WEATHERSFIELD CENTER MEETINGHOUSE
CORE ROUTE ESTIMATED LENGTH: 55 miles
ESTIMATED TIME: 1 to 2 days
HIGHLIGHTS: The Rockingham and Weathersfield meetinghouses, both hauntingly beautiful, mark the center of vanished eighteenth-century villages. We follow backroads through covered bridges and over hills from Rockingham to Weathersfield Center, then dip down to the Connecticut River Valley and drive almost to the 3,100-foot summit of Mount Ascutney. Downtown Windsor, a few miles north, is studded with historic buildings, including the eighteenth-century tavern in which Vermont’s constitution as an independent republic was drawn up. Across the Windsor-Cornish Covered Bridge in New Hampshire, the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site is a must stop.
SIDE TRIP HIGHLIGHTS: 52 miles (1 to 2 days) follows river roads from Windsor to Chester with a short detour south from Chester to the time-frozen village of Grafton.
GETTING THERE: From north and south, I-91 to Exit 6 and west on VT 103.
ON THE ROAD
A mile west of I-91, turn off VT 103 onto Meeting House Road, then up the steep driveway to the Rockingham Meeting House (802-463-3964). The wonder is that this lonely white clapboard building, dating from 1790, is open (thanks to dedicated volunteers) from Memorial Day to Columbus Day, 10 AM–4 PM. It is set in an extensive burial ground, with thin, mostly slate headstones spreading out over a green plateau. Contrasting with the simple white exterior, the beauty of the interior comes as a surprise. Light streams in through two tiers of outsized windows, each with 20-over-20 panes. The natural wooden interior seems to glow. Box pews fill the floor and more pews line the gallery, all with seats and backs worn shiny from centuries of use.
“My family paid to have a box pew,” volunteer Lee Reed tells us, explaining that her connection with this place runs back 13 generations to an ancestor buried here in 1743. “The building was originally barn red because white paint was too expensive,” she says.
A church until 1839 and a town hall for three more decades, this was the original center of the town of Rockingham, Lee explains, but by the mid-nineteenth century population shifted, creating new villages—Bellows Falls and Saxtons River—to take advantage of water power. Bellows Falls, sited at one of the largest drops in the entire Connecticut River, boomed into a manufacturing and rail center.
In 1907 more than a dozen buildings surrounding this one burned down. Relieved that the meetinghouse had survived, area residents rallied to restore it, one of Vermont’s earliest preservation efforts.
Luckily it was a light-handed restoration. The building was painted white, but the eighteenth-century king post framing and the “pig pen” pews remain intact, as do many of the glass panes, and the plaster is original, said to be made with cattle hair rather than horsehair. Thanks to the outstanding acoustics created by the original sounding board above the pulpit, this remains a popular venue for concerts, weddings, and events, but only June through September, given the continued lack of heat and electricity.
Recognized as “the oldest building in Vermont that still exists in a condition close to its original state,” the meetinghouse is a National Historic Landmark, owned and maintained by the town for which it remains the geographical center. (Bellows Falls, home to the current town hall and 3,000 of Rockingham’s 5,000 residents, is 4 miles south.)
“It’s not spooky,” Lee Reed insists, explaining that she was baptized and married here and that it is filled with warm family memories. Funny thing though, just then she asks if I saw someone come in. “I felt someone there behind me,” she explains.
The surrounding burial ground contains more than a thousand headstones, many with clear, eerily illustrated epitaphs, some of the finest gravestone art to be found in New England. Unfortunately, rubbings are not permitted.
Meeting House Road loops back to VT 103; turn left for Rockingham’s better-known attraction, The Vermont Country Store (802-463-2224), an offshoot of the Weston store known for its catalog featuring hard-to-find old-timey gadgets.
The license plates on cars, trucks, and RVs parked by this big red barn of a place are from all over the country. Walls and aisles inside are filled with a wild and wonderful mix of products from the past: cotton sleepwear and nature-based tonics, Vermont Common Crackers, American-made lawn chairs, weather sticks, and cat clocks with moving eyes. In a corner beyond the free cheese samples, women make sandwiches to take to the shaded picnic tables outside near the dairy bar.
