Cavendish

Chartered in 1761, Cavendish in Windsor County has a history shaped by water power and one remarkably famous medical case. The Black River runs through town, and its falls powered mills that made Cavendish a small industrial center in the nineteenth century, producing wool, lumber, and later machine tools. In 1848, railroad foreman Phineas Gage survived an iron rod passing through his skull during a blasting accident here — a case that transformed the scientific understanding of brain function and personality.

In more recent decades, Cavendish gained quiet fame as the part-time home of the Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who lived on a secluded property in town from 1976 to 1994. Today, about 1,400 people call Cavendish home. The village centers of Cavendish and Proctorsville anchor the town, with a general store, library, and community gathering spaces. The selectboard meets regularly, and Town Meeting Day each March remains the cornerstone of local self-governance, where residents approve budgets and weigh in on the matters that keep a small Vermont town running.