Film wins history award
By VDC Staff
A haunting piece of Vermont history — the story of Ascutney farmer Romaine Tenney — has been brought to life in animation and has earned its creator, Burlington filmmaker Travis Van Alstyne, the 2025 Richard O. Hathaway Award from the Vermont Historical Society.
Van Alstyne’s film, Love of the Land, tells the tragic story of Tenney, a lifelong bachelor and dairy farmer who refused to leave his land when it was seized by the state in 1964 to build Interstate 91. Rather than abandon his farm, Tenney set fire to his barns and house and took his own life — an act that has come to symbolize the clash between Vermont’s rural traditions and the march of modern progress.
The Hathaway Award, named for the late historian Richard O. Hathaway, recognizes outstanding contributions to the study and interpretation of Vermont’s history. It was presented Thursday during the Historical Society’s annual meeting at the Vermont History Center in Barre.
“This profoundly moving film humanizes an event often seen as a footnote to the mid-20th-century transformation of Vermont,” said Stephen Perkins, the Society’s executive director. “In place of the former interpretation of the event as public protest, Travis Van Alstyne’s work instead shows Tenney’s actions as a requiem to a lost way of life.”
Van Alstyne began the project in 2020 and spent four years creating more than 3,000 digitally hand-drawn frames. The short film features narration and voice work by Vermont farmer and actor George Woodard and was supported in part by Vermont Public’s Made Here fund.
Love of the Land is available to watch for free at www.loveofthelandfilm.com/watch, or view right here:
