Somebody has to keep all this
Take Me Back Inc. preserves the history of Vermont's Mad River Valley — the books, the buildings, the photographs in the shoeboxes, and the stories that so far exist only in somebody's kitchen.
Waitsfield. Warren. Fayston. Three towns, no traffic light, no fast food, one very long memory.
A Vermont 501(c)(3). Founded and led by Mary Kathleen Mehuron.
Our Work
Three things, done properly
We publish.
Three volumes of Take Me Back: An Anecdotal History of the Mad River Valley, all sold out, plus a column that has run continuously in the Valley press for years — and other people's family histories when they deserve a proper edition.
We preserve buildings.
We led the fundraising that saved General Benjamin Wait's house, the oldest and most significant building in this valley, and documented the whole thing on film.
We save photographs.
We bought a scanner and started digitizing the family archives of the three towns, before another generation of shoeboxes goes into a dumpster.
Every contributor to every project has donated their work. There is no paid staff. That isn't a slogan — it's the reason a small organization has this much finished behind it.
Our Biggest Project
Vermont turns 250, and we're making a film about it
On July 8th, 2027 — 250 years to the day after Vermont adopted the constitution that made it an independent republic — an original film about this state's founding radicalism premieres at The Big Picture Theatre in Waitsfield.
The republic that printed its own money. The constitution that banned adult slavery before any other in America. The Green Mountain Boys. The congressman Vermont re-elected while he sat in a federal jail cell.
It's the largest project we've taken on, and it has its own website — with premiere seats, sponsorship, and its own newsletter.
A separate site, the same 501(c)(3) — gifts there are gifts to Take Me Back Inc.
The Column
Start here
The Take Me Back column is where all of this began: a few articles that became a column, a column that became a non-profit, and a non-profit that has not stopped since.
Mary Kathleen has written more of them than anyone has counted, blending personal narrative with the people and organizations keeping this valley's history alive.
The column archive is being prepared for the web — republication rights pending with the Valley press.
The Books
Three volumes. All sold out.
Take Me Back: An Anecdotal History of the Mad River Valley, Volumes I, II and III.
The limited keepsake first edition sold out. The winter hardcover sold out in days. So there was a third, in autumn, because at that point it seemed rude not to.
Every contributor donated their work. Every dollar of profit went to organizations and individuals showcasing this Valley's history. Written here, made here, sold here — and now on shelves in houses across three towns, which is exactly where we wanted them.
Want the next one?
There will be a Volume IV. We don't know when. Leave your name and you'll hear before the print run is set, which is the only moment at which it's possible to get one.
Noted. We'll write when there's something to write about.
Preservation
We put a roof on a house built in the 1790s
General Benjamin Wait chartered this town. His house — the most historic building in the Valley — was losing its roof and rafters. The town tarped the worst of it to keep rain and snowmelt off the hand-hewn beams, which bought time and nothing else.
Take Me Back led the fundraising to fix it properly. It now has a new roof, fresh paint, and repaired shutters, and it made it to the Fourth of July looking like something worth saving. Our founder sits on the Wait House Commission.
We also made a film about it — written, directed, produced and paid for by Take Me Back, with our local MRVTV station and the videographer and editor Christopher Wiersema.
Watch: Save the Wait House — the film is being readied for the web.
The Photo Project
We bought a scanner
Our founder also serves on the board of the Rural Resource Commission, where she proposed digitizing the old photographs held by the historic families of the three towns — the shoebox pictures nobody outside the family has ever seen.
So Take Me Back bought a good scanner, and she went and recruited people.
That's the whole story. It isn't a dramatic one. It may be the most useful thing on this page, because those photographs were going to be lost and now they are not.
Have photographs?
We'll come to you and bring the scanner. Nothing leaves your house and you keep every original — we just need to know who's in the picture, which is the part no scanner can do.
Add your family's photographs · the public archive index is in preparation
Transparency
Where the money goes
There is no paid staff and no office. Donations buy scanners, archival storage, printing, research time, and tradesmen for buildings that are older than the country.
Every contributor to the books donated their work, and every dollar of profit went back out to organizations and individuals showcasing this valley's history.
