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In life, remember to look up. You never know what you will see.
On my very last day on the East Coast in May (you thought I would never get to the end of this journey, huh?), my plane left in the afternoon so we had the morning to explore. We walked from our downtown Boston hotel to a bakery and one of us spotted a travel trailer on top of one of the high buildings in the city. Is that for the CEO when she’s worked too late and doesn’t want to make the trip home?
We looked for a store called The Fairy Shop, because I love fairies. It’s in a lovely part of town and is a beautiful place, but should be named the Harry Potter Shop. Apparently it used to have fairies and gnomes and frogs and crystals and what one might expect with a name like that. But today, there is only Harry Potter merchandise. Luckily, I am a huge Harry Potter fan.
View inside The Fairy Shop that should be named the Harry Potter Shop. Sorting Hat right there in the center.
Next we went to Graffiti Alley in Cambridge. I am always a fan of wall art, and fascinated with the whimsy and political statements and sometimes jaw-dropping beauty I find on walls. This alley is right off Massachusetts Avenue, painted on all sides. It had been raining all morning and I appreciated the colourful awning.
Graffiti Alley off Mass Ave in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This made me smile.
A little 3D catches my attention.
We wandered all the way through and found more art in the parking lot behind the alley.
At the end of the alley, looking back the way we had come.
How dare those cars park there and ruin the view?! ha ha
Wall art packed with faces.
We still had some time to kill so we made one last stop at Castle Island. It’s really only a peninsula, despite the name. Because it was windy and raining, we had the place to ourselves. Even though it was the site of another old military fort, and built way back in 1634, and you know I love that stuff… my heart wasn’t in it. The weather was rotten and after two long weeks I really just wanted to go home.
Will dropped me off at the airport. It was a direct flight back to Portland, and six hours later I was greeted by my favourite volcano.
The weather in Portland was gorgeous that day, and our late-day arrival gave us a stunning view of Mt. Hood.
I never get enough of this mountain.
Whew! I finished that whole action-packed trip. Can you believe how much stuff we did? It was fun almost every single day and I got to see so many friends and especially got to know Will better. I might have to make a New England trip with Will an annual event or something.
In the meantime things have been happening here at Dragon Manor, and I have so many things to tell you about my summer so far. I have lots of photos of my daily delights around the place. I’ll post them because it makes me happy. I hope you like some of them too.
Cliff Walk in Newport, Rhode Island
Some of the sign was worn off, I think. It looks like a warning that a giant pincer might grab you from the cliffs.
I have a few days left to tell you about my two-week trip to New England in May. I’ve been busy at home so it’s taking me a long time wrap up this trip. Today I’m happy to show you some great scenes I captured with my iPhone.
The morning dawned lovely so we thought it would be a good day to visit the Cliff Walk in Newport, Rhode Island, where we were staying. The Cliff Walk is a National Recreation Trail designated in 1975. It is 3.5 miles (5.6 km) with the sea on one side and beautiful old mansions on the other. Once we finally found a place to park, we joined the trail with many other people who had the same idea. There are a couple places where you can get to the water, but it’s safest to stay on the trail. The private residences typically had tall barriers to keep the public out, so views of the places were best at a distance. We only walked a portion of the trail because we had a lunch date.
Mansion on the beach
“Join me at my beach house this weekend?”
I noticed this photogenic snail shell along the way.
Next we drove up to Boston again to have lunch with my friends Romain and Madhawa. After that the day was warm, and I love the heat, so I thought the perfect activity would be a long, tough hike up a hill that overlooks Providence.
We found the trailhead of Wolf Hill Forest Preserve. I was interested in this one because one branch of the trail was named World War II Memorial Loop and I wanted to see the memorial. We started off in high spirits though it was muggy that day and Will indicated that he does not love heat as much as I do. Right away I noticed one of my favourite wild plants ever: wild orchids. These were lucious, fat, extravagant beauties and I dropped to my knees genuflecting before them as I gushed in pleasure. I do not know what kind we found, and I have not seen this type before. I was impressed by their size and showiness.
Low angle of the sun lights up a wild orchid.
Another decadent flower lit in golden sun.
As we climbed up the hillside, stopping every so often to gasp for breath, we were both feeling the effects of early summer, which tends to drop a hot day on you when you least expect it. We both drank a lot of water.
It wasn’t long before we found the memorial, and it was more than I expected to see up there on a trail in the forest.
On this location 5 August 1943, three US servicement perished in an aircraft accident. Otis Portewig, Herbert Booth, and Saul Winsten.
All too common at the time, there was an engine failure and the airplane they were flying plummeted, landing here and deposting part of the fuselage onto that big rock. The rock now holds small rocks that people have placed in honor of the servicemen. Now I understood why a memorial was in such an out of the way place that was difficult to get to. There is another memorial in town, for people who cannot make the trek.
We were grateful for the shade. I spotted this murky pond and splashed my face and arms.
Lovely bunches of flowers near the top of the hill.
Will pointed out this sight. One might call it a dead tree. We saw life.
Splendid green beetle caught my eye.
We continued climbing the hill. My hiking app on my phone told me there would be views at some point. We thought we might be close, so we kept going. The trail was not well marked, so I used GPS on my trail app to keep us on the path. A bit tricky.
And viola! We crested near a broken down chimney. Someone had built a house up here and enjoyed the spectacular view for a while. Likely the only thing remaining was the thing that got rid of the rest of the house. We sat down on a rock and looked out over the high buildings of Providence that we could see over the tops of trees. Someone doing trail maintenance had cut down all the trees in front of us so that the view was not blocked.
Will walks up to the chimney at the top of the hill.
All that’s left of someone’s dream home.
And here is the view. The white specks are the high buildings of downtown Providence.
We sat until we felt well rested, and drank more water. Then it was time to head back down. It was evening by this time but there was no respite from the heat and humidity, and we suffered. Will looked at his map and found a public beach we could visit. I reminded him that we had parked right next to a pond. He didn’t remember the pond and it sounded too good to be true. I kept talking about the pond, to keep his spirits up. I was sure I remembered it. I began feeling very badly that I had let my joy of heat and hiking get in the way of looking out for my friend. He never said an unkind thing, and barely complained, but the conditions were too much for anyone not in love with strenuous activity in the heat, the way I am. The trail seemed to get longer the more we walked.
The sun went behind the trees and light grew more dim. It wasn’t dim enough to dim my excitement when I found more orchids near the bottom of the hill.
I just couldn’t get enough of them.
Finally we reached the car and I exhaled in relief to see that my memory was correct. We had parked 60 feet from a pond and fishing area. First we drank all the warm water from the water bottles in the car, since our own bottles were long empty. Then we walked to the shore and sat on some roots and stripped boots and socks off and put our feet in the water. I splashed myself and splashed Will (which was not appreciated but I was doing it for his own good). We sat with our feet in the water a long time and finally decided that the only correct thing to end the day with was ice cream. We got our shoes back on and found Powder Mill Creamery, a darling ice cream shop that was clearly a local favourite, since there was a line stretching through the parking lot. By the time we had our ice cream it was almost completely dark outside. We made our way to picnic tables in the grass around the ice cream shop and sat with other happy and hot people and enjoyed our dessert.
Sylvanus Brown house on the left with garden and Slater Mill in the background, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
The birthplace of American manufacturing. Photo of Samuel Slater on the right.
