Smugglers' Notch: The Pass with a Lawless History
Near Stowe, Vermont
The pass known as Smugglers' Notch earned its name through genuine lawbreaking, not myth. It cuts through the Green Mountains between Stowe and the village of Jeffersonville to the north, a dramatic cleft in the rock wall flanked by boulders and caves, and for a period in the early eighteen hundreds it was one of the busiest illegal trade routes in the northeastern United States.
The trouble began with Thomas Jefferson. In eighteen oh seven, Congress passed the Embargo Act at Jefferson's request, cutting off American trade with Britain and Canada in response to British harassment of American ships on the Atlantic. The embargo was economically devastating to Vermont, a state that had built its economy partly on trade with its Canadian neighbors just a few miles to the north. Many Vermonters simply ignored the law.
Smugglers used the narrow mountain pass to move goods back and forth. Cattle were herded through the notch under cover of night. Provisions were carried in packs. Canadian goods moved south in exchange for American merchandise. The remote terrain, the caves in the rock faces, and the difficulty of law enforcement access made the notch an ideal corridor. Government officials reportedly blasted some of the hiding spots with gunpowder to deny smugglers their hiding places. When the War of eighteen twelve brought different pressures, the smuggling slowed, though the name had already stuck.
During Prohibition, the notch reportedly returned to use for moving illegal liquor south from Canada. Today the pass is a state park. The road through it is open to passenger vehicles in summer and closed in winter by snow, and the caves and boulder fields are simply features in a dramatic landscape.
