Lyndon, Vermont: When the Railroad Moved a Town

Lyndon was chartered on November twentieth, seventeen eighty, and named for Josias Lyndon, who had served as Governor of Rhode Island. Settlement crept into this Passumpsic River valley over the following decades, and by the early eighteen hundreds small villages had taken root at Lyndon Corner, Lyndon Center, and East Lyndon. Then in the eighteen sixties, the Connecticut and Passumpsic Rivers Railroad laid tracks through town, and the line bypassed all three original villages in favor of a lower, easier grade.

Business followed the rails. Within a few years a new commercial hub had formed at the railroad depot and incorporated in eighteen sixty-six as Lyndonville. The old centers slowly faded, while Lyndonville became the largest village in town and the commercial heart of the upper Northeast Kingdom.

Today Lyndon is sometimes called the Covered Bridge Capital of Vermont, with several historic spans still crossing the Passumpsic tributaries in the surrounding hills.