Category: Historical Landmarks

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery/Author’s Ridge – Concord MA

*Scroll to the bottom for photos or enjoy a good read below.

A few weeks ago I heard a book calling out to me as I strolled haplessly through a Barnes and Noble. It was titled Over my Dead Body and it was all about the evolution of the garden cemeteries starting in Paris and working their way over here to the United States. It was a very informative (and often funny) read which mentioned a lot of cemeteries here in New England, one of which I’d never been to before.
So that’s how I ended up at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord Massachusetts last week. It’s the home of Author’s Ridge which is where Lousia May Alcott author of Little Women, Henry David Thoreau author of Walden or Life in the Woods, Ralph Waldo Emmerson the poet, essayist, and philosopher, and Nathaniel Hawthorne the author of the Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables are all buried quite close to each other.

Honestly it was weird I didn’t know about this place before seeing as I am constantly enamored with authors, cemeteries, and history. Still. Sleepy Hollow is a large cemetery with clearly marked signs leading to Author’s Ridge and scant parking so keep that in mind if you visit.

So how did all these icons of their era end up buried in a row? Simple, they weren’t. Back in the day the cemetery more or less bought their remains so they could put them here to drive-up tourism. Capitalism at its finest. Nothing is off limits. Not even celebrity corpses. But it worked! And people are STILL flocking here. Although oddly enough there were remarkably few pennies. Alcott had the most. I wonder if they weren’t being cleaned up or if this bunch just wouldn’t be fond of having pennies left for them. They seem the type…

I’d been accidentally stalking the life of Lousia May Alcott for some time weaving in and out of the strange and wonderful landmarks they had something to do with and I have been coming to learn they were a fascinating individual, possibly even a trans or non-binary icon as in their own words they declared, “‘I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man’s soul, put by some freak of nature into a woman’s body.” And they liked to be referred to as gentleman, like a boss! They were buried in a family plot with their author mother Abigail May Alcott and author sisters Elizabeth Sewell Alcott and Abigail May Alcott Nieriker. Their last remaining sister wasn’t a writer but she was inspiration for Meg in Little Women and she also resides in the family plot. Her name was Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt. Pretty hard-hitting literary family there.

Admittedly I don’t know much about Emerson, he’s flown under my radar for some reason. Though I did previously visit the former resting spot of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin in the woods aside Walden Pond. I could appreciate his deep and intense need to be one with the wilderness. However, my knee jerk reaction since childhood was to not have any real fondness for Nathaniel Hawthorne. I decided at 12 he was whiny, and my opinion has only gotten bleaker with age. He wrote The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables which is a real place and a delight to visit. He’s buried with his likely more talented writer and artist wife Sophia Amelia Peabody Hawthrone who was relocated from her original burial in London in 2006! THAT POOR DEAR.

I will note now there are other authors buried here who are not on author’s ridge. They include but may not be limited to:

  • Novelist, poet, and screenwriter Millen Brand known for his 1937 novel The Outward Room and his 1948 screenplay The Snake Pit.
  • Prominent transcendentalist, poet, and dear friend of Thoreau: William Ellery Channing whose books include “The Woodsman” (1849), “Near Home” (1858), and “The Wanderer” (1871)
  • Intrepid journalist Irene Agnes Dolores Corbally Kuhn who was the first woman to broadcast on the radio in China and whose career spanned a great many interesting topics from interviewing Charlie Chaplin and Margaret Sanger to covering the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.
  • Robin Moore – the author of The Green Berets and The French Connection
  • Franklin Benjamin Sanborne – Writer and one of the “Secret Six” who funded John Brown’s Raid on Harper Ferry sparking the Civil War. Gotta love a trouble maker!
  • Margaret Sidney – Children’s book author of The Little Peppers and How They Grew series under a penname.

Not be outdone there are other people of historical note here. In fact many of them are written up on a board near the entrance of the cemetery that also has a little map and I think a QR code for an audio tour. We decided to wander around like cracked out squirrels looking for whatever took our interest in any particular second weaving in and out of some areas several times, talking to other lost cemetery goers, and getting distracted by beautiful monuments and really ornate slate stones. So much diversity here!

As we wandered we found slates with ornate carvings – sometimes whole family crests, as well as a number of modern stones that had the deceased’s signature on them. I’ve never seen either of these before or a slab of green granite being used instead of marble. There was also Edward Nealy’s memorial which was an old indigenous mortar being currently used as birdbath. A slate stone commemorating a woman who was a teenager when the British came into the tavern she lived atop of and announced their occupation of the colonies. There was even a few Asian stones with characters on them but my two favorites were a fairly recent burial who had A TON of rocks set on top of his stone. He must have been loved by SO MANY people to have acquired that many rocks! On the complete opposite side of the spectrum I found a husband and wife drama from the 1800’s. They were in a family plot and the husband had practically his whole obituary on his stone – totally mental amount of words and aside him his wife had a matching stone that literally only ready her name, date of birth, and date of death. WOW, what happened there?! Upon closer inspection she didn’t have the same surname so I am guessing she remarried after her husband died and then came back to be buried awkwardly in the family plot. Ooooo the scandal!

But I suppose I should get back to the other famous people buried here… My favorite I think was a very unassuming one. Her name was Anne Rainsford French Bush who was the first woman to get a driver’s license! I left her a penny (as there were none there and if I am thankful for anything in this life it’s that I, as the owner of a pair of tits and a twat, have the freedom to drive a car. VERY UNDERATED RIGHT.) Not to be outdone there was also Katherine K Davis who wrote the lyrics for The Little Drummer Boy. Her stone was the hardest to find as it was a flat ground level stone and there were soooooo many ground hornets in the area. Thousands. I tried taking a photo but they were too small to pick up. You’ll just have to believe me this was the biggest swarm of ground hornets I have ever seen in my life. This cemetery is known for bird watching as migrating birds seem to love it here – I suspect many will get eaten by them in a month or two.

