history – Page 8 – In the Woods

fell by his own sword

So far this winter has given us only very cold days alternating with unseasonably warm days. Without a blanket of snow, everything looks barren and oddly exposed. Last January was the snowiest month ever in Connecticut history and it made for some very nice pictures! But now that we have a new camera there is no inspiration to get out there and put it to good use, but we decided to give it a try anyway.

Close to home is Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park. War is not my favorite subject, but this is the site where, on September 6, 1781, the traitor and Connecticut native Benedict Arnold led the British on a raid during the Revolutionary War. About 150 colonial militia and local men under the command of Col. William Ledyard were outnumbered. The British demanded surrender but Ledyard refused at first. There were heavy losses on both sides. The last picture tells how it ended.

The first picture was taken outside the dirt and stone wall surrounding the top of Fort Griswold. The second picture is Tim standing in a trench leading up to the top of the fort. The picture above is the entrance to a tunnel leading in to the highest part of the fort, and the picture below was taken inside the tunnel.

Through the tunnel now, in the picture below we are standing inside of the stone and dirt wall, which is taller than us, looking toward the Thames River and New London.

In the next picture we have climbed up the wall and are looking down at the Thames River and New London on the other side. British troops had set most of New London on fire, and from here the men from Groton must have seen all the fires burning and the British ships in the river…

It was a gruesome battle — aren’t they all? The British made it to the top in spite of many casualties… It’s sobering considering what happened here.

I took all these pictures with my gloves on — it was cold! — and I can’t remember which settings I was using on which shot. Clearly I am going to have to wait until spring to practice with the camera outside. Will have to see what I can learn about using it inside while I’m waiting for warmer weather!

wreaths by the sea

Mystic Seaport ~ 12.17.11 ~ Mystic, Connecticut

Yesterday we decided to take advantage of our new membership to visit our local living history museum, Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America & The Sea, to see what Christmas might have been like around here in the 1800s. The museum has a shipyard that is currently restoring the whaleship Charles W. Morgan, other historic ships, a coastal village, a planetarium and indoor exhibit galleries.

(above) Undecorated Christmas tree atop the main mast of the training ship Joseph Conrad, indicating that this vessel will be in port on Christmas.

Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you – smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, “Come and find out.”
~ Joseph Conrad
(Heart of Darkness)

I have to admit at first I was a disappointed, somehow expecting to walk into a twinkling winter wonderland. But later I remembered that they didn’t have electricity back then! Candlelight was an ever-present fire hazard. And it wasn’t until after the mid-1800s that Christmas trees became popular. So Christmas was not such a big thing at that time. In fact, the shopkeeper (below) at Stone’s General Store explained to us that no one expected to receive more than a single homemade gift. And that if we didn’t see what we needed to make our gifts in her store, then she would be pleased to order the items for us.

Even in the homes of the wealthy the holiday decor was simple. I love the winter afternoon sun filtering through the curtains (below) in the Thomas Greenman House parlor.

We stopped by the Mystic Print Shop and, with close supervision, I was allowed to print my own 19th-century Christmas card on an old press. Christmas cards were then the “latest” rage in Victorian fashion.

There were wreaths on every door in the seafaring village and on some of the windows, too. For the present I leave you with pictures of a few of them!

an ancient disease

This morning we learned that late last night another one of Tim’s brothers, age 57, survived a heart attack. I’ve come to the conclusion that September is heart attack season. You may recall that last September one of his brothers, at age 51, had one, and Tim himself, at age 54, had one in September 2007. It will be interesting to see if the three youngest brothers make it out of their 50s without repeating the pattern laid down by the three oldest brothers.

Apparently the gene came from their maternal grandmother, who didn’t survive her heart attack at age 54, and their maternal great-grandmother, who didn’t survive her heart attack in her 50s – not sure of her exact age. I remember Tim’s mother was thrilled to have made it past the age of 54, only to succumb to lung cancer at age 60.

