Vermont Trivia & Tidbits - Page 12

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

Vermont’s official fossil, Charlotte the whale, is displayed at the University of Vermont. The whale’s remains were deposited 12,500 years ago when the area was covered by a sea connected to the Atlantic. The bones are named after the town where they were found in 1849.

first appeared: 1/12/2003

Samuel Reed Hall of Concord Corners (pop. 60) invented the blackboard and wrote a manual for teachers, Lectures on School Keeping, in 1829.

first appeared: 1/5/2003

Vermont and New Hampshire are the only states in which governors’ terms last for two years instead of four.

first appeared: 12/29/2002

The brass cannon in front of the Vermont State House was captured from the British at the Battle of Bennington in 1777 and, as legend has it, was taken home by Gen. John Stark to his wife, Molly, as a memento of the battle.

first appeared: 12/22/2002

Three weeks after the battles of Lexington and Concord, Vermont soldiers led by Ethan Allen, together with troops led by Benedict Arnold, converged on Fort Ticonderoga in a dawn raid May 10, 1775. Taking the fort from the British, they gave America its first victory in the struggle for independence.

first appeared: 12/15/2002

The lowest temperature ever recorded in Vermont was minus 50 degrees, noted in Bloomfield (pop. 261) on Dec. 30, 1933.

first appeared: 12/8/2002

Ground was broken in 1846 for the Vermont Central, the state’s first railroad. The line was part of the main route from Boston to the Great Lakes and extended through Vermont. Passenger service began in 1848.

first appeared: 12/1/2002

In October 1999, Matt Gissel, a student from St. Albans (pop. 5,086), won the U.S. Monopoly Championship held at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. In the final contest, Gissel said owning all four railroads was the key to his victory.

first appeared: 11/24/2002

Copper mining began in Vershire (pop. 629) in 1853. When the Civil War increased the demand, the mine grew, and by 1880 the area around Vershire produced three-fifths of the nation’s copper.

first appeared: 11/17/2002

The summit of Mount Mansfield (elevation 4,393), the highest of Vermont’s peaks, offers views east to New Hampshire’s White Mountains and west across Lake Champlain to New York’s Adirondacks.

first appeared: 11/10/2002

One of the Northeast’s premiere natural history museums was founded in 1889 in St. Johnsbury (pop. 6,319) by amateur naturalist Franklin Fairbanks. The Fairbanks Museum also houses Vermont’s only public planetarium.

first appeared: 11/3/2002

Grande Isle County is surrounded on three sides by Lake Champlain and shares no land boundary with the United States, only with Canada to the north.

first appeared: 10/27/2002

Woodstock (pop. 977) has been a popular tourist destination since the late 1800s, when daily rail service connected the town with Grand Central Station, and visitors arrived and departed by a rail car known as the Woodstock car.

first appeared: 10/20/2002

Both Vermont and New Hampshire have mountains named Monadnock, an American Indian word which means “mountain that stands alone.” Vermont’s Mondanock (elevation 3,140 feet) is in the state’s northeast corner.

first appeared: 10/13/2002

The Onion River Land Co., formed in 1773, was a partnership of Ethan Allen, his three brothers, and a cousin. Before the company dissolved in 1787, it had purchased 65,000 acres and is credited with being a major force in Vermont’s early settlement.

first appeared: 10/6/2002

Though Vermont-born Calvin Coolidge threw out the first pitch of the season on several occasions during his presidency (1923-1929), his biographers agree that he did not particularly care for baseball. On the other hand, his wife, Grace, was an avid fan and throughout her life remained loyal to the Boston Red Sox.

first appeared: 9/29/2002

Horatio Nelson Jackson, a Burlington physician, made the first transcontinental crossing by car in a two-cylinder, open-top Winton in 1903. At the time, there wasn’t a single mile of paved rural highway in the country, and the trip took 65 days.

first appeared: 9/22/2002

Begun in 1910 by the Green Mountain Club, The Long Trail, stretching 270 miles from southern Vermont to the Canadian border, is the nation’s oldest long-distance hiking trail.

first appeared: 9/15/2002

Thomas Chittenden (1730-1797), who came to Vermont from Connecticut, was governor of the independent Republic of Vermont and also the first state governor after Vermont joined the United States in 1791 as this nation’s 14th state.

first appeared: 9/8/2002

Killington Mountain Ski Area opened on Dec. 13, 1958, and is now Vermont’s largest ski resort. The area’s first tourist resort was the Summit House on Killington Peak, accommodating hikers and those who came for the region’s natural beauty.

first appeared: 9/1/2002

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