On Friday, July 24, 1874, Marietta Ball dismissed her class and closed up the No 2 schoolhouse. As usual she intended to pass the weekend with Clara Paige and left directly from the school, carrying her nightdress, slippers, and underclothes in a bundle under arm.

The Suncook Town Tragedy (Marietta Ball, Part 2)

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;