Will and I spent a day in his hometown of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. On my visits to Pawtucket before, I had noticed Slater Mill, and knew it was a historic building of some kind, and thought it was pretty and wanted to take a look. Will agreed that it was a place that should be visited. I was not prepared for what a great stop it turned out to be, with a guided tour of all the on-site buildings that are maintained by the National Park Service as a museum and part of the Blackstone River Valley National Historic Park. It was inexpensive, and the Ranger tour guide was knowledgeable and excited about the site’s history. I highly recommend this experience to anyone.
There’s a scandal to the story. Samuel Slater was apprenticed at a cotton mill as a young man in England, eventually becoming a superintendent very familiar with how the whole operation worked. Slater had a dream of creating his own mill, and memorized the water powered machines. It was against British law for textile workers to share information or to leave the country (which explains the memorization), but Slater left for America to try and build a textile industry of his own.
After failing his own attempts and bankrupting himself and other investors, Slater was put in touch with Moses Brown who was looking for someone to help him build a mill with his partner William Almy. By 1790 they had built the first water-powered cotton mill in the United States. Thank you England!
When Slater first arrived, Brown had suggested that he might board with the Wilkinson family, business associate of Brown. Slater moved in and met Hannah Wilkinson, one of the daughters of the household. They were married. Hannah disovered a way to make better thread and applied for a patent. Some people believe she is the first woman in America to be awarded a patent. It’s under the name “Mrs. Samuel Slater,” reflecting conventions of the time.
We first toured the Brown House, built in 1758.
The Brown House is set up with period furnishings, complete with a foot warmer and a bed pan.
Next we entered the Wilkinson Mill.
I was fascinated by the massive water wheel that powered the mill.
We were told the wheel is usually in operation, but stopped while we were there for repairs.
A panoramic view shows the wheel and the water course inside the mill.
We went upstairs above the water wheel and came into a huge workshop powered entirely by belts! I was in awe. I’ve never considered how machines were run before electricity, but here was one amazing example. All the machinery in the shop/museum is currently functional, and the guide powered up the belts (on electricity since the wheel is not moving) and the whole place came to life! All the belts were connected, so across the entire room, the ceiling was alive and noisy! The guide then drilled a few holes for us to demonstrate that the machines were working.
I love all that old stuff, and had a fun time just poking around, picking up iron pieces and wooden pieces and trying to work out how it was all part of the Wilkinson family operation that built and repaired machinery in the whole region.
Looking across the floor and up at all the belts spinning. I wish I had a decent video so you could see what it was like.
Some of the equipment that our guide demonstrated for us.
There were several cabinets that stored different components of the equipment. Here, tagged belts sit on a shelf, and tools cover a bench.
The farther into the place we walked, the more delighted I was with all the treasures inside. And the tour only includes the first and second floors. I wonder what the third and fourth floors hold.
Up close it was hard to get a good photo of the yellow-painted Slater Mill. This was our last and final stop of the tour. We stood outside in the shade beside the Blackstone River while the guide told us more about the innovative history of the place. For example, he explained how Slater designed his textile mill and thread-making machines so that children could easily work them. While that is distasteful to us now, at the time, people were grateful to be able to place their children into employment for the family. Slater also created small company villages, where he built cheap housing for the workers, and a company store, all on site with the mill. Then he hired entire families and brought them to his mini-villages. This system, called the Rhode Island System, was then copied around the country. On the surface it seemed to be a help to the workers, but many of you know that it was really a way to make more money for the owners and to keep employees in debt like indentured servants.
Standing in front of Slater Mill, looking at the river.
In the foreground is the channel that powers the mills, and the Blackstone River is in the background.
Inside the Slater Mill we saw the equipment used in Slater’s textile industry.
I had heard of a cotton gin, and how it completely changed the textile industry, but until this one was demonstrated for us, I had no idea what a cotton gin did.
A mule spinner, that spun cotton into thread, was operated by two boys at once.
The museum inside Slater Mill includes more and more complex spinning machines, holding hundreds of spindles in some cases. The guide explained how the children’s small hands were the right size to reach in and replace a full spindle with an empty one while the machine was running. This often resulted in injures.
A large and complex spinning machine. In the very back you can see a weaving machine, that is weaving tubes of fabric that can be cut and used as the sleeves or torsos of clothing.
One more spinning machine.
After our tour we walked to the bridge above the river. From there we got a good look at the mill buildings from a distance.
Looking back at Slater Mill and Wilkinson Mill over Pawtucket Falls in the Blackstone River.
Cogswell Fountain topped with a heron at the end of the Main Street Bridge. An advocate of prohibition, Henry Cogswell built this and many other fountains to encourage citizens to drink water instead of booze.
We met a friend of mine for lunch after our tour, a classmate from Brandeis University. Then with the remainder of the day, we went to Roger Williams Park. It is one of several Roger Williams Parks, as the man is quite beloved in Rhode Island. This park is certainly the largest (at 435 acres) and most impressive, hosting a zoo, a botanical park, a carosel, a museum and planetarium, trails, wide lawns and barbecue areas, and a huge meandering lake that means one is almost always next to a beach. We drove for a long time so that I could see the extent of the place. Then we parked and walked in the pleasant evening.
Monument on the shore was constantly occupied with prom attendees and wedding parties, having photos taken, so I shot to the side of the building.
There were stunning views from many angles as we walked through the park.
Seven thousand military boots with flags representing each of the American service members killed since September 11, 2001.
Heading into Memorial Day weekend, Will and I visited Fort Adams State Park. The timing was serendipitous and we benefitted by being able to see a Boots on the Ground for Heroes Memorial, put on by Operation Stand Down Rhode Island. As we walked inside the walls of the fort, we saw a memorial display of military boots, each adorned with a name placard and an American flag, honoring service members killed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
I could not walk among the flags and boots for long.
As a result of the ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan since the Trade Towers attacks, around 7,000 American soldiers have died. OSTDI is right to draw our attention in such a dramatic way to those who died. I would like to draw your attention to additional numbers, such as the estimate of around twice as many private contractors who also died while providing support to the Americans. Those private contractors don’t get the honor or the benefits that military people get, though they serve in the same theatres. And if we are kind enough to feel empathy for all of the people who died, then consider that of all nationalities involved, at least 480,000 people have died in these conflicts, more than 244,000 of them civilians. And “In addition to those killed by direct acts of violence, the number of indirect deaths — those resulting from disease, displacement, and the loss of critical infrastructure — is believed to be several times higher, running into the millions.” We could layer boots across the grounds of Fort Adams a couple feet deep, if we were able to honor everyone in this way.
I was drawn to the display immediately, and walked into the center of it, picking up cards attached to each boot, with photos and information about the service members from South Dakota and Kentucky and Ohio who gave their lives to their country and died at age 24, 27, or 19. It was suddenly too much and my chest heaved for breath as tears began streaming down my face. I marched out of the expanse of flags and over to the walls of the Fort. Will quickly followed and helped me get interested in Fort Adams history, in order to let the pain go.
Inside the walls of Fort Adams.
Is this a boiler? The remains of the Fort are very interesting and in my mind, beautiful.
Greenery takes over when the soldiers are no longer here to sweep and whitewash.
