Washington is a town in Orange County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,047 at the 2000 census. The town is believed to be named after George Washington, the town may also be named after Washington, CT as there are records of individuals moving eponymous town in Connecticut to Vermont around 1766.

During the 1760s and 1770s the territory now known as Vermont was in dispute between New York and New Hampshire, the result of conflicting interpretations of each colony's charter. People moving into the territory, then known as New Connecticut or the New Hampshire Grants, generally settled after purchasing land grants from New Hampshire governor Benning Wentworth.

When the British government resolved the dispute in New York's favor, the colonial government attempted to assert control over the grants and force residents who had purchased land grants from Wentworth to pay a fee and confirm their titles. Many Vermonters resisted, leading to creation of the Green Mountain Boys.

As part of New York's effort to demonstrate control over the grants, in 1770 it chartered the town of Kingsland far from New York in what was then remote Gloucester County. Kingsland had no record of any residents, but was designated as one of two county seats. A log jail and courthouse were constructed at the head of a stream named subsequently named the Jail Branch.

Vermont ⁱ/vɜrˈmɒnt/ is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Vermont is the 6th least extensive and the 2nd least populous of the 50 United States. It is the only New England state not bordering the Atlantic Ocean. Lake Champlain forms half of Vermont's western border, which it shares with the state of New York. The Green Mountains are within the state. Vermont is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north.

Originally inhabited by two major Native American tribes (the Algonquian-speaking Abenaki and the Iroquois), much of the territory that is now Vermont was claimed by France during its early colonial period. France ceded the territory to the Kingdom of Great Britain after being defeated in 1763 in the Seven Years' War (also called the French and Indian War). For many years, the nearby colonies, especially New Hampshire and New York, disputed control of the area (then called the New Hampshire Grants). Settlers who held land titles granted by these colonies were opposed by the Green Mountain Boys militia, which eventually prevailed in creating an independent state, the Vermont Republic. Founded in 1777 during the Revolutionary War, the republic lasted for fourteen years. Vermont is one of seventeen U.S. states (along with Texas, Hawaii, the brief California Republic, and each of the original Thirteen Colonies) to have had a sovereign government in the past. In 1791, Vermont joined the United States as the 14th state, the first outside the original 13 Colonies. It abolished slavery while still independent, and upon joining the Union became the first state to have done so.

Peter F. Welch (born May 2, 1947) is the U.S. Representative for Vermont's At-large congressional district, serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served in the Vermont Senate where he was the Minority Leader and President pro tempore.

Welch was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1947. He attended local Catholic schools there (Holy Name Grammar School and Cathedral High School). Welch attended College of the Holy Cross, graduating magna cum laude in 1969. In 1973 he earned a law degree from Boalt Hall, the law school of the University of California, Berkeley.

He was a partner for 30 years in the personal injury law firm Welch, Graham & Manby, White River Junction, Vermont.

Welch is married to Margaret Cheney, a member of the Vermont House of Representatives. His first wife, Joan Smith, died of cancer in 2004. Welch had five stepchildren from his first marriage and now has three stepchildren in his second.

In 1980, Welch was elected to the Vermont Senate as a representative from Windsor County. In his second term, Welch was chosen as the Minority Leader, and after Democrats gained control of the Senate, Welch was chosen as President pro tempore.