Here is a letter that appeared in another paper:
"This summer over 500 Vermont Citizens have attended our documentary entitled "Children of the Island Pond Raid:An Emerging Culture".
As a Vermonter I hope that many in Bennington can also learn what
>>>
actually took place prior to, during and after that eventful June
22nd, 1984 summer day in Newport, Vermont twenty-one years ago. This important documentary will be shown September 8th, 7PM in the Rotary Room, Bennington Free Library, 101 Silver Street
I was born in Newport, Vermont and have lived most of my
life here in the beautiful Green Mountains. What the people of
>>> Bennington have opportunity to learn is that the two years before the raid
the media was full of reports that not only had a "strange group"
moved into the Northeast Kingdom, but that they had committed all
sorts of alarming practices. Such reports created suspicion and a
sense of "moral panic" that the group was a social danger.
>>> The press in 1983 did not reveal that Vermont families invited the Church to Vermont. These were solid families who farmed, owned businesses and
>>> worked in our factories. In fact one of them was my baby
>>> sitter when I was 18 months old at our farm on Pine Hill in Newport!
>>> These Vermonters desired to pursue peace, happiness and a high quality
>>> of life for themselves and their children. Of such people and their character President Calvin Coolidge referred to in his, "I Love the Indomitable Spirit of Vermonters" declaration here in Bennington, February, 1928.
Were not the Pilgrim Fathers who founded this country
seeking the same goal? The Pilgrims had to leave their old land
behind to create the land that we now live in as home. They
cherished the freedoms they were seeking and sought to preserve
them...."
You can read the rest here:
http://www.advocateweekly.com/default.asp?Action=ShowArticle&articleid=51153