Discovering the weird and whimsical sites of New England
Author: Theophanes Avery
Theophanes Avery is a whimsical travel blogger that is hopelessly in love with New England and all it's weird places, people, and things. Besides running way too many blogs they are the author of three books, at least one of them good, and they also enjoy raising aquarium fish in Walsted tanks, sculpting, Sharpie doodling, knitting, tattooing leather, homesteading, and whatever other hobby tickles their raging ADD. Less fortunately they are a hopelessly impoverished spoonie yelling to the world, "WE NEED MORE COMMUNITY!" but alas no one's listening. Make sure to find them on the FaceBook. They love new oddball friends. Fly the freak flag high my darlings!
To be honest we would have eaten at Alice’s restaurant if it was open that day (because I’m that big of a nerd) but just down the street there was a brooding inn with gift shop and food and it was just about to open to hungry diners. We were told we could wander the lobby for half an hour while we waited.
This place was… something else. We were immediately greeted by the newest staff – one of two hotel cats, who seemed bewildered at the amount of attention it was getting. It’ll settle in, I am sure. Beyond that there was this crazy metal cage elevator that I couldn’t help but think was haunted. The “lobby” was a set of rooms in a Byzantine maze set up with a series of quirky antique chairs. Beyond that there was a gift shop that was small but entertained us for way too long. It had 1950’s styled colored small appliances, expensive candles, some soft plushies, a nice selection of cookbooks, and apparently the rape whistle to end all rape whistles which came in a moderately decorated box saying, “Your mama will want you to have it!” Apparently, it was less of a whistle and more of a pocket-sized flashing siren. Weird choice of a gift shop item… everything else seemed normal!
Just outside the gift shop there was a chessboard set up next to the most anguished looking rocking horse (unicorn?) I have ever seen in my life. Though I took several photos during this visit it was only the rocking horse who came out. Haunted? Maybe. A patron asked if I was allowed to take photos of the rocking horse, staff assured him I could. Not like anyone was on it??
Anyway, when the clock finally timed out and they started letting dinner patrons in we meandered to the dining rooms. One was a proper dinner restaurant with duck on the menu. The other was a little mini pub with bar food. None of us had planned for this so we went with the cheaper option. I had the fish and chips which was… odd! I expected it to be beer battered like fish and chips normally are but no, it came out in breadcrumbs like a piece of chicken?? It wasn’t bad, it was just different. And I was unable to peel the batter off as I would have been able to do with a beer battered fish (because I’m weird and don’t really like the batter, just the fish.) The chips were also good. My companions were also happy with their options, a smash burger, some “spicy” carrot soup, and something I can’t remember. The only complaint we really had was the fact we were some of the first patrons of the day in a not-very busy setting and it still took us almost an hour to get served. But you know… the ambiance was worth it in this preposterously old building with original wood floors (square nails still visible keeping them down!) Decorations were odd and there was even a stain glass window. Again, all my pix came out blurred to the point of not being able to recognize anything in them despite having worked the rest of the day. Maybe the ghosts like their privacy.
Anyway… I do think this place was well worth a good poke. I do wonder what the rooms in the inn look like!
After the cemetery we decided to check out the center of town to see what was there. To my absolute joy we ended up parking directly in front of what used to be Alice’s Restaurant back in the day, you know, the Alice’s Restaurant the song was named after? DELIGHTED, I tell you! But it wasn’t open so we continued ambling down the street and the first thing we saw after Alice’s was this country store.
This place is part old timey general store and part weird hippie niche shop and I loved every second of it! There were TONS of old candies to chose from as we entered. They even had candy cigarettes which I haven’t seen in a dog’s age and Sugar Daddies! The only candy I really remember growing up as my mother never bought us candy except when I had a tooth that was way too loose that I refused to pop out. Then she’d diabolically feed me a sugar daddy in the hopes I’d get the ill begotten tooth stuck in that sticky sugary mess and rip it clean out of my head. Twas more pleasant than my brother’s suggestion of tying the tooth to a door handle and slamming it. Brothers!