Daniel Chester French, the sculptor responsible for the seated Lincoln in Washing DC also shares a residence here with the other authors and artists. And in a quieter but no less important role we also found Mary Lemnist Titcomb – the creator of the first bookwagon (or bookmobile,) Elizabeth Palmer Peabody who helped create the kindergarten system in the US, William Monroe Spencer – the first man in America to manufacture graphite pencils, and Ephraim Wales Bull – who bred the first Concord grapes, and Marc and Emily Daniels – a married couple working in television as a director and camera coordinator respectively. Marc’s resume is impressive including episodes of I Love Lucy, Hogans Heros, and Star Trek and Emily was one of the first women to work behind the scenes with the cameras on shows such as I Love Lucy. Their stones were the only ones we did not find. I don’t know where they were hiding but we looked a good long time for them – with a terrible map, a confused GPS, and a broken gut instinct.

We didn’t bother to try and find the oodles of politicians and famous gun makers. Suffice to say we’re both a little weary of such things at the moment.

All and all this cemetery has soooo many historically interesting people, especially women of note as well as authors. It was on some beautiful grounds and aside from the lack of parking and the thousands of hornets it was actually really pleasant! I would highly suggest it to any cemetery or literary lover.

0

New Bedford Antiques at the Cove – New Bedford MA

So, I may have been a little burned out towards the end of 2022 and I may have decided to take the month of December off as far as writing blog entries. This however does not mean I didn’t go to a bunch of antique stores and now I am left with figuring out which I went to, what was in them, and which photos go where… In case you find yourself in a similar dilemma DON’T DO THIS. And if you do make sure to at least take a photo of each’s store’s sign so you can remember. Otherwise… well… good luck.

I do however remember the New Bedford Antiques Cove. New Bedford is the former whaling capitol of the US so this huge antique store in a sprawling old mill building is chock FULL of scrimshaw. None of which I took photos of! I really don’t know why. In addition to scrimshaw there was also plenty of whale art and harpoons aplenty! In addition to this they also had a vast array of completely unrelated and probably haunted dolls and creepy paintings. Just a big old cache. This was also the first time we had come across an old wax cylinder recorder. Very neat! Probably should have been in a museum.

All and all this was another all-day adventure because of the enormity of the place. Definitely worth a little road trip to see such an assortment of different venders. Something for everyone! And if you’re into the whole whaling aspect there is a Whaling Museum in New Bedford as well.

0

St Auburn Cemetery – Cambridge Massachusetts

St Auburn Cemetery is where it all began – garden cemeteries, that is. It’s the first in the US and with over 170 acres and with 93,000 people buried here there’s A LOT to check out!

Garden cemeteries came into existence before the country had any official parks and they were used as green spaces for living people to enjoy during the day. And St Auburn is gorgeous. It’s immaculately landscaped with all sorts of exotic trees and shrubbery, a few little ponds, and many hills and crevices. It makes for a unique and serene experience especially if you go at the right time of the year like we did when all the trees were in full Autumn colors.

Funny enough, I’d never actually heard about St Auburns. It was suggested by my traveling companion who also had no idea what it was. As such I didn’t expect much but WOW. This place sure is something! We were barely out of the car when we stumbled upon a huge sphinx, like the one in Egypt! Just sitting there with its big lion paws and judgmental face staring down at us. What the…? Now that’s a strange sight in New England! Around it were other Egyptian inspired monuments and that… was just the beginning of our discoveries.

Near the sphinx was a big church looking building… Bigalow Chapel and a number of the stones surrounding it seemed to mimic its ornate style. But then directly across from that family plot there was a stack of granite boulders making another weird memorial. And sitting nearby was a full bronze statue of… someone. Someone who I am sure felt he was important enough for a bronze statue although none of the crew today recognized his name or possible accomplishments… but nice statue!

I was hopeful on this day to find the oldest part of the cemetery where all the old slate was… but we only found modern slate, some which were clearly recently placed and had yet to have anyone buried under them. Is slate coming back into fashion?? You have no idea how close I am to buying a slab of slate directly off a local quarry and having fun carving my own. It’d be… something. That’s for sure.

ANYWAY – aside from such morbid thoughts we continued to be surprised by the weird elements of this cemetery including a series of crypt-like mausoleums buried directly into the hills. And some more traditional mausoleums. One which was chained from the outside, a second which had a broken door that looked like it broke from the inside, and a third that apparently gave a good knock. And I mean if I were buried above ground in a tiny marble house, I’d be desperate for escape too. Or maybe they were just offended by comments like, “Watch out! Unnecessarily hot Jesus to your left!” But I mean you can’t beat doing a cemetery tour with people willing to make gentle fun of hot Jesus. This one had missing fingers which made him weirdly even hotter. I said what I said.

We did find other notable people buried here… There was a memorial to Robert Gould Shaw the first colonel to lead the 54th Massachusetts Infantry – otherwise known as the North’s first black regiment during the Civil War. Shaw was white and when he died during the second battle at Fort Wagner the Southerners threw him into a mass burial with all the men that he led. He’d eventually be dug up and reburied in Beaufort National Cemetery in South Carolina which begs the question why is his memorial here in Cambridge MA? Maybe because he’s buried under an “unknown” marker in SC or maybe because the locals here felt he needed something proper. Funny enough I find memorials without bodies fairly frequently on my travels and one of the biggest reasons is there is no body or it’s a famous person whose hometown also wants to show some respect even if they’re buried elsewhere. And then we come across stones that have whole stories on them… like this one:

“Charles Turner Torrey was arrested for aiding slaves to regain their Liberty.

For this humane act he was indicted as a criminal convicted by the Baltimore City Court and sentenced to the penitentiary for six years.

While on his death bed he was refused a pardon by the Govenor of Maryland and died of consumption after two years confinement a victim of his sufferings.”

And there’s a story I didn’t know that sort of gives me a little hope in humanity so that’s good…. it’s funny how life affirming a trip to a cemetery can be. Especially when there’s so many stones in the shape of beloved dogs for some reason.

We spent an entire afternoon sorting through the stones and enjoying the pretty trees. We even stumbled into several sections with stones that were engraved in foreign languages – some even Asian. 11,000 steps later we went back to the car completely exhausted and not having seen the whole place! How much did we miss? I don’t know but I have a feeling we will be back.

