About the Publisher/Writer & Contributors
Scott Wheeler of Derby, Vermont, is the publisher of the Northland Journal. Scott was born and raised in Newport, Vermont. A 1984 graduate of North Country Union High School, he went on to earn his psychology degree from Johnson State College.
In addition to publishing Vermont’s Northland Journal, Scott writes for the community relations department at North Country Hospital in Newport. Scott and his wife, Penny (Curtis) Wheeler, have two 19-year-old sons, Curtis and Nicholas, and a 14-year-old daughter, Emily. Curtis and Nicholas attend the University of Southern Maine where they study science. Emily is a freshman at North Country Union High School in Newport.
For several years Scott worked as a reporter for the Chronicle, a weekly newspaper based in Barton, Vermont. While working as a reporter, he earned a New England Press Association Award for excellence in history writing for a three-part series that he wrote about life in Vermont during the Prohibition era, a series that evolved into a book, Rumrunners and Revenuers: Prohibition in Vermont. This book was published in late 2002 by New England Press of Shelburne, Vermont. It became a best seller. Scott continues to contribute work to several other Vermont publications. Scott also appeared on the movie, The Legend of Memphre, a movie that takes both a serious and satirical look at the legend of a lake creature named Memphre that is said to live in Lake Memphremagog. In 2004, Scott was recognized by the Disabled American Veterans of Vermont for his work at supporting the state’s veterans. In 2005, the Northeast Kingdom Chamber of Commerce awarded him the Kingdom Recognition Award. The award of bestowed upon him, and his publication, for “preserving and chronicling our unique traditions, our storied history, and wonderful personalities…”
A proud country boy, Scott’s mission is to share and preserve the real history and culture of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, not white wash it to make it something that it isn’t. His roots run deep in the Kingdom. Scott lives only four miles from where his great-great-great grandparents are buried. Unembarrassed and proud of the land of his birth, he sees no reason to portray the Northeast Kingdom as something it isn’t, or to bend reality a bit to entice tourists. Instead, he insists that the beauty of the working landscape, and the people, speak loud enough to attract visitors from every corner of the world.
Thinking about visiting the region? Contact Scott at northlandjournal@gmail.com if you have any questions. He might not be able to answer your questions, but he will probably be able to find somebody who can.
Regular Contributors
Bea Nelson of Derby has been providing articles to the Northland Journal from day one. A woman of Abenaki-European heritage, Bea writes extensively about the history and culture of the Abenaki people who have called Vermont home for thousands of years.
A 1966 graduate of Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire, she is now retired from a career of teaching English and art. She and her husband, Roger, have two children, and four grandchildren.
Retirement has done little to slow the Derby native. She jokes that she is a “Jill of all trades.” In addition to her interest in history, she is a homemaker, artist, writer, craftsperson, an amateur archaeologist, and an amateur naturalist.
In addition to submitting articles to the Northland Journal, Bea is the cultural resource manager for the Alnobak Heritage Preservation Center, the secretary of Holland Historical Society, and a board member of the Memphremagog Historical Society.
Sought out for her knowledge of the Abenaki people and culture, Bea has served as a consultant for a number of groups including the Vermont Historical Society, the Vermont Division of Historic Preservation, and the Vermont Folklife Center. She is also the co-author of two books—Holland and Its Neighbors and Around Lake Memphremagog. Both were published by Arcadia Publishing as part of the Images of America Series.
Michael T. Hahn is a prolific writer and a man with music flowing through his veins. While he has provided a wide range of historical articles to the Northland Journal, many of his articles also explore the region’s musical past, much of it through his first-hand experiences. Michael was raised in the house where his father was born in Bradford, Vermont. He lives with his wife, Robin, and their spaniel, Breeze, in a log cabin that Michael built in Barton, Vermont.
