MONTPELIER, mOnt-peryer, Vt., city, capital of the State, county-seat of Washington County, on the Winooski River, and on the Central Vermont, the Montpelier and White River, and the Montpelier and Burlington rail roads, about 38 miles southeast of Burlington. It is situated in a beautiful valley surrounded by hills and in an agricultural region. In the vicinity are valuable granite quarries. The chief industrial establishments are flour, feed and lumber mills, machine shops, hardware, patent medicines, granite works, lathes for turning steel clothes pins and creameries. It controls a large portion of the trade of the sur rounding country, and ships considerable farm products, especially hay, maple sugar, apples and potatoes, and also dairy products, poultry, granite and lumber. One of the prominent buildings is the State capitol, a fine granite structure built in the form of a cross, the dome, 124 feet high, surmounted by a statue of agri culture. A marble statue of Ethan Allen is at the entrance, under the portico ; large State ad ministration building under construction. An other fine building is Montpelier High School built 1915, also the Heaton Hospital, opened in 1896. The city has public and parish schools, the Washington County Grammar School, the Montpelier Seminary, under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Wood Art Gallery, the State Library, the Washington County Grammar and Montpelier Union School Library, and the seminary library. The Y. M.
C. A. is in flourishing condition. The govern ment is administered under a charter of 1900 which provides for a mayor, who holds office one year, and a council. The mayor appoints, subject to the approval of the council, the police; and the council elects the health officer, over seers of the poor, superintendents of streets and water and other officers. The waterworks, owned and operated by the city, were opened in 1884, and now (1913) comprise about 40 miles of mains. The water is brought from Mirror Lake, or Berlin Pond, situated about four and one-half miles southeast of the city. The land which is the town site was chartered in 1781, but the first permanent settlement was made in 1787 by people from Massachusetts. The town was organized in 1791, and in 1805 Montpelier was chosen as capital of the State. It was in corporated as a village in 1855. For 40 years it maintained town, village and school district organizations, until 1894, when it was chartered as a city. Among the noted people who have lived in Montpelier are Admiral George Dewey and Rear-Admiral Charles E. Clark, Joseph A. Deboer, an authority on insurance and loans. Pop. 7,856. Consult Hemenway, (Gazeteer of Vermont,' and 'History of the Town of Mont pelier' ; Thompson, 'History of Montpelier.'