0

Belcourt Mansion – Newport Rhode Island

I have been spending time in Newport for a few years now and although it’s known for its mansions, I had never been to any of them. So I pitched the idea that maybe we should at least look into that… and as luck would have it this happened to be just the right time of year to make a boring old mansion exciting. Why? Because it’s spooky season! And some of these mansions are supposed to be haunted. Why not go on a nighttime tour?? To one of them that the locals seemed to think was actually haunted.

That’s how we ended up at Belcourt taking a tour hosted by a documentarian who lives there on the weekend. We did learn a little bit about its history but if I am to be very frank my eyes were pretty glassed over. I just… can’t seem to muster any interest whatsoever in the dramatic lives of the long dead super wealthy. SORRY. All I got out of this is it was built at the end of the 1800’s, used to have an attached stable, and was basically used as a building for extravagant parties after a woman won it in her divorce.

And it was indeed… lavishly decorated which is what gave me the first heeby jeeby of the evening as we drove through the big iron gates and were surrounded on both sides by two huge iron horses. Being nighttime this creeped me the hell out. Small confession: I find the uber wealthy terrifying. Coming from poverty I know all too well that if you cross a super wealthy person the wrong way you can easily be disappeared. A lesson I learned while accidentally wandering into some swank rich person’s event at the Grand Canyon once. The look one of those rich assholes gave me was reminiscent of the look a wolf gives a limping lamb. Had I not been escorted by another man at the time I am not so sure I would have not been disappeared myself. Think about it – these people have so much money they can pay off anyone – witnesses, body collectors, whatever they need. This is why we’ve never had a billionaire serial killer arrested in the US. Don’t think it’s because they don’t exist. And iron gates? Holy crap does that bring this whole idea home – that no one really knows what goes on beyond them.

Luckily there were no murderous rich bastards around on this particular evening. In fact the crowd here seemed a nice mix of locals and tourists of various classes. I was excited to see what was here, although I didn’t’ really expect it to be mostly in the dark! Only the bare minimum of lights were on – but this was often because there just wasn’t any – having relied mostly on sunshine to light it up during the day. We were some of the first to show up – me without my camera, again. I don’t know where my brain has been this week, on vacation I suppose. Luckily, I still had my cellphone.

I noticed a copper chopper (say that five times fast!) sitting astutely under a chandelier in the darkened ball room. What… is that? I had to look it up later. It’s The Liberty Bike, built by the American Chopper guys with pieces from the Statue of Liberty taken during restoration. It must have been visiting? No one said anything about it but it did have its own trailer outside.

As we waited we noticed the receiving room was filled with giant mirrors. Confession number two: I don’t feel any warmer or fuzzier about mirrors than I do about rich people. AND WHY ARE THEY SO BIG?! Of course we were told one of them was haunted with orbs so we all lined up to take selfies in it as one does with a giant haunted mirror…

After this the actual tour started. Our host was energetic and clearly passionate about this place. He led us into a library that was supposed to have a poltergeist or an imp of some sort as books from it would randomly walk off and be found in other strange parts of the property – like the front lawn. Or perhaps if you were really unlucky something would occasionally pitch books at guests’ heads. I decided that if I should die and get stuck as a ghost it would be an amusing job to haunt a library and do much the same.

From here we were taken out to meet the strange throne-like chair that was supposed to be some sort of conduit to the spiritual world. We each sat in it to see if we could feel anything. I felt something – but it wasn’t ghosts – it was just a feeling of “I COULD BE KING!” You know, being as it looked like a throne… Another woman claimed it was colder in the chair and she could feel a breeze, but I was standing next to the chair and felt the same chilly draft sooo…. I’m not really convinced. This may have also been the same woman claiming to smell ghostly cigarette smoke which turned out to be my companion… who smokes.

However, the next room was a thing of terror. It was a big oval room with a seance table in the middle and surrounded on all sides BY MORE FUCKING MIRRORS. Maybe it helped the ghosts appear. We were told that this was where all the table turning happened back in the day – with this very table. *Table-turning (also known as table-tapping, table-tipping or table-tilting) is a type of séance in which participants sit around a table, place their hands on it, and wait for rotations. It was just as we were being told this that one of the doors popped open and we all looked to see who was on the other side coming through – but there was no one there. Even the host seemed weirded out by this. Despite this being a haunted mansion tour he made it clear he wanted no part in actually meeting any of the deceased residents. This made it all the funnier.

Obviously, we all had to go through that door to go to the next room which was absolutely empty as far as people were concerned. This room didn’t need a ghost to be creepy because the walls and ceiling were adorned with faces. Whhhhhhhhy, just whhhhhy.

We’d eventually find our way to a bedroom with a big old ornately carved wooden bed that screamed “fuck off and get out of my room” in grumpy old white man. I was slightly confused no one else seemed to feel this but then again – that is my life, isn’t it? Just stumbling into random things and noticing things others don’t.

The bedroom was attached to a bathroom which we all had to wander through because it had a primitive shower that looked like a torture cage lit up by red lights to make a bathtub of doom. Very catchy.

After this we entered what I can only describe as a misplaced medieval European Cathedral complete with sweeping arches and stained glass from the 15th century. And a church organ. And some suits of armor… annnnd a weapon’s case which held an ax that would “sometimes dance around the room on its own.” It must have been filled with stage fright on this particular night.

Then we got to go upstairs and look down into this weird cathedral room from the big openings in the wall which…. did not have anything preventing people from just falling right out of them into the room below. No guards, no glass, just a big gaping tilted foot-level hole big enough for a body to trip through. But perhaps that’s what the little squatting monk statues were doing – making sure no one did. One of them looked like Bill Murray. I pondered about that for a moment. Comedy gargoyle? You never know.

And that was the tour. Filled with reportedly 14 or so ghosts with intensely vague backstories annnnnd some magic rocks on the outside of the building. Mmmmkay. It was a really fun little night adventure and I would recommend it to most people who love spooky season as much as me but be forewarned THERE ARE MIRRORS AND CHERUB FACES EVERYWHERE. EVERYWHERE.

