These Dark Mountains

Mar 13 2020 156
These Dark Mountains Podcast artwork

Vermont is known for the beauty of its woods and mountains, but the cost of that beauty is often forgotten. For much of our history, Vermonters endured unimaginable hardship and poverty that limited opportunities for growth and preserved, as if unchanged, the landscape of today. Their suffering is always with us, written on the land, inscribed in cellar-holes and graveyards and orchards gone to wild. Welcome to These Dark Mountains. 

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Almon and Emeline (Alice Meaker, Part 3)

Mar 13 2020 48 mins  
“There she lay in the parlor, her face as calm as if she had never known the harshness of brutal guardians, the agony of poison, the terrible pangs of dissolution. Death had at last given her peace, the peace which passeth understanding.”

Atherton and Almon (Alice Meaker, Part 2)

Mar 13 2020 32 mins  
Lina Foster started awake. A scream had roused her, a girl crying for her mother. She thought of her own daughter, who was ill, but the cry came again from outside the house and a horse and carriage clattered onto Barber’s Bridge.

Alice and Emeline (Alice Meaker, Part 1)

Mar 13 2020 30 mins  
An old man died and left two children, a boy and a girl. No one wanted them. Their father settled them on the town and the town sent them to the poor farm.

Agnes Willis: The Cherry Court Murder

Dec 19 2019 31 mins  
December 11, 1899 dawned gray and cold, rain blowing in waves with the winds up Cherry Street. Agnes Willis spent the day at work as a “scrub woman,” or cleaner, before meeting up with Gilbert Farmer and returning with him to her Cherry Street tenement. They took supper with the neighbors. A blade was needed to cut the chicken and Gilbert offered up his knife, a folding dirk. I

In the Barn: Luman & Alma Smith

Nov 01 2019 36 mins  
It’s early afternoon, not yet two o’clock on October 23, 1879, when Luman Smith returns to his farm in Williston. His little girl runs out to meet him and they go to the barn together, talking of this or that, then turning at the sound of footsteps, his father-in-law coming over.

The Suncook Town Tragedy (Marietta Ball, Part 2)

Oct 08 2019 40 mins  
October 6, 1875. Wednesday morning in St. Albans and Aldis Brainerd is reading the paper. He’s at his house on North Main Street or at his offices in the Brainerd Block. He’s taking breakfast, perhaps, or sitting at his desk when he unfolds The Daily Messenger to its second page, a headline reading: Another New Hampshire Horror A School Girl Outraged & Murdered

The East Hill Murder (Marietta Ball, Part 1)

Sep 23 2019 31 mins  
On Friday, July 24, 1874, Marietta Ball dismissed her class and closed up the No 2 schoolhouse. As usual she intended to pass the weekend with Clara Paige and left directly from the school, carrying her nightdress, slippers, and underclothes in a bundle under arm.

The Murder of Perry Russell

Sep 04 2019 29 mins  
The moon was in the window. The bedroom swam silver in its light. Half-past eight o’clock on October 3, 1868, and Hannah Russell lay awake, her husband Perry beside her. He slept deeply and didn’t stir, though wind shook the roof-slates and rattled the shutters and somebody rapped at the side-door.

The Starch Box Mystery

Aug 13 2019 28 mins  
Henry Beumond worked at Guild & Wetherbee’s paper mill in Westminster, Vermont. Late in the afternoon of June 12, 1895, he descended to the mill-race to rake out the debris and spied a starch box caught up on the racks. He fished it out and was surprised to find the lid was nailed shut. He pried it open.

The Disappearance of Victory Ploof

Jul 30 2019 22 mins  
The hills were on fire. It was the spring of 1877, windy and dry. In West Jay, Vermont, Mitchell Ploof was at work in his clearing when he smelled smoke and heard a rustling in the undergrowth. Rabbits. They poured out of the forest, “whole droves” of them running, and there were other animals too, squirrels and chipmunks. The fire followed, ten minutes behind.