99 Fun Facts About Vermont

Which city serves as Vermont's state capital?

Montpelier is the smallest city to serve as a US state capital.

What is Vermont's official nickname?

Vermont's nickname is The Green Mountain State; the state name itself comes from the French 'vert mont', green mountain, suggested in 1777 by Thomas Young, a Boston Tea Party participant.

Which horse breed, developed in Vermont, became the official state animal in 1961?

The Morgan Horse is also Massachusetts's state horse, since 1970; it is known for versatility and a gentle temperament.

In what year did Vermont become the 14th state, the first admitted after the original 13 colonies?

1791: Congress acted on February 18 to admit Vermont as of March 4.

What is the highest natural point in Vermont?

Mount Mansfield's 'chin', not its 'forehead', is the highest point.

Where does Vermont rank among U.S. states in terms of maple syrup production?

Vermont is the leading producer of maple syrup in the U.S., accounting for approximately 50% of the nation's total.

What is the popular name for the legendary monster said to inhabit Vermont's largest lake?

Champy, also called Champ, is the monster said to live in Lake Champlain; more than 300 sightings have been reported, and the legend draws tourists to Burlington and Plattsburgh.

Vermont was one of the first states to ban what form of outdoor advertising statewide?

In 1968, Vermont became one of the first states to ban billboards, aiming to preserve its scenic beauty.

What is the most populous city in Vermont?

Burlington is the smallest 'largest city' of any US state.

What is the official state motto of Vermont?

'Freedom and Unity' sits beneath the coat of arms on a blue flag; 'Live Free or Die' belongs to neighbouring New Hampshire.

Which bird is designated as Vermont's official state bird?

The Hermit Thrush, known for its distinctive song, was adopted as Vermont's state bird in 1941.

What is Vermont's official state flower?

Red Clover is Vermont's state flower, chosen in the 1890s because the forage crop feeds the dairy herds that define the state's farm landscape.

What type of tree is Vermont's official state tree?

The Sugar Maple, vital for the state's maple syrup industry and known for its vibrant fall foliage, became Vermont's state tree in 1949.

Which U.S. President was born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont?

Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president, was born in Plymouth Notch on July 4, 1872, the only president born on Independence Day; his family homestead there is now a state historic site.

Ethan Allen's militia was formed in the early 1770s mainly to do what?

New York had resold land already granted by New Hampshire; the militia ran off New York settlers and surveyors, sometimes by arson and mob violence.

Which large lake forms much of Vermont's western border with New York?

Lake Champlain runs roughly 120 miles, and a sliver of it reaches into Quebec.

Which of these is NOT one of Vermont's official state rocks?

Vermont has three official state rocks: granite, marble, and slate, all of which have been historically significant to the state's economy.

Which Vermont dairy cooperative, started by 94 farmers in its namesake town, is best known for cheddar?

Cabot Creamery began by churning surplus milk into butter and only started making cheese in 1930; it merged into Agri-Mark in 1992.

What is the official state insect of Vermont?

The honey bee became Vermont's state insect in 1978, chosen partly because, as a social insect, it stands for the Unity half of the state motto.

Which ice cream company was founded in 1978 in a renovated Burlington, Vermont gas station?

Ben & Jerry's founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield had planned a bagel shop, found the equipment too expensive, and took a Penn State correspondence course on ice cream instead.

What major mountain range runs north-south through the middle of Vermont?

The Green Mountains run about 250 miles from Massachusetts to Quebec through the center of Vermont; the Long Trail follows their spine and shares roughly a third of its length with the Appalachian Trail.

The Revolutionary War's Battle of Bennington largely took place in which present-day state, near Vermont's border?

While named after Bennington, Vermont, the Battle of Bennington in August 1777 primarily occurred in Walloomsac, New York, just west of the Vermont border.

What is Vermont's official state beverage?

Milk is Vermont's official state beverage, reflecting the importance of its dairy industry.

