Michael Deering II for Washington County Senate

10/11/2026

10/08/2026

"You talk constantly about your family farm" https://notthebee.com/t24af

09/23/2026

Tonight was a very special evening for me as I had the privilege of presiding over my first Barre City Council meeting as Deputy Mayor.

It’s not often that our Mayor misses a meeting, so having the opportunity to step up and lead my fellow Council members in his absence was truly an honor and a moment I won’t soon forget.

I’m incredibly grateful for the trust and support that have brought me to this point. There have been so many people along the way who have encouraged me, believed in me, and helped me grow into the person and community leader I am today.

I don’t take this responsibility lightly. It is a true privilege to serve our community, and I’m thankful for every opportunity to give back and make a difference.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way. I’m truly humbled and grateful. ❤️

09/21/2026

Barre, Vermont earned the nickname "Granite Center of the World" thanks to the massive Barre Gray granite deposits nearby, but the industry that built the town also nearly broke the men who worked it. Granite dust causes silicosis, a slow and irreversible lung disease, and by the early 20th century Barre's stonecutters, many of them Italian, Scottish, and Spanish immigrants recruited specifically for their carving skill, were dying of it at alarming rates, often in their 30s and 40s.

In 1922, granite workers across Vermont walked out in a strike that tied directly into a broader wave of labor unrest sweeping the country's stone and quarry industries that year. Barre's cutters, many of them members of the Granite Cutters' International Association, were fighting not just for wages but for basic protections against the dust itself, since ventilation and safety measures in the sheds were minimal to nonexistent. The strike drew in the whole town: quarry owners, shed operators, and a workforce that had already buried an unusual number of its own young men.

Barre's granite industry is still active today, and modern safety standards have changed the health picture dramatically, but the town's cemeteries still carry the story in stone. Many stonecutters carved their own elaborate granite monuments before they died, leaving behind some of the most striking funerary art in New England as a kind of final statement from the men who worked the sheds. 🪨

Have you ever visited a cemetery where the headstones themselves told you something about the industry that built the town?

09/17/2026