Heritage lives in the St. Albans area

Abenaki culture, classic architecture and railroad history make it vibrant

 A combination of authentic artifacts and re-creations draws visitors into the world of northwestern Vermont's original inhabitants at the Abenaki Tribal Museum in Swanton.

Photo by Stefan Hard

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Staff Writer - Published: July 5, 2009

Saint Albans has a reputation as a good place to raise a family, but it's often overlooked as a great exploration destination for Vermonters of many stripes. It has lots to offer history buffs, outdoor enthusiasts and food lovers, and the area is easy to drive around, between its sprawling dairy farms and over its gentle hills.

St. Albans (both the city and town), Swanton just to the north and surrounding Franklin County offer an opportunity, in an easy day trip, to dip into not only the history of early European descendants in Vermont but also the story of the aboriginal peoples who were there at least 10,000 years earlier.

For those feeling like getting some exercise, strenuous or otherwise, the area tempts you to dip your bare feet or a paddle blade in the northern reaches of Lake Champlain or in the Missisquoi River, which empties into the big lake. Not the water type? Bring your bike and ride a rewarding rail trail as far as Canada (and beyond, if you have your passport with you).

A hint of Europe

St. Albans can be reached in slightly over an hour from the Barre-Montpelier area and about an hour more from Rutland.

If you have a full day to indulge, start by getting off Interstate 89 northbound at the first St. Albans exit, turn right onto Route 7, which becomes South Main Street, and park along the bottom of the city's park, one of the loveliest in Vermont. I've had Eastern European immigrants tell me they chose to live in the St. Albans area, rather than Burlington, because Taylor Park reminded them so much of the beautiful small city parks that are common in Europe, with elegant old trees, a large water fountain and crisscrossing walkways, all of it ringed by old brick and stone churches and storefronts.

St. Albans takes pride in its historic buildings, and there are many fine examples from the decades on either side of the turn of the 20th century. If you roll into town from the south, as described above, you go right by the brick and stone Bellows Free Academy-St. Albans, the current high school, which is such a classic that I'm surprised it hasn't appeared in a movie.

On the uphill side of the big park, on aptly named Church Street, are three beautiful old churches, the county courthouse and, right in the middle, the old Renaissance Revival-style 1861 school, which is now home to the St. Albans Historical Museum. Around the corner on Fairfield Street is St. Mary's, the oldest Catholic church in Vermont; the turreted, red stone St. Albans Free Library is a beauty within sight of the park, as well.

Outside the museum on the park is a fully restored hand car and a cannon, your first hints that much of what's inside the museum relates to the city's rich railroad history and its brief Civil War fame.

St. Albans was home, for more than a century, to the Central Vermont Railway's headquarters and maintenance facilities, and at one time employed more than 1,700 just in St. Albans. Railroad and firefighting buffs will find much to admire inside the museum, including a re-creation of an old-time railroad office that contains an old teletype machine and some original equipment from Montpelier's rail station.

Soldiers signed up for Civil War duty inside the building that is now the museum, and in the fall of 1861, the war came to St. Albans when 21 Confederate soldiers slipped into the city from Canada in disguise and staged a daring raid on the city's banks, stealing $208,000 and returning to Canada on horseback. A narrative of the raid is brought to life in the museum by photos and documents, complemented by a large diorama of the city as it would have appeared at the time.

The Civil War spurred many advancements in field medicine, and the museum's second floor contains a room dedicated to early medicine. A warning to the squeamish: Some of the displays of early, crude medical operations are pretty lifelike.

Also upstairs is a display honoring the area's Abenaki history, including a birch bark canoe, beaded moccasins and spear points.

First inhabitants

For more on the region's American Indian history, get back on Route 7 (Main Street) and drive about eight miles north to Swanton. At the edge of town, you'll cross the broad Missisquoi River near where archaeological evidence has been found pointing to human habitation going back at least 10,000 years. It is quite possible that some of the Abenakis living in Swanton — or Missisquoi, as some of them prefer to call it — are the direct descendants of those hunting deer, gathering wild onions and cooking dinner along the river since shortly after the last Ice Age.

Just as you get into Swanton village, on the left side of Grand Avenue, is the Abenaki Tribal Museum, which contains a combination of actual Abenaki artifacts and re-creations, many from the private collection of Johnson State College professor Fred M. Wiseman. Here you'll find an ever-changing display of artifacts that typically includes a birch bark canoe, as well as examples of traditional dress, a corn-husk ceremonial mask, hunting and trapping paraphernalia, maps, photos and examples of Abenaki craftwork. The museum's collection is growing, so there may be some new surprises.

Another significant Abenaki site is near the lakeshore. Weave your way into Swanton on Route 7; bear left onto Route 78, which immediately crosses the Missisquoi River again; turn left onto County Road, then a quick right and you're on Lake Road, which leads to Maquam Shore and a boat access where you can put a canoe or kayak into Maquam Bay and paddle into the southern half of the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge.

But, just before you reach the shore, be looking on your left for a wooded lane and a gate and what looks like a large boulder with a plaque affixed to it. It's actually a foundation stone from the long-gone home of an Abenaki family, the Lampmans, who count themselves among the ranks of the region's aboriginals. A plot of land behind the stone has been conserved to protect an area known as Grandma Lampman's, where Abenakis have survived off the land for centuries, or even millennia, and where they hid from invading Europeans and, later, social engineers known as eugenicists who used sterilization to control Abenaki reproduction.

Today, Abenakis visit this protected, sacred plot of land to replenish the spirit and feel the presence of their ancestors. Visitors should treat it with respect.

Ah, the lake

If you're admiring the views of Lake Champlain from Maquam Shore, keep heading south on Maquam Road all the way until you reach St. Albans Bay, where you'll come to an intersection that offers two options to get out and enjoy the lakeshore. Keep straight for a quarter mile to St. Albans Bay State Park or, for a little more adventure, turn right onto Hathaway Point Road for the three-mile drive to Kill Kare State Park on a beautiful peninsula jutting into St. Albans Bay. From there, you can take a ferry for a one-mile ride to Burton Island State Park, which has walking trails, interpretive programs, a store, boat slips and camping facilities.

When you're done exploring the lakeshore, or just relaxing on it, head back toward St. Albans on Route 36 (another Lake Road) for dinner. Afterward, I'd recommend a quick drive east out of town on Route 36, which will take you up what locals call Fairfield Hill (technically, Bellevue Hill). It has fantastic views of Lake Champlain, the northern Champlain Islands and the northern Adirondacks.

You don't have to go all the way up the hill; instead you can turn right onto Bellevue Carriage Road (it leads to the golf-ball-domed air route traffic control radar) and park along the side of the road.

If you happen to catch this scene at sunset, it can be one of the most spectacular vistas anywhere in Vermont.