History
Rogers' Rangers were forced to retreat through the area following their attack on Saint-Francis, Quebec in 1759. The fleeing rangers split up before getting to Barton. One group followed the Barton River south to the falls at the outlet of Crystal Lake where they were able to catch fish. From there, they continued south over the summit into the Passumpsic River Valley. Barton was chartered on October 20, 1789. The grant was to sixty Revolutionary War soldiers, mainly from Rhode Island and including Admiral John Paul Jones, General William Barton, and Ira Allen.
From 1791 to 1793 Timothy Hinman built what is now called the "Hinman Settler Road" linking Barton south to Greensboro and north through Brownington to Derby and Canada. The early settlers of Barton found Indian wigwams, in a decayed condition, quite numerous in the vicinity of the outlet of Barton pond (sic), from which it was inferred that it was a favorite camping ground. It is stated that an Indian, Foosah, claimed he killed twenty-seven moose, beside large numbers of beaver and otter near this pond in the winter of 1783-84.
On June 6, 1810, the body of water known today as Runaway Pond flooded the Barton River Valley resulting in destruction, the results of which can still be seen today. In 1824, voters decided to fund education for all children. An academy started operating in 1852 with 107 students. This was the forerunner of Barton Academy.
Railroad construction reached Barton in 1858. The first train arrived in 1863. As each new railroad terminus was built, the stagecoaches used them as terminuses as well. The stage ran north from Barton from what is now the junction of State Road 58 and US 5, north to unite with the Hinman Settler Road which came out of Glover and ran up Barton Hill over what is now Maple Hill Road then straight over to what is now the Orleans Country Club and from there to Brownington.
182 men from the town volunteered to fight in the Civil War.
Around 1900, a granite quarry was located on the east side of Crystal Lake. Steamboats barged stone across the lake. An Indian burial ground was discovered during the excavation for the new Barton Academy in 1907. There is no record of what happened to those artifacts.
Increasing steadily, Barton's population reached a peak of 3,506 people in 1920.
In 1921, the town put on a large pageant celebrating its 125th anniversary. A professional choreographer and playwright was hired. Three hundred townspeople performed, watched by 4,500 paying spectators, a record audience for the county at the time. The investment of $1,000 was recouped. The area was afterwards known as Pageant Park, now owned by the Barton village.
The Portland Pipeline company built a crude oil pipeline to Montreal from Portland, Maine in 1941 to avoid U-Boat attacks when shipping by sea during WWII. In 2005, the portion of the line that passes through Barton town was evaluated and taxed at $2,277,000. The last one-room schools stopped operation in the late 1950s. In 1964, a candlepin bowling alley was opened. Up to ten leagues used the facility. It closed in 2000.
In 1967, the school districts turned over their inadequately sized high schools, Barton Academy and Orleans High School to elementary school use and replaced them with Lake Region Union High School.
Read more about this topic: Barton, Vermont
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“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If you look at the 150 years of modern China’s history since the Opium Wars, then you can’t avoid the conclusion that the last 15 years are the best 15 years in China’s modern history.”
—J. Stapleton Roy (b. 1935)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)