Gary and Kathy come see Margaret Explosion quite a bit and they were telling us how much they like Vergennes. Gary called it “the smallest city in the US.” But the sign on the way into town read, “The Smallest City in Vermont.” All we knew about Vergennes was that Ted and Janet Williams used live in a museum there. They were the caretakers and Ted was the editor of the newspaper there, the oldest in the US until it folded. We asked around but couldn’t find the museum. We spotted a few posters for Chad and Jeremy who were playing that night at the Vergennes Opera House (which also doubles as the Vergennes Town Hall).
We had a delicious dinner at the Black Sheep Bistro. We couldn’t get in until eight at night because the place was booked. People drive down from Burlington to eat here and they are celebrating their tenth year so you know they are doing things right. The salads are incredibly crisp and distinctive. The walls are covered salon style with old drawings and prints. We sat near a Daumier. I had the vegetarian lasagna which had no pasta but held together like Mama Tacones.
The next morning we stopped in the Vergenes Laundry, a stylish bakery with white walls, steamy windows, rocket fuel espresso, wifi and some delicious bread. We drove up to Burlington and walked up and down the pedestrian friendly Church Street. Pretty idyllic up there overlooking Lake Champlain. They pipe soft classical music onto the street but this morning it was interrupted by some students cranking The Mothers’ “Trouble Coming Every Day.” It occurred to us that we had forgotten to feed the meter so we ran back to the car and got out of town.
1 Comment
Ted Williams (aka Lloyd Mintern) writes:
The fabulous historic house (b.1789 )where Janet and I lived and were museum curators is ROKEBY the Rowland Robinson Memorial Homestead, and it is located two miles north of Vergennes, on Route Seven. You drove past it on your right, on your way to Burlington. (Next time!) The newspaper I published during the ’80’s was THE VERGENNES CITIZEN. Vergennes is the smallest incorporated City (with a Mayor and City Council) in the US, one square mile, population 3,000 or so. It has become decidedly more upscale since we lived there, as your report indicates, though it was always Camelot to us. Originally settled by Ethan Allan himself, it was the early State Capitol . . .