Kirby

A small town in Caledonia County, Kirby was chartered in 1807 — relatively late by Vermont standards — and has never had a large population. The town's hilly, forested terrain lies between Lyndon to the east and the Burke Mountain area to the north, and the landscape has always been more suited to forestry than to large-scale agriculture.

Kirby has about 575 residents today. The town has no village center, no general store, and no commercial establishments. Residents live along a network of rural roads, many unpaved, and travel to Lyndonville or St. Johnsbury for services. This quietness is not a sign of decline but of consistency — Kirby has been a small, self-sufficient rural community for its entire existence.

Town meeting and the selectboard provide governance. In Kirby, where the population has hovered in the few hundreds for over a century, the annual town meeting is a gathering where nearly everyone knows everyone else, and the democratic process is as personal as it gets.