0

Common Burial Grounds – Newport Rhode Island

Before I start this I want to warn my readers it is a VERY information and photo heavy entry so if you’re here for the pretty gravestone photos feel free to scroll down to the gallery at the bottom of the text and if you’re here for a good chunk of New England history just read on as I take you down this deep deep rabbit hole with me!

It’s funny, I have been loitering around the Newport area for a few years now and although I had always wanted to check out the local cemetery it took me this long to actually get there. But let me tell you it was WELL WORTH the wait! This was one of the most interesting cemeteries I have ever had the joy of wandering through and part of that is because it’s actually seven separate cemeteries that have bled into each other to make one massive burial ground that dates back to our earliest settlements. The oldest parts of the cemetery were founded in 1640 and the newest are from the present day. All together there are thousands of memorials here.

During the colonial era Newport RI was also our largest port, even bigger than Boston at the time, and as such it was always a thriving multicultural area. The cemetery very much reflects this with various sections dedicated to different cultures, religions, and ethnicities. Here you’ll find the country’s oldest Jewish cemetery which dates back to the colonial era and contains mostly a thriving multi-nationl seafaring community as well as God’s Little Acre which is the the largest (and possibly only) cemetery dedicated to both enslaved and free blacks, also of the colonial era. It was these 250 or so slate stones I had especially wanted to see because they are soooo rare, and such a precious historical archive of an otherwise silenced community whose contributions have been largely looked over.

And it’s not only me who recognizes the need to preserve this historic landmark. Intense efforts to restore and preserve what is left here have been underway since the early 1990’s and continue to this day. There were even three stones which were returned to the cemetery after being found in various residences around RI and Pennsylvania. What they were doing in Pennsylvania is a bit of a mystery but one of these stones belonged to a famous woman at the time – Duchess Quamino. Duchess was a woman of remarkable standing. She came to Newport aboard a slave ship as a child, having been born somewhere in Africa. She was then bought by the Channing family who utilized her as a maid and cook. While enslaved she somehow managed to get in the good grace’s of the white church the Channings attended and was able to start her own bakery and catering business becoming the US’s first successful female black business owner.

During this time she married a slave from a different household and eventually had at least four children. Her husband was able to win a lottery and obtain his own freedom but it seems Duchess may have already been a free woman by then. No records exist to show how this happened – if she bought her freedom with the money she made baking or if she was simply granted her freedom. Either way she continued her business and eventually became so famous she earned the moniker “Pastry Queen of Rhode Island” and her delicious baked goods were served to a visiting George Washington at least twice.

Also worth noting was possibly the country’s first professional black artist – Pompe Stevens – who was a stone carver and possibly the one responsible for the distinct black features on the cherub’s heads carved into the stones in God’s Little Acre. He was enslaved by the biggest stone carving family in town and we probably wouldn’t even have known he existed except he carved a beautiful stone for his brother, which he identified as such before signing. He signed two stones in all but likely did a lot more – especially considering how intricate and well-practiced his carvings on those two stones seem to be.

It was a deeply humbling experience to wander God’s Little Acre and come face to face with the bleak reality of slavery in the colonies. The stones were hard to read – “Beloved and trusted by his master” was probably the most cringe worthy phrase I found. And the stories were heartbreaking – stories of black children whose parents were tricked into sending them to America “for and education” and “a better life” but instead ended up here. Buried in a slave cemetery. It’s an ugly mark on our history but we do each of these people a grave injustice by looking away and forgetting their great contributions.

We moved on from here and just wandered about until we found ourselves at a different entrance. And it was there we realized there was a sign up offering a free cell phone guided tour if you could scan the code on the sign. We went for it. But I was getting low on battery and it took a ridiculous amount of steps to set up. The next part of our day was spent fast walking through the stones trying to identify which ones were important according to the tour map which was…. grossly inaccurate. It started off being a few stones away from what they were talking about but by the end it was A LONG WAY AWAY. But we’ll get to that.

There are a lot of notable people buried out here. Among them are a ton of congressmen, mayors, and governors, over 70 Revolutionary war soldiers, a whole section dedicated to Civil War casualties, veterans from every US war, at least 4 famous architects, Charles Bird King (a portrait artist known for painting Native Americans) William Ellery who signed the Declaration of Independence, August Belmont Jr who developed the IRT subway in NYC and the Cape Cod Canal, most of the stone carvers who were responsible for the slate stones, and Ida Lewis “the bravest woman in America” who manned the Lime Rock Light Station for 46 years after the official lighthouse keeper (her father and then mother) died. During this time she rescued at least 36 people from drowning with her first rescue at the age of 12 and her last at 63! Keep in mind lighthouse keepers were NOT obligated to save drowning shipwreck victims for one very good reason – generally shipwrecks were caused by bad weather, bad weather that could easily capsize a tiny rowboat. It was better to guard the light than risk death. But Ida did not feel this way and was known to “row better than any man.” She lived on her own in this badass life until her death of a stroke. Really a remarkable heroine.

And it was Ida Lewis’ stone we couldn’t find at the end of the tour so I will give you some hints. It’s in the same row of stones that face the road near one of the exits. You cannot miss it as it has a HUGE anchor on it.

And I must say that also geeked out hardcore knowing that a number of the stone carvers were buried here as well and a lot of the stones could be attributed to either various members of the Stevens family (which were the first gravestone carvers in Newport and maintained the business for six generations) one of their slaves Pompe Stevens, or John Bull who married a Stevens daughter and then led this INSANE drama filled life that started when his brother pissed away the family inheritance and he had to sell himself into indentured servitude. It gets worse. He was sold to his brother-in-law William Stevens. The two HATED each other because William did not buy his brother-in-law as an act of charity – he expected work from him! And for a while Bull did in fact work as an indentured servant at the stone carving business but this didn’t last terribly long before he got fed up with the situation and basically ran away taking a job at sea where he stayed on ship for years. When he returned William sued him saying he was in breach of contract and still was obligated to work for free for a few years. The courts favored with Bull and in retribution he started his own gravestone carving business right across the street in what seems to be a purely spite based decision. Bull was the most artistic and rebellious of the city’s stone carvers and his work seems glaringly obvious with their side facing facial portraits and he is responsible for a famous stone – that of Charles Bardin – which is known for its intensely blasphemous imagery – that of Moses (or God?) parting the Red Sea. VERY UNUSUAL FOR THE PERIOD. It’s one of a kind and why it was made is still very unclear.

