Vermont Trivia & Tidbits - Page 11

Looking for Vermont trivia? Try our list Vermont little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

By the late 1800s, trees covered only 20 to 30 percent of Vermont’s landscape after forests were cleared for farming and firewood. Today, the state is more than 75 percent forested.

first appeared: 6/1/2003

Prior to European settlement, beavers could be found in virtually every water body in Vermont, but by the mid-19th century the animal had been trapped nearly out of existence. Reintroduction efforts in the early 1900s led to its re-colonization around the state.

first appeared: 5/25/2003

While constructing a railroad between Rutland and Burlington in 1849, workers unearthed the bones of a beluga whale near Charlotte (pop. 3,475). It had been preserved in the sediment of the ancient Champlain Sea.

first appeared: 5/18/2003

Astronomer A.E. Douglass, credited with developing the science of dendrochronology (using tree rings to determine environmental history), was born in Windsor (pop. 3,756).

first appeared: 5/11/2003

Springfield (pop. 9,078) is home to the Springfield Telescope Makers, reportedly the oldest group of amateurs in the country devoted to building and using astronomic telescopes.

first appeared: 5/4/2003

It was in East Corinth (pop. 350), where actors Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin became ghosts in their own home in the 1987 movie Beetlejuice.

first appeared: 4/27/2003

In 1927, the swollen Winooski River rampaged through Waterbury (pop. 4,915), causing extensive damage. Waterbury, Conn., residents sent $10,000 to replace library books, a favor returned in 1955 when the Vermonters sent their sister city $5,000 to rebuild a fieldhouse.

first appeared: 4/20/2003

Commercial forest land in Vermont covers about 78 percent of the total land area of the state, and wood industries employ about 19 percent of Vermont’s manufacturing work force.

first appeared: 4/13/2003

Edna Beard, the first woman elected to the state’s General Assembly, sponsored a bill in 1921 providing child support for women whose husbands had become “incapacitated by incurable disease.” Support in 1921 meant $2 a week.

first appeared: 4/6/2003

Andrea Mead Lawrence of Rutland (pop. 17,292) won the giant slalom and slalom at the 1952 Olympics in Norway—the only woman to win two gold medals in alpine skiing at one Olympics.

first appeared: 3/30/2003

The Old Round Church in Richmond (pop. 4,090), built in 1813 for the town’s five Protestant congregations, isn’t really round—it’s a 16-sided polygon.

first appeared: 3/23/2003

President Harry S. Truman appointed Warren R. Austin of Burlington (pop. 38,889) ambassador to the United Nations in 1947. Before that, Austin was a U.S. senator.

first appeared: 3/16/2003

The cabin just north of Grande Isle (pop. 1,955), built in 1783 by Jedediah Hyde Jr., is one of the oldest standing log cabins in the country and is a state historical site.

first appeared: 3/9/2003

St. Johnsbury (pop. 7,571) is named for Michel Guillaume St. Jean de Crevecoeur, also known as J. Hector St. John, author of Letters from an American Farmer (1782). It is the only town with that name in the country.

first appeared: 3/2/2003

Two of Vermont’s lakes are reputed to have Loch Ness-type serpents—Champ in Lake Champlain and Memphre in Lake Memphremagog, which spans the border of Vermont and Canada.

first appeared: 2/23/2003

Randolph (pop. 4,853) received 56 inches of snow on Nov. 23, 1943, a single-day record for the state.

first appeared: 2/16/2003

Some of the earliest jointed dolls in the country were made by Joel Ellis of Springfield (pop. 3,938). During the mid-1800s, Ellis also invented doll carriages and toy carts.

first appeared: 2/9/2003

Vermonters made almost 60 percent of New England’s 850,000 gallons of maple syrup in 2002, according to federal data.

first appeared: 2/2/2003

The first American medal in an Olympic Nordic (cross-country) skiing event was won by Bill Koch of Guilford (pop. 2,046) in 1976.

first appeared: 1/26/2003

Elisha Otis, born near Halifax (pop. 782), invented the safety elevator, demonstrating it at the 1853 Crystal Palace Exposition in New York by having an elevator’s rope cut as he was riding in it. A brake system kept it from crashing.

first appeared: 1/19/2003

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