In Episode 409 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the ruins of Ricker Basin, a Waterbury, Vermont, ghost town that survived just over a century before a massive 1927 storm ravaged the region, killing over 50 people and leaving behind a village that was no longer viable. Today the cellar holes, cemetery, and a dilapidated structure is all that stands as a testament that someone was once here.
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Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Theme Music by: John Judd
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[DRIVING]
RAY: We’re driving up Little River Road in the town of Waterbury, Vermont.
JEFF: We are. We’re pretty close to the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream factory if you want stop by after our adventure today.
RAY: I’m always down for ice cream. (BEAT) Okay, we’re passing a dam near the Waterbury Reservoir.
JEFF: Yes, that dam is part of the reason we’re here driving into Little River State Park.
RAY: This is a gorgeous recreation area. It looks like a good place for a campsite or a picnic.
JEFF: That’s all true… today. But there was a time when this place saw a horrible disaster that left behind death and destruction. Construction on that dam we just passed began in 1935 in response to a flood that killed dozens of people, and created the place we’ve come to see. We’re in Waterbury looking for the ruins of Ricker Basin. An old farming community that today… is a ghost town.
[INTRO]
JEFF: Hello, I’m Jeff Belanger and welcome to Episode 409 of the New England Legends podcast.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Thank you for riding along with us on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time. Also, soon we’re going to be launching a new companion podcast that features interviews with you! If you’ve had a strange encounter in New England, or a weird New England-based tale to share, please email us through our website. We may like to speak with you for this new project.
JEFF: We’ll explore this Vermont ghost town right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
[DRIVING / CAR STOPS / DOORS CLOSE]
RAY: Little River State Park is pretty. There’s the water, looks like there are some camp sites here. There’s plenty of woods with hiking trails.
JEFF: All true. And those woods hide something… the ruins of an old ghost town.
[WALKING IN WOODS]
JEFF: Let’s head out on the trail.
RAY: I have the trail map here. We’re walking along Hedgehog Hill Loop Trail heading northeast. This park map is really helpful. It marks where all of the various buildings and homes of Ricker Basin used to be.
JEFF: Right. We’ll be able to identify the cellar holes and former farms and homes of the people who lived here.
RAY: Back in 1816, Joseph Ricker came to this area and established a farm. In those early years, there wasn’t much up this way, but then the railroad came through and that meant people and goods could come and go. Within a few more years there were 50 families living in what was called the Ricker Basin. There were farms, a school, a trading post, multiple sawmills, and all of the other things that make a town.
JEFF: It looks like we’re coming up on our first stop.
RAY: Wow… We’re walking up to a small cemetery. There’s not a lot of headstones, but they’re in pretty good shape. This one says: Mary A. Lord, wife of Gideon Ricker, died December 2nd, 1886. Her husband Gideon is buried beside her.
JEFF: There’s some colonial stone walls marking the small area. (BEAT) Let’s keep moving.
[HIKING WOODS]
JEFF: Up ahead is what’s left of a small house.
RAY: Okay, that place is creepy. It’s a small, two story wooden house. It dilapidated. There’s a bunch of graffiti on it too.
JEFF: According to our map, that would be the Almeron Goodell house… or what’s left of it.
RAY: It doesn’t look safe to go inside.
JEFF: No probably not. The wood looks rotted.
RAY: Between the cemetery, the stone walls, the cellar holes, and this rotting corpse of a house, you can clearly see this used to be a small town.
JEFF: A small town that went bust. By the late 1800s, most of the families had moved out of Ricker Basin, but several hung in there until a violent act of nature finished off the community for good. To find out what happened, let’s head back to the year 1927.
[TRANSITION
RAY: It’s early November of 1927 here in what’s left of the Ricker Basin community. Calvin Coolidge is in the White House, Prohibition is still in full swing, but America is still working. Here in this part of Vermont, logging is still big business, which is keeping a few people in Ricker Basin employed.
JEFF: Ricker Basin has been dwindling over the years. Several families tried to make a go at farming here, but the soil isn’t good for crops. Young people who were born here moved on to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Those who stayed, work in lumber, but even that isn’t easy these days. You can feel the depression in the air.
[THUNDER / LIGHTNING]
RAY: That’s not all you can feel. It looks like another storm is brewing.
