THE MAD RIVER VALLEY

The Plot:

Beginning as an icy trickle in the Green Mountains of Vermont, the northward flowing Mad River and its scenic valley have changed little since being settled after the Revolutionary War. The valley's dairy farms, terraced meadows, upland forests, 19th Century villages, country inns, and classic ski resorts attract a half-million tourists each year. The historic photographs in the Mad River Valley show slices of daily life in the valley's five towns: Warren, Waitsfield, and Moretown, which lie in the river's path; and Fayston and Duxbury, on the valley's western slope. The area's economy, driven and sustained by river-powered mills and logging, plus sheep, then dairy farming, eventually gave way to the more spirited pastimes of skiing, hiking, fishing, and biking, all dictated by the lay of the land and the flow of the river.

A peek inside the Book:

Their names were Holy Writ, assigned from Biblical Scripture: Rachel, Keziah, Abigal, Benjamin, Ebenezer, Seth, Ira, Gabriel, Alonzo, Lydia.

But they were mill workers, students, farmers, shopkeepers, loggers, cooks, ministers, teachers, doctors and parents, with dawn-to-dusk work days and straight-ahead goals in a promised land, in a sweet little valley they called "Mad River". It was 20 miles long, half of that wide, and in its cup held a narrow stream that began in V-shaped Granville Gulf.

This was apparently all the expanse that Gen. Benjamin Wait, Seth Munson, the Hazeltines and others needed to settle down in. They could say in the 1790s, as we say today, that with each twist in a dirt road, few places on earth can offer so many different gratifying scenes on so many different days. Western prairies, skyscraper cities, cookie-cutter suburbs and even mountain peaks can stretch for monotonous miles.

The Mad River Valley settlers saw, as we do, heavy morning fog visibly clearing, sweeping itself broom-like over the river, vanishing in a warmed-up field; the sun's horizontal beam stabbing the wall of an old barn, stretching the shadow of a maple tree, or sending up diamonds from a snow-filled pasture. Then too, twilight's purple cast, tiny pricks of lamp glowing from a window on a mountainside, and a night so black the stars are millions.

Buying the book:

The Mad River Valley is available at independent book stores, www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com online.