Editing Calais, Vermont (section)

===Village histories===
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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.