Cumulative Official Town Count | Cumulative Unofficial Town Count |
24 | 14 |
In September of 2021, southern Windham County was explored. Specifically, we visited Whitingham, Jacksonville (a part of Whitingham and therefore not an official town), Wilmington, Halifax (an official town without an official town we could find) and West Halifax (an unofficial town).
What a surprise to learn that Whitingham, Vermont is the birthplace of Brigham Young (the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and founder of Salt Lake City, Utah). Who knew? The town is tiny (less than 1500 residents in 2020) and other than a couple historic buildings still there, one of which houses the Historical Society (aka Green Mountain Hall), there really isn't much of a town to see. That said, like most towns in the state of Vermont, there is a monument honoring its fallen heroes, across the road from the memorial to Bringham Young. While there weren't others there when we were, it was clearly a well-visited memorial.
Jacksonville, VT is an itty bitty village within Whitingham (pop around 200) but has a general store, fire house, bakery, and AMAZING Sugarhouse (Sprague & Son Maple), rife with maple treats (and fresh eggs on the day we visited). Should you happen to be driving through Vermont on Route 100 (one of the primary north-south thoroughfares cutting through the Green Mountains), I highly recommend a stop at this sugarhouse; I will certainly be back when I'm in the area!
Wilmington, VT is a real town (pop. 2250 in 2020), and a quintessential Vermont tourist destination. It's got a charming Main Street, good food, a great bookstore, other good shopping, and is especially popular due to its proximity to the ski area Mount Snow (less than 15 minutes away). Plus, it happens to be the town which is home to my favorite covered bridge in the state -- the High Mowing Bridge (first picture in this post). And that is no small feat!
And then there's Halifax. While the town was chartered in 1750 and is the second oldest in the state (after Bennington), there's not much to it today (pop. about 770 in 2020). In fact, we spent a good chunk of time looking for the town, and despite a memorial to its fallen soldiers, there was nothing else to indicate any actual town. We got lost on lovely dirt roads where the map indicated a town, and we found and spoke to an inn keeper who sent us to West Halifax when we asked how to get to Halifax. We found West Halifax to be an especially tired and downtrodden town, and I am of the opinion that it is actually the de facto town of Halifax. One thing that was notable about this town is that it was one of very few towns in the state (so far) to have Trump flags flying on more than one or two random homes.
I'm still catching up on my early VT 251 explorations, so stay tuned!
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