In Episode 385 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the ruin of Greenbank’s Hollow in Danville, Vermont. Though today the site is a collection of cellar holes and foundations, at one point this was a bustling community with a massive woolen mill at its center. Greenbank arrived in 1849 and built the business up until a tragedy took everyone’s livelihood away leaving behind a ghost town.
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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.
[DRIVINGIN CAR]
JEFF: Okay, we should be getting close now.
RAY: Okay. So we’re driving along a rural dirt road in Danville, Vermont. We’ve only passed a couple of houses.
JEFF: Yeah, there’s not much up here… at least not anymore. Okay, we’re going to sort of bear to the right up here and go across the intersection.
RAY: Oh cool! There’s an old wooden covered bridge in front of us.
JEFF: And our destination is just on the other side of that bridge.
RAY: It’s a one lane bridge, but I haven’t seen another car in a while.
JEFF: You can pull the car in right there on the left just after the bridge. There’s a little dirt parking area.
RAY: Got it.
[CAR STOPS / DOORS OPEN/CLOSE]
RAY: Okay, I don’t see much here. A few grassy clearings, there are some park benches on the hill. What are we looking for?
JEFF: I admit, there’s not much left to see now. But there are some hidden relics and mysteries here that we’ll need to search for. We’ve come to Danville, Vermont, to explore the ruin of Greenbank’s Hollow.
[INTRO]
JEFF: I’m Jeff Belanger, welcome to Episode 385 of the New England Legends podcast.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Thanks for joining us on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time. Please be sure to like and subscribe to our podcast because it’s free! And if you’d post a review and tell a friend or two about us, that will help our community of legend-seekers grow.
JEFF: We’ll go searching for the ruin of Greenbank’s Hollow right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
JEFF: Ray, remember when we were young kids, the main streets of our small towns were full of shops, diners, stores, five and dimes.
RAY: Yup. My town had all of that.
JEFF: But then we got to be teenagers….
RAY: And the big shopping malls came in.
JEFF: They did! I remember going to Danbury Fair Mall in Connecticut as a kid. It was our favorite hangout as a young teen without a driver’s license. We’d get dropped off there for hours. We’d hit the food court, the arcade, check out the stores…
RAY: I remember! I used to hang out at the Auburn Mall in Massachusetts. Good times.
JEFF: But then…
RAY: But then the shopping malls killed Main Street. All of those shops and stores were left empty. It was depressing to see.
JEFF: It was. But times change. You evolve or perish. That includes businesses too.
RAY: And today we’re seeing the large shopping malls dwindling as people move to online shopping.
JEFF: And we’ve seen some of our Main Street shops and cafes returning to cater to people who want to see and touch something before they buy it.
RAY: The times and business never stay stagnant very long.
JEFF: Anyway, back to why we’re here in this remote section of Danville, Vermont.
RAY: Right. That.
JEFF: You can see there’s an historic marker by the side of the road.
RAY: Oh yeah. It says: Greenbank’s Hollow – a Forgotten Village.
JEFF: And if we walk down this hill a little bit toward the stream called Joe’s Brook—which used to be called Merritt’s River—we can see some remnants.
[SOUND OF STREAM FADING IN]
RAY: Okay, yeah, I can see the stone foundation from a large building that was right next to the water.
JEFF: There are other cellar holes around here too. An entire village almost swallowed back up by nature at this point. To find out how it got here, and why it went away, let’s head back to the year 1849.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: It’s the Spring of 1849 here in Vermont. President Zachary Taylor was just sworn into office last month, the nation is buzzing about the gold rush to California. In fact, California is applying for statehood as tons of people flock there looking to strike it rich. Railroad tracks are being laid down in almost every state, and industry is growing everywhere.
JEFF: Industry around this part of Vermont is being driven by Merritt’s River. The river flows easterly through town and powers over 30 businesses. Those waterwheels are driving mills of all kinds. There’s opportunity here, and an entrepreneur named Benjamin Greenbank knows it.
RAY: Benjamin Greenbank just purchased the existing Bolton woolen mill that was built in 1795. The mill turns sheep’s wool into cloth that’s then sold on the open market. Though the Bolton mill isn’t that large, Greenbank’s plans are.
[SAWING, HAMMERING, CONSTRUCTION]
RAY: In the coming months, Greenbank expands the woolen mill into a five-story factory. It’s now the largest factory in the region, and Greenbank is on a hiring frenzy.
JEFF: A factory that big requires people to run it. In the coming months, he hires 45 people from 25 different families.
RAY: With all of those families moving to be near the mill, they need housing…
[SAWING, HAMMERING, CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES UNDER THE NEXT FEW LINES]
RAY: And a store. And a school for the kids to attend.
JEFF: Pretty soon, Greenbank’s Hollow is bustling. The factory is processing tons of wool from dozens of sheep farmers in the region, and the giant facility is producing 700 yards of cloth daily.
RAY: In only a few years, this little village has the factory, a school, a store, a post office, a gristmill, sawmill, and several houses.
JEFF: The thing is, this is truly a company town, meaning Benjamin Greenbank owns all of it. Not just the land, but the store, the school, and every other building. One of the problems when you live and work in a company town is that you’re completely beholden to your boss. Greenbank sets the price of everything which more or less makes you an indentured servant.
RAY: Still, life is pretty good in this Vermont Hollow. There’s work, there’s shelter and food. Parents are able to raise their kids. Though they’re not exactly getting ahead, they are getting by.
JEFF: And that’s the way it goes here in Greenbank’s Hollow year after year.