Fort Adams occupies a peninsula at the entrance to Narragansett Bay. The fortifications in the bay are the only ones in the area to have seen action against an enemy. The first earthen fort was built on this location in 1776 to protect the people who lived on and used the harbor, and also to prevent enemies from using the harbor as a base. Though there were fortifications and cannons placed all over the bay, it was not enough, and in December 1776 the bay was captured by the British. They successfully held off a major, months-long attempt by combined French and American forces to retake the bay in 1778. Then the British voluntarily evacuated in 1779 (like my cat, I guess, it just had to be their idea before they would leave), and the French took over. Put a pin in that, and I’m going to bring it up later. Major Tousard, a Frenchman who had fought there and lost an arm in 1778, was commissioned by the US Army and oversaw restoration of the defense structures. He reopened the fort in 1779 and christened it Fort Adams, after President John Adams. The current structure was completed in 1857.
Outside the Fort we walked to the tip of the peninsula and watched some college sailboat racing competitions. It seemed too windy of a day for sailing but the water was filled with sails. The teams were 100% women and the racing was so fast it seemed reckless. After completing their loops, they hurtled their boats into the marina and practically skidded sideways up to the docks. I would have thought the speed and daring was dangerous, except that with only a little observing, I could see that these women knew exactly what they were doing. It was not reckless at all. I am impressed.
A tall ship replica.
A pet peeve of mine: when communities decide to approach the litter problem by removing trash barrels.
Will had been trying to introduce me to as much Rhode Island-ness as possible, and thus when we came across a stand selling Del’s frozen lemonade, we had to get some. Other RI traditions he ate while I was there included coffee milk, lobster rolls, and johnny cakes.
The beach at Kings Park. On a warm day with no agenda, I could have so much fun sifting through these shells for hours.
A monument to French nobleman and General Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau. Now there’s a mouthful.
At the waterfront of Newport in Kings Park, we found a statue of American gratitude to General Rochambeau, who led the French force that helped the colonies to win the Revolutionary War.
Trusting in a tourist map and a nearby information sign, we hunted and hunted for the next lighthouse. If anyone at home is still playing lighthouse bingo, this is #8! We couldn’t see a lighthouse anywhere, but for the hell of it decided to follow the maps even though it was clear we were only walking out along a pier to the Ida Lewis Yacht Club. It was quaint and interesting, so we ended up wandering around and admiring the place and…guess what?! We found the light! The Lime Rock Lighthouse was renamed in 1924 for Ida Lewis, the lighthouse keeper who became famous for many rescues she managed while working at Lime Rock.
Never would have guessed it without seeing it, but the light is mounted to the back wall of the Ida Lewis Yacht Club, above the dining room. I wonder how many Yacht Clubs can claim to also be lighthouses?
Since it was nearby, we also stopped at Goat Island, connected to land by a bridge. Goat Island was the first piece of land purchased for the purpose of building fortifications for defense of the bay. We did not see any remaining defense structures. Today it is a tamed location with a marina, restaurant, and condominiums.
We were after lighthouse number nine, so we went to Jamestown and visited Beavertail Lighthouse next. On the way we made a quick stop at Fort Weatherill State Park. There we got a great view of Castle Hill that we had been so recently standing upon, and a better look at Castle Hill Lighthouse, mentioned in my last post. My apologies for the blurry photos in zoom. For the entire two-week trip I relied only on my iPhone, having left my Nikon at home accidentally. I did remember to bring the Nikon battery charger, but alas, the gesture was entirely inadequate without the camera itself. 😦
Gorgeous coves at Fort Weatherill State Park.
View of Castle Hill Inn and the Castle Hill Lighthouse.
Poor resolution image of Castle Hill Lighthouse that we had spotted earlier in the day.
At the parking lot for the Beavertail Lighthouse, I examined a giant metal ball that looked a lot like a WWII mine. I’ll have to assume that someone has checked it out and it no longer carries a charge. Actually, it’s probably just a giant rusted float. Then we made our way to the lighthouse at Beavertail State Park.
Brave? Dumb? Actually, just convinced that a thousand other tourists stood here first, and if they didn’t trigger it, I wouldn’t.
Approaching Beavertail State Park and Lighthouse.
The Beavertail Lighthouse was first erected in 1749 and was the third lighthouse in the country. That wooden lighthouse burned down. Have you noticed how frequently I’ve mentioned that the first – and usually the second – lighthouses were destroyed, but then the current one has been sitting there for 150 years? I guess everybody figures out right away that to build a lasting structure on the coast, one needs to spare no expense or quality of materials. Anything less will be ruined. The sea isn’t mean, she’s serious, and you need to take her seriously. When you do, the lights are allowed to stand. Anyway, the one here was built in 1856.
Beavertail Lighthouse, built in 1856.
Remember how I said that the “British voluntarily evacuated in 1779” up above? Well, history of Beavertail Lighthouse website mentions that while the British were leaving the bay in in 1779, the lighthouse building was damaged. No further information. But doesn’t that make you wonder? Where is the rest of the story? If the British left their occupation of Fort Adams because they had made a strategic decision, then did that decision involve damaging structures on the way out? Were the Americans confused about what was happening and fire on them on their way out? Was there a battle? Was there an accident? Oh, History. There is so much you continue to hide from me.
The foundation of the original wooden lighthouse, erected in 1749, still stands.
Will and I kept noticing rocks and wished that Tara was with us so we could ask geology questions.
A fisherman stands alone and fishes off Beavertail Point, on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.
Then we found a classy restaurant in Newport for dinner and still the night was not over. Will had a surprise, but he wasn’t sure if I was still game. Should he tell me? No, I love surprises! Lead on! The last thing we did that night was private dance lessons, followed by an hour of group dancing with beginners. Oh gosh it was so much fun. I know nothing about dancing but I’ve always wanted to learn. Though one night of dancing is certainly not enough to know how to dance, I did discover that when put to the test, I still want to learn to dance.
Ok, seriously. Can you believe all that was in one day? My last post plus this post? Wow. Maybe I’m not old yet after all.
Statue of William Ellery Channing, Unitarian preacher of the early 1800s, born in Newport, Rhode Island.
We packed so much touring into our next day in Newport that I’m going to split it into two posts. We began at Touro Park to see the Newport Tower, the remains of a windmill built approximately 1660. The round stone structure is beautiful, and I am reminded that arches are one of the strongest structures humans have ever built.
Newport Tower remains standing after nearly 400 years. Maybe because of the strength of the arches.
Inside the tower is also interesting. You can see Perry through an arch.
After exploring the tower, we stayed in the park for some time. There are multiple monuments surrounded by examples of period architechture. We admired the statue of Matthew Calbraith Perry, who was instrumental in bringing the Japanese into commercial and diplomatic relations with the West in 1854. The bronze bas reliefs on the pedestal reflect scenes from Perry’s life.
Mounted on the cast iron fence surrounding the pedestal were two plaques. One in Japanese and one translated. The title in English is The 2012 Shimoda TOMODACHI Declaration. I recalled that name from when I was staying at a Navy base in Japan, and said to Will, “Oh hey, Tomodachi is the name of the operation in which US service members helped out the Japanese after the tsunami wiped out the nuclear plant.” I kept reading, and rather than find a different use of the word tomodachi, the plaque referred to exactly what I was thinking of. It’s a Thank You from Shimoda City, acknowledging the beginning of Japanese-US relations 150 years previous, due to Perry’s work, and the continuing good relations today. Since I’m always pointing out Indian perspectives in an attempt to shed light on the nuances of our relationships, I think it’s only fair to point out that our “good relations” with Japan today are a result of the Japanese choosing to be an extraordinarily polite and accommodating people, after being bombed and invaded (and still occupied) by Americans. I do not at all assume our countries are friendly without deeply complicated undercurrents. Anyway, it was fun for me to recognize the name Tomodachi.