Meanwhile the Stevens family (who began as masons) didn’t escape the colonial era unphased as one of the original brothers, Philip, was noted cryptically in one of the legers as being murdered. Nothing further is stated. A second brother James died at sea.

By this point I was super sunburnt, overheating pretty bad, and tired from the jog so I regret to admit I did not cross the street to check out the colonial Jewish cemetery but I will likely return at some point. Until then I hope this has been an enjoyable read! Happy travels all!

2

Antiques on the Farmington – Canton CT

Antiques on the Farmington was located in an old mill – which adds so much to its charm. It was another sprawling place just oozing character. The first thing I noticed was a large amount of little wrought iron piggy banks with moving features. There was the usual clown eating coins and a poodle jumping through a hoop but my favorite was just downright bizarre. It was a small child sitting across from a dentist with a tooth in his hand and you basically fed the small child coins and it’d make it look like the dentist was pulling the tooth out of the poor dear’s mouth! Just WHY would anyone make one of these?? If I realized how cheap it was (a mere $25 – I guess no one wants a piggy bank of dental horror) I may have brought it home. Someday when I have a home of my own… well, there’s going to be a lot of conversation starters just lying about. That’s all I’m saying.

In fact everything I looked at here was super decently priced. There was a sharp scythe that was $25 and even a cricket bat for $35. I’d been looking for one of those… not because I want to play cricket but because I had a morbid curiosity having never seen one but knowing they make great rug beaters… And should I have owned a big oriental rug in need of a violent dusting it would have also come home with me. Did you know they’re rounded on one side? I did not. See, we’re learning things! And hey, if you like British antiques there was an actual pith helmet nearby. Sadly, there weren’t any tiger bite marks in it but that doesn’t mean much. Poor beastie could have slinked away from those big game hunters, you don’t know.

This place also had a lot of… creations. Folk art if you will. I LOVED the mannikin Christmas tree, all the angry chickens, the Victorian nightgown labelled “wedding dress” that looked perfect to haunt people in, the weird asparagus knickknack, and an old black and white photo of a foofy little dog labelled on the back, “Cuddles, our first dog.” HEART MELTING. That was only $2. I seriously contemplated buying it but thought it was a little weird to buy a photo of what is now a very very dead dog for whom I never met. Was super cute though.

And the best and most serendipitous part of the trip? There was a little free library right across the way. I left one of my signed books. It was meant to be.

0

Cat Hollow Park – Killingly CT

*If you’re just here for pretty pictures feel free to scroll to the gallery at the bottom, I took a lot!

You know we haven’t done all that much in Connecticut… so on this particular day that’s where we decided to poke around. Only thing is I don’t know squat about Connecticut so I had to conspire with Google. I asked for a town map because I didn’t want to drive much more than an hour. It’d already been a super packed week. On the border of Connecticut I saw Killingly and decided that sounded like a interesting town name and I asked what was there… Cat Hollow State Park was the answer. Even better it was supposed to be a park with the ruins of two old cotton mills in it.

I didn’t really know what to expect. Probably something swank, this is Connecticut after all. And the park was newly established – only running since 2003. What does a baby park look like? Wellllll….

Driving into town it was indeed a posh area filled with great big mansions behind thick brick walls and iron gates. And all the street names had hideously adorably animal names like Doghouse, Cockcrow, Cat Hollow, and my favorite Peeptoad. Did we fall into a fairy book? No, we most certainly did not, because when we drove up to the park it looked thoroughly abandoned. It was a gate across a road with one car parked in front of it, a big trail map bulletin board with NOTHING on it and I mean nothing, not so much as a scrap of paper or hint it ever said anything on it. There was a bench just beyond but it was looking at nothing except the blocked off road. What just happened?! How did we end up here??

Although not impressed by the state of this place we still decided to get out and look around. And in good spirit I decided to place one of my books on the bench to be found by some passerby as part of my book bombing campaign. Who knows, maybe someone will find it and love it.

We were a bit confused at what we saw from there. Beyond the gate it looked like a very new paved road big enough for cars but obviously not driven on by cars. Infact even though the road looked almost brand new it also looked like it’d been left over from some apocalyptic society collapse. It was odd. Not far up the path we found another bench, this one had its leg chained to a pole with no less than three locks but the pole was only 2 feet off the ground which means the chain loop could have easily been lifted over it if someone was insistent on bringing home this bench. Even funnier still the chained loop wasn’t even a loop. Upon further inspection it was just a chain placed on the ground to look like it looped around something. Very odd!

Then we started seeing the weird graffiti. Every big rock seemed to have the same image on it – that of a neon pink spraypainted figure with big X’s for eyes and a crazy hairdo that made it look either like Mom from Futurama or Nosferatu. If there’s anything I have learned in the past few years it’s that teenagers love abandoned places and things. Wherever you can find ruins in the woods you will also find great evidence of teenagers. The two for whatever reason are inseparable and these odd tags throughout the park only further proved this observation.

It wasn’t far in that we came by a fence – the most woeful fence I have ever seen in my life. Behind it there was some sort of wrought iron equipment sat on the river, maybe the remains of a water turbine or something similar. The fence did nothing to keep me away from it as just around the edge of the fence was a path where people were clearly going around to see it anyway. And beyond that there was a rough path into the wilderness which I honestly couldn’t tell if it was made by humans or deer but I figured what the hell might as well “bushwhack” our way through this as one internet guide suggested we might have to do in this park. And it wasn’t too far away that we found the first substantial set of ruins over this river.

This trail seemed to have ended at these ruins so after poking around we headed back up towards the road and continued on foot from there. Apparently, this road extended for half a mile. We wouldn’t get that far though before we found more trails jutting off the sides. We decided to take another one right around the edges of a fence that seemed to have a different set of ruins behind them. This one brought us into the woods to a very serene little spot where the river had more or less dried up so we could wander over it at will.

