Is Pittsfield VT a Town or a Village?

Popular established settlement hierarchy defines that a town needs to have a population of 1,000 to 20,000 persons living full time within the geographical confines of its borders to be able to call itself a “town”. A village is a human settlement or community that is larger than a hamlet (A hamlet has a tiny population, often less than 100 and very few services). A village generally does not have many services, most likely only one church, a small shop or even post office and a village hall. Gas stations are optional.

Pittsfield, Vermont has a population of only 547, according to the the 2017 census. This puts Pittsfield clearly within the definition parameters of a village and not a town. Pittsfield does however still refer to itself as town, perhaps due to the heady days of its past lumber industry when the town would house many thousands of workers, but it’s numbers no longer meet the requirements to be traditionally defined as a town. The idea of “Pittsfield Village” in Vermont sounds quite pleasant and with its single church, gas station, post office, library, town hall and the general store it has all the makings of the quintessential Vermont village, so Pittsfield could get over it itself and embrace a new moniker of “The Village of Pittsfield” in Vermont.