Which of these prominent U.S. Presidents was born in Fairfield, Vermont?

Arthur, the 21st president, was named after Chester Abell, the physician who assisted at his birth.

What is the official state fruit of Vermont?

The apple became Vermont's state fruit in 1999; the state's orchards mostly grow McIntosh, and many have shifted to cider and pick-your-own as consumer tastes moved to newer varieties.

Vermont's 1777 constitution was the first in the US to take what stance for those over 21?

Vermont's 1777 constitution declared that no one ought to be held as a servant, slave or apprentice past age 21 for men or 18 for women unless bound by their own consent - the first such ban on slavery in the New World.

Vermont has the highest percentage of what type of electricity generation in the U.S. at 99.9%?

Vermont still consumes about three times more electricity than it generates in-state, importing most of the difference from Canada.

What is Vermont's official state reptile?

The painted turtle became Vermont's state reptile in 1994; Michigan, Illinois and Colorado have also chosen the painted turtle as a state symbol.

What is the official state pie of Vermont?

Apple pie became Vermont's state pie in 1999; the statute asks that it be served with cold milk, a slice of cheddar, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Which of these states shares a border with Vermont?

Massachusetts lies along Vermont's entire southern border; the Green Mountains continue south across that line into the Berkshires.

Where does Vermont rank among U.S. states by land area?

Vermont ranks 43rd in land area at about 9,200 square miles; counting water it is 45th, and its tallest building, Decker Towers in Burlington, stands only 124 feet.

Where does Vermont's population rank among the U.S. states?

At an estimated 644,663 people it is the second-least populated state, 49th of 50.

What is the official state cold-water fish of Vermont?

The Brook Trout is one of Vermont's two official state fish, specifically designated as the cold-water fish.

What is the official state warm-water fish of Vermont?

The walleye was named Vermont's state warm-water fish in 1978, the same year the brook trout was designated the state cold-water fish.

What is the official state gem of Vermont?

The Grossular Garnet was adopted as Vermont's state gem in 1991, with specimens from the Belvidere Mine being particularly notable.

The Vermont State House dome is covered in what precious material?

The Vermont State House dome in Montpelier is sheathed in gold leaf; the capitol's Doric portico was modeled on the Temple of Theseus in Athens.

Which French explorer is sometimes credited with coining the name 'Vermont'?

While the name 'Vermont' (from 'Verd Mont') didn't officially appear until 1777, French explorer Samuel de Champlain is sometimes credited with the inspiration.

Between which years did the Vermont Republic mint coins and run its own postal service?

The independent state of Vermont issued its own coinage from 1785 to 1788 and operated a national postal service.

What is the official state song of Vermont?

'These Green Mountains', composed by Diane Martin and arranged by Rita Buglass Gluck, became Vermont's state song in 2000, replacing 'Hail, Vermont!'.

Which major river forms much of Vermont's eastern border with New Hampshire?

The Connecticut River forms Vermont's whole eastern border with New Hampshire; a 1933 Supreme Court ruling set the line at the low-water mark on the Vermont bank, so the river itself belongs to New Hampshire.

What is the official state vegetable of Vermont?

The Gilfeather turnip, named Vermont's state vegetable in 2016, was bred by farmer John Gilfeather of Wardsboro in the early 1900s; the town holds a turnip festival each October.

What is the average elevation of Vermont above sea level?

Vermont's mean elevation is about 1,000 feet; the state runs from 95 feet at the shore of Lake Champlain to 4,393 feet on Mount Mansfield.

Vermont's state capital sits in which county?

Montpelier is the seat of Washington County in central Vermont; the county was created in 1810 as Jefferson County and renamed for George Washington in 1814.

The black 'marble' in the Vermont State House, from Isle La Motte, is really limestone from what ancient formation?

The Chazy Reef formed about 480 million years ago in a tropical sea; its black Isle La Motte limestone also went into Radio City Music Hall and the National Gallery of Art.

