Excerpt from Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America

[In 1799 t]he natural landscape, of round and jagged mountain tops, dark forested hillsides, and green valley floor leading to magnificent Lake Champlain, may have been sublime. But man-made impressions on the landscape were few and far between. The town had a population of of fewer than five hundred. The new settlement was more than a little rough around the edges. The townspeople had little time for religion, education, or culture. Settling a new area meant clearing trees, building houses, and constructing mills. Weybridge did not even have a separate church building until 1802.(1)

 

In 1778, in what would become known as Carlton's Raid, British forces sacked several farms and homes in Weybridge, burning buildings to the ground and taking captured men as prisoners to Canada. Davis Stow would die in prison. Thomas Sanford eventually managed to escape. The rest were released at the conclusion of the war, and returned home. One group of survivors (women and children) took refuge in a root cellar for over a week and this monument was later erected on the site of that root cellar (along Route 23), in recognition of the men and women who settled this town in the early days of this county's history.