, 36th governor of Vermont, was born in Barnet in 1820 The town of Barnet, Vermont, originally took its name from the town of
Barnet,
England. On September 16, 1763, the town received its charter from the royal governor of
New Hampshire,
Benning Wentworth. The first European descendants to work the land and stay in the town were three brothers, Daniel, Jacob, and Elijah Hall, along with Jonathan Fowler. Their homestead was built along the
Connecticut River and to the north near McIndoe Falls. Elijah Hall built the first house in
Caledonia County in Barnet, near the base of Stevens Falls. Colonel Alexander Harvey came from
Dundee,
Scotland, for those in the town who wished to find new land in the American colonies. Despite losing contact with almost all of them after the
American Revolution broke out, he decided to stay, claiming of land and a lake, now known as
Harvey's Lake. The five early villages within the town of Barnet were: •
Barnet village (formerly called Stevens Village) located at the falls in the river •
McIndoe Falls (also referred to as McIndoes) near the southeast corner of the town lying along a terrace at the falls •
Passumpsic village (formerly called Kendall's Mills) in the northeast part of the town and spreading into the adjoining town of
Waterford • East Barnet (in 1875 named Norrisville), near the mouth of the river just before it enters the deep gorge • West Barnet at the outlet of Harvey Lake, on the road from Barnet village to
Peacham. Additional hamlets that have arisen within the town are: • Mosquitoville, located south of Harvey Lake • Barnet Center, on the road from Barnet village to West Barnet. The main settlement of Barnet village has grown in population and is often referred to as "the town", yet the town itself includes the populated places listed above. Two governors of the state of
Vermont were from Barnet:
Erastus Fairbanks, who served two terms from 1852–1853 and 1860–1861, and his son,
Horace Fairbanks, who served from 1876 to 1878. The Fairbanks family left Barnet for nearby St. Johnsbury, where they were known for manufacturing the first
platform scale. Ocean explorer and
scuba inventor
Jacques Cousteau had influential experiences on Harvey's Lake as a young boy in the early 1920s. While attending a summer camp he experimented with staying underwater by breathing through hollow reeds found in the lake shallows. Though he could not yet swim well, this allowed him to stay underwater for extended periods.
Religion Christianity On January 24, 1784, the town of Barnet voted unanimously to make the
Presbyterian denomination the official one of the town, as it was "founded on the word of God as expressed in the Confession of Faith, Catechisms Longer and Shorter, with the form of church government agreed upon by the
Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and practiced by the
Church of Scotland." The Passumpsic Calvinistic
Baptist church was first created by a council of neighboring churches on July 1, 1812. The village of Passumpsic was chosen due to its centralized location. The First Congregational Church of Barnet was created by Reverend David Sutherland in September 1829 after a new brick church had been built. Its first permanent minister was the Reverend Henry Fairbanks. The church which stands now was constructed in 1854. The earliest
Reformed Presbyterian Church in Vermont was organized in
Ryegate in October 1798. In the early part of the nineteenth century, a group of members in Barnet built a new meeting house on the land formerly owned by Walter Harvey, and the property has gone by that name since then. The longest-tenured minister was Daniel C. Faris, who served the congregation from 1873 until 1923. The congregation's Barnet branch became a separate congregation on July 9, 1872, and it continued until disorganization in 1970.
Buddhism In 1970, upon his arrival in North America,
Chögyam Trungpa established the teaching center "Tail of the Tiger" (now
Karmê Chöling). It was consolidated with others in
Colorado in 1973. ==Geography==