"This
is a large and flourishing town on both sides of Otter Creek. The surface
of the town is generally level. Chipman's Hill, 439 feet above Otter
Creek, is the highest elevation . . . At the falls on Otter Creek, the
site of the flourishing village, are extensive manufacturing establishments;
and large quantities of white and variegated marble, with which the town
abounds, are sawed and polished for various uses and transported to market.
Middlebury is a very beautiful town, and the mart of a large inland trade
. . . This is the site of a flourishing college . . . The first clearing
was commenced by Col. John Chipman, in 1766, on the north bank of Middlebury
River . . . At this time there was no dwelling house in the State, on the
west side of the mountains north of Manchester, distant sixty miles from
Middlebury. The prospects were so discouraging that Mr. Chipman. soon returned
to Connecticut, and did not visit the township during the seven succeeding
years.
In 1773,
Col. Chipman and the Hon. Gamaliel Painter, from Salisbury, Ct., determined
to risk their all in effecting a settlement of this township. They
came into the town in May of this year with their families, and threw up
a small log hut for a shelter from the weather. Benjamin Smalley had previously
commenced and built a log house, which was the first house built here.
Chipman located himself on the lot which he had commenced clearing seven
years before . . . ."
Gazetteer
of Vermont, Hayward, 1849.
See the
List's
Look-Up
Page for look-up offers concerning this town.
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