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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Recent Work
2008 - Stratton Magazine, Southern Vermont Arts & Living, Newport (RI) Travel Planner
2009 - Stratton Magazine, Southern Vermont Arts & Living
2010 - Stratton Magazine, Southern Vermont Arts & Living
2011 - Stratton Magazine
2009 - Stratton Magazine, Southern Vermont Arts & Living
2010 - Stratton Magazine, Southern Vermont Arts & Living
2011 - Stratton Magazine
Monday, December 17, 2007
OUTDOORS 3
by Anita Rafael
Go Dog, Go! happens to be the title of a best seller that Philip D. Eastman of Amherst, Massachusetts penned back in 1961 and it was a real page-turner among the six year-old Seuss set. In the colorful reader, still a kiddie lit classic, several mad dogs speed around as fast as they can – in little convertible sports cars. “Go dog, go!” repeats the text again and again, as the hounds, their long ears flapping in the breeze, zip across the pages and even drive straight up into lollipop-shaped trees.
“Go dog, go!” could likewise be the motto of the Husky Works Mushing Company, established in woodsy West Wardsboro in 2007. There aren’t any racecars there, however – just teams of sled dogs loping along a pretty 3-mile forest trail. Behind them is a 10-foot ash-frame sled, carrying one expert musher and you.
Once five to ten of his Siberian huskies are strapped into their nylon webbing harnesses with their necklines secured for pulling, company co-owner Jeremy Bedortha says, “gee,” “haw,” “ let’s go,” “easy,” and “whoa” for turn right, turn left, go ahead, slow down and stop. Sled dogs are not controlled by reins like a horse or by yanking their gangline, as the rig is called, but by the musher’s clear and confident voice commands.
“Cinders!” he says to the female lead, “Gee!” and the whole line of black-white, gray-white, all white, sable-colored and spotted “piebald” dogs arcs gracefully as Cinders turns them into a clearing ahead. “Sasha!” he says, getting the attention of the point dog who is second in line on the right-hand side of the mainline before telling her, too, to pull into the forthcoming curve: “Gee!” Two wheel dogs, as they are curiously called, are the ones closest to the front the sled and they are typically the heaviest dogs; Nashashuck’s and Yuma’s job is to calmly power the sled forward, out and around sharp corners and to make wider turns to steer the weight of the toboggan and its passengers past obstacles such as trees or posts. “Easy!” he says softly, encouraging the last pair to take the turn slowly and not tip the sled or its load. Sometimes Barren and Wazika work as the wheels.
Company co-owner Laura Bedortha, who is Jeremy’s wife, and Ben Hescock, a Wardsboro resident and a lifelong friend of Jeremy’s, are both capable Husky Works mushers. “Jeremy and I got hooked on mushing after we went on a sled tour at Mont Tremblaut outside Montreal several years ago,” recalls Laura. “They let us drive our own sleds pulled by four dogs over a couple of miles of trail,” she says. Jeremy, who already had a pet Siberian named Scout, bought a second husky, Kayla. Soon, they bought a third, Sasha, then a forth. Next, they bred a litter, all five of which the Bedortha’s kept. Then came a litter of four, of which they raised just two. Later, the couple adopted several more Siberians and paid a premium price to buy an experienced lead dog from a New Hampshire musher who was shutting down his business and who also sold them his used sleds.
Some seven years after that first ride in Canada, there are 20 clean and healthy sled-trained Siberians kenneled two to four to a pen in a half-dozen six-foot high chain link runs behind a yellow house at the corner of Route 100 and the Stratton-Arlington Road, an old cape which is the base of the Husky Works company. “We were giving our friends rides, and everyone loved it,” says Laura, “so it just made sense for us to start a dogsledding tour company.”
“I like to get four or five hundred miles on the dogs before the season even begins,” says Jeremy. Hitching all the huskies (except the retired Moma Kata) to the front of his ATV as soon as the autumn temperatures fall below 50 degrees, he lets the dogs pull him along on the four-wheeler with the motor off and the gears in neutral. Mushers and dogs train like this three or four nights a week until it snows. Just like athletes,” he says, speaking as if he is the head coach of a major league football team with a superbowl championship at stake, “we need to be in shape for our sport and practice for our position on the team.”
The winter sled tours begin as soon as there is a foot of snow on the trails which Jeremy carefully grooms and packs using a large roller and a weighted drag attached to the back of his ATV. The private property where Husky Works is located consists of more than 70 acres with paths that loop through a clearing, around a small pond and over Wardsboro’s hilly terrain. A professional dog team in peak condition running an ideal track could tally up to one hundred miles in a 24-hour period, but Husky Works’ dogs are rarely expected to run more than 10 miles a day. Year-old “pups in training,” bother-sister littermates Max and Panda, are hitched to the team, too.
Using either flat-bottomed toboggan sleds or raised basket sleds on runners, the company offers tours to the public on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays whenever weather and trail conditions permit. Fully licensed by the Town and by State authorities, Husky Works is only allowed to operate during daylight hours. “Our neighbors expressed some concerns when we applied for our business permits,” admits Jeremy, but aside from the few minutes of excited barking, yodeling and howling at feeding time, mushing Siberians through the mountains is a quiet, eco-friendly enterprise.
This extraordinary relationship – working canines and human beings – long precedes written history and among North America’s native tribes it significantly predates utilization of the horse as a draft animal. There is some archaeological evidence that pulling dogs were employed more than 4,000 years ago (some claim 10,000), however the earliest written record of a dog sled competition in the U.S. goes back only to the 1850s. It was an informal challenge between travelers on the route from Winnipeg, Canada to St. Paul, Minnesota.
