Vergennes Black sheriff honored in his birthplace

An unexpected phone call to Oakham, Mass., resident Larry Schuyler ultimately led to the installation of two historic markers — one in Vergennes, one in Virginia — highlighting Stephen Bates’s rise from slavery to become the first Black sheriff in the Northern United States.

Stephen Bates was born into slavery in 1842 on Virginia’s Shirley Plantation. Fourteen years after the Civil War, he was elected sheriff of Vergennes, a position which he would hold for all but six of the next 29 years.

Vermont’s first known elected Black sheriff and chief of police, Stephen Bates, lived in Vergennes more than a century ago. Bates will be honored with the unveiling and dedication of an historic marker in Vergennes City Park.