St. Johnsbury, Vermont

St. Johnsbury or Saint Johnsbury (county seat) of Caledonia County, Vermont, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,364. St. Johnsbury is situated on the Passumpsic River and is located approximately six miles northwest of the Connecticut River and south of the Canada–U.S. border.

St. Johnsbury is the largest town by population in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and has long served as a commercial center for the region. The more densely settled southern one-third of the town is defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as the St. Johnsbury census-designated place, where over 81% of the population resides.

History

thumb|left|Bird's-eye view

thumb|250px|South Main Street |left

The town was originally granted in 1760 as part of the New Hampshire Grants and named Bessborough. It was regranted by Vermont in 1786 as Dunmore, and settled the same year. An early settler was Jonathan Arnold, a member of the Continental Congress and author of Rhode Island's act of secession from the Kingdom of Great Britain in May 1776. Arnold left Rhode Island in 1787 and, with six other families, built homes at what is now the town center.

By 1790, the village had grown to 143 inhabitants, and the first town meeting took place in Arnold's home that year, where the name St. Johnsbury was adopted. According to local lore, Vermont founder Ethan Allen himself proposed naming the town St. John in honor of his friend Jean de Crèvecœur, a French-born author and agriculturist and a friend of Benjamin Franklin. (He was known in the United States as J. Hector St. John.) According to this account, de Crèvecœur suggested instead the unusual St. Johnsbury to differentiate it from Saint John, New Brunswick.

In the mid-19th century, St. Johnsbury became a minor manufacturing center, with the main products being scales—the platform scale was invented there by Thaddeus Fairbanks in 1830—and maple syrup and related products. With the arrival of the railroad line from Boston to Montreal in the 1850s, St. Johnsbury grew quickly and was named the shire town (county seat) in 1856, replacing Danville. The oldest occupied residence in St. Johnsbury was built in 1798 and located on the corner of Summer and Central streets, attached to the J. J. Palmer house.

The former St. Johnsbury Fairground was located where Interstates 91 and 93 converge, south of the town. The Third Vermont Regiment drilled there prior to joining the Union Army during the Civil War. The first air flight in Vermont occurred at the fair on April 19, 1910.

In the 1940s the town contained three major industrial companies, each then the largest of its type in the world. One was Fairbanks Scales, another was a maple sugar candy company, while a third made candlepins for bowling. The rest of the economy was mostly rural.

Geography

thumb|left|St. Johnsbury Center is a village located near the geographic center of the town, north of the more developed part of town

St. Johnsbury is located at , elevation 212.4 m (697 ft). According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and , or 0.96%, is water. Situated at the confluence of the Passumpsic, Moose and Sleeper's rivers, the town lies at the heart of the Passumpsic River basin, one of the largest of the upper Connecticut River watershed. St. Johnsbury is on the site of the northernmost boundary of Lake Hitchcock, the post-glacial predecessor to the Connecticut River.

The town has multiple historic neighborhoods such as Arlington, Summerville, Four seasons (which contains the former Paddock Village), and Downtown.

The town includes the unincorporated villages of St. Johnsbury, East St. Johnsbury, Goss Hollow, Cole's corner, and St. Johnsbury Center. The town center, which is defined as a census-designated place (CDP), encompasses the villages of St. Johnsbury and St. Johnsbury Center and covers an area of , about 36% of the area of the town.

The highest point in St. Johnsbury is an unnamed hill in the northwestern part of town east of Libby Road. The twin summits of the hill each rise above above sea level.

Climate

Demographics

As of the census of 2010, A majority of St. Johnsbury secondary school students choose to be educated at St. Johnsbury Academy at the town's expense.

St. Johnsbury Trade School opened in September 1918, offering the only four year vocational education in the area. The school's founders, Fairbanks, Morse and Company, wanted to provide young people with the opportunity to learn a trade while providing them a base for earning more money and high school courses. After serving the community for over 50 years, the Trade School was closed, and the building then became the junior high. In 1981, it became the St. Johnsbury Middle School. After consolidating the local school system, the old trade school became the site of the St. Johnsbury School serving students from K–8th grade.
St. Johnsbury School now serves pre-kindergarten through 8th grade.
Good Shepherd School is operated by St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church and serves pre-school through 8th grade.
Arlington School, formerly Caledonia School, and Cornerstone, formerly Portland Street School, are behavioral and special needs schools located on School st. and Portland st. respectively
Christian Caledonia School is a Seventh-Day Adventist School located on 54 Southard St, Arlington Saint Johnsbury
Pleasant Street Baptist Church Offers sunday school services
CCV, Community College of Vermont has a campus located at the Fairbanks Muesum, additionally the Fairbanks Muesums offers classes to the public.

Government

Selectboard

Saint Johnsbury uses a selectboard model where legislative and executive functions are rooted in elected board of officials who hire an administration, including a town manager. This board is composed of three three-year seats and two one-year seats. Each three-year seat alternates so that only one is up for re-election each year, whereas one-year seats are on a two seat, one-election ballot where all candidates compete and the candidates with the highest two vote totals are elected. Chair and Vice Chair positions are apportioned through an internal vote, usually the next meeting after Town Meeting Day.

