Forgotten Tales of Vermont


Book Description

There's more to Vermont than maple syrup and covered bridges. A book about Vermont's history will likely bring to mind such topics as Abenaki Indians, the Green Mountain Boys and the state's famed covered bridges, but Forgotten Tales of Vermont takes readers far beyond traditional histories to uncover little-known stories from Vermont's quirky past. Who knew that students from Castleton Medical School moonlighted as grave robbers until they were caught hiding Mrs. Churchill's head in a haystack? Or that an Egyptian mummy once turned up in Middlebury and is now buried at the local cemetery alongside the town's founders? Stories such as the Willoughby Lake "monster" and "Slipperyskin," the bear that terrorized Lemington, are sure to bemuse, baffle and surprise even Vermonters who think they've heard it all. Culled from newspapers, books and journals, William M. Alexander's fascinating tales will entertain and inform readers for generations to come!




Forgotten Tales of New York


Book Description

Learn the Empire State’s little known history—from bone-stealing dogs to the world’s largest puzzle—by the author of Curiosities of the Finger Lakes. Few New Yorkers remember the night when firemen, in tuxedos and top hats, were dragged from a ball to extinguish a Waterloo blaze, or the typographical error that reported Theodore Roosevelt taking a “bath” instead of his presidential “oath.” Still fewer remember Cephas Bennett, a missionary from Utica and printer of the first Burmese Bible, or H. L. Mencken’s humorous article on the history of the bathtub, still quoted today as factual although entirely invented. Seasoned storyteller Melanie Zimmer seamlessly weaves together these hard-to-believe, yet entirely true, tales. From the monster of Seneca Lake to the man who inspired the American icon Uncle Sam, discover the lost secrets of the Empire State. Includes photos!




Forgotten Tales and Vanished Trails


Book Description

Forgotten Tales and Vanished Trails gathers together Roosevelt’s many writings on game hunting and the outdoors from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Published in various magazines and excerpts from his other publications, this collection finally brings the best musings of a great sportsman into a single volume. These articles span topics from hunting typical game animals (buck, wildebeest, and the like) to the hunting of dangerous predators such as wolves and bears; others are tales told around a campfire, of marauding wolves and man-eating bears, or detailing the finer points of ranching. Some pieces span years, while others detail his shorter exploits across the country. A passionate advocate for the outdoors, Roosevelt’s writing is filled with fascinating insights into a world mostly now lost to civilization and commerce. Many of his comments on the precarious balance of the natural world are noted in this volume, and his chapters on conservation and the responsibility of hunters reflect his ever-present interest in preserving the environment for the benefit of generations to come. Skyhorse Publishing is proud to publish a broad range of books for hunters and firearms enthusiasts. We publish books about shotguns, rifles, handguns, target shooting, gun collecting, self-defense, archery, ammunition, knives, gunsmithing, gun repair, and wilderness survival. We publish books on deer hunting, big game hunting, small game hunting, wing shooting, turkey hunting, deer stands, duck blinds, bowhunting, wing shooting, hunting dogs, and more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.




Forgotten Tales of Texas


Book Description

From El Chupacabra to the Marx Brothers, Clay Coppedge has a talent for digging into Texas's most unusual history. Strange as they may seem, many of these Texas-sized legends are surprisingly true, like Pancho Villa's film contract and the notorious Crash at Crush, a staged train collision and failed publicity stunt that turned tragic outside of Katy. Whether fact or lore, each tale is irrefutably part of a unique and fascinating heritage that invigorates the spirit like a Texas frontier remedy.




Forgotten Tales of Michigan's Lower Peninsula


Book Description

Some of Michigan's most noteworthy yarns and compelling characters were lost down the corridors of history--until now. Discover the Nain Rouge, that "Demon from the Strait," spotted everywhere from the Battle of Bloody Run in 1763 to the Detroit Riot in 1967. Meet folks like Major Stickney, who named his sons One and Two and his youngest daughter Indiana. Inspect the Toledo War's ill-equipped militia and sort through an armament that included a barrel of whiskey and broom handles from the local hardware store. Spend time with "Mad Anthony" Wayne and pay a visit to Cadillac, the wickedest town in the Midwest. Author Alan Naldrett covers these stories and more in this collection of forgotten tales.