Anyway, beyond the usual general store items there was a lot of novelty things – rag dolls of various famous personalities – Michelle Obama, Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol, Rosie the Riveter, Ghandi. And then there were novelty games and trinkets and bizarrely a whole wall of what looked like Catholic candles but instead of saints they had even more random actual people on them. Ruth Bader Ginsberg merch was strong here but there was also an Edgar Allen Poe saint candle? Sure, sure, for the Goths and raven lovers, I get it. And then of course there were a bunch of Normal Rockwell books which is what the town is famous for…
This place was such a happy jaunt. It is the perfect summer vacation shop with just the right amount of weird mixed in. And the shop keep was lovely and talkative! Definitely check this place out if you are looking for some nostalgic candies, random general store goods, or a chuckle.
We had initially planned to go to Stockbridge to find Norman Rockwell’s grave – beyond that we were playing it fast and loose. After the 3 hour drive I was ready to burst and was actively looking for a bathroom. Imagine my relief to see a sign reading, “Restrooms out back” as soon as I got into town!! It was the city hall and I was beelining to their back parking lot. After taking care of business I came back out and found this huge display of pamphlets on places to go. This would provide us with inspiration for our next trip when all the touristy things are actually open. SO MANY OPTIONS! Just because I had to piss like a racehorse, we got the best intel ever. It was fate.
But after that we did actually go just up the street a little bit and parked at the church across the cemetery as the cemetery didn’t seem to have any parking (even though you could drive into it.) I was uncomfortable parking there as the lanes were narrow and there was nowhere to really pull off. The church did not seem to mind we were there so that’s what we did. And we checked out the Children’s Tower as we were right there anyway. Beautiful!
In fact this whole area was so beautiful we were getting badly distracted the whole day. But we were here on a mission so off we went! The first thing we found in the cemetery was this weird circular burial plot. In the middle was a modest pillar monument but all around in, as if in a summoning circle, were all the other stones just looking at it. I couldn’t get a good picture of it but it felt odd… usually stones are in rows not in a circle!
Beyond this we started the self-guided tour and started to acquaint ourselves with a whole assortment of local personalities beyond just that of Normal Rockwell. Normal Rockwell was buried at the back in a very quiet plot surrounded by hedges. On his stone people had left coins and trinkets, a can of paint, and a ten dollar bill! Whhhhy give the dead a ten dollar bill?! Guess this area really is rich if instead of pennies they are leaving a tenner!
Behind Norman Rockwell’s grave is the prettiest damn sheep farm on a hill patrolled by livestock guardian dogs! A jogger passing by told us we could stroll up the lane and check it out as across from that was a botanical garden. The garden was closed and we got yelled at for trying to see what it was. Sorry? The farm we just enjoyed the sheep and annoyed the dogs with our existence. There was also a ton of ground bees. So many that passing cars were making pancakes of dozens of them at a time. Neither one of my companions like bees so to get them to walk through these patches was a challenge but we did it! Exposure therapy for a win!
After this detour we went back to the cemetery to see who else was buried there. It’s a fairly small cemetery landwise and honestly most of the monuments are unremarkable but the stories behind them started to be intriguing. Here lied the brother-in-law of the guy who shot Alexander Hamilton in a dual – Timothy Edwards. I know, that one was a stretch but they got better.
There was also Agrippa Hull who we had to search the hardest for. He was a free black man who enlisted in the army and served until 1783. When he came back home he purchased a small farm and the freedom of his formerly enslaved wife. Eventually he owned the most land of any black man in the town and more than many of the whites living there as well. Always nice to see a black man succeed in those days particularly! We found his monument in part by looking for a military flag which has to be placed on all veteran’s graves.
At the center of the weird circle (or Sedwick Pie) was Theodore Sedgwick: an attorney who served in the Continental Congress and in both the U.S House and U.S. Senate as well as being House Speaker.
As the only person of color surrounding the Sedwick Pie there was Elizabeth Freeman who with the help of Thomas Sedwick won her freedom in a trial that would later be the precedent needed to ensure Massachusetts banned slavery altogether.
Catharine Maria Sedgwick on the other hand was one of the first female novelists in the colonies who wrote of religious tolerance and giving equality to the indigenous peoples of the area. Her books include A New England Tale and Hope Leslie.
