Unique Name, Unique Journey.

Deep in the woods of southern Vermont there is a secluded spot that was discovered to still have snow in July. It was referred to as "The Freezin’ Hole" by those who happened upon it.

Nearby, deep in the remote Green Mountains, a cabin sits. This cabin was built by my grandfather. This cabin, and the surrounding acreage, is an extension of my family's certified tree farm, aptly named Freezin' Hole Farms.

However, the story does not start with my grandfather, but rather, my great-grandfather, the original Bill Pike, as outlined below by local historian, author, and former Bennington Banner Editor Tyler Resch.

The Freezin’ Hole and the Origin of Pike’s Camp

“The Freezin’ Hole” is an extensive geological formation that takes up nearly a quarter of the town of Readsboro, the northeast corner.  It is rough, uneven territory of unmanaged hardwoods and hemlocks, which offers wildlife habitat for deer, bear, moose, beaver, fox, fisher, and other critters. Except for an occasional camp, it has never been settled. The nickname derives from its status as a kind of large natural pit surrounded by three mountain peaks of 2,600 or 2,700 feet elevation, where legend claims (or is it fact?) that it’s “freezin” year-round down there. 

But there is some history that should be told.  The history of a particular neighborhood known generally as “the Freezin’ Hole” – actually somewhat south of the real tri-mountain Freezin’ Hole – can be focused on a memorable independent character named William S. Pike, better known as one-armed Bill Pike because he lost his left arm in a sawmill accident in Bennington when he was 18. Pike had operated a farm with a wife and three sons down in the Deerfield River Valley until the land was taken by the New England Power Company to create the body of water first called Lake Whitingham and later named the Harriman Reservoir. For reasons not known, when the water filled the valley, in 1923, Pike’s wife Rosa left the family and settled in Pittsfield, Mass., the sons were at various times enrolled at the Kurn Hattin Homes in Westminster. Bill stayed in Freezin’ Hole territory the rest of his long life. 

Another turning point in Bill’s life took place that year, when he was allowed (possibly invited?) to move into a house that was about to be unoccupied. Farmer Burgess Jewell and his wife Anna were retiring to a nearby town after a long, hard life on marginal land, just a few yards over the Readsboro line in Whitingham. The Jewells’ house was going to be abandoned. Bill gladly accepted the offer and carried on the farm there alone, had a milk delivery route for a while, and earned some cash by planting white and red pines on land the power company had taken for watershed protection around the big lake they created for hydroelectric production. 

By the winter of 1929 the house’s chimney needed repairs. Bill notified the then-owner, Fred Kingsbury, a nephew of Burgess Jewell. Kingsbury was a Boston architect who had been bankrupted in the Great Depression, and did not respond. As the house burned to the ground, Bill was able to save only a couple of chairs by tossing them out into the snow. Practical, as ever, he then moved into a smaller outbuilding on the Jewell farm and resumed his solitary life. Despite his handicap, he became skilled at axing down trees, preparing firewood, and fishing and hunting. He grew vegetables each summer, kept most of a 30-acre mowing cleared for grazing animals, and became an authority on the deer trails and best fishing spots over the wide expanse of unsettled Freezin’ Hole domain. He also developed a reputation as raconteur, a teller of tall tales, and a recognized fishing and hunting guide.

Life changed for one-armed Bill Pike in the summer of 1939 when a resourceful woman named Felicia, nicknamed Felix, the former wife of Fred Kingsbury, purchased the abandoned 75-acre Jewell farm for $200 from her ex-husband’s trustee in bankruptcy. Felix was an art teacher at a private school in Connecticut, who became devoted to the natural beauty and wildness surrounding the old farm. She arranged to spend the next several summers there, and she converted an old sugarhouse into a habitable camp with a wood-burning stove, sleeping loft, and water supply. During the summers of World War II Felix and her two teen-age daughters stayed for weeks in their camp and often entertained Bill for dinner. In return, he entertained them with his tall tales – many factual but with a clever tendency to roam into fiction. The women admired the woodcraft skills that enabled him to manage alone. The friendship grew to the point that Bill was invited to join the faculty for a time at the Thomas School in Rowayton, Conn., where he taught his woodworking crafts to suburban Fairfield County girls.

Among friends whom Felix brought north to enjoy her summer retreats at Jewell Clearing was one she had known since childhood, Catharine T. Opie, who also taught at the school. Catharine so relished the peaceful forested environment that she purchased two non-contiguous parcels of Readsboro land of about 200 acres each – one along Martin’s Flats, so called, and the other north of the old Albany-Boston stage road surrounding the White Brook. She also became an admirer of Bill and in 1954 arranged to build a new camp for him. On the cellar hole of a former building along the stage road a sizeable log cabin was put together by the unlikely combination of Catharine’s teen-age son Frank, and Bill himself. They used an old open Jeep that was equipped with a winch to haul logs up to the site. 

