Stephen A. Douglas has been credited with the remark that Vermont is an excellent place to emigrate from. Though small in area, with a surface singularly broken by mountain ranges, wracked by frosts and covered with snows five months of the year, yet her internal economy has proved favorable to the growth of both brain and brawn: in the halls of Congress, as well as in the pursuits of science and literature, she maintains her place right gallantly.

That long and irregular lake on the northwest boundary bears the name of the great European discoverer and explorer, Champlain, who here sought, and vainly, for a northwest passage to Cathay. The loveliness of its shores, and the unsurpassed picturesqueness of its islands, endear it to the tourist. Twice it has been the scene of a naval combat.

The Green Mountains,[A] from which the state takes its name, run lengthwise through the central portion, about midway between the Connecticut River on the east and Lake Champlain on the west. The sides of these mountains are clad with the perpetual verdure of their hardy evergreens, the verdant mosses and winter grasses clinging to their towering summits. The principal streams, rising among these mountains and following the natural declivities, find their way into this river and lake, except those flowing northerly into Lake Memphremagog.

It was not until after the conquest of Canada that any considerable settlements were effected in the territory now known as Vermont. Situate about midway between the French districts on the River St. Lawrence and the New England settlements along the Atlantic coast, it had very naturally become the battle-ground of the contending powers, and a lurking place of their respective Indian allies. The early colonists of Massachusetts and Connecticut, in their frequent expeditions against the French in Canada, and while traversing these woods as hunters and scouting parties, had become familiar with the fertility of the lands between the Connecticut River and Lake Champlain. As soon as the danger attending their settlement was in a measure removed, by reason of Canada and New England coming under the same King, swarms of emigrants from the adjacent colonies poured into the country, and the most available and valuable portions were immediately taken up; and, as though by magic, the wilderness developed into fruitful fields, and gardens flourished where the wild rabbit had made its home. At the beginning of the Revolution the population was estimated at from twenty to thirty thousand.

If not to be governed at all is to be governed well,—and so it would seem to be in this instance,—the remarkable exemption of the State of Vermont from taxation at the close of the Revolution, as compared with other States, added to the fertility and cheapness of the land, attracted settlers from many of the older communities, resulting in large additions to population and resources.