Cyrus West Field was a local businessman who promoted and helped create the transatlantic telegraph cable which allowed for news from England to reach the United States in mere hours. Â
Stephen Dudley Field was the proud inventor of the electric trolley car, the electric elevator, the ticker tape machine, and a dizzying amount of other things.
Racheal Field was the author of twenty-one plays, fifteen children’s books, six adult novels, and several books of poetry that included one about the scandalous French murder her great aunt was involved in.
Charles McBurney was a doctor who created McBurney’s Point, a guide to diagnosing appendicitis, as well as McBurney’s Incision, the least damaging way to pop out said enraged organ.
Austen Fox Riggs was a psychiatrist who was also an author, the first Boy Scout leader, a hobbyist clog dancer, and hopeful drum player among other hobbies, which I can only assume meant he had intense ADHD which he somehow made work for him. Good for him!
Gertrude Robinson Smith was a wealthy New York socialite and patron of the arts who brought the Boston Symphony Orchestra to town on several occasions and in 1937 when the concert was completely flooded by a terrifyingly strong rainstorm she somehow managed to latch onto that opportunity to raise $30,000 in one evening to build a permanent pavilion. Thinking on her feet! Go Gertrude!
Joseph Franz seemed to be another one of those people with his hands in everything – helping to build one of the country’s first hydroelectric plants, figuring out how to transmit electricity through buried ground wires, and even designing the Ted Shawn Theater.
Frederick L. Leuchs – has a very memorable stone with a stoned glass window embedded into it and there’s good reason for that as he was the town’s stained glass window artist. His work can still be seen in the Library of Congress!
Nathan G. Horwitt was the designer of the “dot” watch, an innovative modern design that contained no numbers or lines, just a dot at the top. As someone with dyscalculia I hate it. Couldn’t read it if you paid me. Still, the Museum of Modern Art in NYC seemed impressed and that’s where it is now.
Richard R. Bowker – founded the American Library Association and Publisher’s Weekly.
Nina Duryea – was remembered best for her immense contributions to the charitable relief of French World War I survivors and refugees, serving over 70,000 with food, clothing and medicine.
Reinhold Niebuhr – said by some to be the guy who penned the Serenity Prayer (better known as the AA prayer to some!)
Frederick Wurtzbach’s innovations with wood pulp made paper products such as books cheaper to produce and more accessible.
And that was our trip. What a sweet, picturesque cemetery in a quaint New England town! Well worth a looksie!
I had to go in for an MRI and I don’t know, there’s just something about being shoved in a tiny tube and having a jack hammer whip around your head banging, clanking, and beeping at high speeds, that makes you really want to run away into the safety of the trees! So, after I gathered myself and found something to eat (to finally break another ghastly fast) I decided to look up local waterfalls. This one was the highest on the list so I said why not, let’s go,
I was surprised to find the entrance to the trail was situated in a lovely little neighborhood right behind a very busy highway. Since it was raining and very early in the season I was lucky in that the parking lot only had two other cars, the occupant of one was heading in with her dog. I took my time putting on my knee braces so I wouldn’t be stalking just behind her. I must say the new knee braces are AWESOME. My entire life walking and hiking has always put me in pain and lately I hadn’t been taking a lot of hikes because it was taking me up to three days to recover from the soreness. The knee braces were a one-off chance, something I heard EDS patients say helped them (even though my doctors won’t even approach diagnosing me with something that seems so fucking obvious!) This was my first time out in both knee braces and it was weeeird, like I was being propelled by them! And walking was so easy! And not taxing! Is this what normal people feel like?! I was amazed.
But back to the trail. It was decent enough, a little pine forest with a mostly flat trail but being so close to the highway and with the lack of leaves on the trees it was still VERY LOUD. This was not the sort of quiet tree hugging moment of solitude I was looking for. To be frank I was a little put off and I wasn’t the only one. The large German Shepard mix I had witnessed enter these woods with its master was now trying desperately to get out, so much so it nearly bowled me over on the way tot he exit. The owner apologized, “She’s not liking this!”
