Button Bay State Park is located on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain
with lake frontage on Button Bay (see maps, Figs. 1 and 2). This Vermont
State Park is reached from the nearest large town, Vergennes, by
proceeding southwest, toward Addison, on State Route 22A for .25 miles
beyond the bridge over Otter Creek, thence, right on the Basin
Harbor-Panton road for another 1.4 miles to the first road entering from
the right. Turn right on this, the Basin Harbor road, and proceed for
4.5 miles, thence, left for 1.4 miles to Button Bay State Park (see map,
Fig. 2, note arrows). A more direct road is planned to connect the Basin
Harbor Road with the Park, however, this route has still not been
completed.
Prior to its present name, Button Bay, the “sickle-shaped bay” on which
Button Bay State Park is located was termed _Button Mould Bay_[1]. In
“The Journal of William Gilliland” which is found in the “Pioneer
History of the Champlain Valley” by Winslow C. Watson, Albany, 1863, and
under the date of September 7, 1765, is found an entry which speaks of
“his (Gilliland) overtaking ‘_the Governors and other gentlemen_’[2] at
Button Mould Bay, and going aboard their sloop.”
A book of charts by Captain William Chambers contains one entitled “Baye
du Roche Fendue (Split-Rock Bay) and the soundings taken in August
1779.” At the upper corner of the chart is the name “Button Mould Bay.”
The first appearance of the shortened version, Button Bay, seems to be
in Whitelaw’s map of 1796 which was used as the frontispiece of the
Census volume, “Heads of Families, Vermont, 1800.”
[Illustration: _FIGURE 1_
MAP OF WEST-CENTRAL VERMONT AND EASTERN NEW YORK]
[Illustration: _FIGURE 2_]
Why the name Button Bay? H. M. Seely (1910, p. 274)[3] when discussing
the shoreline of this bay states, “Besides shells, _concretions_[4],
some of strange imitative forms (many shaped like animals), are loosened
from the clay.” He goes on to say that a “form particularly abundant in
the banks of the bay (and on the beach) has the shape and size of a
turned wood button-mold (mold is commonly spelled ‘mould’ by the
British), a disc with a hole in the center, plane (flat) on one side and
convex on the other” (see Fig. 3 and cover picture). The abundance of
these button mold-shaped concretions obviously led to the older name,
Button Mould Bay which was later shortened to Button Bay.