Cabot is a six-mile-square town located in the northeast corner of Washington County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,443 at the 2020 census. It contains the unincorporated villages of Cabot Village, Cabot Plain, South Cabot (Hookerville), East Cabot, Lower Cabot, and West Hill. There was also a community known as Petersville until property owners there sold a total of 100 acres to Molly’s Falls Electric Light and Power Company, and in 1925 a large dam was constructed on Molly’s Brook (named after Molly, the wife of Indian JoeFisher, John M., Vermont Historical Gazetteer, 1867-1891, Vol. 1-5, Abby Maria Hemenway, Burlington, Vermont.), that completely flooded the area that had been farms and homes to create what is now known as Molly’s Falls Reservoir, or sometimes “Marshfield Dam,” which is located close to the Cabot/Marshfield town line.
Geography The most notable of Cabot’s several ponds are: Coit’s Pond, the origin of the Winooski River; Molly’s Pond that sits on the Continental Divide and has outlets flowing east towards the Connecticut River and west into the Winooski River and Lake Champlain; West Hill Pond, originally called the “great field” by early settlers as it was the only cleared area for miles in the wilderness before a dam on the brook created a shallow pond; and the three-mile-long, 396 acre Joe’s Pond (named for Indian Joe) situated in Cabot and Danville. Molly’s Pond State Park has over 1,000 acres and includes the 411-acre reservoir created by a dam built in 1926-27 that flooded the small farming community of Petersville. This reservoir, which is entirely within the town of Cabot, provides power to operate Marshfield No. 6 hydroelectric plant located just over the town line between Cabot and Marshfield on Rte. 215S.
Cabot is the location of the Cabot Creamery, founded in 1893 primarily as a butter factory to add value to milk production. Today the creamery is a producer and national distributor of dairy products, especially known for their cheddar cheese. Cabot Creamery is by far Cabot’s largest employer with a manufacturing and packaging plant at the original site and extensions of the business in nearby locations as well as New York state and Massachusetts. Organized as a cooperative in 1919 by 94 members with a total of 863 cows,Carpenter, Barbara, Cabot, Vermont a Collection of Memories from the Century Past, Cabot Oral History Committee, L. Brown & Sons Printing, Barre, Vt., 1999. the creamery has struggled and re-invented itself several times as economic and population changes have occurred. There were 77 farms sending milk to the Cabot Creamery Cooperative in 1952, eight of which were within the village limits.Brown, Jane, for the June and July 2022 editions of the Cabot Chronicle. Today there are no farms within the village limits and only six dairy farms within the entire town. The creamery draws from other towns for the massive amount of product needed to sustain the ever-growing demand for Cabot cheese.
Former Cabot dairy farms are now fruit orchards, maple operations, vegetable farms, or are growing herbs or producing hay, raising beef, sheep, turkeys, or goats. Crafters, wood carvers, arborists, gardeners/landscapers, musicians, authors and other professionals or retirees make their home in the historic scenic landscape of rural Cabot.
The village of Cabot nestles on the banks of the Winooski River. It is now the only community within the township with active commerce. The post office, church with a day-care center, library, and town offices are situated there, along with a volunteer fire department and ambulance service. Main Street businesses include a grocery store and deli; computer sales, service, and drone business; an automotive garage; a bar serving craft beer and cider located in a hardware store; and a restaurant and pub. There is also an 8-unit senior housing complex, Cabot Commons, opened in 2005, within easy access of downtown businesses and the town offices and library located in the Willey Memorial Building. The former Masonic Lodge Hall is now home to “Neighbors in Action,” an active community service organization.
Cabot is fortunate to have an art barn gallery that is open for exhibits in the summer, and the Cabot Historical Society, also open from about May to October. The historical society houses an impressive collection of artifacts, along with a library of genealogy and reference materials. The two-story former school and community hall that was built in 1849 has been uniquely preserved to display the town’s historical artifacts. The society also owns and maintains a restored one-room schoolhouse located on West Hill.
Throughout the year, the village common hosts a variety of concerts, field days, farmers’ markets, and craft events. There is a community skating rink on the common in the winter, and hiking and snowmobile trails run through the town. There is also a well-maintained town forest.
Cabot holds annual town meetings and its business is managed by a five-member selectboard that meets regularly, at least twice each month.
History
The town of Cabot was granted in 1780, and settlement began on the Plain, also known as Fortification Hill or Johnson’s Plain when the military were encamped there. The first settler, Benjamin Webster, arrived in 1783, followed by Lieut. Jonathan Heath, Nathaniel Webster, and Lieut. Thomas Lyford, with their families. The town was named by settler Lyman Hitchcock after his wife, Sophia Cabot (no relation to Venetian explorers John and Sebastian Cabot).The Bayley-Hazen Military Road, Northeastern Vermont Development Association (NEVDA), 1959. Lyman Hitchcock became in 1788 the first town clerk of Cabot. Cabot, Vermont, A Collection of Memories From the Century Past, Cabot Oral History Committee, L. Brown U Sons Printing, Inc., Barre, Vermont, 1999.
