Andrea Mead Lawrence

Born on April 19, 1932 in Rutland, Vermont, Andrea, born Andrea Bario Mead learned to ski at a very young age. Her parents owned and managed a ski resort at Pico Peak, Vermont and introduced her to skiing when she was three-years-old. She was a fast learner and her skills increased rapidly. When she was 15, she qualified for the 1948 Winter Games in Moritz, Switzerland. However, she didn't fare as well as she had hoped, placing 8th in the slalom, 21st in the Alpine combined, and 35th in the downhill. But since she now had the experience of being in the games, she won first place at the U.S. national championships in slalom, downhill, and combined. She then went on to win 10 international events and had two well-earned victories at the 1952 Olympics in Oslo. She was also the team captain of the Olympic team.

In 1951, she married fellow U.S. Ski Team member David J. Lawrence in Switzerland and had 3 children before the 1956 Olympic Games in Italy. Unfortunately, she only placed 4th in the slalom portion of the games and didn't place well in the downhill and combined. But in 1958, she was inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame and carried the torch at the 1960 Games in Squaw Valley, California.  Sometime in the 1960's, Andrea and her family moved to Aspen, Colorado where she became a member of the town's planning board. Before divorcing her husband in 1967, she had two more children. Now with five young children and very little income, she moved her children and herself to Mammoth Lakes, California near Mammoth Mountain.

After retiring from competitive skiing, Andrea taught skiing and became active in environmental politics. She fought against development at Mammoth Mountain ski area and was elected as a Mono County supervisor in 1982 and served them for 16 years. In 2003, she established the Andrea Lawrence Institute for Mountains and Rivers, which was a non-profit organization committed to conservation, specifically in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Andrea was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma in 2000 so upon her death on March 30, 2009, her organization was absorbed into another environmental nonprofit organization.


On April 19, 2010, a peak in Mono County was renamed Mt. Andrea Lawrence in her memory and on January 10, 2013, President Obama signed into law the Mt. Andrea Lawrence Designation Act Of 2011, naming a peak near Donahue Pass on the John Muir Trail "Mt. Andrea Lawrence". Andrea was also inducted into the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame as the class of 2012. On November 8, 2013, two non-profit Vermont organizations opened a new multi-use adaptive sports and youth skiing center at Andrea's home mountain of Pico Peak, Vermont. The now 'Andrea Mead Lawrence Lodge' at Pico serves as the permanent home and base camp for any non-profit missions of Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports and the Pico Ski Education Foundation.

Not only is Andrea known for her one-time wonder feats at the 1952 Olympics, but also for her environmental good works that have inspired many.

Ann Story

Born Hannah Reynolds, Ann Story and her husband grew up in Connecticut, like most Vermont settlers did back then. They bought land in Salisbury, Vermont and in 1774, the Story family moved up to Rutland, Vermont while Amos and their thirteen-year-old son Solomon, went up to the property in Salisbury. Amos and Solomon cleared land for a farm and started working on a log hose that would eventually be the family's home. Unfortunately for the Story family, Amos died in the spring of 1775 while cutting down a tree, so Ann moved up to Salisbury with her five children. Fortunately, the cabin Amos and Solomon had been working on was finished when Amos died, so they moved into the house, planted crops, and fished and shot game for food.

The Revolutionary War began in early 1775 and many settlers left their farms in Vermont, but Ann and her family stayed. But by 1776, their cabin was burned down by Native Americans who were allied with the British army. Ann and her children rebuilt the house and this time, added a trap door so that is the raiders came back, the could escape through it. The tunnel led to a cave nearby, which became the family's hiding spot. Because her house was near Otter Creek, an important route between Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains, Ann became a spy for the Green Mountain Boys. She kept them informed about traffic on the creek and events in the woods.

Nobody knows what Ann looked like, but this is an artist's depiction
of what she might have looked like, defending her home. 

A Tory spy who supported the British, Ezekiel Jenny found the Story's hiding spot, so he tried to get information about the Green Mountain Boys from her, but even when he threatened to shoot her, she gave him nothing. He then left, without harming anybody. Ann immediately had her son Solomon send the Boys a letter telling them of Ezekiel's whereabouts. With the help of Solomon, the Boys tracked him and many other spies, captured them, and sent them to prison at Fort Ticonderoga. Ann's actions that day saved her family and Vermont, because if she had given information or not told the Green Mountain Boys about the spy, the Boys wouldn't have had the advantage.

After the battle of Saratoga in October 1777, the Story's home was no longer behind enemy lines, as it had been for the past year. She and her sons continued to help the Green Mountain Boys and expand their farm, and eventually, in 1791, Vermont became a state. The next year, in 1792, Ann married her long-time neighbor Benjamin Smalley who died in 1808, leaving Ann in great debt. In 1812, Ann then married Stephen Goodrich. They lived on his farm in Middlebury until she died on April 5, 1817 at the age of eighty-two.

Ann planned to move to Vermont to create a better life for her family, not become a hero. Her story has lasted all these years because her bravery, courage and resourcefulness made a difference. Both to her family and to the development of our lovely state, Vermont.

