The President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site is found in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, a small community hidden away among the Green Mountains. The site is owned by the State of Vermont and operated by the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation. In Plymouth Notch on the Fourth of July, 1872, Calvin Coolidge, the Thirtieth President of the United States, was born.
Today, the historic site represents not only the preservation of the home of a President, but the surrounding environs that shaped his life and those of his ancestors before him. It combines his birthplace, the family homestead, as well as the homes of relatives and friends, all in the untouched beauty of a Vermont village. The American tradition of simple, homespun democracy is well symbolized by the village. Its 12 or 13 buildings and their surroundings constitute a historical site in which the story of rural American democracy is told and preserved.
It was at Plymouth Notch, in the very late hours of August 2, 1923, that Calvin Coolidge received word of the death of President Warren G. Harding. A few hours later, at 2:47 a.m. on August 3, a unique presidential inauguration occurred. Calvin Coolidge was administered the presidential oath by his father, a notary public, in the family parlor by the light of a kerosene lamp. The inauguration scene, so simple and democratic, captured then as still does today the imagination of the American public. And so does the shrewd, industrious, upright, straightforward, and quietly humorous Coolidge, a typical Vermonter and small town American.
The historic site comprises over 200 bucolic acres including the hillside cemetery in which President Coolidge is now buried with the members of his family, the Union Christian Church (c. 1840), the Florence Cilley General Store, a one-room schoolhouse, the Aldrich House, the Wilder Barns, the Wilder House, and the cheese factory. The village is complete with the original artifacts so vital to the portrayal of its history.
The site is now home to the President Calvin Coolidge Museum and Education Center. For visitors, it provides educational exhibits that tell the story of Calvin Coolidge’s rise from the family homestead at Plymouth Notch to the White House in Washington, D.C. The Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation also has its offices in this facility.
Visit the State of Vermont’s Coolidge Website HERE.