It was then we realized all the rocks at the bottom of this riverbed were blackened which seemed very weird. Was this some sort of pollution form the 1800’s? Probably not, after coming home I learned these mills all burned down, one as recently as 2001. You could see the charred line on some of the larger rocks a little downstream.

We walked along the river’s edge for quite a while until we came to the biggest feature of the park – a giant stone wall over the river that on a normal day is a beautiful waterfall. They must be suffering drought this year as there wasn’t so much as a trickle. There was however a young man meditating on a rock underneath it, weary of our presence. We wandered on.

I think we ended up doing the trails ass backwards because this is when we found the “picnic area” and the sign denoting the beginning of the trail being choked out by vines. This seemed fitting for this part. Here we also found more graffiti (with one rock literally looking like a kindergartner painted on it) and of course another trail that led under some bridges and out into a field on Main Street. It was cool under the bridges, and we loitered for a while digging the graffiti salamander looking down at us.

After returning from that dead end we found what looked like another trail on the high ground making jokes about bigfoot and starting to sweat from the oppressive heat and humidity. We took a few breaks and just mucked about before finding our way back from where we came. I’m told there’s a mile and a half of trails out there but every map shows something different and when we were on the ground there wasn’t any markers or guides or even any way to note when a trail had started soooo…. it was a fun place to wander but uh, poorly organized on the park’s side. That being said seeing the ruins were very cool and we both enjoyed just chilling out there in nature.

When we finally managed to find our way back to the car it was only then we found the signs saying what we could find here in the park and where to go. They were… in rough shape. Could have been used as the set of a post-apocalyptic horror movie. But hey, I guess it’s an E for Effort?

Sadly no one took my book in the two hours we spent puttering about.

0

NecronomiCon Providence RI

I admit that conventions are not part of my world. And a horror convention seems even more out there but I like being a wild card and having someone share their special interests with me which is how I ended up here. And as an added bonus I LOVE weird people and this seemed like it might have a whole den of them.

Really my usual companion wanted to see the live radio show. He’s super into them. So on Saturday after he got off work we drove directly the convention. It would leave us plenty of time to catch the radio show. I was excited to see it too but I had to take a few days to prepare for it as I am not one for crowds. Or city life. Or people really. Got off to a bit of a bad start when we spent a TON of time in traffic which was acting insane. Usually, I can deal with this just fine but on that particular evening it put me on edge.

We parked at the mall as it was cheaper but that did mean we’d have to walk through the mall on a weekend evening and holy crap was it swarmed. I’d have trouble with this even before Covid. I carried on and did the best I could but then I had to ride an elevator, walk through one of those weird human hamster tunnels over the street, and ride several escalators – the last of which was ungodly narrow, steep, and claustrophobic. Escalators had been my nemesis since childhood and everything was setting off my sensory overload tonight.

Eventually we found a big room full of vendors with a $5 per person admittance fee. We forked it over and looked around. There was all kinds of weird betenticled art everywhere. Paintings, prints, giant plushies. It was an odd rabbit hole to fall down but a fun one. Still, this was not what we were looking for. We asked where the general admittance was and was told we’d have to walk over the Biltmore down the street which we did.

The Biltmore itself is supposed to be haunted. In fact it has such a reputation it was on my list of places to poke at even before this convention but tonight wasn’t the best night to be doing so. I walked in and there’s all sorts of absolutely garish 1920’s art nouveau architecture and design which when done well can be stunning but this place? I dunno, it just seemed so tacky to me. And disorienting. I can’t even describe how I was feeling at that point but it was almost like I was wearing those shitty drunk goggles they give children to make them not want to drink. Just everything seemed somehow off. It was a weird energy for sure – whether I can blame this on the place being haunted or just my own sensory overload I don’t know but that’s where I was at that moment.

We found the people at the take in register for the convention but they said they’d already packed up hours earlier and were no longer selling tickets or making allowances to see the radio theater. My companion was deflated. I was too. I had struggled mightily for this one and now it was a no-go. I asked if the radio theater would be there tomorrow and yes, it was a different show, but they would be there performing something. We decided to come back the next day. Let me tell you I was happy to be home after that.

Sunday came around and we headed out fairly early so we could see at least some of the short film festival at the library before the radio show. We got out on time and were able to buy tickets and even better I was feeling much less over stimulated!

We walked to the library but we were a bit early. There was a sign on the door saying it was closed on Sundays except for the convention and then in small letters that it’d be open at 12:05. it wasn’t 12:05 yet so we stood politely at the door with another man who claimed to have “just rolled down the hill” to get there. A librarian popped out and happily burbled, “Thank you for reading the sign! Everyone else has just tried to come right in!” She then highlighted the part about opening up at 12:05 before replacing it on the door. By now several more people had gathered and were now chatting about how far they travelled and then all about cats. This would be an ongoing theme on just about everyone I eavesdropped on. Who attends horror conventions you might wonder… Cat people. That’s who. I mean yeah there are those decked to the hilt in Goth gear, the heavily tattooed, those who look like they’re suffering existential dread, the odd rat enthusiast, some queer rebels, a large swath of neurodivergent peoples annnnnd amateur mycologists otherwise known as mushroom lovers. That last one caught me a bit off guard.

Finally we were allowed in and made our way to the theater – an actual tiny theater, in a library. This was new for me. And it was cute! And cozy! And Old Timey looking. And to their credit the first film they showed was suitably distressing. It was about keeping a living consciousness in a computer which is always a little unnerving but they seemed to make it over the top uncomfortable. Maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know.

From there the films ranged from familiar old tropes, to psychological horror, to comedy horror. I was having a good time with it. And it was interesting to see just what people were doing to make these little films which had to be a shoe string budget but most you couldn’t tell. Afterwards one of the film’s creators came up to do a Q & A and my companion got into it by asking a question. I was happy to see him involved even if I myself would rather die than ask a question in a public forum. That’s just me and that’s OK.