George Perkins Marsh

George Perkins Marsh was an American diplomat and philologist, and is considered to be America's first environmentalist, although most say conservationist. Marsh was born in Woodstock, Vermont on March 15, 1801 to a prominent family. His father Charles Marsh had been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. George graduated from Dartmouth College in 1820 with highest honors. He then studied law in Burlington, Vermont and also devoted himself to philological studies. In 1835, Marsh was appointed to the Executive Council of Vermont and from 1843 to 1849, he was a Whig representative in Congress. In 1849, Marsh was appointed United States minister resident in the Ottoman Empire by President Zachary Taylor. He helped to bring civil and religious toleration in the empire. In 1852, he discharged a mission to Greece in connection with the imprisonment of American missionary Jonas King. He accomplished this task with such vigor the he surprised even the diplomats of Athens and become well respected there.

Marsh returned to Vermont in 1854 and while there was appointed to handle many environmental issues. Then in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Marsh to be the first United States minister to the Kingdom of Italy. He became the longest-serving chief of mission in U.S. history, seving for 21 years. He died at Vallombrosa Abbey in 1882.

Before his death, he wrote a book called Man and Nature, which was an early work on ecology, and played a role in the creation of the Adirondack Park in upstate New York. Marsh always argued that deforestation could lead to desertification. Marsh also did some lectures for college students, mostly about the English language and literature.

George Marsh was a remarkable philologist for his day, and an excellent scholar, knowing quite a bit of military science, engraving and physics, as well as many languages. He was a great influence on American philology and environmentalism.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Dorothy Canfield Fisher was an educational reformer, social activist, and best-selling American author in the early 20th century. She was a woman who strongly supported racial equality, women's rights, and lifelong education. Dorothy was born as Dorthea Francis Canfield  on February 17, 1879 in Lawrence Kansas. Her father was the president of the Ohio State University and librarian at Columbia University, while her mother was an artist and writer. Her first book was a co-written book with G. R. Carpenter from Columbia University and it was called English Rhetoric and Composition and was published in 1906. Dorothy was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Dartmouth College and received many more in her lifetime, including one from the University of Vermont.

In 1907, she married John Redwood Fisher and in the same year inherited her great-grandfather's farm in Arlington, Vermont.  and had a daughter and son. Around 1911 or 1912, Canfield Fisher visited the "children's houses" in Rome that were established by Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator. She was so impressed by Montessori's theories, when she returned home, she translated Montessori's book into English and wrote 5 of her own books: 3 non-fiction and 2 novels.

During World War I, Dorothy followed her husband to France, and while raising her young children in Paris,  she worked to establish a Braille press for blinded veterans. She also established a home for refugee French children from the invaded areas. During this time, she earned appreciation from Madame Chiang Kai-shek, the First Lady of the Republic of China at the time, the government of Denmark, and Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1919, Dorothy was appointed to the State Board Education of Vermont to help improve the rural public education system. She was the first woman to be on the board. She spent many years promoting education and rehabilitation/reform, especially for women's prisons.

Throughout all her experiences, she continued to write books, and in her lifetime, wrote 22 novels and 18 non-fiction books. For her novels and works of fiction, she wrote under the pen name "Dorothy Canfield" and for her non-fiction books wrote under "Dorothy Canfield Fisher". She collaborated with many authors, including long-time friend Willa Cather, Richard Wright, Heywood Broun, Witter Bynner. Isak Dinesin, and Robert Frost. She is known in Vermont well because of her work on the Board of Education and also, Vermont was the setting of several of her books. She was also the founder pf the first adult education program.

The well-known Dorothy Canfield Fisher (DCF) Children's Award was first awarded in 1957, one year before Dorothy's death. The award was created to honor quality children's literature for now over 50 years. Each spring, a committee of eight selects 30 books to make up the DCF Master List. They then let the children decide. After reading at least 5 books from the list, students vote for their favorite titles the following spring. The winning author is invited to visit Vermont to speak with children about the experience of writing the book and the book itself.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher died on November 8, 1958 in her beloved Arlington, Vermont at the age of 79. She was one of the country's favorite novelists and women because of all her good work.

Hello! Hola! Bonjour!

Hello and Welcome to my new blog. A place where every week I'll be making a post about some sort of historical event or person that had to do with Vermont History. And as you can see, I've made pages, where as I go along, the people and events will stay separate and more organized. For your viewing pleasure of course.

So a little bit about me. I'm a 14-year-old sophomore in Highschool. I was homeschooled all my life until 7th grade, when I decided to try public school. I've done the whole public school thing for about 3 and a half years now, but I decided a couple months into my sophomore year that I wanted to homeschool again. Mostly because it's just less stress. Of course, I haven't left school entirely, as I take some classes there still, like Chorus, Pottery, and Driver's Ed. But everything else I'm doing at home. So far, for the 2 weeks I've been in the homeschool groove, it's been really nice. But as the weeks go on, the work will get a little harder. But I'm ready. But the real question is, are you all ready for the best history blog you've ever seen?

I didn't think so. (;

See you on Friday with my first real post.
This is Becca, signing off. (: