Editing Calais, Vermont (section)

==History==
[[Image:OWC24,12,07.JPG|thumb|right|250px|Old West Church on Christmas Eve]]
Colonel Jacob Davis named Calais after the [[Calais|French port city of the same name]], during a time of general enthusiasm for things French as a result of [[France]]'s aid during the [[American Revolution]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Swift, Esther Munroe |title=Vermont Place Names: Footprints of History |year=1977 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |pages=451–454 |isbn=0-8289-0291-7}}</ref>

The Wheelocks and Parkers were the first families to settle the town, in the latter part of the 18th century. In the early and mid 19th century, the Vermont [[wool]] industry spawned [[sheep]] pastures in the town. Photographs of the time show a heavily de-forested Calais. Like many small Vermont towns, Calais was devastated by the [[American Civil War|Civil War]]. Volunteers from Calais flocked to the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] cause, most serving in the Army's volunteer regiments. In the post-Civil War era, agriculture turned from sheep to [[dairy farming|dairy]], and new families came to fill farms that were sold by the families and widows of Civil War veterans.{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}}

===Historical landmarks===
<!---these need to be unbulletized and discussed in terms of history. If they can't be, they should probably be deleted--->
* [[Kents Corner Historic District|Kents Corner]]<ref name="Central Vermont -- Map">{{cite web|url=http://www.cr.nps.gov/NR/travel/centralvermont/map.htm|title=Central Vermont -- Map|website=www.cr.nps.gov}}</ref>
* [[Old West Church (Calais, Vermont)|Old West Church]]<ref name="Central Vermont -- Map"/>
* [[Maple Corner, Vermont|Maple Corner]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.maplecorner.net|title=Maple corner|website=maplecorner.net|access-date=November 16, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010306082237/http://www.maplecorner.net/|archive-date=March 6, 2001|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* Robinson Saw Mill
* Adamant Co-op<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.vaics.org/vaics-adamant.html|title=Vaics.com|website=vaics.org|access-date=January 31, 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060209142816/http://www.vaics.org/vaics-adamant.html|archive-date=February 9, 2006|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Village histories===
{{Unreferenced section|date=May 2010}}
Calais once had a village called [[Sodom and Gomorrah|Sodom]]. This name was allegedly given because the village had no church, though it did have a few active [[quarry|quarries]]. In 1905, the residents petitioned the state legislature to change the name to [[Adamant]], chosen to suggest the hardness of [[granite]].

Pekin is named after Peking (now [[Beijing]]), [[China]], the result of a local farmer who had a friend who was a [[missionary]] to China. The missionary sent some Chinese wheat back to Vermont, the farmer planted it, and it flourished. It became the style to give directions using the wheat field as a landmark ("up by the Pekin wheat", or "just past the Pekin wheat"). Eventually, the location of the field came to be known simply as Pekin. Another version suggests that the missionary sent back rice, and that the farmer planted the rice in a low-lying plain, which flooded each spring. The river came to be known as Peking Brook, later and presently Pekin Brook.