FIRST AMERICAN PLATFORM SCALE
After experimenting with new types of farm equipment, plows and stoves, Thaddeus Fairbanks invented the platform scale here in 1830. With his brothers Erastus and Joseph, he founded the company which still bears their name. Many St. Johnsbury public institutions were gifts of this talented family.
This marker is in front of the Fairbanks-Morse plant. There is an identical marker on the east side of town (on the same road) marking the original location of the factory.
Sorry for the relative unreadability of this marker, but it is one of the most faded I have encountered, and I could not do much to enhance it. We have to consider that the people who put up the marker (usually the town or a historical society) are responsible for maintaining it, and these things cost $750 to refurbish.