Back again on VT 103, take the next right turn (after a truck depot) on Brockway Mills Road, another left on Williams Road just beyond the railroad tracks, and follow it along a narrow shelf of land above the Williams River. The weathered Worrall Covered Bridge (1870) marks a bend in the river and, too soon, the road rejoins VT 103, but just for a fraction of a mile. Turn onto Lower Bartonsville Road (the tip-off is a sign for the local vet), and the new Bartonsville Bridge comes up quickly. Rebuilt in 2012 after Tropical Storm Irene wiped out its predecessor, this is one of the state’s longest covered bridges, and the fact that it’s here at all is a tribute to residents of tiny Bartonsville (another Rockingham village), which spearheaded $2.6 million in fundraising to replicate rather than replace it. This road passes vintage stone and brick homes, turns to dirt just beyond the vet’s house, becomes Pleasant Valley Road, turns back to pavement at the Windham/Windsor County line, and climbs over a shoulder of Whitney Hill to join VT 11, a major east-west connector.
Turn east (right) and stay with VT 11 another half-dozen miles into downtown Springfield, turning north (left) beyond the Springfield Theater onto Valley Street, which turns into Brook Road as it climbs over Pudding Hill and past the Springfield Country Club before crossing the Weathersfield Town line. It’s here that you begin to see Mount Ascutney rising above a roll of farm-patched hills. This is now the Weathersfield Center Road, and the hilltop village clustered around the proud, brick meetinghouse appears suddenly to the right; there’s an entrance from the side road just beyond.
WORRALL COVERED BRIDGE
Completed in 1821, the Weathersfield Center Meeting House (802-263-9497) is one of Vermont’s most elegant Federal-era public buildings. The façade includes fanlights above its three entrances, a second-story Palladian window, and a graceful double-tiered bell tower capped by a weathervane. It’s open regularly only for Congregational Church services at 10 AM Sundays, late June through Labor Day weekend.
A grove of tall maples, planted in the 1860s, shades a long green leading to the meetinghouse. A tall granite shaft commemorates the MEN WHO HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO SERVE THEIR COUNTRY IN THE LATE WAR OF THE GREAT REBELLION, BEGUN IN 1862 AND SUPPRESSED IN 1865. Farther along, an eighteenth-century millstone memorializes ALL THOSE WHO HAVE SERVED OUR COUNTRY IN TIME OF STRESS IN ITS FIRST 200 YEARS.
Two miles north of the meetinghouse we reach VT 131. Turn east (right), then north (left) at the junction with US 5 in Ascutney. From here it’s 5 miles to Windsor, but on a beautiful day it would be a shame not to detour along the way to Ascutney State Park (open mid-May–mid-Oct; $ day-use fee). The entrance is a mile up VT 44A, and a well-surfaced, 3.8-mile “parkway,” built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps, spirals gently up through hardwoods. Note the pullout with picnic facilities and a great view up the valley. A parking lot in the saddle between the mountain’s south peak and summit accesses a steep, 0.8-mile foot trail that takes you the additional 344 vertical feet to the summit. A former fire tower has been shortened and transformed into an observation platform. It’s well worth the climb for a 360-degree panorama, sweeping from the White Mountains to the northeast and west across Vermont farms and forests rolling into the Green Mountains. The park is also good for camping and hiking, and it’s a popular launch spot for hang gliders.
WINDSOR
There’s more to Windsor Village than meets the eye of passers-through. On the northern end of town on US 5, the Old Constitution House (802-674-6628; open Memorial Day–Columbus Day, Sat.–Sun. 11 AM–5 PM) is the tavern in which delegates from both sides of the Connecticut River and the Green Mountains met on July 2, 1777, to found the Republic of Vermont. The constitution they adopted was the first in America to prohibit slavery and establish voting rights for all males. Even if the building is closed, it’s worth stopping to walk the path behind that leads to Lake Runnemede. This hidden gem is a destination for birders and walkers. A painting by early twentieth-century artist Maxfield Parrish depicts the scene here: a mountain resembling Ascutney towering above still water. It hangs in the nearby People’s United Bank. Parrish lived across the river in Cornish, New Hampshire. The painting was his gift to the bank tellers in thanks for “keeping my account balanced.”
