Town of Lowell
Community Profile
Lowell is a Town in the North East Kingdom of Vermont and is part of Orleans County which is made up of 18 Towns and one City – Newport. Sitting at an elevation of 996 ft. with a total land area of 56 square miles, Lowell has unrivaled scenic views in the heart of the Green Mountains.
Lowell is surrounded by seven neighboring towns reaching the borders of: Westfield, Irasburg, Eden, Troy, Newport, Albany & Montgomery.
A large percentage of Lowell’s land is forested mixed with rural residential and a small portion being considered “the Village” which is located where Route 58 and Route 100 intersect. This location is commonly referred to as “The Four Corners”.
The Town of Lowell has mountains and hills on three sides. All except for the northern pan of town is quite rough and mountainous. The northern pan of town is fairly level. The Missisquoi River rises in town, originating in a small pond nearly on the line between Lowell and Eden, and enters Westfield near its southeast corner. It flows northward into Canada and then turns westward and cuts its way through the mountain a few miles north of the border, enters Vermont again and continues west into Lake Champlain. It is an important river and its valley is an important unit in the economic status of the state. Years ago in the center of the Town of Lowell at the grist mill the Missisquoi River passed through a hole in the solid rock at the foot of a fall in the river of 10feet. The top of the rock bridge was three feet wide.
Where originally there were 37,000 acres set to the town, now there are just over 33,729 acres. Upon the southern border arc Mt. Norris, Mt. Hadley and Mt. Belvidere. In the eastern pan of the town is a mountain which affords only two places for a road, one is the old Hazen Road and the other is the Irasburg route. Serpentine Hill in the northern pan of the town, is also an abrupt elevation. The whole eastern and central pan of the town are very rough and mountainous. The northern pan of the township is a fertile, sandy plain, watered by branches of the Missisquoi River, forming the most available farming land in the township. The numerous springs and streams that unite to form the Missisquoi are waters of an exceptionally pure quality, and are populated with beautiful specimens of speckled trout. Large quantities of hard and softwood timber were standing in the forest, while excellent mill privileges were afforded, so Lowell was an exceedingly busy lumbering town.
Lowell is in the State of Vermont. According to VermontVacation.com Vermont’s official Tourism site:
Vermont is the second largest state in New England after Maine, just a few hundred square miles larger than New Hampshire.
The Green Mountain State is bordered by Canada, New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. It is 157.4 miles in length, 90.3 miles wide at the Canadian border, and 41.6 miles along the Massachusetts border. The Connecticut River forms the eastern boundary, while the western boundary runs down the middle of Lake Champlain for more than half of its length.
The state has 223 mountains over 2,000 feet in elevation. The mountainous areas of the state are primarily forested. In fact, although Vermont was virtually clear-cut of timber during the late 19th century, more than 75 percent of the state's total area is now forested. Beneath the mountains and rolling hills are the fertile valleys that support extensive dairy, crop, vegetable, and fruit production. As mountain ranges go, the Green Mountains are very old, and have been sculpted to their present form during several ice ages. Granite, marble, slate, asbestos and talc have all been mined from the range.