	2,242	2,273	2,578
year	2000	2010	2020	2030	2040	2050	2060	2070	2080	2090
Residents	2,741	2,588

Economy and Infrastructure

traffic

The community is connected by the Bellows Falls – Burlington railway via Burlington to the west to Washington, DC and to the east via Rutland and Bellows Falls to the metropolises of the Atlantic coast. The Basin Harbor Airport is about nine kilometers to the west. The US Route 7 includes, in addition to Vermont Road 22A, Vergennes to the continental highway system.

Public facilities

The closest hospital is Porter Medical Center in Middlebury.

education

Vergennes is part of the Addison Northwest School District with Addison, Ferrisburgh, Panton and Waltham .

Vergennes is home to the Vergennes Union Elementary School, with classes from kindergarten to sixth grade, and the Vergennes Union High School, with classes from seventh to twelfth grade.

The Bixby Memorial Free Library in Panton is the jointly operated public library for the towns of Addison, Ferrisburgh, Panton, Vergennes and Waltham.

Personalities

sons and daughters of the town

• Ethan A. Hitchcock (1798–1870), US Army General
• Frederick E. Woodbridge (1818–1888), politician and MP in the Vermont House of Representatives
• Joseph K. Edgerton (1818–1893), politician and member of the US House of Representatives

literature

• Zadock Thompson: History of Vermont, natural, civil and statistical, in three parts . Chauncey Goodrich, Burlington 1842, p. Volume III, p175 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• Abby Maria Hemenway: The Vermont historical Gazetteer, Volume 1 . Burlington 1867, p. 106 ff .
• History of Vergennes to circa 1880
  Copy from 1886 History of Addison County, edited by HP Smith. Middlebury College website. ( Memento from August 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

Commons : Vergennes, Vermont  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Homepage of the municipality (English)
• Entry on VirtualVermont (English)
• History of Vergennes to circa 1880
  Copy from 1886 History of Addison County, edited by HP Smith. Middlebury College website.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Vergennes in the United States Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System , accessed July 28, 2017
2. ↑ Population data from the 2010 US Census in the American Factfinder
3. ↑ Coordinates of the locations of the Census Authority 2010
4. ↑ Climate data at www.City-Data.com (English)
5. ↑ In particular, a vital flour mill, which was built at the foot of the waterfall, was the target of attacks by Col. Reed from New York; it is unclear whether it ever went live. All New Hampshire Grant settlers were evicted, but returned with Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys and reclaimed the settlement areas. Other settlers are known to settle upstream at the first fall of Otter Creek in Middlebury after the area was recaptured. Another attempt by Col. Reeds to gain a foothold with a group of Scottish settlers about a year later was again prevented by Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. Smith, History of Addison County , p 642 ff ( Memento of the original from August 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ^ Smith, History of Addison County , p. 645 ( Memento of the original from August 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ George C. Daughan: 1812: The Navy's War . 1st edition. Basic Books, New York 2011, ISBN 0-465-02046-1 , pp. 265 .
8. ^ Zadock Thompson: History of Vermont, natural, civil and statistical, in three parts . Chauncey Goodrich, Burlington 1842, p. Volume II, p128 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
9. ^ Addison County Community Profile , p. 19; Status: May 2014 (English)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ Official listing of the churches on the city's homepage ( Memento of the original from January 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ Population 1790–2010 according to the census results
12. ^ Addison Northwest School District. In: anwsd.org. Retrieved July 28, 2017 . 
13. ^ Vergennes Union Elementary School. In: google.com. sites.google.com, accessed July 28, 2017 . 
14. ↑ About Us - Vergennes Union High School. In: vuhs.org. Retrieved July 28, 2017 . 
15. ^ General Information • Bixby Memorial Free Library . In: Bixby Memorial Free Library . ( bixbylibrary.org ).