This where I stayed in Newport, Vermont – the middle of three houses in a terrace in a much larger condominium.

My AirBnB hostess had gone down to Maryland for a family reunion to include her daughter who lives in Switzerland, and would only return two nights before I left, so I had the house to myself most of the time. The reunion never took place as the daughter caught Covid! Anne-Marie turned out to be 5 years older than I am, but still very involved with life. The local hospital is just round the corner and the other two houses in the terrace belong to the hospital and are used for travelling nurses and the occasional doctor. Travelling nurses seem to be a US phenomenon. As far as I can make out they come for a few weeks or months at a time, though where has any to spare is a mystery to me.

I know some of you follow my travels by using Google Earth. I used to put maps in, but this cost quite a lot every month for the right to publish the maps, so I have discontinued doing so. If you haven’t already tried it, investigate Google Earth.

Newport is very close to the Canadian border, and is on Lake Mephremagog, which extends into Canada. Drizzle was forecast the first morning, but I decided to go for a walk from the house along a former railway that started about half a mile away.

It is mainly a bike route, and is absolutely dead straight for several miles, which makes it very boring. After a mile or so I came across this at the side.

It contained what you would need to fix a bike or skis. MSTF stands for Mephremagog Ski Touring Federation.

Shortly after that there was the entrance to a set of trails in woodland to the right of the track. They are maintained by MSTF, but used by walkers and mountain bikers in the summer. I didn’t take any photos (just imagine yet more trees) but it was more interesting than the old railway track, with many different trails for cross country skiers and snowshoers. However I trusted the forecast of drizzle too much. After a while it started to tip down, so I beat a retreat. I was wearing my waterproofs, but they were soaked as were my feet as I did not wear my walking boots.

In the afternoon it cleared up, so I walked the couple of miles into town. A very nice walk, partly around the edge of the lake.

This is just a side bit of the lake near the house.

I passed the town’s secondary school, with very sumptuous sports facilities for a small town.

This is the lake looking towards Canada. I assume the mountain in the distance is Canadian.

And this is looking to the south west, with some of the town.

Newport grew rapidly when the railways arrived in the late 19th century. One came from the south and another from the east, then a line went north to Canada (which is now the trail I tried). Newport became a summer resort.

There are still boat trips from this pier.

And it still has a promenade with shelters to sit under.

The grand hotels are long gone. It is an important regional centre, so still has some impressive buildings.

Nowadays it supports local agriculture, so there is an eyesore grain silo right near the centre. On the whole it is doing better than many towns so far from the centre of both state and country.

You are presumably wondering about the title of this post. The Northeast Kingdom is the name given to the approximate 2000 square mile north east corner of Vermont. It extends from about 10 miles west of Newport to the New Hampshire border, and south over 50 miles.  It covers three counties; Orleans, Caledonia and Essex and is about 40% larger than Rhode Island. It was named by its US senator (George Aiken) in 1949, and the name stuck. It is largely still how all of Vermont was until it became seriously involved in attracting tourists.

It has many unpaved roads and is almost entirely agricultural.

My first excursion was to The Old Stone House Museum at Brownington. There is an Amish community adjacent, which likes to keep to  itself. The route was almost entirely on unpaved roads which climbed steadily, so the countryside is quite high but not very hilly. As it had rained recently they were not too dusty, but my car was filthy by the end of the comparatively short journey.

The building on the left is the ‘Old Stone House’ and on the right is the ‘Twilight homestead’. I am not sure whether the latter has been moved to the site, nor who ever lived in it there.

Brownington is notable for Alexander Lucius Twilight (1795-1857).

Alexander Lucius Twilight from wikipedia

His father, Ichabod, was a free African American, whose mother was probably white. It is thought he came to Vermont as it was the only state which then allowed blacks to buy land. Ichabod married Mary, also free and probably mixed race. They initially moved to Bradford, where Alexander was born. At the age of 8 Alexander started work for a farmer in Corinth. He continued to study as well as work for the next 12 years. At the age of 20 he enrolled in the local Grammar School, and studied there for 6 years, completing school and the first two years of a college curriculum. He then enrolled in Middlebury College and in 1823 became the first African American in the USA known to graduate with a BA degree.

He taught in schools and became a Congregational Minister. In 1829 he was appointed principal of the Orleans County Grammar School in Brownington.

This is the view from by the Stone House to Brownington church. The School is about 50 yards to the right of the church, but it was raining by then so I did not take a photo.

Alexander married Mercy Ladd Merrill in 1826. They had no children, and she was white, It is said that Alexander could pass as white.

