Vermont AHGP
Part of the American History and
Genealogy Project
Calais, Washington County, Vermont
This town is peculiarly situated in some respects, it being naturally divided by two valleys, with high hills at their sides, extending northerly and southerly; in these valleys are the two principal streams of the town, and they join in the south-easterly part of the same, forming a principal branch of Winooski river. The east and west parts of the town are thus isolated and independent in a measure of each other. Notwithstanding the hilly and uneven character of the town, there is less of what is denominated waste land, than in any township within our knowledge.
Col. Jacob Davis, a proprietor in the grants of Montpelier and Calais, selected the name of Montpelier for that township, as uncommon and not likely to be duplicated; and what more probable than, having selected a name from the south of France for the more southerly township in which he was interested, than that he should have selected a name from the north of France, Calais, for the northerly township. This we think is a solution of the question, how did Calais get its name? [See remarks of Mr. Tobey to same effect; -Ed.]
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The early settlers of Calais, as well as of Vermont generally, had in view among other objects a more perfect liberty, freedom and independence, and to escape from the injustice of a taxation for the support of religions in which they did not believe, and other Puritan oppressions that prevailed in Massachusetts and Connecticut, from whence Vermont was mainly settled.
Source: History of Washington County Vermont, Collated and Published by Abby Maria Hemenway, 1882.
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