July 28, 1902, a Monday evening. Clarence Adams was driving home from Chester village when two men stopped his wagon. He couldn't make out their faces but one of them had a shotgun. They wanted money, they said, or they'd shoot.

The Disappearance of Victory Ploof

Vermont is known for the beauty of its woods and mountains, but the cost of that beauty is often forgotten. For much of our history, Vermonters endured unimaginable hardship and poverty that limited opportunities for growth and preserved, as if unchanged, the landscape of today. Their suffering is always with us, written on the land, inscribed in cellar-holes and graveyards and orchards gone to wild. Welcome to These Dark Mountains.&nbsp;