54. was once the home to many communes

Sex, drugs and rock and roll have always been a lure for twenty-somethings. But in the late 1960s when combined with student protests against the war in Vietnam and the draft, which meant you might actually have to go and fight there after graduating from college, there was a great deal of dissatisfaction with the status quo among young people.

There was also the emergence of the “back-to-the-earth” movement. Vermont, being close to the major population centers of New York and Boston, ended up becoming the recipient of many of these youth in search of a new way of life. Some were also looking for a way to escape the coming revolution predicted, and in some cases fomented, by radicals.

They were also encouraged by the lyrics of popular songs and exhortation such a LSD guru Timothy Leary’s “Turn On, Tune In (and) Drop Out,” which he espoused that young people should find “the meaning of inner life.” Many of them did, in spades.

The locals were often less than thrilled. The influx of strange-looking people with even stranger lifestyle choices made it seem like Vermont was being invaded by bad actors. Conflicts, sometimes armed, were not unknown. And, complaints to the police and politicians ended up with raids and even property confiscations.

Vermont’s population grew 28 percent from 1964 (399,000), when out-of-staters started to move in to 1980 (511,456) by which time the commune movement was over. It was a clear break in past trends. Vermont’s population had been stagnant since before the Civil War.

Source: Amanda Kay Gustin and Jackie Calder, “1970s Vt: Fears Hippie Invasion,” Burlington Free Press April 3 2015 and available online at: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/2015/04/03/vt-fears-hippie-invasion/70846514/

Just how many communes were there in Vermont? Estimates vary but during the heyday of 1970-1971 there were likely about 50 communes in Vermont. The greatest concentration of communes—between 16 to 20—were clustered in the Brattleboro area, in the southeastern part of the state, especially around the towns of Guilford and Putney.

How many people lived on Vermont’s communes? Estimates again vary, and depend on how the word “lived on” is defined. Most of the communes were small, with a year round population of between six and 12 people. In many cases these were former college students living a lifestyle that was not that different from how they lived while away at school.

Then during the summer months, when school was out, and the weather turned warmer, the populations of the communes would swell dramatically. There was a constant churning—some stayed for an extended period, some spent a summer, and others simply passed through. One source estimated that between 1965 and 1975 about 100,000 young people passed through the Vermont's communes.

Vermont’s communes ran the gamut from extended families living together in small groups to the politically radical, to anything goes free-for-alls. Below is a sampling of what existed.

Total Loss Farm at Packer Corners, right on the Massachusetts border in Guilford was started in 1968 on a 90 acre farm. It was a laid-back commune described by some as tilted more towards the literary and artistic. One member recalled: “we operated by magic.”

Less innocent was the fact that Patricia Swinton, the on-the-lam weather underground member, hid from the authorities at this commune under an assumed name putting it on the radar of authorities.

Red Clover Collective in Putney was more political. In fact, the revolutionaries who lived there had ties to the infamous SDS—Students for a Democratic Society. They had guns and wanted to change the power structure of the United States. Not only were they expecting a revolution, their goal was to create one.

The residents of this commune were more educated and affluent than the more, drug-oriented communes and, in many instances were simply continuing the revolutionary dialogue they had in college. The FBI raided Red Clover in 1970 looking Bernadine Dohrn, a revolutionary on the lam. She was not there.

Most of the communes were small but two in particular—Johnson's Pastures Commune in Guilford in the southeastern part of the state and Earth Peoples Park in Norton, up near the Canadian border—were large and unruly and, as a result, became infamous.

Johnson's Pastures Commune in Guilford accepted anyone and, not surprisingly, that is exactly who showed up. During the infamous “Summer of 69” an estimated 800 to 1,000 people showed up to have a good time. They were described as kids with nothing to do and nowhere to go. A fire in one of the main building killed four residents in 1970 and led to its demise.

Most of Vermont’s communes were started in the late 1960s to 1970. By 1980 almost none remained. They failed for a variety of reasons.

• Living together with your immediate and biological family is difficult enough. Living with strangers is tougher still. Some former commune members simply got sick of the inevitable squabbling that comes from spending the winter in such close quarters.
• Some commune members simply got sick of the poverty. Rural poverty is what drove 19^th century Vermonters out of state. A few years out of college and the material goods that were so despised—things like suburban homes and cars—did not seem so bad after all, especially after former classmates were acquiring them and you were not.
• Revolutionary politics also proved to be a problem. When those expecting a revolution realized one was not coming, they moved on.
• Pressure from the police also added to the discomfort. When it was determined that the explosives used in the bombings of the U.S. Capital and the Pentagon “came from a granite quarry in Barre (Vermont)” the pressure grew to get rid of communes that were sympathetic with the likes of SDS and the Weather Underground.
• But, in the end, drugs, and the lifestyle that went along it, probably had a greater effect on the demise of the communes than any other reason. It is simply too difficult to get anything done when you are stoned all the time. One ex-commune member remembered “an orgy of excess”—too many drugs, too few rules, and too much sex. Likewise, a former member of the Tree Frog Farm recalled a guiding principle at the commune dedicated to nudity, psychedelic drugs and free love. It was fun—for a while—but it didn’t and couldn’t last. In a telling story, a co-founder of the Packer Corners recalled a time when ''We had a big cider press operation at Packer Corners and I remember being up on top of the press one day, feeding in apples to make cider. A bunch of hippies had come by to help, but instead they were dancing around the press, throwing apples at each other. It wasn't much help. We had an impractical but noble vision that was constantly undermined by people who came just to play.''

Source: Sally Johnson, “Excesses Blamed for Demise of the Commune Movement,” New York Times, August 3, 1998. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/03/us/excesses-blamed-for-demise-of-the-commune-movement.html

In the end, many of the people who lived on the communes simply grew up. The idealism and excesses of the 1960s gave way to the practicalities of real life. Many, but not all, ended up in the mainstream economy in jobs similar to those their parents and lived in houses in neighborhoods not unlike those they grew up in.

Additional Sources: http://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/hippie-havens/Content?oid=2134607 http://vermonthistory.org/research/research-resources-online/green-mountain-chronicles/back-to-the-land-communes-in-vermont-1968

An article by David Van Deusen entitled “Green Mountain Communes: Making of a Peoples’ Vermont” at Anarkismo, http://www.anarkismo.net/article/7248