A COVENTRY VERMONT HISTORY TIMELINE
based on the historical timelines of the
Vermont Historical Society &
The Vermont Division For Historic Preservation
Introduction
1. Ndakinna, Native Cultures prior to 1609
8500- 7000 B.C.- Glacial activity creates Champlain Sea; Paleo-Indians explore and hunt in Vermont
7000 - 1000 B.C. - Archaic Period; Native Americans move seasonally around Vermont to live, hunt, gather, and fish
1000 B.C. - 1600 A.D. - Woodland Period; Native Americans establish villages and develop trade networks, and ceramic and bow and arrow technology
Before Coventry - The Abenakis
2. French and Indian Era 1609-1763
1535 - French explorer Jacques Cartier is first European to see what is now Vermont
1609 - Samuel de Champlain discovers Lake Champlain
1666 - Fort Ste. Anne constructed on Isle LaMotte, site of first white settlement and first Catholic Mass
1690 - Small British fort built at
Chimney Point
1724 - British build Fort Dummer at Dummerston
1731 - French build fort and begin settlement, under Seigneur Gilles Hocquart, at
Chimney Point
1749 - Gov. Benning Wentworth makes first New Hampshire grant-for town of Bennington
1756 - A "Wilderness Unknown"
1759 - French abandon settlement at
Chimney Point
1759 - Roger's Rangers Retreat
1760 - Crown Point Military Road, from Springfield, VT to
Chimney Point, VT, completed east-west across Vermont
1761 - Gov. Wentworth resumes New Hampshire Grants
3. English Settlement 1763-1791
1770 - Green Mountain Boys organized to protect New Hampshire Grants
1770 - The New York Land Grant - "St. George"
1774 - The Scottish-American Land Company brings Scottish settlers to Ryegate and Barnet
1775 - Ethan Allen captures Fort Ticonderoga
1776 - Construction of American fort,
Mount Independence in Orwell
1777 - Vermont declares itself a republic in Windsor adopting the 1st
Constitution with universal male suffrage, public schools, and abolishing slavery
1777 - Battles of
Hubbardton and
Bennington
1778 - Early Explorers and Traders
1779 - Bayley-Hazen Military Road blazed from Peacham to Lowell, VT
1779 - Property rights established for women
1780 - Last major Indian raid, led by the British, in Royalton
1780 - The Vermont Land Grant: Coventry
1780 - Major Elias Buel: First Proprietor
1783 -
Hyde Log Cabin constructed in Grand Isle
1784 - Buel's Flying Grant
1785 -
Eureka Schoolhouse constructed in Springfield
1785 - First marble quarry opened in Dorset
1786 - The Vermont Legislature passes An Act to Prevent the Sale and Transportation of Negroes and Malattoes Out of This State
1787 - Castleton, Vermont's first college, established and chartered by the VT General Assembly
4. Agricultural Expansion and Reform 1791-1850
1791 - Vermont becomes 14th state
1791 - University of Vermont chartered
1791 - Ira Allen: Treasurer, Surveyor-General, 2nd Coventry Proprietor
1791 - Thomas Jefferson and James Madison visit Vermont
1791 - Population of Vermont is 85,341
1798 - Jabez Fitch: "The Hard-Hearted Savage"
1800 - Settlement of Coventry, the Eastside
1800 -The 1800 Census
1801 - Brigham Young born in Whitingham, later led the Mormons from Illinois to Utah, founded Salt Lake City
1801 - George Perkins Marsh, America's first conservationist, born in Woodstock
1803 - The Town of Coventry is organized
1805 - Montpelier chosen as capital
1805 - Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, born in Royalton
1806 - Setting Off The Public Lands
1810 -
Justin Smith Morrill of Strafford born
1810 - The 1810 Census
1810 - Population of Vermont is 217,895
1810 - Runaway Pond
1812 - The War Of 1812
1816 - Coventry Leg
1819 - Vermont Colonization Society formed
1820 - The 1820 Census
1821 - Settlement of Coventry, the Village
1822 - The Post Office
1823 - Alexander Twilight first African American to earn college degree in US at Middlebury
1823 - West Hill
1825 - Elijah Cleveland
1825 - Coventry Gore
1825-27 - Early Industry At The Falls
1826 - Martin Henry Freeman, born in Rutland, becomes, in 1856, first black college president in the U.S.
1826 - Horace Greeley of West Haven begins first newspaper apprenticeship at Northern Spectator in Poultney
1829 - The Congregational Church
1829 -
Chester Alan Arthur born in Fairfield
1830 - The 1830 Census
1833 - The Bowman Forgery
1834 - Vermont Anti-Slavery Society formed
1834 -
"The Old Stone House" is built by Rev. Alexander Twilight in Brownington, Vt.
1835 - Abolitionist Samuel J. May mobbed while lecturing in Montpelier
1835 - Coventry Center
1837 - John Deere patents steel plow
1837 - The Starch Factory
1837 - Thomas Davenport patents first electric motor
1838 - The Adventures And Sufferings of Capt. Daniel D. Heustis
1839 - Abolitionists In Coventry
1840 - The 1840 Census
1841-46 - The Dream of The Shiretown
1844 - Orleans County Agricultural Society
1847 - A Tour Through Coventry
1849 - Boston to Burlington railroad completed
1849 - Temperance - The Rechabites Come To Coventry
1850 - Vermont nullifies federal Fugitive Slave Law
5. Industrial Expansion 1850-1890
1855 - First Republican governor elected; Republicans control that office until 1962
1858 - Pliny White
1858 - Coventry High School
1859 - John Dewey, philosopher and pioneer in modern education born in Burlington
1859 - present State House constructed
1859 - Coventry in 1859 - The Walling Map