We publish what we spent, and we say when something took longer or cost more than we said it would.
Annual report, financials, and the board page are in preparation.
Take Me Back Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3).. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Keep Up
What we're saving this month
Restored photographs, whatever the column is chasing, progress on the buildings, and an honest word when something takes twice as long as we said it would.
You're in. Tell your neighbors — that's genuinely how this works.
No spam. Roughly monthly.
Ways In
Most of these don't cost anything
Support the work — any amount
Books, roofs, scanners, films. You're funding whatever this valley needs saved next. → [[content/donate-v4]]
Tell us what you know — free
Shoebox photographs. Your grandmother's version of events. The thing your uncle swears happened at the covered bridge. An unlabeled photograph is a nice picture; a labeled one is history, and the difference is usually a two-minute phone call with someone who remembers. → radicalvermont.org/volunteer
Give us a Saturday — free
Scanning, cataloging, fact-checking, and the occasional afternoon of moving furniture. Footnotes are our love language. → radicalvermont.org/volunteer
Put your business behind it
Sponsorship, in-kind help, or carrying the next book in your shop. → radicalvermont.org
About
Somebody had to have kept his papers
That was the whole hunch. That's where this starts.
General Benjamin Wait fought in the French and Indian War and the Revolution, was made High Sheriff of the newly invented Republic of Vermont, and chartered the town most of us are sitting in right now. A man like that does not vanish without a trace. Families keep things. Somewhere out there was a descendant with a box.
So Mary Kathleen Mehuron went looking for the box.
She found a person instead
Dr. C. Leon Knore — teacher, author, direct descendant of General Wait, and at the time eighty-five years old.
He hadn't just kept the papers. He had spent years turning them into the most complete account of Wait's life that exists anywhere: Wait, Unpretentious Pluckiness. Four hundred and sixty pages. Self-published in 2021. Almost nobody has read it.
He did not simply put copies in the mail. First he wanted to know exactly what she intended to do with them, and the vetting was, by her own account, rigorous.
We think that was entirely correct of him. A man in his eighties holding the only full account of his ancestor's life owes nothing to a stranger who turns up saying she's interested in history.
She passed.
He sent her the last twenty copies he had. They are, as far as we can tell, priceless — and they are the reason we know what we now know.
What was in it
Wait helped delay Burgoyne's march south from Canada toward his defeat at Saratoga — the turning point of the Revolutionary War. He and his brother Joseph were outlaws in New York before joining the Green Mountain Boys. After the war he was handed responsibility for establishing law and order in a country roughly ten minutes old. Then he chartered and built Waitsfield.
The founder of our town was a wanted man in a neighboring state, and then became the sheriff.
This is extremely on-brand for Vermont, and we have stopped apologizing for it.
Who goes looking for a dead general's paperwork
Take Me Back Inc. — a Vermont 501(c)(3) with one mission: raise awareness about, and money for, the history of the Mad River Valley.
Three towns: Waitsfield, Warren, Fayston. The Valley went from mills and farmland to three world-class ski mountains without picking up a single traffic light or one fast-food restaurant on the way. That was not an accident and it was not quiet. It took a specific, locally abundant kind of stubbornness.
That stubbornness is the entire subject of everything we do.
It started with a few articles Mary Kathleen Mehuron wrote. The articles became a column. The column became a non-profit. The rest is below.
The record
Three books. Take Me Back: An Anecdotal History of the Mad River Valley, Volumes I, II and III. The limited keepsake first edition sold out. The winter hardcover sold out in days. So there was a third, in autumn, because at that point it seemed rude not to. Every contributor donated their work. Every dollar of profit went to organizations and individuals showcasing this Valley's history. All three are sold out — and there will be a fourth. → Tell me about Volume IV
A roof. Wait's house — the most historic building in this valley — was losing its roof and rafters. The town tarped the worst of it to keep rain and snowmelt off the hand-hewn beams, which bought time and nothing more. Take Me Back led the fundraising to fix it properly. It now has a new roof, fresh paint, and repaired shutters, and it made it to the Fourth of July looking like something worth saving.