In addition to his work for the Northland Journal, Michael is the author of four books: Ethan Allen: A Life of Adventure; Ann Story: Vermont’s Heroine of Independence; Alexander Twilight: Vermont’s African-American Pioneer; and Dad’s Deer Tactics: Tom Hahn’s Hunting Secrets Revealed By His Son. He also writes magazine columns for Outdoors Magazine, Behind the Times, and Livin’ Magazine. He won a special merit award from the Vermont Book Publishers Association in 1994, and also won the Outdoors Magazine 2000 Overall Excellence in a Column Award. His stories and articles have also been featured in The Burlington Free Press, Green Mountain Trading Post, Vermont Life, the Chronicle and the web site www.greatlodge.com.
Michael is a noted songwriter, bass player, and singer who currently performs with both the Hoochie Lombardo and Michael Hahn bands. In the past, he was a featured member of Whetstone and the Ten Mile Shuffle Band.
Harriet Fletcher Fisher is proud of the fact that she is a tenth generation New Englander and fourth generation Vermonter. Born on her family’s farm in Lyndon in 1918, she is of English and Scottish descent on her father’s side with her mother’s ancestry providing Abenaki and French heritage.
Harriet graduated from her neighborhood one-room school, Lyndon Institute, and Becker Business College. She has since taken many courses at Lyndon State College, and Community College. She worked at the Lyndonville Electric office, then in the office at Vermont Tap and Die. Harriet married Paul Fisher in 1942. While the couple’s three children were growing up she worked at home typing for others, and sometimes took part-time office jobs.
Harriet started writing feature stories in 1961 for the Burlington Free Press. That was the beginning of a long and diverse freelance writing career. Soon her writing was a sought-after commodity with other publications. In 1981 she became a stringer for the Caledonian-Record, covering events and news stories. Her work has also appeared in the Newport Daily Express, the Chronicle, and the Lyndon Independent. Her book Willoughby Lake, Legends and Legacies continues to be reprinted by the Orleans County Historical Society. Other books include Hometown Album; Images of America, Lyndon; and Images of America, Lyndon Institute.
Harriet is a member of the Lyndonville Congregational Church, The League of Vermont Writers, Lyndon Town Historical Advisory Committee, Lyndon Historical Society, and is co-editor with Virginia Downs and Denise Brown for the Lyndon Historical Society newsletter, the Lyndon Legacy. Harriet enjoys reading, research, writing, dancing, going to fairs and many other events. She also enjoys working and writing about her family’s history. Harriet has seven grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.
Virginia Campbell Downs is a native of Lyndonville, a graduate of Lyndon Institute (1942) and the University of Vermont (1946).
Following graduation from the University of Vermont, she worked for two years at the Burlington Daily and Sunday News. For three years she was assistant editor of the Avisco News, published in New York City by the American Viscose Corporation for its employees. She then founded and edited for two years an employee magazine, Kellogg World, for M.W. Kellogg Company, an international oil refinery construction company. In 1953 she returned to Vermont to marry John Downs, an attorney. Following her marriage, she continued writing on a freelance basis. In addition to the Northland Journal, her writing has appeared in Vermont Life, Yankee Magazine, and several Vermont newspapers. She has also authored four books: Life by the Tracks—when passenger trains steamed through the Notch; Mansions & Meadows: Lyndon the Way it Was; Northeast Kingdom Cookbook; and Voices from the Kingdom. She was a contributing author to the anthology The University of Vermont: The First Two Hundred Years.
Virginia has a keen interest in local and state history. She is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the Vermont Historical Society, and has served as president and currently is vice president of the Lyndon Historical Society. She is a co-editor of Lyndon Legacy, the Society’s quarterly publication.
Dave Lepitre
The Northland Journal is fortunate to have a genealogy column each month thanks to Dave Lepitre of Stanstead, Quebec, who donates his work and research to this publication.
Dave has been compiling a genealogy column called “Your Ancestry in The
Stanstead Journal” since 1990 and helping people find answers to their genealogical queries since the mid 1980s for the Stanstead Historical Society. His column has appeared in other newspapers and at www.tomifobia.com where people researching their roots will find a few years of back “Your Ancestry” columns and other useful information to help with research. Some of that information has been reproduced in various historical-genealogical society newsletters and journals. An index to the surnames to be found in 14-plus years of columns can be searched for you upon request.
