Vintage Vermont Villainies: True Tales of Murder & Mystery from the 19th and 20th Centuries [Paperback]

John Stark Bellamy II (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2007

A bona fide collection of dreadful and diabolical true-crime stories you'll never believe took place in Vermont.

Containing accounts of ten classic murders and two inexplicable disappearances, Vintage Vermont Villainies is a veritable "best of the best" of Vermont homicides occurring between 1874 and 1957. Bellamy's catalog of miscreants includes Mary Rogers, whose seduction of two brothers paved the way to eliminating her inconvenient husband; and John Winters, whose date with the electric chair enlisted the sympathies of Clarence Darrow. This is true crime for every country home bed table.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Stark Bellamy II is the author of six previous collections of murder and disaster stories. He has published widely in newspapers and periodicals. He lives in Corinth, Vt.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Countryman (September 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881507490
• ISBN-13: 978-0881507492
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 7.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #948,928 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The son, grandson and great-grandson of journalists, I grew up in a family saturated with glorious, if often shocking memories and tales of bygone Cleveland. Reading was the most intense obsession of my childhood, and it remains so. A tormented and mortifying puberty added rambling amid graveyards and pondering human tragedies to my preoccupations. At the tail end of a much prolonged adolescence and too many wasted years in academia, I decided to become a librarian, for lack of a better alternative and because it was the best opportunity to be around books and the people who love them-- without having to put up with intellectuals as a class. Some twenty years ago, arriving at the sere and yellow leaf of middle age, I realized I had not yet become the celebrated Cleveland writer I'd always yearned to be, and so I decided to get cracking. I knew nothing about writing, save the clichéd caveat to "write about what you know," so I decided to recreate the crimes and calamities of my beloved hometown. Six books containing over 140 stories ensued, not to mention sidelines as a lecturer and tour guide to scenes of Cleveland misfortune. A few years ago I moved to Vermont and soon after produced "Vintage Vermont Villainies," a collection of Green Mountain State slayings and disappearances. But my heart remains smitten with the romance of Cleveland dismalia, and I probably couldn't stop writing about it even if I tried. Indeed, I still possess an archive of Cleveland murders and disasters totaling some 15,000 items, so my stock of Forest City woe is unlikely to deplete any time soon. In the winter of 2011 I published "A Woman Scorned: The Murder of George Saxton - An American Melodrama," a full-length narrative of the mysterious murder of President William McKinley's playboy brother-in-law. It remains my all-time favorite murder tale. And in August, 2011, I published "One Man's Mirror" (a collection of the columns of Samuel Jewett Kelly,a virtual history of Cleveland as told in the incomparable personal reminisences of a veteran newspaper reporter who knew everybody and saw everything during the city's most vibrant era.) In the works is a history of Cleveland's most violent civil disorder--suprisingly not either of its traumatic 1960s racial upheavals--and "Wasted on the Young," a memoir of my tumultuous youth. If nothing else the latter will furnish a perfect illustration of a remark uttered by the late British comedian, Peter Cook. Famously alcoholic and frenetically self-destructive, Cook was asked towards the end of his life, during a radio interview, whether he had learned anything from his innumerable mistakes. "Why, yes," he replied without hesitation, "I could repeat them all exactly."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An antique and gothic read, September 11, 2007

By 

H. Grove "Errant Dreams Reviews" (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vintage Vermont Villainies: True Tales of Murder & Mystery from the 19th and 20th Centuries (Paperback)

John Stark Bellamy II's "Vintage Vermont Villainies: True Tales of Murder & Mystery from the 19th and 20th Centuries" contains 12 stories of disappearance, mishap, manslaughter, and murder, all of which are straight out of the annals of Vermont history. If you're familiar with the area it's a tad chilling recognizing so many names of towns, newspapers, roads and so on, but even if you aren't the stories are quite compelling.

Bellamy worked with cases at least several decades old and sometimes more than a century old. This gives the entire book a gothic, antique feel, much strengthened by Bellamy's style of writing. It's clear he did quite a bit of reading from period newspapers and journals, and that he allowed the old styles to infuse his work. This creates a beautiful and oddly enchanting hybrid of real-life and an almost otherworldly feel, rendering his subjects quite captivating.

Bellamy deliberately chose cases based on the odd and inexplicable personalities involved, or the unusual events. Many of these stories do not have clear endings. The disappearances weren't always solved; the guilt or innocence of the perpetrator wasn't always proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. We can only guess at the thoughts that went through the heads of victim and attacker alike. These stories do have a few things in common, however. They're fascinating. They're a window into another time, one we're often tempted to think of as far simpler--but which held plenty of its own dangers. They're a stark look at some of the failings and triumphs of the justice system, as well as the ways in which attitudes of the time (particularly with regard to gender and insanity) shaped justice.


[Review copy courtesy of Countryman Press]

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gothic Vermont., January 5, 2011

By 

Terence M. Hines (Chappaqua, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vintage Vermont Villainies: True Tales of Murder & Mystery from the 19th and 20th Centuries (Paperback)

H. Grove's previous very positive review is spot on. This is a fascinating book, especially for someone who, like me, grew up in the area. I was fascinated to read, in chapter 5 on the 1957 Gibson murder in Newbury VT, that one of the defense attorneys in the first trial was Peter Plante. His son, T.J., was a friend and classmate of mine in high school. My only slight problem with the book is that I would have liked a more detailed bibliography. Time and time again the author quotes newspaper stories without giving the exact sources, which would have been easy to do.