Naval Officer and diplomat Perry. You can see the Tomodachi Thank You plaques.
Scenes from Perry’s career.
Interesting handles of this flower pot in the shape of fauns, sitting on the heads of goats.
From there we walked to the Touro Synagogue, down lovely streets filled with late spring colour on the trees and in flower gardens.
We stopped first at the small Colonial Jewish Burial Ground, since it was on theme. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem about this cemetery, called The Jewish Cemetery at Newport. Another author, Emma Lazarus (“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”) wrote about the cemetery and the synagogue. It is the first Jewish cemetery in Rhode Island, acquired in 1677. Abraham Touro had the first protective wall erected, and his brother Judah Touro established a trust to care for the cemetery upon his death in 1854.
Colonial Jewish Cemetery was locked so we couldn’t go in for a better look.
We arrived at the Touro Synagogue just before a tour began, so we quickly paid and ran up the hill to listen to the tour guide tell us about the site, the oldest synagogue in the United States. We sat in the pews and listened while the older man intoned, and it was clear he was used to teaching and used to people listening. He invited questions, and I tried to re-state in my own words something he had said, to make sure I had understood his point. He was not at all pleased with my attempt, and moved on with his story. I felt like I was 9 years old in Bible School again. It was very sweet and funny. Even though he denied my description of the story, I still think what he explained is that since Jews in the 18th century had been welcomed in the Netherlands, when Jewish emmigrants were looking for a new home, they hoped for a warm welcome from the Dutch colonists on the American east coast. It didn’t go as well as hoped, but there was enough tolerance to allow a Jewish community for some of early Rhode Island history. The Jewish community grew in Newport, and in 1763 this house of worship was dedicated. I can promise you that the guide would explain it with different words! 🙂
Interior of the Touro Synagogue.
The inside of the synagogue is gorgeous, but we were not allowed to take photos from inside. We were invited to stand outside, at the doorway, and photograph into the building, however. The architect knew nothing about synagogue construction, and it is assumed for the interior that he relied entirely on the guidance of members of the congregation, some having only recently left their Jewish communities elsewhere. The tourguide told us to notice two important things about the outside: first that its orientation is east (facing Jerusalem) rather than perpendicular with the street, and second that it is built to blend in with the colonial construction of the time, and not stand out and probably irritate the other settlers.
Facing east, and thus at an angle compared to the other buildings.
The lovely site includes the Loeb Visitor’s Center, the Touro Synagogue, and an inviting garden between them.
In 1781 a Town Meeting was held here during a visit by George Washington. Later, when he was President in 1790, Washington wrote a letter to the Newport Hebrew community that the whole nation should be proud of. I had never heard of this letter, but copies are provided free of charge at the visitor’s center. The text includes this,
…happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
How much less of a country we are today because our leadership embraces, rather than rejects, bigotry and persecution.
Our next stop was to find Castle Hill Lighthouse, the 7th lighthouse of the trip. We parked at the Castle Hill Inn parking area, and crashed the rather posh grounds, walking across manicured lawns, past white lawn chairs filled with paying guests, and up a hill to a spot where we could see the lighthouse above the bushes along the rocky beach. It was windy and cold and we didn’t stay long. We were near Fort Adams State Park, and we went there next. I’ll talk about the rest of the day in my next post.
Castle Hill Lighthouse as viewed from Castle Hill Inn.
Looking toward the Claiborne Pell/Newport Bridge
One very silly idea I’ve had about visiting Rhode Island is that I wanted to drive from one state border to the other, and time the trip, to see what it felt like to drive all the way across the state in one shot. I had asked Will if it could be done in less than an hour, and he said it probably could.
He chose a diagonal route that would make sure we gave Rhode Island the benefit of the doubt. I started the stopwatch on my phone, and took screenshots of the route too.
Beginning of journey. The blue dot marks the location of my phone.
Middle of the journey. We are rapidly moving through Rhode Island.
Viola! We cross the Massachusetts border in less than an hour.
We crossed the state in less than 40 minutes! That is so funny to me, a longtime resident of the Western United States, where you can drive for hours and hours and still be inside the same state. It’s a 2 1/2 hour drive for me to go visit Tara at school, and we both live in Oregon. Last Fall I went to see the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, which is 5 1/2 hours away.
Beginning stopwatch
Ending stopwatch.
Our other explorations that day were more along the lines of what we had been doing already: finding points of interest, historical sites, lighthouses, and monuments.
I was interested in The Towers, a massive gate of sorts, over a road in Narragansett. It was completed in 1886 as a design element to complement a new casino. Since then the casino burned down, but The Towers was saved. It is now used as an event space. Will and I went for a closer look, and found all the doors open. So, naturally we walked right in and found the place being prepared for a wedding reception.
The Towers in Narragansett, Rhode Island
The seashore is to the left. The Casino was originally to the right.
This is inside the arched part over the road. A lovely setting, and views of the ocean, for a wedding reception.
This old clock is in The Towers. It makes me think of Alice In Wonderland.
We visited the Point Judith Lighthouse next. It is our sixth lighthouse on this vacation so far. Though the first lighthouse was erected at Point Judith in 1810, a storm with an 11-foot surge rushed in and wiped out the tower and the keeper’s home in 1815, although miraculously the lighthouse keeper survived. The third and current lighthouse was completed in 1857.
This active Coast Guard site keeps the lighthouse behind a fence.
View over the Atlantic from the parking area.
Point Judith lighthouse is painted brown at the top, and white at the bottom, for a daymarker. The light has a 15-second pattern which is: 5s on, 2s off, 2s on, 2s off, 2s on, 2s off.
We explored Watch Hill next, the southwesternmost point of the state of Rhode Island. In truth, after Watch Hill is when we undertook the Cross The State Journey I mentioned at the top. You can see how that makes sense by looking at the first map. In Watch Hill we found more monuments and another seafaring community taking pride in its mariner history. One monument caught my attention because it is of an Indian. It contains no explanation and no context at the monument, so I was compelled to look it up and investigate.
An Indian monument in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.
On the back of the boulder is a plaque reading “In memory of Clement Acton Griscom.” And the inscription of the artist Enid Yandell can be found in the bronze. With these clues I looked it up and have some questions answered, but not all. The image is of Chief Ninigret of the Niantic tribe indigenous to the Rhode Island area (the Narragansetts), holding a blackfish in each hand. The Chief was a clever strategist and unapologetic. He is said to have given his lands to the colonists (aw, what a kind thoughtful man, to just hand over his homeland as a gift to the invaders), but under whatever circumstances that led to this “gift,” it saved his people from the same levels of decimation as other nearby tribes. The Puritans then emboldened, asked him for permission to try to convert his people to Christianity, and Ninigret told them, “Go make the English good first.” OH, snap! The monument was erected in 1916 by Mr. Griscom’s widow in memory of the shipping magnate. Originally it was part of a horse-watering trough, with water from the fishes’ mouths filling the trough.
