This site was the gateway of Vermont’s earliest Dutch settlement, the Rensselaerwyck Manor settlement. The Diel Homestead, built by Bastion Diel in the early 1700s, is considered the second earliest dwelling in Pownal. The property’s large Dutch barn still stands across this historic roadway, today’s Route 346, which passes through Massachusetts, Vermont and New York. Bastion’s grandson, Mikel Diel, also lived here, was a Green Mountain Boy under Colonel Seth Warner, and fought at the Battle of Bennington August 16, 1777.