I continued on until I hit the power lines going directly across the highway. Well.. I could only go away from that noise now I had gotten that close… so onward I went. The path was quite ordinary for a pine forest, nothing of particular note except perhaps the wet moss and lichen on the tree trunks. And then I came up to the waterfall. By then the trail seemed to have split in a hundred different very well-travelled mini paths. I was confused at first but then I went around the corner and found the offshoot to the waterfall with a big sign reading, “Swim at your own risk.” OH! I had found a local swimming hole! But today was not the day for such an activity as the runoff and recent rains of spring had filled the river well past capacity and the waters were raging. I toddled with my knee braces onto the rocks above to take a few photos, concerning whoever lived across the river who probably either thought I was about to topple in or willfully throw myself into the churning waters below. He wandered his yard and kept looking over to see if I was still there. Thanks for the concern but tragic accidents weren’t on my bucket list for today.
I stayed for quite a while just letting the overwhelming sound of the water rushing by completely overtake everything else in my brain. No longer could I hear cars, no longer was I trying to soothe my frazzled nerves, it was all just… river rapids and the sounds coming off them. Ahhhhhhh, that’s what I needed. I felt great after this, so much so I was able to tackle the steep hill from the river back to the path and find my way back to the car from there going back the way I came instead of continuing the loop. This was definitely a different experience. I do think in the summer when the water is calm this place probably is a wonderful hidden gem of a swimming hole and if that’s what you’re looking for I would definitely recommend it!
I was already on my way home from Rhode Island on this perfectly rainy day when I decided to use the weather’s gloomy ambiance to my advantage. I wanted to go find the Bancroft Tower and take a few dark and dreary photos of the castle and the foreboding gray clouds in the background. Nothing makes my inner Goth happier than that! Also, I had half an hour to kill before Lucky’s Aquarium opened. I’d heard rumors of a fresh fish order and I wanted to go for a good poke.
ANYWAY, Bancroft Tower is situated in a sweet residential neighborhood, atop a steep hill overlooking Worcester. There is a little parking lot and a lot of street signs saying that is the only place you are allowed to park. Of course, since it was raining, and spring, I was there with only two other cars who seemed to be idling, not gawking at the tower before them.
The park is very small, just a little patch of grass and a nice big castle directly in front of the parking lot allowing easy access to anyone who is not in form for a hike! As I approached it two HUGE turkey vultures flew off the tower straight towards me and scared the ever lovin’ piss out of me. Not many people know just how overwhelmingly monstrous those birds can get. It’s like being pursued by a goddamn pterodactyl! Imagine my absolute joy to see I’d taken a photo of them perched atop the tower without even knowing it! A moment later a woman walked her wee dog through the big arch doorway. I walked in as well and found that the doors to the tower part were locked but I guess they are open for Sunday tours in October allowing the public to climb up to the observation deck. Oh! How I wish to do so! It merits a return visit!
The tower itself was built in 1900 with the help of many very tuckered out horses who hauled the stones up that atrocious hill. It cost a mere $15,000, that’s over a cool half million today. It was to serve as a memorial.
Also of interest was the fact the park seemed to intersect with a 14-mile loop bike path through the city. If anyone is so inclined to try a challenge! Other than that the park and tower seem a lovely spot for some opportune castle photography or a scenic picnic. Definitely would recommend this to anyone who finds themself in Worcester.
I had tried earlier on in the morning to check out Moonstone Beach to see if I could find some cool rocks for my fish tank but as I drove up I found the road and probably parking lot beyond flooded. Well… since I’m in the area anyway let’s see if I can find some other destination to spoil my fish. And boy did I find it!
From the outside it looked like just another plaza pet store so I wasn’t holding my breath for anything special. However, when I walked in I was greeted immediately with a very long wall of well stocked healthy fish of all kinds. And plants! Sure, the plants were mostly the super common beginners plants but my God were they cheap and healthy looking. $3.99 a bundle. I had been routinely paying $12 for bundles half the size. And these extremely reasonable prices seemed to extend to the fish. $6 for a rummy nose tetra and there was a whole tank of them. Having lost two batches of those, one to ick, one to a power outage, I had to talk myself down from buying more on that specific day (though I will very likely be back some day before going home to NH the same day!)