Egyptian Princess Mummy Had Oldest Known Heart Disease

Poor Princess Ahmose Meryet Amon – her name means “Child of the Moon, Beloved of Amun.” A CAT-scan of her 3,500-year-old mummy revealed “blockages in five major arteries, including those that supply blood to the brain and heart.” Interestingly, “The new study suggests that genetics may be even more important than thought in causing atherosclerosis, and the mummies might hold clues to which genetic factors are involved.” Tim’s cardiologists were certainly very interested in his medical family history. Researchers have yet so much more to learn about cardiovascular disease.

a curious tramp

The following is transcribed from a newspaper clipping that fell out of a Bible belonging to one of Tim’s ancestors, John Hubbard (1804-1883). The article made me wonder what about this particular story interested him enough to cut it out and stick it in his Bible. The article also gives us a glimpse into life in the 1800s.

A YORK STATE TRAMP
Receives Reception That Is Known to Few Wanderers
New York World

A tramp had just arrived in Albany. Nothing curious about that, but this is a curious tramp. He does his own cooking and consequently enjoys his food. Chefs were rare in the region he was brought up in. He doesn’t collect grub or yearn for drink or freight cars. He has been tramping through our New York lake region, which Americans would know so well and admire so much if it were across the water; and he has a passion, a mania, for little country schoolhouses.

He may look like a dust storm in breeches, but something in his appearance gains him entrance. Perhaps he has seen better days. He sits on the dais and near the desk of “teacher,” an honor that used to be confined to clergymen, school committeemen, visitors of due pomposity, village bigwigs on examination day, and prize scholars, likely, if of the inferior sex, to have “the stuffing” rudely elicited from them at recess by athletic scorners of learning. There sits calmly the pulverulent [sic] one, listening with a twinkle in his eye to the artless droning of those wondering children, even having “the cheek to talk to teacher,” who actually lets him make speech before he goes. A “ripping” speech, the spoken-to say, and how can there be better judges? Does not every maundering bore, every Brother of the Ass, every solemn stumbling, hemming, long-winded sumph flatter himself that he can “make a few remarks” to “the children” and enrapture those victims of the vanity and loquacity of their elders? And this long-legged dust-man pleased them. “Talked like an educated man, did he,” says the president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union to Bill and Elizer Ann at supper: “must have fallen through the drink. I wonder at Miss Normal for permitting such a disreputable character to speak in a public school. There at least my darlings should be safe from contamination.”

On goes the dustman through the best sun-soaked days and noblest moonlit nights that ever shone. He breakfasts on his own bacon and coffee by rivers hazy with morning. On he plods, astounding and delighting schoolhouses, winning the scorn of passing wagoners for refusing a “lift.” At last he enters Albany, leaves off regretfully his career as a wandering scholar. For he is identified, presumably by the police, as John Huston Finley, who sports “a tilted trail proud as a cockerel’s rainbow tail;” who is laden with LL. D.’s and is a member of everything worth belonging to. There is no new compliment to pay him except to say that he knows how to plan and enjoy a vacation.

I found a John Huston Finley (1863-1940), but he was only 20 years old when John Hubbard died. Perhaps someone else tucked the article in the Bible after our John died. Or perhaps it was a very young Finley who had this adventure and this was one of the last things Hubbard cut out of the paper. But safe to say, the article was of interest to somebody!

Independence Day

A special Thank You to our ancestors who served in the War for Independence:

Capt. Nathaniel Shaw (1717-1800)

Capt. Ezekiel Huntley (1731-1783)

Lt. Francis Shurtleff (1738-1794)

William Shurtleff (1743-1790)

Isaac Weekes (1747-1792)

Eliphalet Hubbard (1748-????)

Benjamin Randolph (????-1810)

Ichabod Tillson (1750-1822)

Ephraim Koyl (1753-1838)

Seth Allen (1755-1838)

William Hamilton (1756-1824)

Samuel Cash (1758-1847)

…and to any and all who remain unknown for now…

Last Revised: 16 August 2024

a mint-condition one-traffic-light river town

6.11.11 ~ Essex, Connecticut — 6.11.11 ~ Griswold Inn, Essex, Connecticut

On Saturday Tim & I were all over the state doing long-distance errands, like visiting a computer show, etc. Larisa & Dima were also all over the state, helping a friend move, etc. For a little bit we were all in Manchester traveling on I-84 westbound at the same time, but did not meet up there. After endless cell phone calls and changing estimated-times-of-arrival and places-to-arrive, we finally met in Essex for a late lunch at the Griswold Inn.

