Hartford Vermont Area History
Some 13,000 years ago, during the Ice Age, Quechee, like the majority of our continent, was covered by a glacier. As the glacier receded from the ocean waters, the melting waters slowly and steadily cut away the bedrock ridge that has become Vermont's most spectacular natural wonder, the Quechee Gorge.
In 1875, the Woodstock Railroad Company built a bridge (an engineering feat of its day) to span the Quechee Gorge. For over 50 years, the train traveled back and forth between White River Junction and Woodstock, Vermont carrying visitors and local folk, grain, bags of wool, bolts of fabric, lumber, tools, grain -- commodities for the Upper Valley and far beyond.
Progress brought the automobile, resulting in the train's final run in 1933. The rail bed was converted to highway use and, today, is Vermont's only direct east/west roadway.
Quechee, An Historic Mill Town
Quechee was settled in the 1760's when homesteaders were deeded acres for the erection of mills along the Ottauquechee River. The mills became the heartbeat of this community, providing everything from lumber to cider for the settlers. To accommodate growing traffic, a bridge was built over the Ottauquechee River at the current site of the Quechee covered bridge.
During the 1800s, the mills thrived, gaining particular attention for fabric. J.C. Parker and Co. (the property now occupied by Simon Pearce Glass) developed a fabric, "shoddy", made of new wool and reworked soft rags, thereby Cowsgaining a reputation for producing some of the country's finest white baby flannel. Another woolen mill, Dewey and Company, was establishing its reputation providing fabric for making baseball uniforms for the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Over 64 buildings sprang up around this company, creating the village of Dewey's Mills just downstream from Quechee Village.
In the 1950's, due to the shortage of an affordable labor force and the enticement of the South and its labor force, the mills started closing. Quechee lost the economic base that had existed for almost 200 years. The once booming community became a village of abandoned buildings with broken windows, fallen roofs, brush and bramble covered walls, crumbling foundations -- a ghost town of what it had once been.
To add to the decline of Quechee Village, in 1962 a project to address flooding in the lower Connecticut River was initiated. As a result of this project, the village of Dewey's Mills and that mill ceased to exist. In its place, the Army Corps of Engineers built a causeway between Dewey's Mills Pond and the Ottauquechee River, which has created a walking trail and wonderful wildlife sanctuary.
And, today -- In the late 1960's, a group of investors arrived in the area looking for that quintessential Vermont land to build a four-season resort community. As this was the first development of its size to come under the jurisdiction of Vermont's Land Use Act 250 Law, the end result is a resort that is well planned, developed and maintained with great attention to its surrounding -- the Ottauquechee River Valley, its hillsides, open meadows and woodland.