Moretown, Vermont: The Mad River Valley Town You Might Be Driving Right Through

There's an easy mistake to make in Moretown.

Keep driving.

Route 100B makes it tempting. Waitsfield and Warren are south. Waterbury and Interstate 89 are north. Montpelier isn't far away.

Moretown can become the place between places.

It shouldn't.

Turn off the main road, follow the Mad River into the village, and you find a Vermont community whose story has been shaped by water, mountains, mills, farms and a geography that has never been particularly interested in making travel convenient.

Today, there's another surprise hiding here too:

A town-owned network of trails, mountain biking, a bike skills park and recreation areas that many people driving through Moretown probably never realize exist.

Start With the Mad River

The river is a good way to understand why Moretown looks the way it does.

Moretown was chartered in 1763, although settlement didn't begin until around 1790. The earliest settlement developed around North Moretown and Duxbury Corners rather than today's village.

The original center of town was also higher up around Moretown Common.

Then things moved.

By 1832, residents voted to move Town Meeting from the Common down to an area known as the "Hollow."

That Hollow became today's Moretown Village.

And the Mad River became increasingly important to the community growing around it.

🚶 Explore the Village

Moretown Village doesn't require an elaborate itinerary.

That's part of its appeal.

Walk around the Town Hall and village. Look for the old buildings and the way the Mad River runs through the community.

Then look for something that seems almost too industrial for this little village:

Ward Clapboard Mill.

Milling became a major part of Moretown's economy during the 19th century. The Ward family developed one of the region's significant lumber operations here beginning in the 1870s, eventually owning thousands of acres and employing loggers, teamsters and mill workers.

Remarkably, clapboards are still being produced at the mill today.

We'll come back to that story in our second Moretown article.

🚴 Find the Moretown Most People Miss

Here's where Moretown surprised me.

The town maintains recreational facilities that include:

• Walking trails
• Mountain-bike trails
• A bike skills park
• Tennis and pickleball courts
• Basketball
• Soccer and softball fields
• Two playgrounds
• A sledding hill
• A StoryWalk
• Pollinator gardens
• A pavilion

There's also a Town Forest.

That's quite a collection for a town many visitors experience primarily through the windshield.

If you're exploring Central Vermont with kids—or you want to bring the mountain bike instead of simply driving through—Moretown deserves more time than most people give it.

🌲 Head Into the Town Forest

This is the part I'd add to a Moretown afternoon.

Leave the pavement for a while.

The Town Forest and trail network offer a completely different experience from the commercial recreation destinations elsewhere in the Mad River Valley.

You're not coming here for a resort.

You're using the same community recreation resources residents use.

That distinction matters.

It gives you a better idea of what everyday life in a Vermont town actually looks like.

🐄 Look Beyond the Village

Moretown was once very much a farming community.

A Vermont gazetteer from the 1800s described the town as mountainous and broken in terrain but possessing good dairy farms and sugar orchards. Historical accounts later described dairy farming, lumber production and hydroelectric power as important local industries.

Some of that agricultural history survives in the land itself.

The Mad River Valley Rural Historic District extends through northern Waitsfield and southern Moretown, preserving a broad agricultural area along the river with historic farmsteads dating largely from the 19th century.

So when you're driving Route 100 and 100B and looking across those open fields, you're not simply looking at pretty Vermont scenery.

You're looking at pieces of a working landscape that shaped this valley.

A Town Built Around Difficult Geography

There's something I like in Moretown's own account of its beginning.

The original land grant divided the town into neat, orderly lots.

There was just one problem.

The person drawing them apparently didn't account for the mountains, valleys, rivers and other inconvenient pieces of actual Vermont.

Anyone who has driven Vermont back roads can appreciate that.

The geography eventually helped create several distinct areas of Moretown rather than one large population center. More than two centuries later, that dispersed character is still part of living here.

⭐ Nathan's Hidden Gem: Get Off 100B

My Moretown recommendation isn't a particular building.

It's a turn.

Get off Route 100B.

Go into Moretown Village.

Find the recreation area.

Walk or ride part of the trail network.

Follow the Mad River.

Then take one of the roads climbing away from the valley and see how quickly the character changes.

If all you've ever done is drive 100B between Waterbury and Waitsfield, you haven't really seen Moretown.

Moretown Is Thinking About What Comes Next

There's another reason Moretown is interesting right now.

The town adopted a new Town Plan in December 2025 after a process that included a 2024 community survey, public participation and discussion at community events.

The plan looks at housing, transportation, natural resources, economic development, land use and how residents want Moretown to grow.

That's worth paying attention to if you're thinking about buying here.

Small Vermont towns aren't static.

They're wrestling with the same questions many communities are:

Where should new homes go?

How do you preserve rural land?

How do you support local businesses?

How do you make housing attainable?

And how do you accommodate change without losing what made people want to live here in the first place?

What Does Living in Moretown Feel Like?

Moretown occupies an interesting position.

You can have the rural Vermont experience—woods, mountains, dirt roads, river valleys and acreage—while remaining within reach of Waitsfield, Waterbury, Montpelier and Interstate 89.

But individual properties can feel dramatically different depending on where they sit.

A village home and a house several miles up a mountain road are two entirely different versions of Moretown.

For buyers, that makes questions about road maintenance, winter access, internet and cell service, wells, septic systems, topography and flood exposure especially important.

It's one of those Vermont towns where the address tells you considerably less than actually driving the road.

And that's precisely why I'd drive it.

Thinking About Moretown, Vermont?

Don't just look at the house.

Drive from it to work.

Drive the road you'd use in February.

Look at the river.

Check the terrain.

Then spend some time in the village and on the trails.

Moretown makes much more sense once you stop passing through it.