Montpelier's "Arms Dealer" - 146 Main Street

Across the street from the inn you’ll see a brick house in the Greek Revival style. It was once the home of the famed Colonel Perley Pitkin. Along with being the fire chief and key partner in the Lane Manufacturing Company, he also served as the Quartermaster General for the state and had charge of the State Arsenal, which was filled with $600,000 worth of armaments supplied by the federal government. How did Montpelier come to have all that firepower?

It was given as compensation to the city in exchange for our agreement to allow the building of 25 hospital buildings in town to house Civil War soldiers suffering from injuries or disease. Both the Sloan Army Hospital and the arsenal were located on what is now College Street, up in the College Hall neighborhood. A few of the original hospital buildings still exist in the neighborhood, and one small building that made up the Arsenal complex is still there and goes by that name, although it is now privately owned. It is pictured here as the thumbnail image.

Because the impressive inventory of gunpowder, grenades and general military weaponry was rather more than the little town of Montpelier required, Colonel Pitkin was tasked with making a few sales to foreign governments, which an early history reports “materially aided the State treasury.”

This plot of land, along with those of the next several buildings down, made up the property that was once owned by the Watrous family back in the very early 1800s. One of its family members – Sarah Watrous – is credited with a woodcut drawing of the town which is considered the first rendered image of Montpelier. It was at the beginning of this book but included again here.