A film about the roof. Written, directed, produced and paid for by Take Me Back, with our local MRVTV station and the videographer and editor Christopher Wiersema. Watch it — in preparation
An archive. Our founder sits on the board of the Rural Resource Commission, where she proposed digitizing the old photographs held by the historic families of the three towns — the shoebox pictures nobody outside the family has ever seen. So we bought a good scanner and she went and recruited people. That is the whole story. It is not a dramatic story. It may be the most useful thing on this page, because those photographs were going to be lost and now they are not. See the archive — in preparation
Other people's books, and a play. We edited and published the Eurich family history — their story in words and photographs of this Valley you have genuinely never seen. And we were a main sponsor of a local production, recorded and archived, on the grounds that a play nobody records is a play that happened once.
A column that will not stop. Mary Kathleen is still writing it, in the Valley press, with no end in sight. Read it — in preparation
How we work
No staff. There is a founder, a board, and whoever turned up. Every contributor to every book donated their work. When we say the money goes to the work, we mean it structurally — there is nobody to pay.
We publish what we spend. Financials, annual report, and board are here:Governance and financials — in preparation. Take Me Back Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3).
We show our sources. Everything we publish gets footnoted, and we would much rather be corrected by a neighbor now than by a historian later. The Valley has a long tradition of repeating a good story until it becomes a fact. We try not to add to it.
We finish things. The roof is on. The books are printed. The scanner is running. This matters more than anything else on this page.
And now the 250th
Radical Vermont is the largest project we have taken on: a film about Vermont's founding radicalism, premiering July 8th, 2027 at the Big Picture Theatre — 250 years to the day after Vermont adopted the constitution that made it a republic.
It has its own website, its own newsletter, and its own way of asking. → radicalvermont.org
It is still us. Same 501(c)(3), same three towns, same scanner.
Take Me Back Inc. · Waitsfield, Vermont · a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit. Founder: Mary Kathleen Mehuron.
Donate
Fund the next rescue
Take Me Back Inc. is a registered Vermont 501(c)(3). Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law, and it pays for specific, unglamorous things.
Secure checkout by Stripe — you can direct your gift there, and receipts come from Take Me Back Inc.
Give once
$25 buys an afternoon of scanning.
$50 buys archival storage so a family's photographs stop degrading in a basement.
$100 buys a day of research.
$250 buys a tradesman's morning on a building older than the country.
$500 buys a chapter's worth of permissions, reproductions, and rights clearance for the next book.
We will tell you where it went. We always have.
Give monthly
The Shoebox Club
Named for where most of this valley's history is currently stored, which is the problem.
Monthly giving is less romantic than a big gift and considerably more useful. It means we can commit to a scanner, a research trip, or a roof before we know whether the money will show up — which is the difference between planning work and reacting to it.
Members are listed on the supporters' page and in the front of whatever we publish next.
Give to something specific
If you'd rather your money went to one thing, say so and it will.
The archive — scanning, cataloging, archival storage, and getting the Rural Resource Commission's photo project to the families who still have shoeboxes.
The buildings — the Wait House, and whatever this valley nearly loses next.
Publishing — the books, the column, and the research behind both. Contributors donate their work; printing, permissions, and rights still cost money.
Larger gifts
Named funds and multi-year pledges. If you want to underwrite a project outright — a print run, a season of the archive, a building — we'll name it, report on it, and photograph it.
Bequests and planned giving. A number of this valley's families have material and means they'd like to see stay here. We're glad to talk about either.
Checks, stock, donor-advised funds, IRA distributions. All fine. Write us.
Where the money goes
There is no paid staff and no office. Every contributor to every book has donated their work.
That isn't a slogan — it's the structural reason a small organization has three published volumes, a restored 18th-century house, and a growing photo archive behind it.
Other ways to give
No money right now? Genuinely fine. The scanning still needs doing and the footnotes still need earning. → radicalvermont.org/volunteer
Own a business? Sponsorship, in-kind help, or carrying the next book in your shop. → radicalvermont.org
Want to back the 250th film specifically? Premiere seats and the ticket waitlist are handled on the campaign's own site. → radicalvermont.org