The Stanstead man’s interest in genealogy began in high school. He wanted to learn more about his family, a family that is rooted on both sides of the border. A member of historical societies on both sides of the border, he is a respected voice on border history and the genealogy of the families that have called it home over the years.
Trained as a teacher, Dave made a career in the funeral home business. He married the boss’s daughter, he said as he reflected on their 29 years together, a partnership that lasted until her death in 2002. His daughter, like her mother and grandmother, is a teacher.
Dave currently owns and operates a small printing business in Stanstead where folks drop in to talk genealogy and to look at old photos of people from our international community. He can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 484, Derby Line, Vermont 05830-0484 or by emailing him at dlepitre@abacom.com. If people submit a query and would like a written reply, he asks that a self-addressed stamped envelope be included.
Frank Hamilton’s – none of Frank’s articles have appeared in the Northland Journal in recent months, but Frank is a continual source of story ideas and material. Born on July 20, 1920, Frank is from a long line of dentists who practiced dentistry in Newport, Vermont, for decades. The World War II veteran, who now lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, has lived an interesting life, much of it well away from his true love—Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. The 1937 graduate of Newport High also graduated from Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont, and Indiana University. He spent his professional career as a teacher and as a coach (wrestling and football).
While he was born in Vermont, Frank’s travels have taken him around the world and into many interesting situations. Frank once was invited to have tea with the now late Queen Mother of England, an invitation he happily accepted. As a young man, during a trip to Boston on November 28, 1942, Frank witnessed, and took part in the rescue effort, of one of this country’s worst disasters—the burning of the Coconut Grove night club, a fire that claimed 491 lives. Frank has been interviewed by numerous publications as well as by film crews about his memories of this horrific fire. Because of his experience at the fire scene, Frank has been a tireless advocate of the importance of fire safety in the home and workplace. This chapter of Frank’s life will appear in an issue of the Northland Journal in the coming months.
Jacques Boisvert provides an occasional storyline from north of the border in Quebec. The Magog, Quebec, man is highly respected for his knowledge of the history of Lake Memphremagog and the communities that surround it on both sides of the border. He is known as a true goodwill ambassador between the two neighboring countries.
An avid scuba diver, Jacques has plunged into the depths of Lake Memphremagog, a lake that stretches about 30 miles from Newport, Vermont, to Magog, Quebec, thousands of times. During these dives he has found many historical artifacts of the region’s past that otherwise would have remained buried. During his dives into Lake Memphremagog he has found no firm evidence that a huge lake creature known as Memphre lives in the lake, but he has worked diligently to record other people’s sightings. When the Memphre Tower, a sightseeing tower in Magog was dedicated in 2003, Jacques was honored for his years of dedication to Lake Memphremagog and the communities surrounding it. Jacques also appeared on the movie, The Legend of Memphre.
Carla Occaso of Kirby is the Northland Journal’s most recent regular contributor. She joins a host of other contributors who work diligently to preserve and share the history and culture of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.
A native of East Montpelier, writing and photography came naturally to Carla. Her father, Daniel A. Neary, Jr., served as the third-ever Vermont Associated Press correspondent in the 1970s. Her mother, Emily Neary, works in the Statehouse.
Thinking back onto her career and her life, Carla said that she practically grew up in the family’s darkroom where her father developed his film. By seven years old she was helping her father hand develop 35-millimeter negatives and printing black and white photographs using an enlarger. She went on to study photography at U-32 High School in Montpelier under Omri Parsons. Her love for photography and writing took her to New York University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in film and television.
Carla’s professional writing career includes stints with both the Lyndonville Independent, a now defunct newspaper once based in Lyndonville, and the Caledonian Record in St. Johnsbury. While at the St. Johnsbury-based newspaper, she worked as a writer, and later as a feature editor. Her work has also appeared in Vermont Life (Summer 2004), the Northstar Monthly, based in Danville, and the Green Mountain Trading Post. Carla currently works as the Northeast Kingdom correspondent for the Times Argus in Montpelier. Besides having a passion for writing and photography, she enjoys studying the history and culture of the Northeast Kingdom, and talking with those who know it the best—the people who have lived in the region for years, sometimes even generations.
