Part III. 



GAZETTEER OF VERMONT. 



David Goodwillie was settled over it iii 

 1791, and was their ministrr man}'^ years. 

 The Rev. Thomas Goodwillie is the pres- 

 ent minister. The first meeting house 

 was built in 1789. A small Congregational 

 church was formed rn this town, October 

 21, 1829, and the Rev. Andrew Govan 

 officiated here about three years. It con- 

 sists of4G members. In 1811, the spotted 

 fever occasioned great mortality in this 

 and the neighboring towns. The typhus 

 fever prevailed in 1815, '16 and '17, and 

 carried off a considerable number. The 

 principal streams are the Passumpsic, 

 which falls into the Connecticut just be- 

 low the foot of the 15 mile falls, and Ste- 

 vens' river, which unites with the Con- 

 necticut about two miles below the mouth 

 of the Passumpsic . On these streams are 

 several valuable mill privileges, the most 

 remarkable of which is at Stevens' mills 

 on Stevens' river. At this place the river, 

 which is three rods wide, falls about 100 

 feet in the distance of ten rods. At the 

 foot of the 15 mile falls in Connecticut 

 river, is a cluster of 21 islands, the lar- 

 gest of which is said to contain 90 acres. 

 There are several other fertile islands of 

 considerable size between Barnet and Ly- 

 man. Some parts of the town are broken 

 and hilly, but the soil is in general rich 

 and e.Kcellent for pasture and tillage. 

 There is some handsome intervale along 

 the Connecticut and Passumpsic in this 

 town, the ascent from which to the up- 

 land is precipitous and rocky. The rocks 

 wliich form the precipice are principally 

 argillaceous slate, and, just below the 

 mouth of the Passumpsic, they rise from 

 100 to 300 feet nearly perpendicular. Iron 

 ore has been found near the movith of the 

 Passumpsic. There are three natural 

 ponds in this town, viz. Harvey's pond 

 covering about 300 acres, Ross' pond, about 

 iOO, Morse's pond, about 15 acres. The 

 present head of boat navigation on Con- 

 necticut river is at the lower village \r\. 

 this town at Mclndoe's fails. The prin- 

 cipal places of business are at this village, 

 at the village at Stevens' mills, and the 

 village at Randal's mills on the Passump- 

 sic river. Statistics of 1.840. — Horses, 

 529; cattle, 2,898; sheep, 6,601 ; swine, 

 1,711; wheat, bush. 4,652; barley, 412; 

 oats, 39,672 ; buckwheat, 559 ; Ind. corn, 

 6,780; rye, 203; potatoes, 66,410; hay, 

 tons, 4,815; sufrar, lbs. 19,670; wool, 

 12,229. Population, 2,030. 



Barre, a post town in the southeast 

 part of Washington county, lies in lati- 

 tude 44° 11" and longitude 4^ 31', and 

 contains 31 square miles, or 19,900 acres. 

 It is bounded north by Montpelier and 

 Plainfield, east by Orange, south by 



Pr. in. 2 



Williamstown and west by Berlin, and 

 lies about 50 miles northwesterly from 

 Windsor. This township was granted 

 Nov. 6, 1780, to Williana Williams and 

 his associates, and chartered by the name 

 of Wildersburgh. This name being un- 

 popular with the inhabitants of the town, 

 in the year 1793, a town-meeting was 

 called, to be holden at the house of Cal- 

 vin Smith for the purpose of agreeing on 

 some other name to be presented to the 

 legislature for their sanction and approv- 

 al. The meeting being opened, freedom 

 was given for any one to present the 

 name he chose, and the choice among the 

 number presented was to be decided by 

 vote of the town. Several names were 

 proposed, such as Paris, Newburn, tSsc. 

 Two of the voters present, Capt. Joseph 

 Thomson and Mr. Jonathan Sherman, the 

 first from Holden, the other from Barre, 

 Mass., each in their turn strenuously 

 contended for the name of the town from 

 whicli he came; and as the matter seem- 

 ed to lie chiefly between these two, it was 

 proposed that it should be decided be- 

 tween them, by hoj.ing, to which they 

 readily agreed. The terms were, that they 

 should fight across a pole; but if one 

 should knock the other down, they might 

 then choose their own mode of warfare. 

 The meeting then adjourned to a new 

 barn-shed, erected by said Smith, over 

 which a floor of rough hemlock plank had 

 just been laid, and on this the issue was 

 to be decided. Agreeably to this arrange- 

 ment, the combatants advanced upon 

 each other, and soon Thompson, by a well 

 directed blow, brought his antagonist to 

 the floor, and, springing upon him at full 

 leno-th, began to aim his heavy blows at 

 his head and face ; but Sherman, being 

 more supple, avoided them, and they gen- 

 erally fell harmless on the floor, except 

 peeling his own knuckles. During this 

 process; Sherman was dexterously plying 

 his ribs from beneath, when Thompson 

 was soon heard to groan, and his blows be- 

 came palsied and without effect. Sher- 

 man then rolled him off, and, springing 

 upon his feet, exultingly exclaimed — 

 '■^ There, the name is Barre, by God'" 

 Accordingly a petition for the name Bar- 

 re was presented, and sanctioned by the 

 legislature the same year. The day fol- 

 lowing this encounter, Sherman called on 

 Dr. Robert Paddock, the physician of 

 the town, who was an eye-witness of the 

 transaction, and is still living, and who 

 related these particulars to the wri- 

 ter, and requested him to extract from 

 his back and posteriors the hemlock splin- 

 ters he had received while writhing on 

 the plank floor. In 17?8, Samuel Rogers 