I love so many things about this statue. It honors an Indian relevant to those exact lands, the artist was a woman, and the piece of art had a practical purpose. The one thing I could not find anywhere is why Frances Canby Biddle Griscom commissioned the piece, and what it has to do with her husband. I’m tempted to imagine that the widow was free to spend her money however she wished after her wealthy husband’s death, and she was making a statement about things she was passionate about. Maybe Mr. Griscom loved Indians and women and horses, too. But it’s more dramatic to think of Frances getting to stretch her wings as an independent woman without having to ask a man’s permission.
We then made our cross-the-state journey mentioned at the top, and returned to Providence for the evening. It was going to be the first night of WaterFire for the year. I had never heard of it, but was eager to find out what it was all about.
We first walked along the parks and walks along the Providence River.
As darkness collected, we found a comfortable place to sit and watched the crowds increase with the night.
In the center of town, floating braziers are anchored all around the Woonasquatucket River, right before it converges with the Moshassuck River. Aren’t those names great?! When we arrived, the braziers were already loaded with wood. When it got dark, mood-creating music from around the world boomed through the crowd. It grew chillier and darker and finally black boats filled with people dressed all in black came silently drifting through. People from the crowd came down to the waterfront on our right and lit torches and stood waiting. The boats passed in front of the holders of the fire, and had their own torches lit. One boat had a man twirling fire poi. He stood confidently in black and spun the fire balls around himself, with flames reflecting off his bald head. It was so dramatic.
Holders of the fire prepare to light the torches held by people in boats.
Fire poi!!
Waterfire in Providence is a very big deal. The event bills itself as an art installation under an arts promotion and awareness organization, with the ceremony I saw as its centerpiece. As the summer temperatures warm the nights, it becomes more popular and more braziers are added, lengthening the display across more of the city’s downtown rivers. There are 100 braziers in the middle of the season. It seems that almost as many local people get excited about volunteering to help as watching it, and in that way it has been an ingenious way to rebuild the life of downtown Providence, and bring in millions of tourists.
The chill of the night lessened a bit once the fires blazed in earnest. From the shore I could actually feel their heat. The crowd was quiet; either silent or talking in low tones. We listened to the beautiful music and watched the reflections of the fire. Some small boats came through with people who had clearly purchased a ride for 20 minutes or so, and sat back in each others’ arms with glasses of wine while they were propelled between flaming braziers by Venitian gondolier-types. It was enough to sit and watch for hours.
When the braziers were really going, I could feel the heat onshore.
Reflections of lights on water is enough to mesmerize me. Here you can see the fire poi again.
The central location downtown was beautifully lit not only by the fire, but also by the lights in the buildings.
Elisia’s exit reminded me of the old days when my group of friends rode the Fitchburg train together.
Boston is so close to my old life, when I lived in Fitchburg and rode the commuter train to school in Waltham. After exploring Boston for a day, the next day Will and I spent the whole day traveling old routes, walking old paths, gaining new perspectives on old vistas.
First we took Route 2 out to Fitchburg. I pointed out the spot where I was pulled over for speeding, and Massachusetts forgot to ask me to pay the ticket for FIVE YEARS. I became disproportionately excited to see the Exit 32 sign to Leominster. When I lived out here I rode the train to school every school day for three years. I got on the same train at the same time every morning, and rode into the city with all the same people. We got to know each other. I even did my Masters Thesis on how fear and feelings of safety are managed on the commuter rail train when packed in there with strangers. My very best friend at that time was Elisia, who lived in Leominster. She has a lovely English accent and we were all delighted the day she told us the highway exit to her home was number 32. We made her say it a dozen times. We giggled with glee and found opportunities to ask about Exit 32 (prounced in Lissy’s English accent) whenever we could, from then on.
A 2005 photo of the house when I lived there.
What it looks like now. Not much change. A new fence, solar panels, a bigger tree, and neglected garden and lawn.
Our first stop was my old house. The old neighborhood looked almost exactly the same except that the trees along the street were larger. The landscaping around my old house looked ratty and unkempt, and there was a For Sale sign out front. I was sad that none of the trees or lilac bushes I had planted had survived. There was a new fence in the back yard and solar panels. I recalled shoveling snow from that driveway so many times.
We drove around the town of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. It has tiny pockets of commerce scattered around the outskirts leaving the center almost desolate. No people walking, and many empty buildings. When pawn shops and consignment shops for children’s clothes are on main street, it’s a sign that people are shopping somewhere else. My two favourite sightings from my past were the library, and of course the train station. It’s a sad town and I felt validated for never liking it while I lived there.
Walden Pond, from the end where the train passes close by.
We returned to Route 2 toward Boston and stopped at Walden Pond, made famous in Henry David Thoreau’s book. While traveling to school I had looked out the train windows at the pond, twice a day, day in and day out for more than a year before I realized which pond it was. Then I read Walden again, despite not liking it the first time I read it, and realized that Thoreau even mentions the train.
Will in the pond. It was a hot day and the cool water felt good on our feet.
I splashed around, getting water on my head and back, and cooling off. {photo by Will Murray}
The pond today is a park, visited by nearly 500,000 people a year. It is open to swimming, fishing, and boating, and is surrounded by trails. Though Thoreau kept fit by jogging around the lake every day, visitors who want to emulate his experience are asked not to run on the trail that follows the shore, but to keep their running activity to the trails farther away.
Will and I explored the brand new beautiful visitor’s center, and then made our way to the pond. The pond is always more serenely beautiful than I expect, for so famous a tourist destination. Today it is protected land, and I get the sense that it is more forested and more lush than when Thoreau lived there. There are many easy trails to follow and we followed them. On the far side of the pond, Thoreau’s cabin no longer exists, but there are granite stones set to show where it used to be. Nearby is a large mound of rocks left by people in remembrance. He wasn’t living there at his death, but close friends the Alcotts (including the famous author Louisa May) laid the first stones at the site after his death. It began a tradition.
The site of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin. You can see the pile of rocks to the left.
A large pile of stones carried by admirers from around the world. Many contain messages from those who left them.
As we prepared to leave, I gave the all-day parking pass that we had purchased to the next car that pulled in to the lot. It was a small car packed with kids that looked around the age of 20, and they were so grateful for the pass. I try to do this whenever I can, handing over a parking pass when there is still time left on it. I think having to pay to park a car is annoying, so I cheat the system. I’m such a law-breaker rebel!!
Next we went to the campus of Brandeis University, where I received my BA and MA in 2007. It was 6pm and nearly empty of people. I was surprised to find every door unlocked. We wandered across the entire campus and you can bet I marched us right inside every building I wanted to explore.
First of all we went into the art building. My first two years at school I knew the Art building because of my job. I modeled for the painting classes. It was good money ($10 an hour – the highest pay available to a student on campus) for very little work. I am not shy about my body and found it interesting and challenging to find new creative poses and then to hold perfectly still. The students were amazingly kind and grateful, and always let me watch them work during breaks. Finally I had completed enough required courses that I had room for an elective, and I took a beginning oil class. The classroom was just as I remembered it, except for a new ugly ducting tube on the ceiling.
Art room Spring 2019.
Painting of art room. Fall 2006.
