Williston, Vermont: The Governor's Town

Williston was chartered in seventeen sixty-three and named for Samuel Willis, a New York merchant who was among the original grantees. But the man who truly shaped the town was not Willis. It was Thomas Chittenden, who moved here in seventeen seventy-four and became the town's first settler.

Chittenden became Vermont's first governor, serving from seventeen seventy-eight through seventeen eighty-nine when Vermont was still an independent republic, and then again from seventeen ninety until his death. The surrounding county bears his name. For most of its life Williston was a quiet farming community. In the modern era it gained a different kind of notoriety: Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, both lived here. Today Williston is one of the busiest commercial corridors east of Burlington.