Thomas Davenport and Orange Smalley were blacksmiths who shared a shop in Forest Dale. Orange Smalley was from Forest Dale,  and Davenport was from Williamstown, Vermont, where he had learned the blacksmith trade. Thomas came to Brandon at twenty-one-years old. He probably walked, since that was how a lot of people got somewhere back then. His brother was already established in Brandon.

Thomas had a brother Brazillai, who was a prominent attorney in Brandon, and was the town clerk of Brandon as well. Thomas thought Forest Dale was going to be the "new Brandon," because of the industry there at the time.

Thomas discovered a 300 lb. electromagnet in Crown Point, New York, at the Penfield Iron Works. This discovery changed Davenport’s life, and everybody else’s life. Thomas Davenport brought the electromagnet back to the shop in Forest Dale, so he could study it. Experiments began that winter, and by summer, he had made the first rotary-driven electric motor, with the help of Smalley.

But Thomas and Orange had a falling out. The partnership dissolved, and later, Thomas Davenport claimed to have invented the first electric motor himself. Davenport’s fifteen-minutes of fame was over quickly, when another inventor claimed the invention for himself. Whether he was first with the invention or not is still debated.