Windham County, Vermont

Windham County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Newfane
Year Organized: 1779
Square Miles: 789

Court House:

P.O. Box 207
County Courthouse
Newfane, VT 05345-0207

Etymology - Origin of County Name

For Windham, Connecticut. Windham is a town in Windham County, Connecticut, United States. It contains the city of Willimantic and the villages of Windham Center, North Windham, and South Windham. The city of Willimantic was consolidated with the town in 1983.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

Established: February 22, 1779
Parent County: Original County
County Seat: Newfane

Newfane is the shire town. This county is bounded north by Windsor County, east by Connecticut River, south by the State of Massachusetts, and west by the County of Bennington. For some years it bore the name of Cumberland.

The surface of the county is much broken by hills and valleys; the western part is very elevated, and contains a part of the Green Mountain range. The geological character of the county is primitive. Immense quantities of granite is found in all parts of the county, both in quarries and boulders, most of which is of fine grain and very handsome. It also contains gneiss, hornblonde, serpentine, primitive limestone, and mica, talcose, chlorite, and argellite slates.

The soil of the county is various; from the rich and alluvial meadows on the Connecticut, to the cold and rugged lands on the sides of the mountains. The general character of the soil may be considered as tolerable for grain, and excellent for grazing.

Windham County is finely watered by Williams’, Saxton’s, and West Rivers, with their branches, and by numerous other streams. These waters give the county a great hydraulic power, which is rapidly coming into use for manufacturing purposes.

(Gazetteer of Vermont, by John Hayward, 1849, p. 139)

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 798 square miles (2,067 km²), of which, 789 square miles (2,043 km²) of it is land and 9 square miles (24 km²) of it (1.18%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Windsor County, Vermont - north
Sullivan County, New Hampshire - northeast
Cheshire County, New Hampshire - east
Franklin County, Massachusetts - south
Bennington County, Vermont - west

Cities and Towns:

- Bellows Falls	village	Incorporated Area
- Brattleboro	town
- Brookline	town
- Dover	town
- Dummerston	town
- Grafton	town
- Guilford	town
- Halifax	town
- Jacksonville	village	Incorporated Area
- Jamaica	town
- Landgrove	town
- Londonderry	town
- Marlboro	town
- Newfane (County Seat)	village	Incorporated Area
- North Westminster	village	Incorporated Area
- Putney	town
- Rockingham	town
- Saxtons River	village	Incorporated Area
- Searsburg	town
- Somerset	town
- Stratton	town
- Townshend	town
- Vernon	town
- Wardsboro	town
- Westminster	village	Incorporated Area
- Whitingham	town
- Wilmington	town
- Windham	town

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

Penn Foster High School

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