Which Latin motto did Vermont officially adopt in 2015?

'Stella quarta decima fulgeat', meaning 'May the fourteenth star shine bright', was proposed by Latin student Angela Kubicke and adopted in 2015; some residents mistook it for a Spanish-language motto.

What percentage of Vermont's land area is covered by forests?

More than 70% of Vermont, roughly 78%, is forested, up from about 37% in the 1880s after a century of sheep farming had stripped the hills bare.

What animal is Vermont's official state marine fossil, unearthed in 1849 during railroad construction?

The Charlotte whale, a beluga skeleton dug up 150 miles from the sea, was first mistaken for a horse; it became key evidence that a post-glacial sea once covered the Champlain Valley.

Vermont is the only New England state that is what in terms of its geographical boundaries?

Vermont is the only landlocked New England state; the other five all touch the Atlantic, while Vermont's largest water is Lake Champlain on its western edge.

Which Vermont ski resort is known as the 'Beast of the East'?

Killington, billed as the Beast of the East, is the largest ski area in the eastern U.S., with a 3,050-foot vertical drop, the biggest in New England.

Which mountain pass on Vermont Route 108 closes to cars every winter?

Smugglers' Notch takes its name from goods run to Canada after the 1807 embargo; the Route 108 road through it closes to cars each winter, and bootleggers reportedly cached liquor in its caves.

In May 1775, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold seized which lightly held British post?

Fort Ticonderoga fell on May 10, 1775, almost without a fight; Henry Knox later hauled its cannon to Boston, where they forced the British to evacuate the city in March 1776.

Who was selected in 1778 as the first governor of the independent Vermont Republic?

Chittenden served until 1789 and again from 1790 to his death, making him both the republic's first and the state's first governor.

Vermont congressman Matthew Lyon won re-election in 1798 from where?

Lyon, jailed in Vergennes under the Sedition Act for criticizing President Adams, won re-election from his jail cell and became a folk hero to Jeffersonians.

The 1864 St. Albans Raid, the Civil War's northernmost land action, came from where?

Twenty-one Confederate soldiers based in Canada crossed the border on October 19, 1864, robbed St. Albans' three banks and fled back north, setting off a diplomatic row with Britain.

In 1923, which relative swore in a new US president by lamplight at Plymouth Notch?

The 2:47 a.m. parlor ceremony was later quietly repeated in Washington in case a state notary lacked authority for a federal oath.

What is the tallest human-made structure in Vermont?

The 306-foot Bennington Battle Monument opened in 1891 to mark the 1777 battle, which was actually fought just over the line in New York.

Which 1777 engagement was the only Revolutionary War battle inside present-day Vermont?

At Hubbardton on July 7, 1777, Seth Warner's rear guard held off Burgoyne's pursuit, buying time for the American army retreating from Ticonderoga.

Which Vermont city hosts the annual Vermont State Fair?

The Vermont State Fair is held late each summer in Rutland, where the Rutland County Agricultural Society first staged a fair in 1846.

The statue atop the Vermont State House dome represents which Roman goddess?

The figure is formally titled Agriculture; the current Greek Revival building is the third State House on the site.

In what year did Vermont become the first state to introduce civil unions?

Vermont's civil union law took effect in 2000 after the Baker v. Vermont ruling; in 2009 the state became the first to legalize same-sex marriage by legislation rather than court order.

After 12 years as Vermont governor, Howard Dean chaired which body from 2005 to 2009?

Dean, a physician, chaired the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009 and pushed the 50-state strategy that preceded the party's 2006 and 2008 gains.

Madeleine Kunin of Vermont was the first woman in US history to do what?

She later served as US ambassador to Switzerland, the country of her birth.

Longtime Vermont senator Patrick Leahy is a devoted fan of which comic-book character?

Leahy is a lifelong Batman fan; he wrote forewords to several Batman collections and took cameo roles in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.