I looked around the rest of the store and found a small critter section. There I found the biggest zebra finches I’ve seen in my life, almost as big as the budgies they were housed next to! The feeder section also had enormous crickets, just huge. No idea what they were feeding them but wow! They were almost as big as the also exceptionally low priced (70 cents a head) dubia roaches.
Beyond that was a small quiet reptile section with two boas, a few empty enclosures, and an adorable fuzzy tarantula chilling in a nice actual enclosure, not a tub like you usually see! I must say the fact pet shops are starting to take an active part in helping people buy appropriately sized enclosures is really refreshing to see!
I was also happy to see this place had a tank full of live brine shrimp as a food option for the fish. I really suck at raising these myself so I was intrigued by finding a fresh supply. They also had a small saltwater section with a 40-something dollar Picasso clown fish I would have totally wanted if I had a saltwater set up. Gorgeous. Their coral frags were $20 a piece but larger than you’d usually find in that price range. Dare I say their goldfish section was also really decent and had some very pretty ones – which I don’t normally say as I’m not the biggest goldfish fan.
I decided to buy a couple plants and a couple packages of frozen food. This is the first time I tried buying anything with spirulina mixed in so I wasn’t sure my spoiled fish would want it. A baseless fear. They went NUTS for it!!
The man at the counter signed me up for a rewards program – a dollar off every 40 spent – and told me they have fish shipments usually twice a week, plant shipments once a month, and are open to special orders. Dangerous. Looks like I’ll be coming back to this place…
It was another adventure with kids this time around – tweens who wanted to try an escape room. Sadly this was a Tuesday and apparently its an unspoken rule that escape rooms are generally closed on Tuesdays… but we eventually found one that was both open and not in Providence (because the construction down there on the 95 is INSANE right now.)
It was Escape the Mystery Room at the mall in Attleboro Massachusetts which had quite a few options to be honest. The girls however were only into the most morbid – zombie apocolypse! Weeeee!
It was quite fitting as the rest of the mall already looked like a zombie apocolypse took place with 2/3rds of the shops boarded over and empty, only three options still functioning in the food court – Thai, Caribbean jerk, and Charlie’s sandwiches. First time I’ve ever seen goat on the menu. If you’re so daring. I was not. Neither was anyone else.
But back to the games! There were a number of rooms each with their own theme but they were deffinately a singular room. Ours was a supply closet, er, laboratory. Some Halloween wallpaper of zombies hung on the wall to complete the effect. The story was we needed to find all the components of a vaccine to save ourselves from imminent doom and surviving that we had the bonus option of sending out the vaccine information to the rest of the world saving the rest of humanity. Hurrah!
And so we were given an hour to solve the puzzles and told to pull the emergency switch to unlock the room only if someone was actively dying of some non zombie related situation. Fun.
Maybe I’m just jaded from going to other better escape but this one was… lacking. Not just in decore as it really did look like a supply closet but also in puzzles. All of them were just trying to solve a puzzle to find a code for another lock. It lacked variation and was worded oddly. We had to ask for help three times which is unusual even with the kids. With 12 minutes on the clock both children were struggling hard to keep interest. My greatest contribution was pointing to the wall and muttering, “Look a periodic table.” Crucial that.
I sat back and kept the child actively sitting the rest out a bit of company. I did not believe we’d solve this but they did with less than 5 minutes on the clock and then really hit it out of the park by solving the bonus with a bunch of words one of the kids was writing down basically as busy work. Had no idea it was actually part of a puzzle. Hilariously, we accidentally yelled at the MC to buzz off so the bonus could be solved. “No one really goes for the bonus.” He lamented.
We not only survived the zombie apocolypse but saved the world with just 2 and a half minutes on the clock! Woo! And then we took a team photo – the children felt I was the one who should don the smelly rubber zombie mask as they chose a wallpaper for the green screen behind us. It was cute. They also had a riddle of the day – what two things can you never eat for breakfast. The girls felt like the answer was dog poop and ice cream but I’m pretty sure it was lunch and dinner.
As underwhelming as the actual room was this place did have a lovely rewards program giving generous discounts on future visits to anyone who solved the rooms, bonus if they got the bonuses as well. It was pretty sweet. We may be back. Who knows, maybe we just picked the wrong room.
