Prologue
The lightly inhabited northeast corner of Vermont and the northern tip of New Hampshire constitute a land unto itself locals call The North Country. It still stands today as one of New England’s frontiers against modernity. Mind you, this is not on purpose. The area is a picture-puzzle of hardship and beauty befitting the old Yankee joke, “You can’t get there from here.” With its weather and isolation from airports, trains, shopping centers, and Hollywood, the old adage is sometimes true. In fact, if you ask most adults where to find a mall, they would probably send you to Hank’s Hardware and tell you to look near the axes. Even today it is possible to attend Colebrook’s Moose Festival on a cool August day and not see a teen with a cell phone glued to his or her ear. Most of the kids will either be flirting or clustered around the dunking booth watching one of their own shivering from repeated soakings.
And if isolation builds character, the North Country has plenty of it. On the other hand this is a place where it is hard to be self-absorbed. Here politics are traditionally conservative because that’s what has always worked. The creed is “mind your own business, but be ready to help your neighbors.” This formula has served for more than two hundred years, so why change?
National problems don’t generally start here. An exception was when a chunk of New Hampshire and a smidgeon of Vermont combined to form The Republic of Indian Stream. The residents seceded from the Union in 1832. Even dyed in the wool Yankees conceded that this was taking local control a wee bit too far.
A more recent instance started in June, 1997 while most local folk approached the summer solstice completely unconcerned about the coming century. They were using the lengthening summer days to visit family and friends, tip that extra beer, and build their hard-working lives.
Meanwhile a Massachusetts man used the approaching millennium to expand his national profits. He likened his business plan to yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theatre while charging people to exit. And if yelling didn’t work, J.R. Beattie was not averse to setting the fire. Miller Press in Clarksville, New Hampshire was supposed to play a minor role in this plan, but here his scheme began to unravel thanks to a cat, a cleaning woman, and two young lovers.