Jericho's Wilson Bentley earned his nickname by being first to photograph what in detail?

'Snowflake' Bentley caught snowflakes on black velvet and photographed them before they melted, beginning in 1885, popularizing the idea that no two are alike.

John Deere, born in Rutland in 1804, invented the first commercially successful what?

Deere, a blacksmith who moved west, built his first steel plow in Grand Detour, Illinois, in 1837; its polished blade shed the sticky prairie soil that clogged cast-iron plows.

Which Vermont town is the birthplace of Latter-day Saint founder Joseph Smith?

Smith was born in Sharon on December 23, 1805, on the town line with Royalton; a granite obelisk marks the site, and the family moved to western New York after the 1816 crop failures.

Vermont's Justin Morrill is best remembered for which 1862 federal program?

The Morrill Land-Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890 funded public colleges in every state; Morrill served 43 years in Congress, from 1855 to 1898.

Robert Frost taught most summers from 1921 to 1962 at which mountain-campus program in Ripton?

Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English, on a mountain campus in Ripton, hosted Frost for some 42 summers; his nearby farmstead is a National Historic Landmark owned by the college.

Rudyard Kipling wrote which classic while living near Brattleboro in the 1890s?

Kipling wrote The Jungle Book at Naulakha, the house he built in Dummerston after marrying Brattleboro's Carrie Balestier in 1892; he likened the long, narrow house to a ship.

The von Trapp family of Sound of Music fame settled in which Vermont town?

The von Trapps bought a farm in Stowe in 1942; their Trapp Family Lodge, once called Cor Unum, covers 2,600 acres and opened one of the first US cross-country ski centers in 1968.

Phish played its first concert in December 1983 in what kind of UVM venue?

The set was all covers, including two Grateful Dead songs; keyboardist Page McConnell joined in 1985.

Which conglomerate bought Vermont's best-known ice cream brand in 2000?

Unilever paid about $326 million for Ben & Jerry's in 2000; the deal required it to keep funding the brand's social-mission programs and an independent board.

Jake Burton built his first snowboard by hand in 1977 in a garage in which Vermont town?

Burton built his first boards in Londonderry in 1977 and sold about 300 that first winter; the company later moved to Manchester and, in 1992, to Burlington.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters renamed itself in 2014 after which single-serve brand?

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which began as a small cafe in Waitsfield in 1981, became Keurig Green Mountain in 2014 after single-serve pods took over its business.

Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater is based on a farm in which Vermont town?

Bread and Puppet has been based on a former dairy farm in Glover since 1974; its name comes from the fresh sourdough handed out free at every show.

Founded in 1800, which school was the first operating college in Vermont?

Middlebury College was chartered in 1800 and held classes before UVM, chartered nine years earlier; its first commencement in 1802 graduated a single student, Aaron Petty.

The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon stopped generating power in which year?

Vermont Yankee went offline for good at 12:12 pm on December 29, 2014, after 42 years of operation; all its spent fuel was in dry casks by 2018.

Lake Memphremagog stretches from Newport, Vermont, into which Canadian province?

About three-quarters of Lake Memphremagog lies in Quebec, where the town of Magog sits at its northern end.

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House in Derby Line is built directly on top of what?

A black line marks the Canada-US border across the library floor; the opera house stage is in Quebec while most of the seats are in Vermont.

Quechee Gorge, the deepest gorge in Vermont, drops roughly how many feet?

Quechee Gorge is about 165 feet deep, carved some 13,000 years ago as glacial Lake Hitchcock drained; US Route 4 crosses it on a 1911 steel bridge.

The Long Trail, America's oldest long-distance hiking path, was built by which group?

The Green Mountain Club, founded in 1910, built the 272-mile Long Trail over the following twenty years; its example inspired Benton MacKaye's Appalachian Trail.

Mad River Glen is one of only three US ski areas that completely ban what?

It also still runs one of the country's last single-person chairlifts.