[RAIN BEGINS]
JEFF: It’s the evening of November 2nd when the rain starts. A steady downpour.
RAY: The folks here in Ricker Basin are concerned because there’s already been a lot of rain this past summer and so far this fall. It already rained last weekend. The ground is already saturated, and the streams and rivers are high. This area doesn’t need any more rain right now.
[RAIN GETS INTENSE]
RAY: There’s concern as people gaze out the windows at the sheets of falling rain.
[RAIN][WIND]
JEFF: The nearby Winooski River was already high before this storm started. Hopefully this weather passes through quickly.
RAY: As hours pass, the rain isn’t letting up at all. No one can recall ever seeing this much rain hold steady for this long. No one can sleep. Water is beginning to trickle into the houses now.
JEFF: It’s about 4AM. Torrents of rain are taking a heavy toll. It’s estimated there’s already been about seven inches of rainfall in the last six hours. But with dawn still a few hours away, no one can assess what kind of danger they may be in. All they know is their homes are flooding. Water is still rising.
[RAIN] [TREES BREAKING AND FALLING]
RAY: Everyone inside is petrified. Trees are falling over in the storm. If a tree falls on the house, everyone inside could be killed.
JEFF: When dawn breaks, it’s clear everyone in Ricker Basin is in serious trouble. The Winooski River is already ten feet higher than it should be. It’s a raging rapid right now. We can see fallen trees, and parts of houses and bridges are floating past. I can only imagine how much worse it is further down the valley in the town of Waterbury.
RAY: This is really bad. Those who can, are heading for higher ground. But some people near the river and have climbed onto their roofs rather than risk being swept up in the current of the flooded river surrounding their houses.
[RAIN]
JEFF: Meanwhile, the rain continues to fall. There’s no end in sight.
[CRUMBLING BUILDING / SCREAMS IN DISTANCE]
JEFF/RAY: Ohhh no! Did you see that?!
RAY: That house by the river was just washed away with people clinging to the roof for their lives.
JEFF: This is terrible. It’s too dangerous to even try and help. If we get any closer to the river we could be swept away too.
RAY: For those stuck on their roofs, all they can do is pray. For those on higher ground, all they can do is watch in horror as farm animals, homes, bridges, and people are swept away.
[RAIN FOR A LONG TIME THEN SLOW FADE]
JEFF: It’s about 11AM on November 4th when the storm finally moves on. The rain stops, and the Winooski River is swollen over 13 feet higher than normal. All of the houses in Ricker Basin closest to the river are gone. As the flood waters slowly recede, there nothing but debris, silt, and mud left in the wake.
RAY: But the time everyone is accounted for, 84 lives have been lost in Vermont, with 55 of those losses coming from the Winooski River basin.
JEFF: For the survivors left in the Ricker Basin community, the message is clear. It’s time to move on. There’s not much left here, and another storm like that would surely finish off what’s left. Pretty soon, Ricker Basin is a ghost town. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: The flood of 1927 is still considered the worst natural disaster in the history of Vermont. Not just the loss of human life, but property as well. Mills and factories were wiped away, livestock drowned, the losses totaled almost half a billion dollars in today’s money.
JEFF: It was bad. In April of 1935, construction began on the earthen dam along the Winooski River just north of Waterbury, Vermont. The dam created this large reservoir, but also submerged part of what was left of the old Ricker Basin community. The Waterbury dam was completed in 1938. Thankfully, no storm like the 1927 version has come through since. Although Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 was a close second.
RAY: Once in a while we need a reminder that nature is in charge. Not us.
JEFF: And today the ghost town ruins of Ricker Basin remind us that people once lived here even though it wasn’t easy. They forged a life. Children were born here, and people died here. Though their footprints, buildings, and cemeteries are slowly fading back into the forest, there’s enough left behind that I can’t help but feel like we’re trespassing. We’re walking through someone else’s properties, homes, and former farm fields in a place wiped almost entirely away in a single violent and destructive storm.
[OUTTRO]
RAY: Whenever you think you’re in charge, nature is always ready to remind you that you’re not. And that takes us to After the Legend where we take a deeper dive into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
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To see some pictures of Ricker Basin and the flood of 1927, click on the link in our episode description, or go to our website and click on Episode 409.
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