The Perfect Small American Town & Its Oldest Inn
Essex is a mint-condition one-traffic-light river town where the dignified revolutionary-era spirit still lingers – and there’s not a fast food joint in sight.
~ Patricia Schultz
(1,000 Places to See Before You Die)

Now the Griswold Inn is a familiar stomping ground for Tim and Larisa – they are often there on Monday nights enjoying Sea Chanteys and beer. I went once but it was a little too loud and rowdy for my sensitive nature… But it’s a quiet and cozy restaurant in the daytime. The Gris, as it is affectionately called by regulars, is the oldest continuously operating inn in Connecticut, first opened in 1776.

So we had a nice lunch with Dima & Larisa and heard all about their recent scuba diving adventure in Curaçao and the upcoming plans for the move to the big city next month. And then they were off – on to the next thing, zipping around as young adults do. We think Larisa has found in Dima a wonderful companion who shares her wanderlust and sense of adventure. And so we headed home in the pouring rain to recuperate and contemplate.

think and read

Gain knowledge, brothers! Think and read,
And to your neighbors’ gifts pay heed,
Yet do not thus neglect your own.

Sadly I weep when I recall
The unforgotten deeds of all
Our ancestors: their toilsome deeds!
Could I forget their pangs and needs,
I, as my price, would then suppress
Half of my own life’s happiness…

~ Taras Shevchenko
(My Friendly Epistle)

earthquake musings

Hairy Fairy Cup by Noah Siegel, at Devil’s Hopyard State Park

About 38 miles (61 kilometers) northwest from here is a town called Moodus. The Native Americans called the area “morehemoodus,” or “place of noises.” The noises come from the earth, fault lines running under the community. Modern citizens refer to them as Moodus Noises. With the disaster in Japan on my mind I took more note than usual when news reports came in on Thursday that Moodus had experienced a little 1.3 magnitude earthquake Wednesday night at 8:42 p.m. The epicenter was close to Devil’s Hopyard State Park.

We didn’t notice it here, and it caused no damage, but in Moodus they heard a loud bang and felt some movement, causing residents to call the police department and the police to drive around looking for what they feared might be an explosion. At 11:00 p.m. the U.S. Geological Survey called to tell them of the quake and the search was called off.

I’ve never felt an earthquake before and started to wonder about the local geological history of Connecticut. It turns out that on May 16, 1791 Connecticut experienced what they believe was about a 7.0 quake in the same area. “The stone walls were thrown down, chimneys were untopped, doors which were latched were thrown open, and a fissure in the ground of several rods in extent was afterwards discovered,” an observer said. It caused damage across southern Connecticut and it could be felt as far as Boston and New York. There were more than a hundred aftershocks overnight. It was the largest known earthquake in Connecticut’s history.

Apparently there was a 5.0 earthquake in southern Connecticut on November 3, 1968, but being an eleven year old in northern Connecticut at that time, I missed that one, too. Not that I necessarily want to experience an earthquake! When we lived in Greece in the early 1970s I felt there was a good chance of having one while we were there. And there was a little one my parents felt in Athens, but Beverly and I were away on a school field trip.

And happily imbibing, as I recall! As far as I know, children of all ages were allowed alcoholic beverages in Greece at that time. My parents actually told us not to drink the water as there was a meningitis outbreak in the area. We were instructed to drink only the wine. There were a few overly tipsy evenings on that field trip, this being a wild treat for the American students in our school… The European students were not sure what all our excitement was about.

This was one of those experiences that had an effect on my opinions about having an age of majority for alcohol. If you grow up drinking wine with your family it loses its fascination and thrill and all sense of novelty.

Two glasses of the Greek wine retsina, photo by Yorick R.

But I digress…

So, anyway… I started wondering, again, just how far above sea level are we, in case we have an earthquake here big enough to cause a tsunami. (After all, there was a 3.9 earthquake off Long Island on November 30, 2010, just a few months ago.) Beverly pointed me to an online topographical map of Connecticut: UConn Map & Geographic Information Center (MAGIC). Looks like we’re about 20 feet above sea level. The entrance gate of the campus where Tim works is about 90 feet above sea level, so we’ve decided that’s where we’ll meet. Happy for me, if driving there isn’t possible I can walk uphill to get there, or run rather, IF we ever feel the earth rumbling here. Somehow it feels better to be prepared, to have a plan.

mastering the wind

Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness … the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world man will have discovered fire.
~ Teilhard de Chardin
(The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World)