Back down US 5 in the middle of town, work by current local artists can be viewed along the balcony inside Windsor House. Built in the 1830s, this stately brick, white-columned building was one of Vermont’s proudest inns for some 130 years. The handsome U.S. post office across the street was designed by well-known early nineteenth-century architect Ammi Young, and its upstairs courtroom served as Woodrow Wilson’s summer White House during the years he vacationed in Cornish (1913 to 1915).
Windsor remains an Amtrak stop, and its early rail connections to New York City and Washington fueled the town’s prosperity and its evolution as the area’s prestigious summer colony. In Cornish, hillside farms with splendid views of Mount Ascutney were selling cheap in the late nineteenth century. The summer home of prominent sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, now a national historic site, became the nucleus of this “Cornish Colony,” the name for the group of well-known writers, artists, and otherwise creative urbanites who bought surrounding properties.
Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site (603-675-2175), 139 Saint Gaudens Road, off NH 12A; open Memorial Day–Columbus Day, 9 AM–4:30 PM daily; $. The centerpiece of the 195-acre grounds (open dawn to dusk) is Aspet, the summer home of Augustus Saint-Gaudens from 1885 until his death in 1907. It also includes the sculptor’s studio, galleries, and formal gardens. Copies of his most famous sculptures, cast from the original molds, are displayed around the beautifully landscaped grounds. An excellent film in the visitor center describes the sculptor’s life and work. Saint-Gaudens is best remembered for his public pieces: the Shaw Memorial on Boston Common, the statue of Admiral Farragut in New York’s Madison Park, the equestrian statue of General William T. Sherman at the Fifth Avenue entrance to Central Park, and the Abraham Lincoln sculpture in Chicago’s Lincoln Park.
Bring a picnic lunch for Sunday afternoon chamber music concerts at 2 PM in July and August.
CARITAS SCULPTURE BY AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS GREGORY SCHWARTZ FOR THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
The Cornish Colony flourished from 1885 to 1935, and its spirit lingers. Cornish was the home of Maxfield Parrish until his death in 1966, and writer J. D. Salinger lived quietly by the river here until his death in 2010. Maxwell Perkins, the editor remembered for discovering authors Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, commuted from Windsor to his office at Scribner’s in Manhattan. His graceful vintage 1815 brick mansion is now the Snapdragon Inn (802-227-0008), and you can sleep in guest rooms once occupied by famous authors.
The 460-foot-long Windsor/Cornish bridge, linking US 5 and NH 12A, was the longest covered bridge in the country until a new Ohio bridge outdistanced it in 2008. This is still arguably the most photogenic, set against Mount Ascutney’s isolated hump. The American Precision Museum (see sidebar), is south of the bridge on US 5.
A VIEW OF MOUNT ASCUTNEY AND THE WINDSOR-CORNISH COVERED BRIDGE
American Precision Museum (802-674-5781), 196 Main Street, Windsor; open Memorial Day weekend–Oct., daily 10 AM–5 PM; $. The 1846 Robbins & Lawrence Armory, a National Historic Landmark, is said to hold the largest collection of historically significant machine tools in the nation. At the 1851 Great Exposition in London’s Crystal Palace, the firm demonstrated rifles made with interchangeable parts, a concept perfected here. Based on that presentation, the British government ordered 25,000 rifles and 141 metal-working machines and coined the term American System for this revolutionary approach to guns and other machines. Special exhibits feature machine tools from the collection and their impact on today’s world.
One of our favorite stops in Windsor is Cider Hill Gardens & Art Gallery (802-674-5293; open May–Oct., Thurs.–Sun. 10 AM–5 PM). Sarah Milek’s extensive display gardens are 2.5 miles up a dirt road from its junction with US 5, State Street. It becomes Hunt Road, turning to dirt as it climbs. The nursery is also the setting for Gary Milek’s gallery, featuring his striking Vermont landscapes and botanically correct floral prints and greeting cards.
