CALVIN COOLIDGE HOMESTEAD, PLYMOUTH, VERMONT
Photograph by Alois Mayer, © Vermont Photographics
3780 Route 100A
Plymouth, VT 05056
Phone: 802-672-3773
www.nps.gov/nr/travel/presidents/calvin_coolidge_homestead
“I love Vermont because of her hills and valleys, her scenery and invigorating climate, but most of all because of her indomitable people.”
— CALVIN COOLIDGE
The Plymouth Historic District has many sites associated with America’s thirtieth president, John Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933). He was born in a small house attached to his father’s general store on July 4, 1872. Four years later the family moved across the street to this modest one-and-a-half-story wood-frame clapboard house. They later added a front porch, bay windows, and other improvements. “Cal,” as he was known to his family, lived much of his life in Massachusetts, where he became governor and then later vice president under President Warren G. Harding (1865–1923). Vice President Coolidge was here when President Harding died, and he took the oath of office by the light of a kerosene lamp in the sitting room. His father, a justice of the peace, administered the oath.
President Coolidge won the presidential election in 1924 and served one full term. He left office in 1929 and died four years later. Coolidge is buried in Plymouth Notch Cemetery in his family’s plot. The house was inherited by his son John, who, in 1956, donated it and its contents to the state of Vermont.
A walk through the village will lead visitors to many sites the President knew: the Post Office, the old Coolidge house and general store, the one-room schoolhouse, several houses, Plymouth Notch Cemetery, and Union Christian Church.