We walked through the Student Union building where I had talked with Anita Hill the year before she became a professor there, and where I had heard Thomas Friedman tell us why the World Is Flat. (At the University I also heard lectures by Howard Zinn, Azra Nomani, and President Jimmy Carter – it was a good place to hear people.) Up the hill we passed the library with floors that sink down instead of rise above ground level. We climbed the stairs at the Brown Social Science Center, up to the Anthropology Department. It’s still an old, outdated building, but filled with many happy memories. The halls smelled the same. Many of the professors I knew are still there, I could see, from bios posted on a bulletin board. I wrote a note on a paper towel from the bathroom and left it for Laurel, the woman in the office who keeps everything running. I said “Hi, I miss you all.”
We walked up all the steps of the Rabb Graduate Center and on up the hill to the Mandel Quad, where I took an Introduction to Judaism class once I realized I was attending a Jewish-centric school. Ha! Can you believe I had no idea until I arrived on campus? I’m so silly. Finally we went over to my other favourite building on campus: the Mandel Center where I took most of my classes for conflict resolution, mediation and peace building. It’s my favourite because that is where I met two of my best friends in all the world, Mads and Romain, who were also in the conflict resolution program.
This statue of Louis Brandeis is hard to resist. I wanted to show him more stuff, but he was focused on making the world a better place.
It began to rain as we walked back down the long hill. I told Will things like, “if you had a class at the Art building, then your next class was up here at Rabb, or the Mandel Center, you would just be late. That’s all there is to it.” I remembered having a law class at the top of the hill, then auditing a society & economy class with Robert Reich (well-known American economist and political commentator) down at the Slosberg Music Hall at the bottom of the hill. I was always late, and the packed theatre room never had seating available, so I sat on the floor with the other students who couldn’t arrive early.
Will and I were soaked through when we found our car at the bottom of the hill. I had spent a week with Will 24/7 and I am an introvert and used to living alone. Prior to the trip we had scheduled in two days away from each other. I drove him to the train station and he caught a train home to Providence. I drove to a random hotel that I had chosen because it was the cheapest in the whole Boston area, ha ha. I planned to visit with friends for two days and then go meet Will in Rhode Island for the final week.
King’s Chapel faces a whirling vortex of wind in Boston’s downtown, at the corner of Tremont St and School St. {photo by Will Murray}
We found out there is a vortex in downtown Boston, right in front of King’s Chapel. It took us all day long to realize this phenomena was specific to the intersection of Tremont ST, Beacon ST, and School ST.
King’s Chapel was originally an Anglican church attended by Royalists (supporters of the British King), but not supported by the Puritan founders of the city of Boston. In fact, when the Royal Governor demanded that land be provided for construction of the church, the Puritans refused. So, he seized some land already used as a burying ground and had a church built. Before he got a chance to worship there, the Puritans found out that King James II had been deposed, so they captured the Governor and shipped him back to England.
The original wooden church of 1686 was replaced with the current church in 1754. Rhode Island architect Peter Harrison (called America’s first architect) built it. The stone chapel does not have a steeple because the Royalists ran out of money. (The Puritans chuckled with glee, and did not buy anything at the Steeple Bake Sale.) It became Unitarian in 1785 under the ministry of James Freeman, and with that the establishment of the Unitarian Christian faith in America.
This was the site of our meeting place for the Boston By Foot Road to Revolution tour we were about to take. The weather was sketchy, but with only one day in the city, we had no choice but to show up in our rain jackets, and wait for our guide under a bank’s entryway while watching other tourists begin their Freedom Trail tours. The wind was astonishing! It whipped through the streets between tall buildings, blowing hats off heads, hurtling discarded Starbucks cups airborne into bushes, stripping tender early season leaves off the trees. Rain flew sideways, making umbrellas useless, even if they hadn’t already been yanked inside out by gusts. I watched as the wind grabbed a woman’s plastic poncho and pulled it nearly off her body. With her arms through the holes, she maintained possession of the poncho, while it flapped madly in the wind and rain above her head, a wet angry flag. When we spotted our tourguide, Linzy, she was surpised to see we hadn’t canceled. The others had.
Bravely the four of us (Will, me, Linzy, and her friend) all determined to go through with it. Linzy walked with us for a 2-hour tour past the physical remains of key moments in the political history of what is today called the United States of America. It’s an awkward story for me because it includes the invasion of my indigenous ancestors, but for today I’ll just set that aside and talk about the white man’s version of the tale.
Linzy told us about King’s Chapel, one of the symbols of the newly settled country, and a place visited by men whose names, like George Washington, appear in our founding mythology. The bell that rings today is one that was repaired by Paul Revere in his own foundry. We moved along the street and only a block away, the wind died down and our umbrella could be used as designed.
Benjamin Franklin is the most famous student from the Boston Latin School.
We walked to the Boston Latin School, founded on April 23, 1635. It is the oldest public school in America, and when it opened, offered a free education to boys of the community, regardless of what resources the family had. A statue of Benjamin Franklin, once a student there, honors the site of the original school.
The Old State House in the center of Boston, and in the center of U.S. history.
My favourite Boston building is the Old State House, built in 1713. The first floor was a merchant exchange and the second floor held offices of government, including that of the Governor, appointed by the English King. Until 1775, the Governor addressed the people from a balcony overlooking King Street.
The Old State House is adorned with the lion and unicorn, royal symbols of the King.
One of the lovely Boston churches.
Eye-catching frame of the Custom House Tower.
The Old State House is the oldest surviving public building in Boston. The plaza in front of the lion and unicorn is the site of the Boston Massacre. In March 1770, some boys taunted the British sentry until the sentry hit back. This drew a crowd of laborers, sailors, and bystanders, some carrying clubs. Seven soldiers were sent to defend the sentry, and they surrounded the crowd. The mob became cacauphonous and in the melee, the sentry fired his gun. The soldiers thought an order had been given, so they fired into the crowd. Five people died as a result, and many call this the first bloodshed of the Revolution. (Though that’s in dispute, as our tour guide in Salem explained how technically the first blood was spilled in Salem.) Six years later, the Declaration of Independence was read in the very same spot.
A statue of Samuel Adams in front of Faneuil Hall, currently swathed in protective covering during rennovations. {photo by Will Murray}
Nearby is Faneuil Hall, famous today as an indoor market. Peter Faneuil was the wealthiest merchant in Boston, and had no family or heirs. He proposed in 1740 that Boston have a central marketplace, and he offered to fund the construction entirely. The vote passed and the marketplace was built. As an afterthought, he added a second floor for a meeting space. The meeting space was immediately valuable as a public hall for gatherings, meetings, and ceremonies. 277 years later, it is still used in this way: market on the first level, gathering space at the top.
In front of Faneuil Hall is a statue of founding father, Sam Adams. Adams was born in Boston, a relative of President John Adams, and very active in politics. His family owned a company that produced malt used for brewing beer, and today there is a popular beer named after him.
We walked through an older part of Boston, with cobbled streets too narrow to fit a modern car. It’s hard to believe there are still places like this in the U.S.
Looking toward the Union Oyster House, from Union Street. (The Holocaust Memorial is right behind us, but that’s history for another day.)
Linzy told us about the history of Boston.
From there we walked past a hundred authentic Italian restaurants, in Boston’s Old North End. Linzy remarked as multiple tourists passed us with boxes of pastries from Mike’s, that it is where all the tourists go for authentic Italian pastries. “The locals go to Bova,” she added. We made a mental note.
