Waterford, Vermont

Waterford, Vermont was chartered in seventeen eighty and sits at a bend of the Connecticut River where Vermont and New Hampshire face each other across a short stretch of cold water. The town was lightly settled through the early republic, its population never climbing high, and it remains one of the more sparsely populated towns in Caledonia County. What defined it for most of its history was the river itself: the Connecticut at Waterford drops through a small gorge that early millers prized.

The Fifteen Mile Falls hydro project dammed the gorge, and Moore Dam, completed in nineteen fifty-six, submerged much of it under Moore Reservoir, now one of New Hampshire's largest lakes despite lying mostly in Vermont. The town gave up its wildest stretch of river to the power grid and has been quietly agricultural ever since.