Vermont Haunted History: Vermont Ghost Stories, Folklore, Myths, Curses and Legends


Book Description

Don't you just love a good ghost story? A Vermont Haunted History is brimming with a collection of Vermont ghost stories, haunted locations and mysterious people and places. Just the type of reading you will want to indulge in on a dark, rainy evening. Vermont is famous for maple syrup and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream but perhaps it's best kept secret are the delightfully creepy ghost stories and legends that have been passed down by generations of Vermont families. Within the pages of this book, should you dare, you will find frightening tales of vengeful spirits and abandoned places. Discover why some of the 19th century curses still exist today and what happened to some of the victims. You will marvel at the amazing burial places, mausoleums and monuments, including the story of one man's elaborate tomb specially constructed should he suddenly awaken and find himself buried alive! Vermont has a number of haunted inns and hotels including one benevolent, tap dancing spirit and others that refuse to leave. The story of "Black Agnes" comes with a twist, you simply won't expect. All of this including a companion website with tons of photos and video that accompany these chilling tales. Enjoy, if you dare!




Hidden History of Vermont


Book Description

Vermont's history is marked by fierce independence, generosity of spirit and the saga of human life along its steep slopes and fertile valleys. Meet the widow who outwitted Tories and may have spied for the Green Mountain Boys. Encounter the family who gained a national following by summoning spirits. Discover why one governor opposed women's suffrage and how that may have involved spirits of another sort. Visit an island retreat where Harpo Marx cheated at croquet and satirist Dorothy Parker wore nothing but a garden hat. Historian Mark Bushnell offers a glimpse of the Green Mountain State rarely seen.




Vermont Vignettes in Word and Line


Book Description

If you love folklore stories from the past, this is the book for you! Here we have a collection of stories, many never published, about the "good old days" in Vermont. In word and line they show life in an earlier era and particularly the clever rogues living it. The collection grows out of a collaboration between three "Vermonters by choice." Germaine LeClair came as a child from Canada to Vermont, where she has spent most of her life on a farm, A natural storyteller, she shares old family stories, part of a rich cultural heritage. Ida Washington retired from teaching to write historical books about Vermont. In the course of her research she turned up many tales too good to let disappear into obscurity. Shelia Mitchinson came to Vermont with her preacher husband, studied, art and became a professional illustrator specializing in drawings of Vermont landscape and people. The result of this collaboration is a group of stories form the past that show the spunk and vigor and just plain cussedness that are still a part of Vermonters today. Available from Cherry Tree Books - $4.95 plus shipping.




Fight for the Forgotten


Book Description

"From notable mixed martial artist and UFC fighter, Justin Wren, comes a personal account of faith, redemption, empowerment, and overwhelming love as one man sets out on an international mission to fight for those who can't fight for themselves. Justin Wren knows what it's like to feel like the world is against you. Like many kids, Justin was bullied as a child, but had a dream that kept him going. Fueled by the anger he felt toward his tormenters, Justin trained hard and propelled his dream of becoming a UFC fighter into reality. But the pain from his childhood didn't dissipate and Justin fell into a spiral of depression and addiction, leading him on a path toward destruction. After getting kicked out of his training community, his career was in shambles and he had nowhere else to go, so Justin attended a men's retreat, and it was there he found God. As Justin began piecing his life back together, he joined several international mission trips that opened his eyes and his heart to a world filled with suffering deep in the jungle of the Democratic Republic of Congo. There he came across the Mbuti Pygmy tribe, a group of people persecuted by neighboring tribes and forced into slavery. His encounter with the Pygmy tribe left him wondering who was there to help them and in that moment Justin stepped out of the ring and into a fight for the forgotten. From cage fighter to freedom fighter, Justin's story is a deeply personal memoir with a bigger message about a quest, justice, and the amazing things that can happen when we relinquish our lives to God"--




The Last of the Hill Farms


Book Description

In 1968 the photographer Richard Brown fulfilled a romantic childhood dream when he moved to the Northeast Kingdom, a remote corner of Vermont just barely entering the twentieth century. There he encountered a way of life that was fast disappearing, a land of sheep, cattle, work horses, wood-burning stoves, and small family-run farms far removed from the industrial Northeast. Determined to record it before it disappeared, he saw a pastoral vision where, "for the briefest interval, a window opened and the spirit of Vermont's past--granite hills cleared and formed, hard lives lived and lost, struggle and endurance, a harsh land made starkly beautiful by nature and man--was made palpable." He saw the land and also a people whose "endless hours of backbreaking, monotonous work were spent with a quiet ferocity" and who believed their "age-old labors were a struggle waged against time itself - labors that might just hold modernity at bay." And Brown did record it, with an 8 x 10″ large plate view camera. Not only the hauntingly beautiful landscape but also the people who stayed and worked the stubborn hills and "did so with great but fierce attachment." This is a great ode to an America that has passed before our eyes almost without comment or notice. It is a valiant, indeed a brilliant, effort to make the past tangible, to bring it back to life.