Windsor County

On July 8, 1777, delegates gathered at Elijah West's tavern in Windsor and adopted the Constitution of the Vermont Republic — the first written constitution in the Americas to prohibit slavery and establish universal manhood suffrage without property requirements. That document makes Windsor County the birthplace of Vermont's democratic tradition. The county was organized in 1781 and named for Windsor, Connecticut, hometown of many of its settlers.

The county stretches along the Connecticut River from Hartford to Weathersfield, reaching west into the Green Mountains. Springfield, once known as the "Precision Valley" for its machine tool industry, was home to companies like Fellows Gear Shaper and Bryant Chucking Grinder that supplied American manufacturing for a century. Woodstock, the county seat, took a different path — Simon Billings opened the first ski tow in the United States on Clinton Gilbert's farm there in January 1934, powered by a Model T engine and a length of rope. The Rockefeller family's investments preserved much of the town's 19th-century architecture.

Windsor County is Vermont's second-largest by area, covering 971 square miles across 24 towns. About 57,000 people live here. The Upper Valley region around Hartford and Norwich shares a community with Hanover, New Hampshire, and Dartmouth College across the river. Healthcare, education, and precision manufacturing remain economic pillars. The Windsor County Courthouse in Woodstock, overlooking the Ottauquechee River, houses the Superior Court. The sheriff's department and state's attorney serve from the county seat, maintaining governance in the county where Vermont itself was born.