Map of Chelsea, Vermont in 2026

Chelsea is the town with two commons, a courthouse, and the grave of Figure, the horse behind the whole Morgan breed. Around its village this map prints Chelsea West Hill, Kennedy Corners and Keyser Pond, with Williamstown Road, Bobbinshop Road, Bradshaw Crossroad, Edwards Road, Jenkins Brook Road and Stearns Hill Road reaching out into the hills.

Chelsea is a town in Orange County, Vermont, and the county’s shire town.

KNOWOL made this map in 2026 from public survey data and gave it the look of an old county atlas. Shaded relief from United States Geological Survey elevation data shows the river valley, and the roads and the town line come from the Census Bureau. Chelsea covers 40.1 square miles, almost none of it water, and it had 1,233 people at the 2020 census. Click here to purchase a print of this map for your wall.

From Turnersburgh to Chelsea

Chelsea dates to 1781. Vermont granted the town on August 4 of that year as Turnersburgh, named for the settler Bela Turner. Settlement began in 1784, and in 1788 the townspeople voted to call it Chelsea instead. The town grew up along the First Branch of the White River in a valley in central Vermont, and in 1795 it became the county seat of Orange County.

Through the 1800s Chelsea served as the market and service town for the farms around it, with small textile mills, gristmills and sawmills along the river. Most of those mills are gone now. The village grew fastest between 1830 and 1850, and as a result much of it was built in the Greek Revival style of those years.

Two commons and a courthouse

The center of the village is a pair of town commons, with Jail Brook and a strip of buildings running between them. The north common was laid out in 1794 as a public parade and militia training ground, and the south common was given in 1804 as the site for the county courthouse. The courthouse of 1847 and the Congregational church of 1848 are both fine Greek Revival buildings, and the town hall and library followed in the 1890s in the heavier Romanesque Revival style. The village is laid out north and south along what’s now Vermont Route 113, which was a stagecoach route in the 1800s. The whole center was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 as the Chelsea Village Historic District.

Schools came early. By 1845 there were 18 of them around town, and the Chelsea Academy was built in the village in 1852. The “new” Chelsea High School building went up in 1913, and it still houses the Chelsea Public School today.

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The Chelsea map as a framed print. Swipe for more.

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Figure and the Moxley bridge

Figure was the small bay stallion that Justin Morgan made famous, the foundation sire of the whole Morgan horse breed. After a long working life of racing, logging and hauling across the state, he was sold in 1819 to his last owner, Levi Bean of Chelsea, and near the end of his life he was put out to pasture. He died in 1821 at the age of 32 and is buried in Chelsea. Marguerite Henry’s children’s book Justin Morgan Had a Horse tells a version of his story.

About two and a half miles south of the village, the Moxley Covered Bridge carries Moxley Road over the First Branch. It was built in 1886 and 1887 and is the only 19th-century covered bridge left in Chelsea. Its trusses sit a little offset from each other, which gives the bridge the shape of a parallelogram.

Chelsea people

F. Ray Keyser Jr. was born in Chelsea in 1927 and practiced law here. Elected at 33, he was the youngest person ever chosen governor of Vermont, and he’s buried in Highland Cemetery in town. Calista Robinson Jones, born in Chelsea in 1839 and educated at its academy, became national president of the Woman’s Relief Corps in 1901. Edson S. Densmore, born in Chelsea about 1849, rose to be chief usher of the White House. The portrait painter Alban Jasper Conant was born here too, and his paintings are in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 2018 the Chelsea Arts Collective started a barn quilt trail, with painted quilt patterns hung on barns around town.

Out from the village, Williamstown Road, Bobbinshop Road, Bradshaw Crossroad, Edwards Road, Jenkins Brook Road and Stearns Hill Road are printed on the map, along with Chelsea West Hill, Kennedy Corners and Keyser Pond. Find the commons in the middle, then follow the roads out to the farm you know.

Hang this map of Chelsea in an office, library or den, or use it to teach children the geography and history of a Vermont shire town. It’s made for everyone who calls Chelsea home and shows the town as it looks today, from the two commons to Keyser Pond. KNOWOL created it in 2026, and it’s printed on museum quality archival paper. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Chelsea, Vermont map.

Sources

• Chelsea, Vermont, Wikipedia
• Town histories and representatives, C towns, Vermont Legislature
• Chelsea Village Historic District, Wikipedia
• Moxley Covered Bridge, Wikipedia
• Figure (horse), Wikipedia
• F. Ray Keyser Jr., Wikipedia
• Calista Robinson Jones, Wikipedia
• Edson S. Densmore, Wikipedia
• Alban Jasper Conant, Wikipedia