Author delves into the history of Vermont’s CCC Camps, looking for personal accounts


Members of one of 30 CCC Camps throughout Vermont.

VERMONT - Marty Podskoch, author of three books on the Civilian Conservation Corps camps in the Adirondacks, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, is gathering information for a book on the Vermont CCC camps. In just nine years CCC camps established and developed half of Vermont’s state parks.
The CCC began on March 31, 1933, under President Roosevelt’s New Deal to relieve the poverty and unemployment of the Depression. CCC camps were set up in many towns, state parks, and forests. Workers built trails, roads, campsites, and dams; stocked fish; built and maintained fire tower observers cabins and telephone lines; fought fires; and planted millions of trees. The CCC disbanded in 1942 due to the need for men in World War II.
There were approximately 30 CCC camps in or near these Vermont towns: Barre, Bellows Falls, Bethel, Brunswick, Burke, Cavendish, Charlotte, Colchester, Danby, East Barre, East Burke, Elmore, Fayston, Groton, Ludlow, Marshfield, Mendon, Middlesex, Milton, Montpelier, Moscow/Stowe, Northfield, North Shrewsbury, North Thetford, Peru, Plymouth, Proctorsville, Poultney, Rickers Mills, Rochester, St. Albans, Sharon, Sutton, Townshend, Underhill Center, Waterbury, Weston, Wilmington, and Windsor.
Vermont was originally allocated four CCC camps but, thanks to the dynamic presence of state forester Perry H. Merrill, received considerably more assistance than other states. Merrill’s foresight in earlier developing long range conservation, flood control, and forest management activities and his lobbying of CCC national director Robert Fechner, attracted substantially increased funding of CCC activities in Vermont. Thirty CCC camps operated in Vermont in 1937 and, between 1933 and 1942, a total of 40,868 individuals worked in Vermont CCC camps. Only about one-quarter were Vermonters. Most of the CCC men who worked in Vermont camps were from Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
Podskoch, a former reading teacher from Delhi, NY, in the Catskills, is author of 11 books. Three are on the history and lore of the Adirondacks, Connecticut, and Rhode Island CCC camps. In his CCC books he was fortunate to interview over 200 CCC boys and has been able to preserve their life stories and  work in the CCC. This has become Podskoch’s passion: to find out more about the CCC and spread the news about their great accomplishments.   
If anyone knows of living CCC men or have family members who worked in the CCC, Podskoch would love to hear from them. He is looking for photos and stories of the men working in the camps. He is also willing to give Power Point talks on CCC camps to any  town libraries, historical societies or schools.
Podskoch can be contacted by mail at 43 O’Neill Lane, East Hampton, CT 06424, or call (860) 267-2442 or email podskoch@comcast.net. For more information visit martinpodskoch.com.

The Deerfield Valley News

797 VT Route 100 North
Wilmington, VT 05363

Phone: 802-464-3388
Fax: 802-464-7255

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