| VERMONT FIRSTS
1783: Lemuel Haynes becomes the first African-American Pastor of a white congregation in America.
1791: Vermont is the first State to join the original thirteen colonies in the new Union. Its Constitution is the first such document to outlaw slavery, the first to prevent a person from being transported out of the state for a crime committed within, and the first to provide for a state university.
1802: First canal in United States at Bellows Falls.The British company chartered to render the Connecticut River navigable in 1701 took 10 years building the dams and 9 locks around the Great Falls, 52 feet high. Rumor has it that the first boat to use the thing was too wide for it. After the railroad came in 1849, river traffic declined and the canal was used for water power only.
1846: The first US Postage stamp is printed in Brattleboro.
1895: US Postmaster General Wilson is informed that author Rudyard Kipling, living in Dummerston, receives more mail than the largest business in nearby Brattleboro, and authorizes a special post office: Waite, Vermont existed solely in the home of and was named for the Kiplings' neighbor, Anna F. Waite, who was appointed Postmistress. The Kiplings left Vermont in 1896, never to return; Waite, Vermont ceased to exist the following year. Today, philatelists prize the Waite postmark, being the only post office ever created for an individual. Kipling wrote The Jungle Book and Captains Courageous while living in Vermont.
1903: On a $50.00 wager, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson, a Burlington native, made the first transcontinental crossing by car (San Francisco to New York) in a two-cylinder, open-top Winton. He was accompanied by a mechanic named Crocker and a dog named Bud. The daring of this feat requires some clarification: at the time, there was not a single mile of paved rural highway in the US. Such roads as existed were unmarked dirt tracks, swamps in wet months and hopelessly rutted in dry. Steep uphill stretches often required being accomplished in reverse, as the lack of a practical fuel pump permitted the fuel to flow away from the engine rather than to it. The trip took 65 days (25 less than wagered). Dr. Jackson had won the bet, but he never collected on it.
1920s: The unique singing style of Rudy Vallee makes him the first singer to be called a "crooner."
1924: President Calvin Coolidge makes the first radio address from the White House.
1934: The first ski tow in the US is built in Woodstock.
1938: Vermonter C.Minot Dole creates the National Ski Patrol.
1940: The first Social Security benefits check, in the amount of $22.54, was issued to Ida May Fuller, a Vermont widow. By the time she died in 1975 at the age of 100, Ida had received more than $20,000 in benefits.
1954: Consuelo Northrup Bailey of Fairfield is elected as the first female Lieutenant Governor in US history.
The ventilated fly fishing reel was developed in Vermont by Charles Orvis of Manchester, who devised a method of allowing a fishing line to dry quickly on the reel. His invention was so successful that the company he founded in 1856 (still in Manchester) remains as one of the country's most well-known suppliers of fishing and sporting goods.
Education: In addition to being the first state to provide for a state university in its constitution, Vermont built the first land grant college under a national plan conceived by Vermonter Justin Morrill. The first agricultural college in the US (as it is known officially, "The University of Vermont and State Agricultural College"), the first normal school, the first private military academy (Norwich University) and the first school specifically established for the college training of women were also in Vermont.
Science: Being the first person to photograph snowflakes under a microscope (how's that for a home-grown idea?) earned Wilson A. Bentley his nickname.
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