Vergennes lower falls
— — a working falls in the smallest city in Vermont.
Not only on a wall.
“Vergennes sits in Addison County, eight miles east of Lake Champlain, and is the oldest city in Vermont, chartered in 1788. The lower falls of Otter Creek drop roughly 37 feet through the centre of town, between brick mill buildings that once turned the water for ironworks, gristmills, and a small shipyard that built Commodore Macdonough's fleet for the 1814 Battle of Plattsburgh. The water is loud here. Below the falls the creek runs calm again toward the lake. from the studio
Vergennes lower falls, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Vergennes was chartered in 1788, making it the oldest city in Vermont and one of the smallest incorporated cities in the United States, with a 2020 population of 2,553 across roughly 2.5 square miles. It sits on Otter Creek in Addison County, eight miles east of Lake Champlain, and was named for the French statesman Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, who supported the American Revolution. The lower falls in the city centre drop about 37 feet and powered the early industry that built the town: ironworks, gristmills, a foundry, and the shipyard that produced Commodore Thomas Macdonough's fleet in 1814.
Otter Creek is the longest river entirely within Vermont, running 112 miles from the Green Mountain foothills near Dorset to Lake Champlain at Ferrisburgh. Its watershed covers about 985 square miles. At Vergennes the creek falls 37 feet over a granite shelf at the centre of town, then runs calm and navigable for the final eight miles to the lake; commercial canal boats once reached the basin below the falls. The lower falls are now bordered by a small park and the brick walls of the 19th-century mill buildings on either bank.
The falls have an industrial year as much as a natural one. Spring high water from snowmelt in the Green Mountains peaks at the falls in late April and runs hard into May, loud enough to be heard a block away on Main Street. Summer flow settles to a steady working volume. Late August and September can drop to a thin sheet over the granite shelf. Below the falls, the basin freezes most winters; ice fishermen drive out onto Otter Creek between Vergennes and the lake on a hard freeze.