Paul Revere owned this house from 1770-1800. {photo by Will Murray}
A statue of Paul Revere, with the famous spire of the Old North Church in the background.
It turns out, Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride, and the famous ‘one if by land, two if by sea’ plan, did not go down exactly as legend has it. Longfellow did the guy a solid for some reason.
During the planning stages of the revolution, there was a secret provincial council meeting in the town of Concord, Massachusetts. A spy network was organized between Concord and Boston, so the council could hear any Boston news. One enthusiastic member of the spy group was Paul Revere. People in Boston found out that British Regulars were planning to go out to Concord and confiscate an arms cache, and then arrest the council members, so the spy network was engaged.
There were two main routes to Concord from Boston, one was longer but entirely a land route. The other was shorter but required crossing the mouth of the Charles River where it emptied into the Bay. The spy group knew the British were about to move, and split up. Revere had been the one who told the sexton in the church about the lantern plan, and he may actually have been the person who went over there and told him to put up the two lanterns to send a signal across the water. THEN, Revere snuck illegally across the river in the night (because times were so tense the British had initiated a curfew and no one was allowed on the water after dark) ahead of the British Regulars and that’s when the ride began. Revere and others saddled up and tore along the road in the night, alerting everyone along the way to Lexington. As people found out, they jumped on their own horses and joined the spy group, alerting the countryside. Revere was captured by British soldiers before he made it to Concord, but he did play a key role that night.
The Old North Church, famous for holding the lantern signals.
We ended our tour at Coppy’s Burying Ground. The cemetery is the final resting place of many Boston patriots, including Robert Newman, the sexton at the Old North Church who hung a lantern. There are also unmarked slave graves here. By this time the weather was lovely. We sat on a park bench in the sun, drying out and resting after being on our feet for hours. Remembering the tip from Linzy, we bought some pastries to go at Bova, then had drinks at the very old Bell In Hand Tavern, operating since 1795 (except during prohibition).
We then went back to where we had parked, to drop off and get stuff from the car. As we left the City Hall Plaza and entered the intersection in front of King’s Chapel, we were bombarded with wind! It was a ferocious wind that nearly knocked us over. All day I had been thinking that the morning’s vortex was a product of the stormy weather, but no, apparently it’s a micro weather force, created by the arrangement of tall buildings and streets.
Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. See that skinny house between brick buildings?
This home is apparently not small. It faces the brick wall, and here, we are looking at it sideways.
Bell In Hand Tavern. Lovely atmosphere, crazy expensive drinks.
We walked over to Boston Commons and ate our pastries beside the pond, then walked across the channel to the giant milk bottle. The 40-foot wooden Hood Milk Bottle has a tiny restaurant in the bottom of it, closed for the night. We walked back to the North End and chose an Italian restaurant and had a splendid dinner.
Lovely Boston views as we walked through the city. Hard to believe this weather is the same day as the weather we had in the morning.
Lights add sparkle to downtown gardens in the evening.
View of the Boston skyline across Fort Point Channel.
High Rock Tower in Lynn, Massachusetts.
On our way out of Salem we made a fun stop in Lynn, Massachusetts, to climb up the hill at High Rock Tower Park. The tower is tucked into a densely populated residential area, and the approach that we used has no parking area (we found street parking). There are no informational or directional signs, so when we found it, then hiked up the hill to see it, I felt like we had discovered something special.
This approximately 5-acre piece of land has held an observation tower since the 1840s. The original tower was burned down in 1865. The current tower is 107 feet high and was built of granite in 1904. Since 2002 the observatory has been open to the public for views of the starry skies, from 8-10pm. It contains a 12-inch Meade telescope and visitors get a good look at the craters of the moon, the rings of Saturn and the great storms of Jupiter.
If a person were to approach from the other side of the hill, there are wide streets and parking spaces. I don’t know why the map app sent us in the back way, but it was more fun. Up on top we found a small city park there as well, with a jungle gym for the kids and grassy lawn to play in. A few parents and kiddies were running around, but it was mostly abandoned. No one was appreciating the beauty of the place, the tower itself, the gigantic boulders of fascinating porphyry rock (a reddish rock with big crystals embedded in it) all over the site, or the incredible views. Will and I did appreciate all of that, however.
View of the sea overlooks Stone Cottage, also part of the site. There is a clear view of Nahant Bay, and the community of Nahant, on an island.
The Boston city skyline appears to the south, while standing at High Rock Tower.
Will then took me to see a ball game in his hometown of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, at McCoy Stadium. That is the home (for now) of the Pawsox (the Pawtucket Red Sox), a team affiliated with the Boston Red Sox. Of course seeing a hometown minor league game was fun, but there was the added excitement that we might get to see one of the major league players on the field, while they got up to speed after an absence from the Boston team. Will thought maybe Dustin Pedroia would be playing that night. Pedroia is one of the players who was a star when I was watching a lot of baseball about ten years ago, so it would be super cool to be able to watch him play.
Tickets for the game.
Pedroia would be playing!
It was a warm night. We parked in a neighborhood and walked to the stadium. It felt wonderful to be sharing a small-town experience with all the other happy people walking to the game with us. Once we got our tickets and got inside the stadium, I checked the roster. Yep, Pedroia was on there.
We were hungry and I had fun standing in line for deep fried food and beer, all the stereotypes of baseball you could ask for. We found our seats and settled in. By the time we sat down the game had already started.
The Pawsox played the Gwinnett Stripers, from Gwinnett County, Georgia. I didn’t know anything about either team, but you can learn the players pretty fast by watching them during a game. These days of course you get up-close photos of the players, their positions and their stats up on the marquee every time they are at bat or make a significant play. That helps you learn. Another fun tradition is that each player picks a theme song and a few seconds of it are played as they approach home plate to bat. I learned who the country guy was, the hip hop guy, etcetera.
Hoping for a Pawtucket Red Sox run.
We had a pretty decent view of the field from our seats.
Stripers pitcher fixin’ to let loose.
Even though I only had my phone camera, I thought it did alright with capturing the scene.
The Stripers started off strong with three runs in the first inning, and another run in the the second. Pawsox gained momentum as they played, and by halfway through the game were clearly putting their hearts into it. That isn’t a way to win a game though. We finally got two runs in the 5th inning, but never caught up, and we lost the game 5-2.
I’m glad I got to see a game there. The team has been sold and is going to move to the city of Worcester in 2021. Once they move they will no longer be the Pawsox. It’s a pretty significant loss for Pawtucket, a small town that really doesn’t have much to brag about, or for the citizens to come together and enjoy.
After the game we hung around for fireworks. It’s a summertime tradition at McCoy stadium. Will’s mom is not a fan of the fireworks I hear, because it makes a lot of noise when many people are trying to get some sleep. I recommend being AT the game for the fireworks, because then all the light and noise go together, and it’s a lot of fun. After the show we walked back along the sidewalks to the car, in among many tired happy families heading home.
A view of the Salem Witch Trials Memorial. It is simple, but unexpectedly impactful.
To keep each post somewhat on topic, I hopped around in the timeline. We were in Salem two days. Today’s post is witchy, and yesterday’s was everything else. They aren’t chronological.