When the Bayley-Hazen Military Road opened in 1775-1776 from Newbury northwest to what is now known as Cabot Plain, the original intent was to build a road through the unexplored wilderness from the northernmost town of Newbury to St. Johns, Quebec, Canada, to facilitate getting supplies to the army that hoped to defeat the British and capture Canada. The road was never completed, but it served to open the northern territory for settlement.
Cabot Plain remained the business center of town until around 1796, when town officials decided to move business to the geographic center of the town, about a mile downhill south of the Plain. A meeting house was constructed, also a pound to contain wandering farm animals, and a whipping post that was used only once to punish an errant citizen. By 1799, all town business was conducted at the Center of Town and gradually traffic over the Plain diminished.
As the town grew, mills, businesses, and farms clustered near the Winooski River and extended south to form a community known as Lower Cabot. By about 1826 the business affairs of the town had moved from the geographic center of the town to the new settlement in the valley by the Winooski River, where it remains today.
The Town of Cabot was incorporated on November 19, 1866. Communities within the township clustered along brooks or near ponds, utilizing the abundant waterpower for sawmills, grist mills, and in Lower Cabot, a woolen mill.
Demographics
As of the census of 2010, there were 1,433 people, 570 households, and 404 families residing in the town. The population density was 37.2 people per square mile (14.4/km2). There were 771 housing units at an average density of 20.0 per square mile (7.7/km2). The racial makeup of the town was 97.2% White, 0.6% Black or African American, 0.2% Native American, 0.3% Asian, 0% from other races, and 1.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.6% of the population.
There were 570 households, out of which 32.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 58.2% were married couples living together, 8.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.1% were non-families. 23.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.51 and the average family size was 2.94.
In the town, the population was spread out, with 24.7% under the age of 18, 6.2% from 18 to 24, 22.3% from 25 to 44, 32.6% from 45 to 64, and 14.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females, there were 100.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.4 males.
As of the 2000 census, the median income for a household in the town was $43,092, and the median income for a family was $49,205. Males had a median income of $31,544 versus $25,000 for females. The per capita income for the town was $18,585. About 4.4% of families and 7.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.2% of those under age 18 and 5.7% of those age 65 or over.
Schools
Each community had its own school, the first being on the Plain, then known as “Shepherd’s Hill” at the junction of what is now the Bayley Hazen Road and Cabot Plains Road. It was a log cabin with no windows and only a fireplace for heat. Pegs driven into the logs supported boards that served as desks for the students sitting on benches. The first schoolteacher there was John Gunn in the summer of 1792. A few years later a new school was under construction opposite where the cemetery is today, but before it was finished it was moved from that “bleak place” to the corner near where the log school had been.
Early schools were scattered throughout the town strategically so that no student had to walk more than two miles to attend. The early buildings had few windows, no electricity or plumbing, and usually a large iron stove set in the middle of the room for heat. Each school had at least one outhouse or “privy,” and students used a communal bucket of water with a dipper for drinking. Teachers in the earliest schools were sometimes itinerant men who contracted to teach for a few weeks, depending on what the town could afford; or sometimes a young girl in town who had at least some education that was considered adequate for her to teach. Male teachers were always paid more than female teachers, regardless of their qualifications.
The Cabot Plains School at the junction of Cabot Plains Road and Bolton Road was built in 1923 and was the town’s first “Standard School.” It replaced a basic one-room building which was later sold and used as a garage. The new building had central heating, water, electricity, and toilets. Cabot’s second “Standard School” was built in 1930 in South Cabot. None of the schools had more than one teacher, and sometimes upwards of thirty students in all eight grades. Both the Cabot Plains school and the South Cabot school are now private residences. There are several other original school buildings in existence in town, all privately owned except the West Hill school that is owned by the Cabot Historical Society and open on special occasions for tours.
Cabot’s one-room schools closed gradually as the population in communities changed. There was a general decline in farms after the Civil War as young men left Vermont seeking a better climate and free land for farming or other enterprises. As the town’s population dwindled, maintaining one-room schools for only a few students became an expensive burden, and with better roads and automobiles, the smaller schools were gradually closed. The schools in Lower Cabot, Cabot Plain and East Cabot closed in 1948, and the South Cabot school closed in 1954. Children were then transported by bus to the Cabot Village School, built in 1938, that served grades one through twelve and is still in use, now serving pre-K-12 students. Several of Cabot’s one-room schools are still standing and are privately owned seasonal or year-around residences.