Farms, Flatlanders, and Fords: A Story of People and Place in Rural Vermont 1890–2010

When recently asked what he saw as different and the same about the
North Pomfret, Vermont rural neighborhood he had grown up in, Duffy
Dana simply answered “everything’s different and nothing’s the same.”

Such an answer begs details and questions what actually comprises
neighborhood life? Farms, Flatlanders, and Fords (as in automobiles) looks
deep into the twentieth-century history of this rural Vermont neighborhood
to describe how it changed from a farm community to a modern semibedroom/
second home community.

Agricultural decline, the influx of wealthy and educated newcomers, and
the integration of the automobile and its impact on daily life provides the
framework for the story.

Farms, Flatlanders, and Fords also explores the role of community
organizations, work, housing, kinship, education, conflict, and personalities
to show how the neighborhood adapted to new times. The book will resonate
with anyone interested in contemporary rural Vermont.

The North Pomfret of Farms, Flatlanders, and Fords portrays one
community as it was and will never again be.