If you haven't already, skim over the census (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1810731) for a few towns. You can just search for "town, Vermont", click on any of the people, then go into the actual census image and go between pages.

The census usually goes right down the street with the census worker walking door to door, so you can get an idea of if you were just walking through the town, how many people are living together as a family, how many renters/boarders are there, how many families are Vermonters or how many moved from NH or Mass, how many people are working in what trades or professions, how many people were in the war.

It's a lot of basic demographic stuff you can look at as a case study of one town in a few minutes, that would tell you if you were going to use this town as a model, who would be all the characters who realistically fit in.

You can also look up vital records of these people, which will tell you things like, when someone dies, where is the doctor they would've gone to, what is the cause of death, where are people being born (home/hospital), where are people getting married and are their spouses from this town or further away.