Which Vermont resort has the state's only aerial tram and was hit by an EB-5 visa fraud?

Jay Peak's owners misused EB-5 investor money meant for a water park and hotels; the SEC case broke in April 2016, and the resort was later sold out of receivership.

Which Vermont peak appears on the state's 2001 commemorative quarter?

Camel's Hump, with maple trees and sap buckets in the foreground, appears on Vermont's 2001 state quarter; the design panel passed over covered bridges and Wilson Bentley's snowflake photos.

What is the largest body of water lying entirely within Vermont's borders?

Lake Bomoseen covers about 2,400 acres near Castleton; Vermont's bigger lakes, Champlain and Memphremagog, are shared with New York or Quebec.

The Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge, once America's longest, joins Vermont to which state?

The 449-foot bridge links Windsor, Vermont, with Cornish, New Hampshire; it was America's longest covered bridge until Ohio's Smolen-Gulf Bridge opened in 2008.

The first ski rope tow in the US, set up near Woodstock in 1934, was powered by what?

It ran on Clinton Gilbert's farm; the hill later grew into the Suicide Six ski area, renamed Saskadena Six in 2022.

Bag Balm, the Lyndonville salve, was developed in 1899 to soothe what?

Bag Balm was formulated in 1899 for chapped cows' udders; the green-tin ointment found a second life with skiers, knitters and dermatology patients for their own skin.

The Vermont Country Store, famous for its catalog, opened in 1946 in which village?

Vrest Orton and his wife Mildred opened the Vermont Country Store in Weston village in 1946, reviving the old-fashioned general store and selling by mail-order catalog nationwide.

Vermont's 2022 maple syrup crop, then a record, came to roughly how many US gallons?

Vermont made about 2.5 million gallons of syrup in 2022, a record at the time; a UVM-designed check-valve tap that stops sap flowing back into the tree helped push yields higher.

Heady Topper, the cult double IPA, is brewed by which Vermont brewery?

The Alchemist cans Heady Topper at its Waterbury plant, about 10,000 barrels a year, and every can carries a plea to drink it from the can rather than pour it into a glass.

Hope Cemetery, famed for carved memorials, is in which 'Granite Capital of the World'?

Barre's Hope Cemetery, opened in 1895, holds tombstones carved by the Italian stonecutters who worked its granite quarries, including a soccer ball and a racing car.

Dorset, site of America's oldest marble quarry, is the birthplace of a co-founder of what?

Bill Wilson, AA's 'Bill W.', was born in East Dorset in 1895 and co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935; Dorset marble went into the New York Public Library.

Who coined the name 'Northeast Kingdom' for Vermont's northeast corner in a 1949 speech?

Senator George Aiken used the phrase in a 1949 speech in Lyndonville; the Northeast Kingdom usually means Essex, Orleans and Caledonia counties, home to about 63,000 people in 2020.

The Bennington Museum holds the largest public collection of which folk painter's work?

Grandma Moses lived just across the line in Eagle Bridge, New York, and began painting in earnest at 78; the Bennington Museum holds the largest public collection of her work.

Hildene, the estate in Manchester, was the summer home of which president's son?

Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's only surviving son, built Hildene in 1905 and summered there until his death in 1926; the house keeps its 1908 Aeolian pipe organ.

Thanks to its Act 250 land-use law, Vermont was the last state to get which retailer?

Walmart did not open in Vermont until 1995, in a downtown Bennington building, making it the last state the chain entered; Act 250 reviews and preservationists' opposition slowed big-box stores.

The Great Vermont Flood of which year killed 84 people and wrecked much of the state?

The November 1927 flood killed 84 people, among them Lieutenant Governor S. Hollister Jackson; it led the federal government to fund flood-control dams run by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Bernie Sanders holds which record in US congressional history?

Sanders, first elected to the House in 1990 and the Senate in 2006, is the longest-serving independent in congressional history; he caucuses with the Democrats without formally joining the party.