Otter Creek flows north for 112 miles from Peru, Vermont, to Lake Champlain in Ferrisburgh. For thousands of years it provided fresh water, food, and transportation for the native Abenaki, who ate its fish, farmed on its shores, fished the streams, and gathered nuts, berries, and other wild foods. The Western Abenaki lived along the eastern shore of Lake Champlain for thousands of years, and by the time of European settlement they spent part of the year settled in family groups growing squash, corn, and beans. The river was revered as a great source of life and sustenance, and it was the Indians' main route to Lake Champlain, connecting them to important Abenaki settlements to the north along the St. Lawrence River. French trappers adopted the Indian name and called it La Rivière aux Loutres, The River of the Otters. In 1766, John Chipman led a group of Connecticut men in exploring the river; they built a canoe on its banks and paddled north while a few men pulled a cart through the woods alongside, and some later returned as the first Europeans to settle the area. Middlebury Falls itself was not considered a promising spot, with thick hemlock and pine forests and forbidding soil, but the waterfall provided what settlers needed most: a source of power for industry. Waterfalls along the creek, including Middlebury Falls and those at present Huntington Falls, Weybridge Falls, and Vergennes, long stood both as barriers to transportation and as potential sources of energy, and these falls are now used to make electricity.

Photo: Conrad Ward

Photo: Conrad Ward

Middlebury, Vermont · USA