We stuck around for block two which started with a claymation short which obviously tickled my own special interests. And there was one some time afterwards that was really low budget – just one dude sitting in front of a green screen playing with a plush bat, that actually was still amazing somehow?? And hilarious! I don’t know, I was impressed. Actually most, if not all, of the shorts kept my interest for the most part. There was a couple I was hazy on but I guess that’s just part of the experience. It was hard picking a favorite.

We decided to skip the last block of short films and instead go to grab a bite to eat before listening to a dramatic story reading before attending the radio show. So off we went. I’d read over the program schedule for fun and I was amused with a lot of the offerings. Cthulhu prayer breakfast, a lecture on missing persons, and weirdly enough a group therapy session. I guess in acknowledgment of the fact if you were here you might be the sort to benefit from a little group therapy sesh. Actually, a lot of the lectures looked super intriguing, but they were from the previous few days. They were the sort of things I could plunk myself on a seat and just spend a day listening to random lectures. Yeah, OK, maybe the crazy ticket price was worth it. There was a lot going on.

Making our way out of there I met a woman on the street who had the same cutesy baby Cthulhu T-shirt and we laughed. She asked if I’d seen the Craft-thulu T-shirt and I said I had it. It was just a weird, sweet moment – two oddballs recognizing each other’s oddness.

We ate at the mall and I picked up one of my books from the car which I’d leave on a bench in the park to be found. Part of my book bombing/book crossing campaign. The dramatic story telling was actually The Willows by Algernon Blackwood read by Robert Lloyd Perry and let me tell you – it was indeed dramatic! I was expecting a nice little relaxing story time, just sit in quiet and listen to someone read to me like I’m a child. No, not quite. It did start off nice and soft but the deeper into the story we got the more impassioned and loud our narrator and the music behind him became. This in combination with the fact they dimmed the lights set my brain off. I basically forgot where I was, immersed completely in the story, seeing it in vivid detail in place of the very real surroundings around me. I started to fidget and scratch at my skin just to keep myself grounded in reality. My companion too really enjoyed this piece. Curiously so too did a young woman wearing noise reducing headphones. She hadn’t been the only one wearing some sort of deadening device. Even I was tempted to put in ear plugs as a lot of these events were getting a bit loud for me. I wondered if these people were also somewhere on the spectrum enjoying a day out the best they could. So far the diversity of each crowd was keeping me quite happy.

And when it was all over we were in the right place to just stay for what we came for – a performance of Curse of the Yig performed by the Dark Adventure Radio Theater. I should probably note that going into this I have not been a huge fan of any kind of radio. Yes, I listened to War of the Worlds and got a good giggle in my youth but that is where my interest in this activity ended until I met my companion who has on numerous occasions shared his love of these performances by playing them in the car on our many trips. And it’s been pleasant but I still didn’t fully comprehend why seeing it live would be any better. It’s radio after all.

It started with a lot of fussing over the projector and an apology to the audience that the cast they had painfully ensured was diverse for this adaption of an H P Lovecraft story was down to a skeleton crew and just looked like a buncha white people again. It might seem like a strange thing to say but H P Lovecraft unfortunately was even a hardcore racist for his day and although there are lots of people who love his wild and whimsical style of writing there’s a lot less of us who agree with his politics. But white supremacists being who they are probably would find a good ‘hero’ in Lovecraft which is why the rest of us decent folk have to try so very hard to take the good and leave all the bad. It’s a noble effort.

Anyway, the radio drama started with just four people voicing all the parts (including the dog who barked intermittently at various scenes.) Every once in a while the projector would show something to the audience asking them to make a noise for the background. Oh, so it’s audience participation that’s different, I see. Granted all the noises were the same…. wind, the rattle of a rattlesnake, hissing… these are all the same noise. None the matter I found it adorable and quite fun. By the end I got it. It was worth coming to see live. Even better they gave the hardcore fans a ‘clue’ with which to decipher a code. My companion of course got up and asked for a code card at the end and brought it home to happily solve it. Again, it was nice to see this sort of involvement.

It was getting late when we left and my companion was concerned I’d had enough activity for one day but he did mention there was one last film showing 4 miles away at a theater. I said it’s OK, we can go check it out, and so we did. And the parking gods must have been smiling on me because there was a parking spot right near the theater that was next to an intersecting street meaning all I had to do was drive into it without properly parallel parking which I STILL have not learned how to do. No matter!

That’s how we ended up at the Dunwich Horror Picture Show. We knew this was a screening of the 1970 movie The Dunwich Horror, which is a terrible movie, but we didn’t really understand the Picture Show part of that. Rocky Horror mashup? Hard to say.

I did what I always do… looked around the audience. And that’s where I found them – a group that had been remarkably absent most of the day despite my theories they should have been everywhere – the gay men. Oh sure, I’d seen a couple adorable lesbian couples here and there but this seemed to be the hub where all the men were. Scores of them. Which made little sense to me as the Dunwich Horror is CLEARLY a film about one straight white dude’s rape fantasies (which is very in step with horror from the 70’s.) If you’re wondering why I thought such a large portion of the queer community would be at this convention it’s because I grew up in the 80’s and 90;s when every villain was still queer coded and although that was supposed to be a bad thing I also knew this backfired and many still LOVE queer coded villains. Honestly, how can you not? They’re fucking hilarious. Also so much of the crowd today seemed neurodivergent and again there’s a disproportionally large cross section of people who are both queer and neurodivergent. I was just happy my amateur psychology worked. I was comfortable here now the world made sense again. Also the theater was dark so it was kinda perfect for my nerves.

So, what was it about the Dunwich Horror that was so great? Well, it had a live band playing the soundtrack and an announcement at the beginning saying, “We know this film is terrible. Feel free to heckle it. Just make your comments funny.” And the audience complied! But that wasn’t even the best part. The best part was the wildly gesticulating people in Cthulhu costumes who’d come from the sides of the theater to do a crazed interpretive dance to distract you whenever the dream sequences got too rapey. How cool would that be just to have that on standby whenever something triggering comes up? Like no, you don’t want to look over at something potentially distressing, look over here AT THE DANCING TENTICLE MONSTER! WOOOOO!