In later years Catharine would tell a fascinating story about how the task was completed. Once the logs reached the roofline, the act of actually building a roof seemed beyond their abilities. Good fortune struck when a stranger appeared along the trail who said he had escaped from jail and asked if they would harbor him for a while. The newcomer happened to be an experienced carpenter and he stayed long enough to build a substantial roof on the cabin. Bill moved in to his new digs, which featured a large stone fireplace, an automatic Ashley wood-burning stove, a propane-powered refrigerator, a never-failing water supply, and lots of bunk space. He always welcomed the many friends who came to visit, or stay a while, especially during deer season. (The identity of the ex-con or his crimes has never been known.)

In 1959, Bill Pike’s son, known as Young Bill, who was living in Pittsfield and worked at Western Mass. Electric, was able for $500 to buy a tract of 130 Readsboro acres that had been logged over. It was located roughly south of old Bill’s new cabin and north of the Martin’s Flats. He split the parcel with friends known as the Calebaugh brothers – six of them, who lived in such varied locations as Pittsfield and Dalton, Mass., and Texas, Ohio, Oregon, and West Virginia. Each party built a camp on their 65 acres. Young Bill’s was finished in 1965 assisted by his son, another Bill Pike, nicknamed Teddy. The Calebaughs followed with a cabin not far away, built on a former cellar hole. Bill “Teddy” Pike, born in 1949, who had settled in Hinsdale, Mass., became the long-term impresario of the newest Pike camp. He added a building that served as an outhouse, held firewood, and featured a propane-fueled hot shower. During deer season in November, the place was usually alive with hunters who, once the sun had set, enjoyed an annual feast the evening of opening day. Teddy Pike raised a large family, developed a certified Tree Farm, perfected a reputation as camp chef, and kept alert to what went on in a wide radius around his territory, now officially called Freezing Hole Drive.

On a snowless day early in December of 1966, one-armed Bill, now age 87 and alone, fell while gathering firewood outside his camp and broke his pelvis. He managed to crawl back to the cabin and tried unsuccessfully to break up some furniture to burn. No one knew just how many days he remained in that condition but he was found by brothers Norm and Joe Marchigiani, who had driven in from Readsboro village to go rabbit hunting. They started a big fire in the fireplace to warm up Bill in the cold cabin. Presently, they were joined by Young Bill and Teddy, who arranged a mattress in the back of their International Scout and slowly took the old man to Putnam Memorial Hospital in Bennington. Visitors found him in a typically jovial mood, joking with the nurses. But fortune was not with him this time and he died a few days later, early in January. Funeral services were held in the Readsboro Baptist Church and his ashes were buried in the Jewell Cemetery.  A lengthy front-page obituary in the Bennington Banner called him a “gregarious hermit” and spelled out many details of the life of this unforgettable character who thrived skillfully alone in the back woods of Readsboro’s Freezin’ Hole country. (The author of the obit was Tyler Resch, a son-in-law of Felix and Fred Kingsbury, who was the Banner’s editor at the time.)

A sampling of Old Bill Pike’s tall stories. 

He liked to lead his audience along with something that sounded plausible for a while and then subtlely moved into the absurd. These samples lasted much longer and with much more elaborate detail than the summaries indicate.

One of Bill’s mythical tales involved his guided tour of Hell, where the Devil guided him around to greet old friends who resided there. The description of Hell’s inmates and their sins was imaginative, colorful, and witty. The story finally ended with Bill waking up feeling great heat, only to discover that his pipe had tipped over onto his shirt and started a fire. 

Another yarn was about the dog he had that liked to chase foxes really fast. That dog was so fast that once it got cut in two while speeding through a wire fence. Bill, so the story went, held that dog together until its two parts healed. But he found that he had put the dog back crooked. When it recovered, the dog could chase foxes twice as fast because it would run on two legs until they got tired, then it would turn over and run on the other two.

One of his many hunting stories, a very tall tale, was about the time Bill was hunting and spotted a buck and lifted his rifle to shoot. But he discovered he was out of ammunition. Since he was standing under a cherry tree he quickly stuffed cherry pits into the gun and fired away.  But the buck ran off and he couldn’t find it. The next year he shot a buck that sported cherry branches from its head instead of antlers.

Another favorite was about the teacher who tried to demonstrate the evils of strong drink. She put one worm in a glass of water and another in a glass of whiskey. The worm soaked in whiskey promptly died, and she asked a student to draw a conclusion. Said the student, “If you drink whiskey, you won’t get worms.”