Fairfield

Born on August 5, 1830, in a modest farmhouse in Fairfield, Chester Alan Arthur became the twenty-first President of the United States. That single fact has defined this Franklin County town's claim to national attention, though Fairfield's own story runs deeper. Chartered in 1763, the town was settled by families drawn to its rolling farmland and proximity to the Canadian border.

With a population just under 2,000, Fairfield remains a quiet agricultural community. Dairy farming has long been the economic backbone, and the landscape is still dominated by open fields, barns, and the gentle hills characteristic of northern Vermont. The Chester Arthur Historic Site, a replica of the president's birthplace managed by the state, draws visitors interested in this unlikely connection between a small Vermont town and the White House.

Fairfield governs itself through the traditional town meeting system, with a selectboard handling affairs between annual meetings. It is a place where neighbors still know one another, and where civic participation is measured not in headlines but in hands raised at the town hall each March.