Windsor’s vintage 1901 brick railroad station down on Depot Avenue houses Windsor Station Restaurant and Barroom (802-674-4130; open for lunch Thurs.–Sat., dinner Tues.–Sun.; $–$$) and the neighboring Windsor Welcome Center (802-674-5910), which is housed in a former baggage building and manned by volunteers.
In recent years tourist traffic has, however, shifted to Artisans Park, several miles north of downtown and a mile south of I-91 Exit 9. Enterprising local therapist Terry McDonnell bought a former farm on the Connecticut here in the 1990s, envisioning its commercial development as the visitor-friendly campus that’s been evolving ever since. McDonnell has retained 14 riverside acres, creating the Path of Life Garden ($), with 18 distinct landscaped and sculpted areas, each designed to convey a step in the cycle of human life. Patterned on a vintage garden in Ireland, it includes a maze lined with 800 hemlock trees and a 90-foot rock labyrinth. Access is through Great River Outfitters (802-674-9933; open daily year-round), which offers 3-mile kayaking, canoeing, and tubing on a placid and popular paddling stretch of the river, ending here. Camping and a variety of other ways of experiencing the garden are also offered. The commercial anchors of Artisans Park are Simon Pearce Glass (802-674-6280; open daily 10 AM–5 PM) and the Harpoon Brewery (802-674-4591). At the Simon Pearce, visitors can watch glass being blown and shaped from a catwalk above the factory floor; the shop includes seconds and there’s also a pottery barn. The Harpoon Brewery offers tours, but its big draw is the River Taps and Beer Garden (802-674-4591), the town’s liveliest gathering place/informal restaurant. Brews on tap change with the season, and in the summer, it expands with outside tables, frequent music, and special events. The park also includes Silo Distillery (802-674-4220), with tours and tastings of its vodka, whiskey, and bourbon and several shops selling Vermont-made cheese, preserves, and more.
SARAH MILEK AT CIDER HILL GARDENS
From I-91 Exit 9 it’s a quick run back down the interstate to Exit 6, but we suggest exiting at Weathersfield, 10 minutes south, and following US 5 south along the river through Weathersfield Bow, a sleepy hamlet with a historic marker commemorating one-time resident William Jarvis. During his tenure as U.S. consul in Lisbon, Jarvis managed to smuggle 4,000 Merino sheep out of Spain and into the United States, transporting them to his Weathersfield Bow estate and employing a Spanish shepherd to tend them. Spain had closely guarded its herds of Merinos, a more productive breed with water-shedding wool and longer fibers than other sheep. That was 1811, and the War of 1812 sent prices for domestic wool soaring.
New England’s burgeoning textile mills gobbled up the wool, and by 1830 Merino sheep had become the state’s main livestock; by 1840 there were upward of 2 million Merino sheep in Vermont. Jarvis can be credited with much of the prosperity we still see preserved in brick and clapboard. Merino sheep transformed the Vermont landscape, expanding open pasture land, much of which was subsequently preserved by the dairy farms.
From Weathersfield Bow, it’s another 7 miles south on US 5 to I-91 Exit 7, much of it along the river. Our core route ends here.
Best Places to Sleep
SNAPDRAGON INN (802-227-0008), 26 Main Street, Windsor. This 1815 mansion, set on spacious grounds, was home for many years to Max Perkins, legendary editor to Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose works are found in the inn library. The nine second- and third-floor guest rooms vary in size, but all are artistically furnished with an eye to light and comfort; Wolfe and Hemingway are said to have slept in #8. A path leads from the garden to Lake Runnemede. A buffet breakfast is included in the $$–$$$ rates.
WINDSOR MANSION INN (802-674-4112), 153 Pembroke Road, Windsor. Set high on a hill above town with a view of Mount Ascutney, this former mansion is a longtime inn, recently renovated and renamed. With 17 guest rooms, spacious living and dining rooms, and landscaped grounds, it lends itself to weddings and meetings but welcomes overnight guests. $$
Best Places to Eat
WINDSOR STATION RESTAURANT AND BARROOM (802-674-4130; open for lunch Thurs.–Sat., dinner Tues.–Sun.). The interior of this 1902 railroad station is darkly paneled, brightened with art, and divided among the Lounge Car with pub food and the more formal Dining and Parlor Cars with an Italian-accented menu. Produce is locally sourced; locally crafted beers are a specialty and dinner reservations are advisable. $–$$.
