Touring New England

In between the places I am required to be while writing columns, articles and books and giving seminars, I still have flexibility in my direction. I turned left from Sacandaga Lake, New York, and headed into Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine for the next four weeks, revisiting old haunts and discovering new ones. New England is a charming mix of white church steeples, covered bridges, connected housing, maple syrup and country stores.

Leaving George, my motorhome, at Quechee Gorge State Park, Vermont’s version of the Grand Canyon, Cavy and I went to Rock of Ages at Barre, the world’s largest active granite quarry. Since 1885, they have carved a 55-acre, 600-foot deep hole, so that it now takes workers ten minutes by elevator to reach the work area. At the manufacturing plant, master sculptors create memorials and lifelike statuary. Hope Cemetery has unusual granite monuments, such as a Cadillac and two people sitting up in bed holding hands for eternity.

Basin Harbor’s Lake Champlain Maritime Museum has a full-sized replica of the Philadelphia, Benedict Arnold’s gunboat that was sunk in Lake Champlain in 1776 during the Revolutionary War. The museum has a department that does nothing but preserve artifacts from Lake Champlain’s sunken shipwrecks.

Presidential Visits
Calvin Coolidge, our 30th president, was our only president born on the Fourth of July. I was in Plymouth at the State Historic Site complex on the Fourth. After a service in the 1840s Congregational Church commemorating his 132nd birthday, we followed the Vermont National Guard to the cemetery for a ceremony. A Coolidge grandson and two great-grandsons were involved.

At the top of Vermont, on a lonely, rain-pocked gravel country road, I visited the 21st president at the Chester Arthur State Historic Site. Where and when he was born seems open to question, but he lived in this tiny frame house shortly after birth. Historians now believe that was 1829 rather than 1830. I suppose he was unimpressive at that age and nobody cared when he was born except his parents, who had a seventh mouth to feed.

We crossed into New Hampshire to the Franklin Pierce Homestead National Historic Landmark. Our 14th President spent his boyhood in an 1804 mansion, a good example of what I call “connected housing.” New England winter weather is decidedly nasty. They connected their houses and all the outbuildings together. I wonder why we didn’t do that in Michigan. I suppose now you would just call it a condo.

There’s a Stonehenge replica down on the Columbia River but America’s Stonehenge at Salem, N. H., is neither like that nor the original in England. These stone structures are carbon dated at 4,000 years old, the oldest U. S. man-made construction. Prehistoric housewares, old world scripts, and stone tools found in this chamber maze are part of a continuous research and preservation program.

Her large monument, noted along the highway outside Concord, stands between a railroad track and a river. In 1697, the Penacook Indians captured Hannah Dustin. They shouldn’t oughta have done that. While they were sleeping, she scalped them and escaped.

Shaker Village
An especially interesting stop was Canterbury Shaker Village at Canterbury. Founded in the 18th Century by a small group of religious reformers, the group was called the “Believers.” They trembled and danced in their joyful worship service, and became known as “Shakers.” They came to America in 1774 and founded 18 communities from Maine to Kentucky. They practiced gender and race equality, common ownership, pacifism and celibacy. They only survived and grew by taking in families or orphans. The last surviving sister died in 1992. Our guide grew up in this community that believed in “hands to work and hearts to God.”

Canterbury Village housed 300 people in 100 buildings on 3,000 acres. The Shakers were responsible for many contributions to music, arts, architecture, business and religion. You might be familiar with one, Shaker furniture.

While George camped in Blackberry Crossing National Forest Service Campground on the famous Kancamagus Highway, I visited Daniel Webster’s birthplace (1792) at Franklin and several places where Robert Frost had lived. I hiked the Flume Gorge at Franconia Notch again and visited, for old time’s sake, the Old Man of the Mountain. Much revered by New Hampshire residents, the great stone face crumbled on May 3, 2003.

Standing on the easternmost point of the U. S. didn’t do me any more good than last time. Fog again swirled around West Quoddy Lighthouse (1808), in Lubec, Maine. I now know why it is “West” Quoddy. I toured Roosevelt’s 34-room “cottage” in Canada’s Roosevelt Campobello International Park on Campobello Island. Canada has East Quoddy lighthouse on the island.

Wind and Fog
Red Barn Campground at Holden, Maine, was George’s vacation spot for our last few days. A trip to Maine would not be complete without visiting Acadia National Park. Samuel de Champlain thought so, too. He saw it first in 1604. I suspicion that Bar Harbor wasn’t nearly as busy with tourism at that time. The wind was strong on the top of Cadillac Mountain, but still the fog persisted. I spent an afternoon on the coastline of Schoodic Peninsula, part of the national park I hadn’t seen before.

The “Cat,” North America’s fastest international car ferry, took me to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, in less than three hours. I had been there previously and didn’t have time for more than a quick day tour. Unfortunately, that fog followed me, so scenic was out.

A guided Allagash Wild-erness Waterway canoe trip didn’t pan out so I routed around Moosehead Lake again. This time the lumber company road from Greenville to Baxter State Park had opened to the public. Vehicles over nine feet high, seven feet wide, and 22 feet long are prohibited in the park, leaving out RVs. I drove the 44 miles of narrow gravel road through Baxter at the required 20 mph with one moose sighting. The Appalachian Trail ends at Baxter’s Mt. Katahdin.

From Bangor, Maine, it took 24 hours and many Interstates to reach Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for the next Life on Wheels Conference. That is not the preferred way to travel!
God Bless.