Timeline of Events in Vermont's History

Source: www.vermonthistory.info


  • 8500-7000 B.C.: Glacial activity creates Champlain Sea; Paleo-Indians explore and hunt in Vermont.

  • 7000-1000 B.C.: Archaic Period; Native Americans move seasonally around Vermont to live, hunt, gather, and fish.

  • 1535: French explorer Jacques Cartier is first European to see what is now Vermont.

  • 1609: Samuel de Champlain discovers Lake Champlain.

  • 1666: Fort Ste. Anne constructed on Isle LaMotte, site of first white settlement and first Catholic Mass.

  • 1760: Crown Point Military Road, from Springfield, Vermont to Chimney Point, Vermont, completed east-west across Vermont.

  • 1761: Gov. Wentworth resumes New Hampshire Grants.

  • 1770: Green Mountain Boys organized to protect New Hampshire Grants.

  • 1774: The Scottish-American Land Company brings Scottish settlers to Ryegate & Barnet.

  • 1775: Ethan Allen captures Fort Ticonderoga.

  • 1776: Construction of American fort, Mount Independence in Orwell.

  • 1777: Vermont declares itself a republic in Windsor; adopts first constitution with universal male suffrage, public schools, abolishing slavery; battles of Hubbardton & Bennington.

  • 1779: Bayley-Hazen Military Road blazed from Peacham to Lowell; Vermont establishes property rights for women.

  • 1780: Last major Indian raid, led by the British, in Royalton.

  • 1783: Hyde Log Cabin constructed in Grand Isle.

  • 1785: Eureka Schoolhouse constructed in Springfield; first marble quarry opened in Dorset.

  • 1787: Castleton, Vermont's first college, established and chartered by the Vermont General Assembly.

  • 1791: Vermont becomes 14th state; University of Vermont chartered; Thomas Jefferson and James Madison visit Vermont; 85,341 people in Vermont.

  • 1805: Montpelier chosen as capitol; Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, born in Royalton.

  • 1810: Justin Smith Morrill of Strafford born; 217,895 people in Vermont.

  • 1823: Alexander Twilight is the first African-American to earn college degree in U.S. at Middlebury College.

  • 1837: John Deere patents steel plow; Thomas Davenport patents first electric motor.

  • 1855: First Republican governor elected; Republicans control that office until 1962.

  • 1859: John Dewey, philosopher and pioneer in modern education born in Burlington; present State House constructed.

  • 1864: St. Albans Raid, northern most engagement of the Civil War.

  • 1865: State Agricultural College set up at the University of Vermont as a Land Grant College.

  • 1872: Calvin Coolidge born on the Fourth of July in Plymouth Notch.

  • 1881: Chester A. Arthur of Fairfield becomes U.S. President.

  • 1891: Bennington Battle Monument completed in Old Bennington.

  • 1918: Women vote in town elections.

  • 1920: Vermont Cooperative Creameries, Inc., organized; 352,428 people in Vermont.

  • 1921: Women's Suffrage adopted.

  • 1923: Calvin Coolidge of Plymouth becomes U.S. President; gasoline tax adopted; airplanes regulated.

  • 1930: 359,611 people in Vermont; cattle outnumber people.

  • 1950: Marlboro Music Festival established; 377,747 people in Vermont; Pearl Buck moves to Winhall, Vermont.

  • 1953: S.S. Ticonderoga makes last steamboat trip on Lake Champlain.

  • 1954: Consuelo Northrup Bailey elected first woman lieutenant governor in U.S.

  • 1964: Victory, Granby, & Jamaica last towns in Vermont to receive electricity.

2000: 608,827 people in Vermont.