Forget your history lessons about Vermont. Forget everything you learned about our state’s history. Samuel de Champlain? Why he was a fraud!

According to John Mandeville XXIX, forget just about everything you have ever learned about history. Read The Further Travels of Sir John Mandeville and learn the truth.

The book is a milestone in publishing history. Not only does it turn history on its head, but it is a sequel to one of the world’s all-time bestsellers The Travels of John Mandeville published in Norman French in 1356 and translated into all European languages shortly thereafter. According to Mandeville, he was the first to cross land to the Orient followed by Marco Polo. Historians, naturally, are still arguing the facts.

The local news? Vermont’s history has been rewritten. No, Samuel de Champlain didn’t discover Vermont. Neither did the passing tribes wandering through. No, in fact, Vermont was discovered by none other than Sir John Mandeville, the famous British explorer in 1364 — even before Columbus thought of setting sail, much less before old Chris was born.

Just to get the record straight, it was following on his historic heels that Columbus, Champlain and the trappers and other ne’er-do-wells came. This, of course, according to author Mandeville himself.

In fact, Mandeville was the technically the editor of his Great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great-grandfather’s book. Yes, that’s 27 times Great-grandfather, which makes the current John Mandeville the 29th in the straight line of descendants.

And now John Mandeville XXIX, dressed in period costume of the 1300's, sat signing his book, and chatting with an endless stream of eager readers.

“Why did you wait so long to come out with this information?” one reader asked.

“Because of the research involved in writing my book,” offered Mandeville hefting the twenty-pound tome, “Imagine having to whittle down a castle-full of writing.” He smiled as he scrawled his loopy signature across the title page. “My ancestors could write!”

“You expect us to believe this?” another asked skimming through pages of graphic illustrations of Sir John leading a group of disheveled stragglers. There is Sir John standing at the edge of a lake, at the edge of a precipice, at the entrance to a thick forest, offering food to a bear, defending his stragglers against marauding elephants.

“Elephants?”

Well, yes. According to Mandeville, there were elephants in Vermont when Sir John arrived. “But alas, there aren’t any now.”

“Oh, and why not?” asked reader #1, a tall intelligent-looking woman who was obviously not your average kiddie-book reader.

Peering through squinty eyes Mandeville looked up at the woman, “Because Sir John killed them all. Didn’t you see the pictures? You know, of course, that Sir John’s followers just about wiped out the buffalo, too.” He scribbled his name again. “He wasn’t called Buffalo Bill for nothing!”

I waited until he was finished his signing and invited Mandeville out for a drink to wet his whistle. In the dim light of Chesterton’s Pub, we spoke.

“Why did you really wait so long to come out with this second book?” Face it, if Sir John had done all this exploring lo these many years ago, why the hell hasn’t anyone heard of it before? But, I thought I’d remain objective. That’s what reporters do.

“Because so much of my ancestor’s work was stolen!” He leaned forward, his beady eyes bored into mine. A faint touch of something familiar wafted by me. Scotch? Our drinks hadn’t been served yet.

“Stolen?”

“Yes.” He punched the table with a stubby finger. “During John the 8th — we always refer to ourselves by our number in line, I’m 29 — someone broke into our manor home and stole some of Sir John’s writings. Knowing damned well that others were trying to follow his paths and claim the glory for themselves, the papers had been hidden.” He whipped out a fat cigar, leaned back and prepared to light it. “But, we were outwitted. One of our lackeys led them to the papers.”

He spent a very long minute rolling his cigar back and forth in his fingers, biting the end off and touching a match to it. Carefully, he blew out the match and dropped it into the ashtray. Personally, I was thinking, as previous historians thought, that Sir John stole the writings of others. I know that Sir John’s book was put down as a fraud, and later as a romantic adventure travelogue by the more benevolent researchers. Funny, how so much of the stuff came from Marco Polo’s book, and those other guys.

“It took every one of us — all 22 of us Johns to track down and retrieve those papers.” He drew in a sizable quantity of air through his cigar. “You’ll never guess where we found them!”

“Haven’t a clue.”

“Madrid!” He pounded the table again (no wonder his finger was so short). “Madrid’s Prada Museum, I tell you! Buried in a box in a basement!” He threw back his head and laughed. “Proved our point, it did.”

“Ah, what point?” Our brew arrived, causing a slight pause in the conversation while Mandeville snatched up his glass.

“That Columbus needed Sir John’s records of his voyages to know where to go!” Tipping his head back, he drained the entire pint of ale and slammed it on the table. “Oh, yes. Sir John did do all he said he did. Why else would anyone have stolen the papers?”

Why else indeed?