The writer lives in Kirby with her husband, Ray, and their six-year-old son, Kirby. If you have a good story idea for the Northland Journal, particularly relating to history and culture of Caledonia and southern Essex counties, please contact Carla at nekvoice@yahoo.com.
While the previously mentioned writers are some of the more regular contributors to the Northland Journal, many other people have contributed work to the Journal throughout the last three years. Their articles are no less important. I strongly encourage and welcome people to write with their own stories. It isn’t necessary to be professional writers and researchers; just have a story to tell that is somehow related to Vermont’s past that you want to share with the readers of this publication. If necessary, we at the Northland Journal can work with the writer to get the stories in publishing form without taking away from the character of the person. It’s our general belief that no story is too unimportant to tell when it comes to the history and culture of this region. We also welcome the submission of pictures that have historical and cultural significance to Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom and its neighbors.
The People Behind the Scenes
Theresa Perron She graduated from Lyndon State College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication arts and science, with a concentration in graphic design. She owns her own business, Perron Graphics, in West Glover, where she offers design and print services from brochures, labels, resumes, book layout, to table-top displays used at job fairs. She has many years experience in the publishing business, working for Troll Press in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, as a graphic designer, with Creative Pages of Stowe, Vermont, as art director and design layout person, and at Moose River Publishing in St. Johnsbury as graphic designer. She also worked for the Chronicle, a local weekly newspaper, in many aspects of the newspaper business first as graphic artist, writer and photographer, production assistant/manager and as an advertising sales representative. People can contact her at tjlj@perrongraphics.com or 802.525.1115.
Jeannine B. Young, the copy editor and proofreader, has owned The Little House Desktop Publishing in West Glover for 12 years, and has worked as a production assistant at the Chronicle for the past eight years. Jeannine has a bachelor’s degree in social science, with a concentration in history, from Chapman College, Orange, California. She worked in civil service at Edwards Air Force Base, California, for 16 years, first as an administrative specialist and later as a computer specialist. Contact her at lhdtp@sover.net
Bill Alexander: The Northland Journal’s web site has undergone a tremendous transformation in the past couple of months thanks to my friend, and a very accomplished web designer, Bill Alexander, the owner of Alpine Web Media (formerly Internet Creations).
Bill, who grew up in Newport, now lives in Jericho, Vermont. He attended North Country Union High School in Newport during the 1970s. Although he no longer lives in the Kingdom, he maintains strong ties to the region of his youth. Bill explained that one of the reasons he developed his site in the first place is because he prefers the Vermont of his earlier years when Vermont was a very different place than the Vermont of the new millennium.
In the mid-1990s, Bill created one of the first web sites in the state to showcase the Northeast Kingdom. The Vermont Northeast Kingdom Guide laid the groundwork for the tourism-related web sites that were soon to follow. He also created and maintained the Vermont North Country Chamber of Commerce web site for many years.
“The hard working, ‘tell it like it is’ wit, razor-sharp sarcasm and no-nonsense attitudes of generations past made Vermont unique,” he said, adding that these days the original culture of Vermont is quickly being phased out in favor of more metropolitan views and beliefs. With the tourism bases already well covered, Alexander decided to change the format of the Vermont Northeast Kingdom Guide as a tribute to the multi-generations of Vermonters who live and work each day in the Green Mountains.
The Vermont Northeast Kingdom Guide is no longer just a tourist guide. It is a guide for Vermonters both near and far away to reminisce and maybe chuckle a bit at some of the memories and myths. Now expanded into Vermonter.com, the web site continues to explore some of the more unique aspects of Vermont. Humor, nonsense and just about any subject is fair game. Real Vermonters wouldn’t have it any other way! Alexander welcomes businesses from across Vermont to advertise on his site. Check out Bill’s website at www.Vermonter.com. Or contact him about your web design needs at btvbill@yahoo.com |
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