Hardwick, Vermont, New England USA
About Hardwick, Vermont
Caledonia County
Chartered: August 19, 1781 (Vermont Charter)
Area: 24,741 Acres = 38.66 Square Miles [ Size Rank: 150* ]
Coordinates (Geographic Center): N 44° 30′ W 72°22′
Altitude: 861 feet ASL
Population (US Census, 2010): 3,010 [ Population Rank: 54* ]
Population Density (persons per square mile): 77.9 [ Density Rank: 50* ]
Full Census Info: Town County State
*Area, Population and Density rankings refer to Hardwick’s relative position among Vermont’s 255 civic entities (9 cities, 242 towns, 4 gores and grants). Complete rankings are here.
The likely source of the name is Hardwick, Massachusetts, the original home of several of the grantees, many of whome were prominent in Vermont by the time of the grant: Danforth Keyes, Jonas Fay, Eliakim Sponner and several Robinsons.
Probably no other town in Vermont has moved the name of its main village around as Hardwick has. In fact, one needs a schedule, showing what post offices were open when, in order to be certain which village was called Hardwick at any given time. A brief summary:
The town got its first post office in 1810 and, as was the custom, it was given the town’s name – Hardwick. The village in which that office was located is now East Hardwick, but in 1810 it was called Stevensville (sometimes Stevens Mills or Stevens Village), named for Samuel Stevens, who built the first grist- and sawmills at the village just before the end of the 18th Century. He was a son of another Samuel Stevens, a Revolutionary War veteran and prominent citizen of Newbury. Samuel Jr. was Hardwick’s town treasurer for twenty-one years and one of its most influential citizens.
In 1846 the residents of the village thought it would be nice to have their post office honor Samuel Stevens, so they asked the postal authorities to change its name from Hardwick to Stevens. For some reason that has never been made clear, the name was returned as Stephens. The village residents didn’t like it — the spelling was wrong, and they would have no part of it — but the postal officials would not change the spelling. The people asked to have the Hardwick name back again, and got it after only three months of the Stephens name. For the next twenty years the postal name of the village was changed back and forth from Hardwick to East Hardwick; in 1867 the name became permanently East Hardwick, and that office is still operational.
While the village of East Hardwick was still swapping the Hardwick name around, the village of North Hardwick got into the picture. A post office named North Hardwick had been opened there in 1846; but if the east village people didn’t want the Hardwick name, the residents of the north village did. So for fifteen years, beginning in 1849, North Hardwick had the postal designation Hardwick; that office closed in 1864. Since then North Hardwick has nearly disappeared as a recog nizable community.
A third village got involved in the name-swapping, the one that now is known as Hardwick. When it was first settled, the village was named Lamoilleville because it was on the Lamoille River, so when a post office was established there in 1827 it was named Lamoilleville (sometimes Lamoilville). Probably because postal officials thought it was too confusing to have a Lamoilleville that was not in Lamoille County, the name of the post office was changed to South Hardwick in 1842, and it kept that name for twenty-five years. Meanwhile the village had become one of the state’s leading granite centers and had grown all out of proportion to the other communities in town. Therefore the name of the village and of the post office was changed to just Hardwick in 1867, and it has stayed the same ever since.
Activities & Points of Interest
Goings-on in and near Hardwick
Calendar of Events provided by the Vermont Department of Tourism & Marketing.
Hardwick Historical Society
Contact Info
Emergency Services (Statewide): 911
Hospital: Copley Hospital (Morrisville) 802-888-4231
Town Clerk: Alberta Miller PO Box 523 Hardwick, VT 05843
802-472-5971
M-F 8-4
Churches, Ministries, Charitables
Assemblies of God : Touch of Grace AG 802-472-3710
Episcopal : St. John the Baptist 802-472-5979
Nondenominational : Promised Land Ministries 802-533-2329/802-472-9090
Roman Catholic : St. Norbert
United Church of Christ : United Church of Christ
United Church of Christ : United Church of Christ
United Methodist : United Church 802-472-6800
Schools
Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union 802-472-6531
Hardwick Elementary School 802-472-5411
Hazen Union School 802-472-6511
Neighboring Towns
This is a basic geographic reference, intended to show relative location of adjacent towns. Directional accuracy is limited to 16 compass points. There isn’t even the slightest suggestion that one can necessarily travel directly from one town to the next (as in “You can’t get there from here”).
Hardwick
Utilities
Notes about utilities:
- One electric or phone company indicates that company serves the entire town. More than one of either indicates each serves different areas of town.
- A listed cable company MIGHT mean the entire town is covered, but not necessarily. More than one listed indicates each serves different areas of town.
- Unless your area is one served by Vermont’s only gas utility, your only option is bottled gas (any dealer).
Cable Comcast 800-266-2278
Electric Hardwick Electric Department 802-472-5201
Electric Washington Electric Co-op 800-932-5245
Telephone Fairpoint 866-984-2001