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Calais is a town located in Washington County, Vermont. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 1,529. Calais is pronounced similar to palace, not chalet.

Calais once had a village called Sodom. This name was allegedly given because the village had no church, though it did have a few active quarries. In 1905 the residents petitioned the state legislature to change the name to Adamant, chosen to suggest the hardness of granite. "Adamant is supposedly a name just as hard but not as wicked." says Frank Suchomel, the president of the Adamant Music School and local historian. Calais also contains East Calais, North Calais, Kent's Corner, Maple Corner and Pekin.

Pekin is after Peking (now Beijing), China, the result of a local farmer who had a friend who was a missionary to China. The missionary sent some Chinese wheat back to Vermont, the farmer planted it, and it flourished. It became the style to give directions using the wheat field as a landmark ("up by the Pekin wheat", or "just past the Pekin wheat"). Eventually, the location of the field came to be known simply as Pekin. [From Wikipedia]

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