Court Square

From 1796 to 1814 Court Square was the site of the first Addison County Courthouse, which also served as the seat of the Vermont Legislature (1800, 1806), and home of Middlebury’s first female academy (1800). Here in June 1804 a New York slaveholder brought suit before a session of the Supreme Court to reclaim an escaped slave apprehended in Vermont. When his proffered bill of sale was deemed insufficient proof of ownership, his attorney demanded what the court would accept. Justice Theophilus Harrington of Clarendon responded with some of the most famous words from a Vermont courtroom, “Nothing short of a bill of sale signed by God Almighty Himself.” The former slave went free.