Matthew Farfan

Holland and Its Neighbors is a new book in the popular “Images of America” series, by Arcadia Publishing. Compiled by the Holland Historical Society (of Holland, Vermont), the book, like others in the series, is a pictorial look back at the area’s past. In the book’s own words, Holland and Its Neighbors offers us “a glimpse of bygone times in a rural area of northeastern Vermont along the Canadian border… The Images of America series celebrates the history of neighbourhoods, towns, and cities across the country. Using archival photographs, each title presents the distinctive stories from the past that shape the character of the community today.”

Because Holland is a border community, and because it had (and still has) close familial, cultural, historical, and economic ties with the villages in the nearby Eastern Townships of Quebec -- especially Baldwin’s Mills, Barnston, Stanstead, Stanstead East, and Rock Island -- these villages are well represented in the book, along with Holland’s other Vermont neighbors. In fact – and the book makes this point – at one time Holland’s ties with its Canadian neighbors were just as strong as its ties with towns in the U.S., and villages on both sides of the Line “interacted as one larger community.”

Holland and Its Neighbors contains the following chapters: Holland; Tice Hollow; Holland Center; Caswell’s Mills and North Holland; The Border and Neighbors; Canadian Neighbors; Derby Line and Derby; Norton, Warner’s Grant, and Warren Gore; Morgan; and Charleston. Chapters five through seven, or about one-third of the book, pertain directly to the border communities of the Eastern Townships.

Aside from a general introductory page, introductory paragraphs for each chapter, and photo captions, there is very little text in the book. Essentially Holland and Its Neighbors is a scrapbook. But what a scrapbook this is! What a collection of memories! The book leads us on a visual journey back through time to the very beginnings of this hard-working frontier community. There are maps and some splendid photographs here -- scenes of logging, haying, horse-drawn treadmills, sleighs, farm life, hunting, hurricanes, fires, muddy roads, covered bridges, one-room schoolhouses, general stores, pioneer inns, parades, public celebrations, and many of the people who helped shape the fabric of this border world.

For the most part, the photographs in the book are reproduced from the collections of local historical societies and individuals who have carefully preserved them over the years. And fortunately for us they did, for had they not, we would not have such a fine visual record of this somewhat out-of-the-way border community.

Released in 2004 by Arcadia Publishing, Holland and Its Neighbors retails for $19.99 U.S. Soft-cover, 128 pages, and lavishly illustrated, the book is available in bookstores, independent retailers, on-line bookstores, or through Arcadia Publishing at www.arcadiapublishing.com.