(LONG PASE)
JEFF: It’s Monday. December 14th, 1885. Things here in the Hollow are quiet. It’s about ten o’clock at night, and the night watchman at Greenbank’s woolen factory is making his rounds.
[WALKING ON WOOD FLOORS]
JEFF: He’s making his way through the third floor of the building, holding his lantern and looking for any sign of trouble, but finding none. It’s a quiet night. Boring even. The watchman sets his lantern on a nail sticking out of one of the support beams.
[GLASS SHATTERS, FIRE STARTS]
RAY: OH NO! The night watchman MEANT to hang the lantern on a nail, but he missed. The lantern just crashed to the floor, and now there’s a fire spreading as the oil from the lantern burns on the floorboards of the factory.
JEFF: The factory floors have been soaked with decades of oily lanolin – which came out of the sheep’s wool. Lanolin is flammable. And now the fire is quickly spreading throughout the floor. The night watchman knows this fire is beyond his ability to contain it, so he runs for help.
[RUNNING ON FLOOR]
JEFF: The fire is spreading quickly through the third floor spewing smoke and firelight into the night.
[CROWD NOISE FADES IN]
RAY: Employees living nearby and even Mr. Greenbank, whose house is a short distance away sees the fire. They all come running to the factory building. Desperate, they fight the fire with buckets of water, with bags of sand, and anything else they can use. But years of oil have soaked into the wood. The fire is spreading to the floors above and below.
JEFF: To make things worse, they started the hydrant that feeds from the nearby river, but there’s a gearing inside that’s stuck. So no water is coming out. Within a few more minutes it’s clear that entering the building to fight the fire isn’t going to be possible. The situation is looking bleak.
RAY: The heat and fire are so intense that those gathered begin to remove any items and goods they can from the store and houses across the street from the factory building. The heat and flames are going to jump the road.
[FRIE DIES OUT]
RAY: It only takes a few hours for the factory to be reduced to ashes, as well as the post office and store, two houses, including Mr. Greenbank’s home, and the wooden covered bridge. With the bridge gone, Greenbank’s Hollow is cut off from some of the other buildings and the rest of Danville.
JEFF: By morning, it’s clear Greenbank’s Hollow is never going to be the same. There’s talk of rebuilding. After all, everyone has lost their livelihood. It may not be perfect, but it was a job that provided for families. But Benjamin Greenbank knows if he needs to rebuild, he might as well look at all of his options. He could rebuild here, sure. But maybe there’s a better place…
(PAUSE)
RAY: After exploring other options, Greenbank sees an opportunity to build a factory about 75 miles south in Enfield, New Hampshire. That location will offer him access to the railroad. And that could mean even bigger business opportunities for him. So Greenbank packs up and moves south.
JEFF: The folks left behind in Greenbank hollow have nothing. There aren’t many job opportunities with the factory gone, and finding work elsewhere is easier said than done. Some of the locals rebuild the store, and rebuild a smaller version of the gristmill, but it’s not enough. In the coming years the population dwindles as people move away for other work opportunities, until finally, the empty buildings are left to rot away. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
JEFF: Most of Greenbank’s Hollow residents moved away within the first three years after the fire. The rest hung in there for about another 20 years. The school closed its doors in 1912, and once the last people walked away, what was left rotted away until only the cellar holes remained.
RAY: Another part of the story we should mention is that wool supplies changed quite a bit since the time the factory was built in 1849. There were tariffs on woolens that were lowered in 1846. That stimulated foreign trade and increased demand. Which was a good thing for a number of years, but it also meant woolen manufacturing was popping up around the United States in greater numbers. The other problem was that the number of sheep to supply Greenbank’s factory steadily declined to the point where rebuilding in the same spot didn’t make much business sense either way. So everyone who lived and worked there more or less lost their livelihoods.
JEFF: And that’s a scary thing. The way of life you knew, your job, were all gone in just a few hours. Today we can walk around and see the foundation remains from another time and another way of life.
[WALKING]
RAY: So this sign reads B. Greenbank’s residence. There’s a square cellar hole and what’s left of the foundation. So I guess this is where the boss lived.
JEFF: It was. We already saw the large foundation down by the stream. On the other side of the bridge there are more foundations including a boarding house and the post office. The Danville, Vermont, Historical Society have marked each foundation with a sign to tell you which foundation was which building.
RAY: Today Greenbank’s Hollow is a ghost town. A reminder of what can happen when an industry or business collapses overnight. These markers and foundations are like a tombstone to remind us that no job and no way of life lasts forever.
[OUTTRO]
JEFF: No it doesn’t. And that takes us to After the Legend where we take a deeper dive into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
RAY: After the Legend is brought to you by our Patreon Patrons! This group is the ultimate New England Legends insiders. They support us financially in everything we do, whether it’s our hosting, marketing, or travel expenses, or supporting our charity Zombie Prom like they did last week. It’s just $3 bucks per month, and for that they get early ad-free access to new episodes plus bonus episodes and content that no one else gets to hear. They also get discounts on tickets and merch. Please go to patreon.com/newengland legends to sign up.
To see some pictures of the historic Greenbank’s Hollow, click on the link in our episode description, or go to our website and click on Episode 385.
If you’ve got a story we simply must check out, please reach out to us anytime through our website. Most of our story leads come from you. Plus, we love hearing from you. Our website is also the place to find out where to see Jeff on his ongoing story tour and where to see my band the Pub Kings. You should also check out our New England Legends Facebook group. There’s over 10,000 people in there sharing their stories of strangeness.
We’d like to thank our sponsors, thank you to our patreon patrons, and our theme music is by John Judd.
Until next time remember… the bizarre is closer than you think.