ESTIMATED LENGTH: 52 miles
From Windsor VT 44 runs west to the sleepy village of Brownsville, the former gateway to the ski resort at Mount Ascutney that operated from the 1950s until 2010. The ski condo complex at its base survives as time-share Holiday Inn Club Vacations (1-888-HOLIDAY; from $) and a local mountain bike club, Sport Trails of Ascutney Basin (stabvt.org) maintains an extensive trail system here. A short distance beyond the village, right turn on Ely Road and follow it 0.6 mile to the vintage Bowers Covered Bridge (1919). Back on VT 44, turn onto Churchill Road and follow it through the Best Covered Bridge (1889), then continue as it turns into Ascutney Basin Road. Turn in at the sign for Rockledge Farm Woodworks (800-653-2700; open Tues.–Sat. 9 AM–5 PM, Sun. 12–4 PM), a 200-year-old farm with a long family woodworking tradition. Visitors are welcome to watch as Vermont hardwoods and burls are crafted into nationally distributed furniture and woodenware that’s also sold here. Bring a picnic for the tables under the apple trees.
Turn onto VT 106 and follow it south, turning west on VT 131, along the Black River to the old mill village of Cavendish, then on another couple miles to Proctorsville. Continue a minute beyond the green to Singleton’s General Store (802-226-7666). Best known for its smoked meats and sauces, this much-expanded, family-run general store is a source of fishing and hunting licenses, rods and reels, sporting goods, craft beers, sturdy outdoor wear, and more. Back at the green, turn on Depot Street where Crows Bakery and Opera House Café (802-226-7007; open 6:30 AM–6 PM Tues.–Sat., 7 AM–5 PM Sun.) offers from-scratch daily-baked pies, cakes, and cookies, as well as tempting sandwiches and wraps. Daily blackboard specials too.
At the end of Depot Street, turn left on VT 103 and follow it south through Proctorsville Gulf along the Williams River, passing old farms on your way to Chester and its Stone Village, a double line of early nineteenth-century houses built from locally quarried granite. If her flag is out, you might want to stop at Bonnie’s Bundles Dolls (802-875-2114). Bonnie Watters doesn’t like to sell her handmade cloth dolls to retail shops, preferring to meet the people who buy them. She specializes in portrait dolls (you supply a photo of a child or friend).
Continue on through Chester Depot, a village cluster around the Victorian railroad depot, a destination for Green Mountain Railroad (800-707-3530) foliage excursions from Bellows Falls. At the junction with VT 11, turn right into Chester Village, the heart of this hospitable town. Shops and restaurants line the common, flanking the Fullerton Inn (802-875-2444). Across Main Street, the information center offers a restroom as well as brochures describing places to stay. The neighboring Chester Historical Society (802-875-5459; open seasonally, weekends 2–4 PM) tells the town’s unusually colorful history. Distinctive shops include Phoenix Books Misty Valley (802-875-3400); Six Loose Ladies (802-226-7373), a volunteer-run outlet for locally spun yarns as well knitting and crocheting supplies; and DaVallia Arts & Accents (802-875-8900), with Vermont-made jewelry, pottery, and gifts.
Turn south on VT 103 for the Stone House Antiques Center (802-875-7373), with 90-plus dealers, and 103 Artisans Marketplace (802-875-4477), showcasing fanciful wrought-iron and metal work by owners Elise and Payne Junker as well as a wide variety of crafted work. At the neighboring Heritage Deli & Bakery (802-875-3550; open daily 7 AM–6 PM), soups and pastries are made from scratch and signature sandwiches are named for famous Vermonters; take-out or eat in the cheerful café with its Provençal print tablecloths. The Free Range Restaurant (802-875-3346; open Tues.–Sat. for dinner, also for Sat. lunch and Sun. brunch) offers an appealing atmosphere and menu. From Chester it’s 10 miles down VT 103 to I-91 Exit 6, or you can loop back to I-91 via Grafton (see Detour). $–$$.