*Photos for this entry have been made by AI because although I have the artistic skill I don’t have the time or desire to render my own zombies for an entry only three people are likely to read. Sorry. I asked for zombie children and a zombie in a playground.
By now my companion was looking a bit off and not feeling up to his usual so we decided this would be our last stop of the day. Really, he just wanted to go out on a high note and the last antique store was… underwhelming.
Luckily, we hit another treasure with this one! It seemed to be all the weirdness of the first antique store of the day combined with all the respectability of the second, in a larger space. Fancy paintings adorned the wall with old foreign ad posters. We found cultural items from all over the world – some which I still maintained probably came with a free curse for the white people buying them, but I digress. There were African statuary, a bunch of scary masks, and even full Samauri armor. I was also mesmerized by this gorgeous swinging baby cradle. Other hits were a writing desk fit for a wealthy historical fiction author, a wire rat Halloween decoration, a country chic armoire, and a tin Easter bunny from the bowels of hell.
A woman sat in the main part of the shop and kept an eye on customers, and I knew my photo taking was making her a little tense but me being me I wasn’t about to say anything. I swear to god, I’m not casing the place, and the things I am taking photos of are not the most valuable items, more like the most random. Congrats on that Easter bunny!
Maybe someday I will visit England. Or all the countries on those two little islands half a world away where all my ancestors seem to have come from. Or perhaps I can see the Oracle at Delphi, or revisit the Parisian catacombs, or sit with the rats at the Karni Devi waiting for a white one to approach. It is nice to dream, isn’t it?
Onto the second antique of the day we decided to hit the Corner Cupboard. It was yet another one of the shops we had not hit because they were not generally open on the two days a week we were out and about. But today was Thursday! Glorious Thursday!
It had a nice little parking lot right off the street and although the traffic on that day was near suicidal I got there just fine. Inside the shop was very country chic. In fact, that seemed to be the theme of the entire place. It even had a Norman Rockwell birdhouse. I didn’t even know those existed!
Still, it was small, and lacking in the creepy and depraved things we usually look for – haunted dolls, “satanic” photos, portraits of tuberculosis-addled Victorian children, and the like. This place seemed… respectable. And there were plenty of people in it which is why I didn’t take almost any photos. I was already getting weird looks from other customers best not make a scene.
No shade to those that like this sort of thing it just wasn’t what I was looking for. In any event if you are in the area and looking for the perfect country chic item I still strongly suggest this place.
It was an unusual circumstance in which my companion had an illustrious Thursday off. A Thursday that all the antique stores closed on Tuesday and Wednesdays would be open. AHA! A BUCKET LIST!
And this first one was a riot. We drove all the way there (GPS fucking with me the entire time, because why not) and when we got there we found a building with a very small parking lot of sorts fitting about five cars. It was full. Luckily one of them was leaving, an old couple who seemed VERY confused I was waiting for their spot.
We checked out the yard first. The yard which legitimately had a fire exit… In case all the junk spontaneously combusted I suppose. It was fun junk too. Yard decorations, old street signs, a cross gravestone (with no name – probably either an extra or replaced by something else.) There were some big ceramic jars and a wild assortment of random things all packed into a very small area. It was like being in Maine again!
Inside was much the same. Just really random things all piled up in a small space, the people in the shop talking about how they have to sell things for the price they’re at to make a profit. I don’t know why anyone would try to haggle here, everything already seemed cheap considering the other prices in the area. There was even a drawer full of glass apothecary bottles I had to pry myself away from. Yes, they’re cool, what would you do with them though? MAKE SPELL BOTTLES? You’re not a witch, cool your tits.
There was also a little area for a local glass artist who had some adorable sea creatures. The rest of the shop had everything from old can labels and coupons, to a few creepy masks, to a seriously cool old leather cat carrier. It looked like it had been custom made for Hannibal Lecter’s cat and I looooved it. But alas, I am catless. Woe is me.
All and all I liked this shop. It clashed violently with all the other chichi froufrou upscale antique stores in the area. This was a common man’s store. And there’s nothing wrong with that!
