COLRAIN – Federal agents came knocking at the door of the two-bedroom house on Shelburne Line Road in early March 1989 to hand deliver a notice for G. Randall “Randy” Kehler and his wife, Betsy Corner:
Their house was being seized by the Internal Revenue Service for non-payment of $26,917.11 in back taxes.
The couple, nationally known for their opposition to the Vietnam War and refusing to pay their federal taxes for a dozen years, were part of the Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters League who declined to pay taxes used for war, and had seen their $743 bank account seized a couple of years earlier.
They – along with neighbors Bob Bady and Pat Morse on land owned by the Valley Community Land Trust – were about to begin a three-year saga that brought hundreds of protesters to the property, which was eventually sold at auction, resulted in the arrest of Kehler and dozens of other protesters for refusing to vacate the premises and brought national attention to the case.
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