On 2/26/2012 5:23 PM, HarrietM Chase wrote: > Hi, I am not Ruth > But have a bit of an answer for you as to why Vermonters ended up in > Wisconsin. > About mid-1850s, there was quite an exodus from>>>> the West, because the > farmlands here were deemed used up and also considered getting overly > populated ;) > I bet Darrell Martin could give us more actual facts on that. > As a matter of fact, I think there is a "Vermontville, Wisconsin" > > I do know one family which I have studied quite a bit& large family, the > Parish family mostly all moved to Wisconsin (some to Texas) > > I'm in Randolph, Vermont > Harriet Chase Hi: I am Darrell ::grin:: and my impression is that Vermont from 1850 to 1890 simply produced more children than the economy could employ. The Merino sheep boom was over, and the state's agriculture had moved to dairy farming, but that in itself would not cause people to emigrate. The blunt fact is, in an economy that depended on 19th Century farming, 340,000 was about as many people as the state could support. The greatest non-economic impact on Vermont population before 1889 was the Civil War. There were three interrelated effects. First, the casualty rate for Vermont was horrendous. Figures differ, but according to Coffin's "Full Duty", Vermont ranked first among Union states in per capita men killed in combat; and was second only to Michigan in men who died in service overall. Moreover, "Of those spared to return home, nearly all came back wounded, and many maimed for life." Second, the debt taken on by Vermont government at all levels to fund the war was crushing. If I recall correctly, my home town of Springfield retired its last Civil War bonds within my lifetime. Third, service far from New England opened the eyes of many Vermont soldiers to opportunities other than the Green Mountains when the war was over. With taxes high and -- probably more importantly -- most agricultural situations already taken, someone with a choice in where they lived would have plenty of reasons to go west. The Federal Census tells an interesting story, which is *not* as simple as "men didn't come home from the war". Here are the Vermont totals for a few years: 1850-307,276 1860-315,098 1870-330,551 1880-332,286 1890-332,422. From 1850 to 1890 Vermont's population increased by 8.2%. The national increase was 171.4%. ------------- As far as I know there are three Vermontvilles in the U.S.A.: one in New York, one in Washington, and one in Michigan. I drive through Vermontville, Mich. each time I visit family in the Detroit suburbs. The annual maple syrup festival there is a pretty big deal. For what it is worth, there is even a Vermont in Australia. It is a suburb of Melbourne, so it is *not* in the New England region of Australia, which is in New South Wales north of Sydney. Darrell