It was all a very happy and positive experience. My companion even got to take a break to enjoy remembering some other happy memories at this theater. While doing so he tried to thank me for coming with him today to enjoy the weird things in life and I…. would have replied it was no problem if I wasn’t distracted by the John Waters Christmas poster. Now that’s a whole other brand of weird (and I’m all for it!)

All and all I am super happy we did the Dunwich Horror as it was the perfect way to end the evening and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe a little too much if I’m honest. So, was it worth going into the city, a place I normally avoid? Oh yes, absolutely. And it looks like someone picked up my book that I left sooo… there’s always that.

0

Freetown Fall River State Forest – Assonet MA

It’s funny, when you travel around like I do trying to hit different places every time you leave the house it pretty much ensures that someday you’ll forget where you have been and end up there again during one of those hazy deja vu moments I have become so familiar with. That was the case with the Freetown Fall River Forest. It had long been a source of fascination considering it is supposed to be the epicenter of all the weird happenings in the Bridgewater Triangle. I mean there are stories about this forest that include fairy lights, full ghostly apparitions, murders, UFO’s, bigfoot, a liberal dose of satanic panic and even the delightfully strange assortment of pukwugies – which are little anthropomorphic porcupine type creatures that shoot poisoned darts and lure people into the woods never to be seen again. They are from indigenous traditions in the area and as such are unique little cryptids.

I had a feeling I’d been here before but there wasn’t a Catching Marbles entry on it. Weird. Still, I suggested it as a place to go check out with a new travel companion who was here to meet me for a signed copy of my book. Sounded good to me so off I went…

Driving into the parking lot I remembered this place clearly. I had visited the previous autumn. We spent a few hours wandering the woods with a nonsensical trail map that neither one of us could make sense of, got lost, and eventually made our way back to the car. HMMMM. Perhaps this time would go better.

This time the park actually had quite a few other cars in it and I realized the weird parking lot actually went around corners and expanded a lot farther than I had thought. Even more interesting was a splash pad that was running with delighted children zooming through it. Still I parked near the entrance and after meeting with my hiking buddy we set off in the same direction I’d gone once before to what I now know is Bent Rim Trail. Mind you Bent Rim Trail is more of a road than a trail – no cars were allowed but we did see some cyclists.

We walked on Bent Rim Trail for awhile until we hit what looked like an actual non-road trail and we decided to try that one. There was no signs or markers but clearly this was a trail. I’d come hoping to find something weird, my friend had come hoping to find some cool plants to satiate her own special interests in biology. We were up for a brisk hike in the heat but luckily it wasn’t too bad beneath all these trees and the path was flat and easy to navigate. A few parts had rocky bits to scramble around but even that wasn’t bad. Unless you’re on a bike. Sadly, there wasn’t much in the way of plant diversity. It just seemed to be miles and miles of blueberry bushes. Although even that was kind of cool as many had blueberries on them.

Other than that the trail was pretty much a lot of the same. It was however very quiet and despite the parking lot being full of cars we didn’t hear any other people and didn’t see any either on the trip out. We continued down the path crossed the road trail twice before eventually hitting an actual road. The park is on 55,000 acres soooo how we managed to walk out of the park I don’t know. Getting back would be a challenge as we tried to get our phones to give us any clue whatsoever as to which direction we should take back. I was starting to see why this place had such a reputation for being a great hiding spot for bodies and ghost stories. Getting lost here is hideously easy and there is an odd sense you’re the only ones out here even if that’s not really true.

I have seen photos of this park that show water features and cool things. I don’t know where those are, only that we didn’t pass any. All we passed were several people walking dogs and a family taking a bike ride together who I sheepishly asked for directions from. We’d hoofed it at least four miles by that point and it was starting to get a bit dark so it was best to find the car soon. Luckily they told us vaguely where we were and how to get back. There were grid markers here and there reading numbers and letters… which would have been helpful IF THEY WERE ON ANY MAPS. Alas no.

We did end up back in the parking lot, somehow at the far side, where there was a random statue greeting people shirtless and proud. Bit weird choice but OK. Annoyingly we also found the trail maps on a bulletin board nearby which I had missed coming in, although I don’t think they would have helped much. In the meanwhile we both had a great time happily burbling about anything and everything under the sun and getting our exercise in! All and all a lovely time, even if it was super confusing and looked all the same. I can’t say I saw any bigfoot, ghosts, or UFOs but maybe you have to come at night for that?

0

Laurel Hill Cemetery – Wilton NH

After spending a peaceful morning exploring the woods around Purgatory Falls I had decided to continue my adventuring by finding a bunch of Tiny Free Libraries in the area but as I was doing this I kept getting distracted by cemeteries. There’s nothing more alluring to me than an old cemetery deep in the forest and there seemed to be a great deal of them today. After behaving myself and passing three I finally relented when I saw the Laurel Hill Cemetery.

It had a sweet little historical marker out front and a very inviting driveway. I drove in and just like the nearby Vale End Cemetery I’d explored not long ago there was signs about opening hours and rules. No planting of anything in the ground. OK OK, I get it. And I must say for a New England cemetery it was really well plotted out. Everything was on a perfect grid, the roads were nice and straight and clean, the stones themselves were very evenly and amply spaced out, and even weirder this whole place was on flat ground without a hill or weird nook in sight. In the back there seemed to be equipment for a full time groundskeeper and the lawn was immaculately mowed. Everything was in it’s place. It was downright orderly. Of course, to a chaotic individual such as myself this made it uncomfortably creepy.

Most of the stones seemed to date around the late 1800s and were marble. Nothing particularly outstanding until I spotted the only tree in the cemetery itself. It had red on it which attracted me to it. Was it flowers? No, this tree actually turned out to be an apple tree with heritage apples the size of cherries. I ate one to prove this theory to myself and it was crazy sour but definitely an apple!

I milled about for a while and tried to ask Find a Grave if there was anyone of note buried here but my reception wasn’t working. I’d only find out later that Rod Price the founding member and guitarist for Foghat was buried here having died unexpectedly in 2009 after a fall down the stairs. I didn’t even know he lived in the area… as such I had to borrow this image (I’ll try to take my own later.) It is a pretty monument!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
0

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Baskerville 2 by Anders Noren.

Up ↑