St. Albans was home to two Vermont governors, the father and son John Gregory Smith and Edward Curtis Smith, who lived near one another. John Gregory Smith served as governor from 1864-65 during the American Civil War and was married to Eliza Brainerd, daughter of the prominent politician and St. Albans Steamboat Company director Lawrence Brainerd. The Smiths’ main residence, The Towers, was built in 1852 at the northeast corner of Congress and Smith Streets; local lore says Eliza stood on its porch with an unloaded pistol during the St. Albans Raid, and the house was demolished in 1937. Across the street stood Seven Acres, home of Edward Curtis Smith, who served as governor from 1898-1900; that house burned in 1924 and was eventually replaced by the Governor Smith Inn, which also burned in the 1970s. Although the homes are gone, the fountain in Taylor Park represents the family’s legacy: John Gregory Smith donated it “to ease the suffering of the Vermont boys” who fought in the Civil War, and fabricated by the J.W. Fiske Company of New York in 1877, it remains a centerpiece of civic pride in St. Albans after a restoration funded in 2014 by citizens and the St. Albans Rotary.