The Faraway Hill trilogy is a very modern re-imagining of network television’s first soap opera, “Faraway Hill,” which aired on the DuMont Television Network for 12 weeks in 1946. 

Very little is known about the series. No scripts or kinescopes are known to survive (any recordings may be been lost when most of DuMont’s archives were destroyed in the 1970s). Only some ephemera remains; however this is enough for authors Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh to reference it in their book, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows. 

The series ran for three months beginning on Wednesday, October 2, 1946. It starred Flora Campbell (1911-1978), a well-regarded stage actress who portrayed Karen St. John. The concept was very simple: newly widowed, Karen St. John decides to return to her hometown of Faraway Hill Arriving home, she gets involved in various family and community issues especially a love triangle. 

Since he wasn’t sure where the series was set, Jim Richards placed the town a few miles north of New Hampshire. 

The thirty minute program aired live, with some filmed segments (to visualize travel, such as footage of a train, or the passage of time). At the beginning of each episode, each cast member would appear on camera and in character to update the audience on what happened to them the previous week.