Initially the couple lived in a typical white clapboard house opposite where the Stone House now is. It has several rooms and he took pupils as boarders.

Wanting to have more pupils he built the stone building from 1834 to 1836. It has four storeys and was the first granite building built in Vermont. He called it Athenian Hall, and it was a dormitory for the co-educational school known as Brownington Academy. He spent the rest of his life teaching in Brownington, apart from a short period when he fell out with the school governors. They pleaded with him to return.

In 1836 he was elected to the newly formed Vermont House of Representatives, becoming the first African American elected to a State Legislature.

Nowadays all the buildings are owned and run by the Orleans County Historical Society as a museum. The rooms house the Society’s collection of local artefacts, arranged with a room per township. On duty was a girl from Tennessee who had an Americorps Scholarship for three months of the summer. The Society liked her so much that they paid her for the rest of the season, which ended the following day. I was the only visitor that afternoon (unsurprising in view of the weather), so I had a guided tour all to myself.

The lighting is low inside in all the rooms.

And what was my last post’s mystery object?

It was used in a kitchen and is a clockwork fly catcher! The wooden box at the front was used to hold something attractive to flies, so they flew in. The mechanism rotated and blew them into the cage at the top, from which there was no escape.

In order to discover more of the Northeast Kingdom, I decided to visit all its covered bridges.

By far the most interesting was this one at Island Pond, in the town of Brighton. It is very unusual being a covered footbridge over a railway line, and connecting properties at the top of a steep incline with the main part of the town.

I next visited Lyndon, which calls itself the ‘Covered Bridge Capital of the Northeast Kingdom’ as it has four of them. There is another town, Montgomery, in northern Vermont which styles itself the ‘Covered Bridge Capital of Vermont’ as it has seven.

However they are not doing much to make them a tourist asset.

Lyndon itself has a pretty centre, with a large school and some interesting buildings arranged in a square. I would never have visited it without searching for the covered bridges.

The grass area is the school’s football pitch with a running track round it.

To get to the next bridge I had quite a long drive up and over hills that rose to 2260 ft, virtually all on unpaved roads. Again I would have been unlikely to go there without a reason.

I did not meet another vehicle, so could stop for photos pretty much wherever I chose.

At this height the Fall is over. We have entered the ‘stick season’ which lasts from when the leaves have fallen until the start of the skiing. It is when the hospitality workers can take their own holidays.

I finally got a photo of an abandoned collapsing house. Most of my route was through very poor land, and houses were few and far between.

But then I crested a hill and came across this little church. There was no property visible anywhere near, though I think there are a few down side tracks into the woods. Even so the congregation must be very scattered.

This was my destination, a National Registered Historic Landmark. It is a very rare example of a covered bridge taking a railway across a small river. It was not possible to climb up the bank as it was taped off as unsafe. There was a sizeable car park, but no explanations at all. I was not the only visitor either, as it is near quite a major road (for the area). I suspect the car park had more to do with an access point to the river.

I had one final bridge to find. The route again took me on unpaved roads, but this time they went through a prosperous farming area with excellent views.

Orne bridge is still very much in use.

The river it crosses.

I had been told that I ‘must’ visit Willoughby Lake, so I included it with a walk. It is actually quite impressive, reminiscent of parts of the Lake District, but it was impossible to find anywhere to park to take the ideal photo, which would be looking towards Mount Pisgah and Mount Hor on either side of one end of it. You will have to take my word that they made a fine view.

This is a view from lake level, but it does not do it justice.

From the far end I walked the Henry Hawkes trail to two viewpoints.

Not very far out and back, but quite a height gain and two reasonable views. Even on a cold windy day midweek there were several other people doing the same walk.

All the leaves were down, which makes judging where the path is interesting.

The view to the south end of the lake. There was a sheer drop so I did not go any closer to the edge.

The view to the north end was less good.

Below the cliffs of Mount Pisgah opposite the trees still held their leaves. It made a good lunch stop.

Finally I have some photos relating to Halloween. For weeks I have been noticing gardens decorated ready for Halloween, so here are a few photos. They seem to start nearly as early as the UK does for Christmas.

This is one garden in Lyndon. Small cemeteries are not unusual.

This was along the old railway line in Newport.

And this is the best one can manage with a small urban space in Newport.

I refuse to take photos of ones which feature inflatable witches bought, probably, from Walmart. At least all these have used their imaginations.

By now I am heartily sick of the sight of pumpkins!

My next destination is at the opposite end of Vermont, on the Connecticut River, very close to the borders with New Hampshire and Massachusetts.