New Burlington: The Life and Death of an American Village

by John Baskin

Conversations with former residents of New Burlington provide the basis for a record of the history and culture of the Ohio farming village now submerged beneath a lake formed by the construction of a dam

Genres: History, Nonfiction

259 pages, Hardcover

First published October 3, 1977

Reviews

[Joann · Rating 4 out of 5]

New Burlington, Ohio was submerged when the Corps of Engineers dammed Caesars Creek in the early 1970s. New Burlington was founded by abolitionist Quakers in 1833, and it was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The book is comprised of autobiographical vignettes told by the last residents of New Burlington. Their stories paint a picture of life in a close knit, sometimes repressive, farming community. I had hoped for some details of my Quaker family, and I was rewarded.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readable oral history of New Burlington Ohio, a town now gone and covered by a lake.

[Andrew]

I was expecting so much Winesburgian melancholy... a forgotten volume about a Quaker village in Ohio drowned by a reservoir... how could I resist. And yet I was disappointed. It mostly seemed like some rather quaint horse-and-buggy tales, like a Studs Terkel oral history without any of the depth or the contradiction or the sense of a strong portrait of a phenomenon. It's only towards the end where the story actually becomes interesting, and where you start to see the gloom and the contradiction, rather than just treacle.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping for more of a timeline; a historical novel. instead it was random stories in an unknown order. never even told the end of the town. the last guy there is gone and that's it. nothing about when the lake was made, how the government got the land, what the people were/weren't paid. I was disappointed, but some of the people had cute stories.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Simple truths are often the most unbearable.”

[Helen Geng]

From Hell’s Kitchen Free Store

[Henry Hildebrandt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being from the area this book really hit home. I connected with lots of the characters and I think the interactions were spliced together quite well.

[Jim Reindollar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating idea. A small town in Ohio is being done away with, to be replaced by a reservoir, and a outsider writer tells the story of the small community from the mouths of its living residents. The stories are interesting, the people represent that era of small town America well, its brilliance and its flaws. Reports go up to the very last resident living there while the Army Corps of engineers prepares to immerse the village under water. It does fade as it goes along and there is no dramatic ending, no thoughts or feelings as a town vanishes underneath water. A worthwhile book, but I came away wanting more.

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

New Burlington, Ohio, has been gone for a good long time now. More than three decades. New Burlington is at the bottom of a deep reservoir created by a dam. In the year before the little town was gone forever, John Baskin went to the site and talked with the people who remained. They told him stories of their lives in New Burlington - their lives in the 19th Century. The stories are memorable, the book is memorable. I know of no other nearly like it.