After a cold, wet morning on the sea looking for whales, we arrived in the wet afternoon at the city of Salem, Massachusetts. Salem is famous nationwide for being the locus of the infamous Witch Trials. I honestly didn’t know much about them before we went. I didn’t ask Will what he knew, but luckily he was ready to take a close look at the witch history with me, and by the end of the visit I had learned a lot.
In 1692 three girls in Salem Village, ages 9, 11, and 12 began a game of fortune telling. After playing at fortune telling over time they started acting oddly, making strange gestures and sounds. When the 9 and 11 year-olds, the daughter and niece of Reverend Parrish, began spasming and screaming, Doctor Griggs was called. The girls said they had been bewitched by three people: one family’s slave woman, Tituba, a homeless beggar-woman named Sara Good, and an elderly, bed-ridden woman named Sara Osborn. Dr. Griggs diagnosed bewitchment (not sure if the diagnosis came before or after the accusations), and soon after, other girls in the town began displaying the same uncontrollable behavior, and naming the so-called witches in town who caused it. Some people suggest that contributing factors of the hysteria may have included the severe Puritan lifestyle, the harsh living conditions, fear of Indian attack, a smallpox epidemic, belief by many colonists in the existence of witchcraft, and the fact that the slave Tituba used to tell neighborhood children wild stories of beasts and magic that she recalled from her Barbados upbringing (thus igniting their imaginations). Basically everyone was under a lot of stress.
The three women were hauled into court and proceedings began. The two white women denied being witches, though 70-year-old Sara Osborn barely knew what was going on. Tituba originally denied it, but after being harrassed for some time, confessed and said she had done a deal with the devil. She also claimed that there were other witches working with her, after coming to understand that she could get off with her life by becoming an informant. After hearing from Tituba that there were other witches, the whole town became hysterical, believing her story and accusing each other of witchraft. When pressed in court, several other women also followed Tituba’s lead, confessing and naming other witches, in order to receive a lesser sentence. Not only children were seized with fits of hysteria, but adults as well. Not only outcasts were accused, but also upstanding members of society, including a former minister (who had since moved to Maine but was hauled back), and eventually including one of the main accusers, 80 year old Giles Corey. By the end of 1693, over 200 people had been accused and tried, 19 of them hanged, 5 had died in custody, and one was pressed to death (more on that later).
Will found the site of a memorial, and led us there. See the photo at the top for a full view. The memorial is a grassy rectangular area with trees, surrounded by a low rock wall. Inset in the wall are 20 stone benches. Each bench has someone’s name, the means of death, and the date of their death. Each bench has flowers and beads left in remembrance. I don’t know why the 5 who died in jail weren’t honored. I feel the court was just as much responsible for their deaths as for the ones who were actively hanged or pressed.
Benches in the memorial. A cemetery can be seen behind the wall.
There is an engraving for each of the 20 people killed for being witches.
Right next to Martha Corey’s bench is Giles Corey’s bench.
After walking through the solemn memorial, we entered the cemetery nearby. We were interested in the gravestones with the very old dates and the scary skull with wings adorning so many of them. The cemetery is called The Burying Point. It contains the graves of Capt. Richard More, a Mayflower pilgrim and witchcraft trial judge John Hathorne, an ancestor of Nathanial Hawthorne.
A typical gravestone in The Burying Point. Mary Groue 1683
Capt. William Hathorne 1794
Martha Dean December 24, 1732
The next day we finally made it to the Salem Witch Museum and I was finally educated on the story I told above. I had never heard about the part the slave woman played, and I didn’t realize actual trials were held and the people found guilty or not guilty, and I didn’t realize men were charged as witches too. Fourteen of the deaths were women, six were men.
The Salem Witch Museum is beautiful. There is a gorgeous, wizard-like statue of Roger Conant, the founder of Salem, in a tall hat and flowing robes. However suggestive the statue and its placement may be, Conant had nothing to do with witches or the witch trials. His evocative memorial is misleadingly situated directly in front of the museum by coincidence.
The Salem Witch Museum across from the Salem Commons.
Roger Conant, founder of Salem, has nothing to do with witches.
As you can tell by looking at it, the building was orginally a church. The statue of Conant was erected in 1913 beside the church. In the 1960s it was a vintage car museum. The building was opened as a Witch Museum in 1972. Sadly, visitors who don’t take the time to read the plaque or ask any questions, often assume the statue is of a witch.
The museum is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. You pay for your ticket and wait with a very large group until they have assembled enough people, then usher everyone into the theatre room at once. There is seating for maybe 80 people in the center of the room on stools or benches. Turns out, you want the stools, and you want to be in the center of the room.
When the program begins, all the lights go out and a recording begins playing, and lights illuminate different static displays along the walls. Each new chapter of the story illuminates a new scene with life sized people surrounding us. Will and I were too close to the side of the room, so we couldn’t see the first three scenes that were above our heads. But soon the story circled around enough that we could see better. As the light moved around the room, we turned on our stools to follow the story.
The recording told the highlights of the story of the witch trials. They also told the story of wealthy Giles Corey. This man was caught up in the accusations of bewitchment and was a loud supporter of the need to punish the witches. He so firmly believed in the proceedings that when his own wife Martha was accused, he believed at first that she was a witch! One month later, Giles himself was accused and suddenly he got a whole new perspective. Once a person made a plea of guilty or not guilty to the court, their property was seized by the government. He wanted his assets to go to his sons, and refused to enter a plea. The court insisted that he plea, but Corey refused. They decided to torture him till he plead guilty or not guilty. They placed 80-year-old Giles Corey on a table, placed a board over the top of him, and began loading it up with boulders. Each time they demanded that he plea, Corey instead shouted “More weight!” and they complied. For two days this continued. On the third day he died.
The final scene in the museum was when the reverend from Maine was on the platform before his hanging. He recited the entire Lord’s Prayer without a single mistake. People at that time believed it was impossible for a witch to do that. But he was already up there, with the noose around his neck, and people were frenzied. They voted to hang him anyway, and Reverend George Burroughs was killed.
There was a brief sumary by a narrator then, and it ended by saying that the people of Salem and Massachusetts realized how ridiculous it all was and apologized and paid reparations, “…and we never gave in to our fears again.” Will and I have been laughing about that ever since. Oh sure, we humans learned from our one mistake once and for all, and were never motivated toward violence due to our fear ever again. Good grief, what a claim.
Off to the side of the theatre is a small actual museum with artifacts and information boards. There was a docent who guided us through and gave us information about famous witches on TV and movies, and on more real life witch hunts, like the red scare, where Americans were outed for being secret communists, the Japanese internment camps where Japanese Americans were imprisoned for being culturally Japanese, and the ostracizing of homosexual men due to the HIV/AIDS scare. She concluded with information about real witches today, who have a legitimate religion based in living in harmony with nature.
After that, Will wanted to hunt down the actual spot where Giles Corey was pressed. We think we found it, but there is no memorial to know for sure. We found the location of the jail where the accused were held while awaiting trial, now called The Witch Gaol.
Plaque at the site of the Witch Gaol.
On our walking tour of the city of Salem that morning, we saw The Witch House. It was the home of Judge Jonathan Corwin, who served on the court that found 19 people guilty of witchcraft. He purchased this home in 1675 and lived there all his life. It is now a museum, which opened in 1948.
Home of Judge Corwin, now a museum called the Witch House, because it is the only building left in Salem that has a connection to the 1692 witch trials.
