Historic Markers in Vermont

Bennington, VT

On August 16, 1777, New England militia under General John Stark and Vermont troops led by Colonel Seth Warner routed British and German forces sent by General Burgoyne to seize American supplies near Bennington. The victory stripped Burgoyne of men and provisions and helped set the stage for his surrender at Saratoga weeks later. A century afterward, Americans raised this 306-foot stone shaft to mark the ground where the tide turned.

Bradford, VT

Bradford, Vermont, remembers James Wilson, an early American who taught himself geography and engraving to become the first commercial globe maker in the United States around the start of the nineteenth century. Working from a rural New England farm in the early republic, Wilson produced terrestrial and celestial globes that had previously been imported from Europe. His story is a quintessential tale of Yankee ingenuity and self-education.

Rochester, VT

This monument speaks in the plain language of grief: Rochester, to her fallen soldiers, 1861–1865. Like hundreds of Vermont villages, Rochester sent a share of its young men to the Union armies, and many never returned. The dates frame the whole span of the Civil War, from Fort Sumter to Appomattox.

Cabot, VT

This monument in the Vermont hill town of Cabot honors local men who died in the Civil War, the conflict its inscription calls the "War of the Rebellion." Between 1861 and 1865, small New England communities like Cabot sent a remarkable share of their young men into the Union armies, and many never returned. The Latin epitaph — "it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country" — reflects the mournful pride with which such towns remembered their fallen.

Hartford, VT

This memorial in Hartford honors the men and women of the community who have left home to serve the country — and those who one day will. Rather than naming a single war, it speaks to the unbroken thread of military service running through a small Vermont town's life, promising that those who serve 'will not be forgotten.'

Weathersfield, VT

This spot in Weathersfield marks where a 54-foot single-span covered bridge once stood, a multiple-kingpost design built in the 1870s and attributed to James Tasker, one of the Connecticut River valley's prolific self-taught bridge wrights. The structure was relocated in 1959, a common fate for aging wooden bridges as automobile traffic outgrew them. Vermont's covered bridges were as much practical engineering as folk craft, their roofs built to protect the timber trusses from rot.

Middlebury, VT

This cannon was presented in 1910 by the U.S. Government to W. P. Russell Post No. 89 of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Vermont department of the great fraternal order of Union Civil War veterans. In the decades after the war, aging veterans gathered in G.A.R. posts across the North to keep faith with fallen comrades, and the federal government issued surplus ordnance to adorn their memorials. The gun stands as a tangible link between a small Vermont town and the armies that preserved the Union.

Middlebury, VT

One of several curious monuments placed by the Gravity Research Foundation, founded by the financier Roger W. Babson, who dreamed of discovering a material that could insulate against gravity. Babson funded prizes and stone markers at colleges to spur research into harnessing gravity as a free power. This monument urges students toward that quixotic scientific goal.

Hancock, VT

This honor roll in the tiny mountain town of Hancock, Vermont, carries the simple charge "to honor those who served." Communities across Vermont raised such rolls to keep the names and sacrifice of their servicemen and women before the public eye. Without naming a single war, it embraces every generation of the town's veterans.

Reading, VT

The Indian Stones near Reading, Vermont, mark the spot where, on August 31, 1754, a daughter was born to the captive Johnson family as they were being marched north by a Native war party during the tensions that erupted into the French and Indian War. The Johnsons' captivity and long journey to Canada became one of New England's best-known captivity narratives. The frontier of the upper Connecticut River valley was a dangerous borderland in those years.

Isle La Motte, VT

Isle La Motte, the northernmost island in Lake Champlain, entered the written record in 1609 when Samuel de Champlain reported landing, hunting, and camping here in early July. In 1665 French colonists built Fort St. Anne on the island's west shore — the first European settlement in what became Vermont — later commemorated by the shrine of St. Anne on the same ground. The marker links the moment of French exploration to the fortified foothold that followed.

Ripton, VT

Homer Noble Farm in Ripton was the beloved summer home of Robert Frost, one of America's greatest poets, who spent decades of warm-weather seasons writing in a rustic cabin on this land amid the Green Mountains. Frost's deep attachment to rural Vermont and New England landscapes shaped much of his celebrated verse. The farm remains a touchstone for readers who trace his poetry back to the hills that inspired it.

Burlington, VT

In August 1808, amid Thomas Jefferson's unpopular trade embargo, the smuggling boat Black Snake lay in the Winooski River loading potash bound illegally for Canada. When the revenue cutter Fly moved to seize her, the confrontation turned deadly and three men were killed. The captured smugglers were tried for murder in one of Vermont's most notorious early criminal cases.

Royalton, VT

On October 16, 1780, a large raiding party of Native fighters led by a British officer swept down the White River valley during the Revolutionary War, burning the frontier settlement of Royalton and neighboring towns, killing several settlers and carrying off more than two dozen captives. It was one of the last major raids on the Vermont frontier and long remembered in the region's founding lore.

Poultney, VT

This memorial honors the men and women who served in the Vietnam War, a long and divisive conflict that drew millions of Americans into Southeast Asia between the 1950s and 1975. In small towns like Poultney, such markers gather the community's remembrance of neighbors who went to war. It stands as a quiet acknowledgment of their service and sacrifice.

Burlington, VT

This marker honors William Wells (1837–1892), a Vermont businessman and politician who rose to become a general in the Union Army during the Civil War. He received the Medal of Honor for gallantry at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he led a cavalry charge on July 3, 1863. After the war he returned to civic and business life in Burlington, his home city.

Wilmington, VT

This simple memorial in the Vermont hills honors the community's war dead and veterans, a tradition of civic remembrance that spread across New England town commons after the nation's major conflicts. Small towns like Wilmington raised such tributes to keep the names and sacrifices of local sons before their neighbors. It speaks to the personal cost of America's wars felt in even the smallest villages.