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan="6" |2026 Saint Johnsbury Selectboard members

| colspan="2" |Three-Year Selectman

|Chair

|Vice Chair

| colspan="2" |One-Year Selectman(s)

| colspan="2" |Steve Isham

|Frank Empsall

|Ellen Burt

|Dennis Smith

|Brendan Hughes

|2026 Vote Totals

|(2025) 942/1156

|(2024) 1020/1287

|524/1257

|572/2514

|517/2514

|Chair Votes

|3/5 Yes, 1 Abstain, 1 no vote

|4/5 yes, 1 Abstain

March 2nd 2027 is the next Selectboard electionsalt=St. Johnsbury Fire Station with two fire engines|thumb|St. Johnsbury Fire Station with two fire engines

Fire department

In 2010, the town employed ten firefighters. The department had an annual budget of $945,920. It has had a professional department since circa 1910.

Social services are provided in part by Northeast Kingdom Community Action located here and in other Northeast Kingdom sites.

Economy

Industry

thumb|Caledonia Superior Court on Main StreetE.T. & H.K. Ide Company, a grain wholesaler founded in 1813, was the oldest continuously operating business in town when the family stopped operations in 2003. It is no longer operational.
Fairbanks Scales, precision machinery and manufacturing company still in business after more than 190 years, employs 160 workers.
Maple Grove Farms of Vermont was founded by Katharine Ide Gray in 1915. It is the largest packer of pure maple syrup in the United States. In 2006, they employed 100 and had sales of $75 million. They are a subsidiary of B&G Foods.

Retail

Green Mountain Mall is a shopping mall north of downtown St. Johnsbury on U.S. Route 5. The anchor store was JCPenney. On December 16, 2020, it was announced that JCPenney would be closing as part of a plan to close 15 stores nationwide. The store closed in May 2021.

Medical

The Northeast Kingdom Human Services aids mental health needs. The Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital is located in the town.

Culture

thumb|upright|This monument, located in Courthouse Park, honors those volunteers who died in the [[American Civil War|Civil War.]]

thumb|upright|The [[St. Johnsbury Athenaeum is the only National Historic Landmark in the Northeast Kingdom.]]

St. Johnsbury is the home of the Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium which opened in 1891 as a gift of Franklin Fairbanks, a businessman, naturalist and philanthropist, to the community. His donated collections remain northern New England’s most extensive natural history display, and the National Register-listed building is a splendid example of the Richardsonian Romanesque style. The Fairbanks Museum is well known in Vermont for producing the "Eye on the Sky" weather forecast which is broadcast on Vermont Public Radio and Magic 97.7 FM.

There has been an annual First Night community celebration of the arts on New Year's Eve since 1993.

The town contains the only National Historic Landmark in the county, as well as the only one in the Northeast Kingdom - the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum. The town also contains 13 other places on the list of National Register of Historic Places, the most in Caledonia County or the Northeast Kingdom:

Benoit Apartment House-74 Pearl Street (added June 6, 1994)
Benoit Apartment House-76 Pearl Street (added June 6, 1994)
Caleb H. Marshall House — 53 Summer St. (added September 16, 1994)
Cote Apartment House — 16 Elm St. (added June 6, 1994)
Franklin Fairbanks House — 30 Western Ave. (added October 27, 1980)
Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium – 1302 Main St. (added December 31, 2007)
Maple Street-Clarks Avenue Historic District — 17-49 Maple St., 4-34 Clarks Ave., 95-101 Main St., 4 and 6 Frost Ave. and 3 and 5 Idlewood Terr. (added June 5, 1994)
Morency Paint Shop and Apartment Building — 73-77 Portland St. (added June 5, 1994)
Railroad Street Historic District — roughly bounded north and south by Railroad St. and Canadian Pacific RR tracks (added July 25, 1974)alt=Fairbanks Museum|thumb|Fairbanks Museum
Shearer and Corser Double House — 81-83 Summer St. (added September 16, 1994)
St. Johnsbury Federal Fish Culture Station — 374 Emerson Falls Rd. (added April 18, 2005)
St. Johnsbury Historic District — U.S. 5 and U.S. 2 (added May 17, 1980)
St. Johnsbury Main Street Historic District — area along Main St. including intersecting streets (added June 28, 1975)

The town is mentioned in Hayden Carruth's classic poem "Regarding Chainsaws." Carruth lived and farmed in that area of Vermont for many years.

Media

The Caledonian-Record, a daily newspaper, has been published since 1837. Farming, the Journal of Northeast Agriculture is published locally.

Infrastructure

Transportation

The following roads facilitate traffic: Interstate 91, Interstate 93, U.S. Route 2, U.S. Route 5 and Vermont Route 2B. Three exits from Interstate 91 serve the town. The northern terminus of Interstate 93 is at I-91 at the southern border of the town, and I-93 Exit 1, while just over the line in the town of Waterford, serves the eastern side of St. Johnsbury.