SHOPS AND RESTAURANTS FLANK THE FULLERTON INN ALONG CHESTER’S COMMON
GOLDEN STAGE INN (802-226-7744), 399 Depot Street, Proctorsville. Centrally air-conditioned and handicapped accessible, this charming inn dates in part to 1788 as a stagecoach stop. Michael and Julie-Lynn offer six bright, comfortable guest rooms and two suites. A swimming pool is set in gardens, and the 5 acres are home to hens, sheep, and sheep. A full breakfast with eggs from the house chickens and honey from the house hives (giving new meaning to the word golden) as well as afternoon treats and a bottomless cookie jar are included in the rates. Inquire about inn-to-inn walking tours (vermontinntoinnwalking.com). $$.
HENRY FARM INN (802-875-26740), 2206 Green Mountain Turnpike., Chester. Minutes from the village center, there’s an out-in-the-country feel to the old tavern built in 1760, set on 56 rolling acres. It retains its pine floors, beehive oven, paneling, and sense of pleasant, uncluttered comfort. The nine rooms are large, with private bath; two are suites with kitchen. What you notice are the quilts and the views. A path leads to the spring-fed pond up the hill, and a swimming hole in the Williams River is across the road. Rates include a full country breakfast. $$.
Best Place to Eat
FULLERTON INN (802-875-2444), 40 The Common, Chester. Open for lunch Wed.–Sat., dinner Mon.–Sat. This middle-of-town landmark features reasonably priced, dependably good food. The dinner menu, available on the front porch (weather permitting) and in the tavern as well as the dining room, includes a roasted half duck and locally raised steak. There’s also a wide choice of reasonably priced comfort food. $–$$.
DETOUR
7 Miles South from Chester to Grafton
Despite its population of less than 700, Grafton looms large on Vermont’s touring maps, thanks to the Windham Foundation, which preserves the village’s classic looks. Prior to the Civil War, Grafton was home to upward of 1,500 residents and 10,000 sheep. Wool was turned into 75,000 yards of Grafton cloth annually; soapstone from 13 local quarries left town in the shape of sinks, stoves, inkwells, and foot warmers. But then one in three of Grafton’s men marched off to the Civil War, and few returned. Sheep farming, too, “went west.” An 1869 flood destroyed the town’s six dams and its road. The new highway bypassed Grafton. The town’s tavern, however, built in 1801, entered a golden era. Innkeeper Harlan Phelps invested his entire California gold rush fortune in adding a third floor and double porches, and his brother Francis organized a still-extant cornet band. Guests included Emerson, Thoreau, and Kipling; later both Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt visited. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, the tavern was sagging and nearly all the 80-some houses in town were selling cheap with plenty of acreage. Then, in the 1960s, the Windham Foundation, funded by a resident summer family, bought much of the town and set about restoring it. The Grafton Inn (802-843-2248) was renovated, cheese making was revived, the village wiring was buried, and Grafton Trails & Outdoor Center (802-843-2400) was established, with swimming and trails for cross-country skiing and mountain biking, along with a Nature Museum (802-843-2111) and the Vermont Museum of Mining & Minerals (802-875-3562). Clustered within the village’s few streets are the Grafton Forge Blacksmith (802-843-1029), a working blacksmith shop; the Gallery North Star (802-843-2465), a destination for fine art lovers; and the Jud Hartmann Gallery (802-843-2018; open mid-Sept.–Christmas), showcasing the sculptor’s nationally acclaimed bronze portrayals of Native Americans. The old general store has been reimagined as MKT: Grafton (802-843-2255), featuring a café with a lunch and brunch menu. The way back to I-91 is down VT 121 through Saxtons River to Bellows Falls.
ROCKING CHAIRS LINE THE PORCH AT THE GRAFTON INN
Best Place to Sleep and Eat
GRAFTON INN (802-843-2248), 92 Main Street, Grafton. Comfortable, antiques-furnished rooms are divided between the inn and neighboring cottage, and there are also four rental houses. In total the inn can accommodate 90. Candlelit dining is in The Old Tavern Restaurant, and the Phelps Barn Pub offers a pub menu. $$–$$$.