Then, in 1973, came the race that changed dogsledding forever: the approximately 1,151-mile Iditarod. Winners and top-ranking mushers and their dogs emerged as international celebrities; today, the annual Iditarod is rated as the most popular sporting event in Alaska and is generally credited with bringing about a resurgence of recreational mushing nationwide since the 1970s. The Bedorthas comment proudly that one of their Siberians, the ever-so-slightly favored Motomo, is the grandson of an Iditarod finisher.
The mushing adventure that Husky Works offers is far from being a subzero, weeklong tribulation. It’s a well-staged, comfortable, hour-long jaunt. They typically run two sleds at a time, each of which can carry up to 350 pounds or two adult passengers. There is a mid-way stop to rest and water the panting dogs, and to check their paws for signs of abrasion or injury. The break, at an elevated point on the trail, gives the mushers and their guests a chance to warm up over a cup of hot chocolate while they enjoy the panoramic vistas of the sparkling snowscape spread out across still-unspoiled West Wardsboro.
“Dogsled touring is a great family outing,” says Laura, “but it is not for toddlers.” To be sure, it’s not for the timid either whenever there is a combination of gusty winds, occasional ice and a speedy track. Adds Laura, “I can’t let any children pet the dogs when they’re working.” That’s because at the mere sight of a sled or rig, the Siberians are amped up for pulling and they will pull hard no matter what. “If I don’t stop the sled properly with the claw brake or the snow anchor, they’ll run forever,” Jeremy says, clearly speaking from experience. The Siberians’ paws are furred between the toes, which adds traction to their pads as they seemingly fly without effort across the slippery snow. (You may not know that not all huskies are Siberians. Alaskan huskies are a mix of several Northern breeds, whereas Siberians have purer bloodlines. Alaskan malamutes are stronger dogs but are not as fast as race-bred Siberians.)
“Step over!” says Ben Hescock, rather matter-of-factly when Storm, one of the team dogs in the middle of the hitch, puts his foot down on the wrong side of the mainline. “Good job,” he praises, as the dog at fault obeys and glances back, just confirming that the maneuver is what Ben wanted him to do. “Angel, let’s go!” he says to the almond-eyed lead dog, giving her permission to pick up the pace. Passengers readily catch on to the astonishing two-way conversation between the animals in front of them and the musher standing behind them. When several Siberians simultaneously cock their heads back to make eye contact with the driver, it is usually to collectively ask, “Why you stopping us here?” or it is to wordlessly plead, “Let’s go faster!”
“They thrive as a pack,” says Jeremy, who himself is the most athletically fit, undisputed alpha dog of all at Husky Works. Even the largest, boldest 70-pound Siberian is friendly and rolls onto his back to “submit” when Jeremy playfully grabs the scruff of the dog’s neck. “There is a definite hierarchy among the dogs, but they all get along well,” he confirms. “You can see the pack mentality especially when they are working, it’s so instinctive.” In front of a sled, the dogs are synchronized and quick; light on their feet, they pull level, without lumbering, even at full speed.
Yet, part of being a good musher is knowing each dog’s individual quirks, understanding each dog’s unique personality and remembering what it takes to get each dog to precisely follow the musher’s critical commands. Not overly aggressive as a breed, Siberian huskies are characteristically loyal and fortunately, intelligent enough to be perpetually eager to please. Sometimes, the Bedortha’s energetic huskies are even comical, tripping over their own paws and each other to be the first to leap off all fours and greet the mushers nose to nose, bestowing licks and love nips. Rowdy, untamed and wolfish though they may seem whenever all twenty dogs are let loose inside the fence of their huge exercise yard to romp and socialize, together these animals, the Bedorthas and Hescock are a joyous, homogenous bunch who are all genuinely fond of one another. Some of the Bedortha’s dogs enjoy the same privileges as every other pampered family pooch. “Three of the lead dogs come indoors every night,” says Laura, “Sadie, a female, and two males, Tonka and Motomo sleep in the house.” Most evenings after their run and supper, the young couple and their contented pets are quintuplet couch potatoes.
When it comes to sledding though, the Bedorthas are all business. Jeremy, Laura and Ben have perfected the logic that goes into hitching up each team, choosing the right lead dog that as often as not is a female rather than a male. “Running in tandem, you want to try to pair them up by similar size, strength and gait,” Jeremy says. “You want a fluid team.” When the musher finally releases the snub line that tethers the sled to a tree or pick-up truck bumper while the dogs are being harnessed, the launch into a trot and then a slow lope is unexpectedly smooth.
For the passengers sitting in the handsomely varnished toboggans, the ride is gentle, silent and subdued except for the calm cadence of the musher’s calls, the swish of the trees above and the occasional creaking sounds as the wooden sled creases the snow. They might hear an elated yip now and then from Polar, Zudkik, Dawson or Fern, four of the team dogs. All they feel is dog power, pure dog power.
No one actually says it, but what you are thinking over and over again as you are skimming across the sun-warmed clearings and gliding through the chilly deep woods is this: Go dogs, go!
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Sunday, December 16, 2007
VERMONT TOURING 1
Back to Opening Page
SHOPPING IN SOUTHERN VERMONT
Majority of Leisure Travelers to Southeastern Vermont Shop for Antique Treasures, Country Wares, Fine Arts & Crafts and Good Books
By Anita Rafael
Savvy travelers skip the sprawl-malls to browse country stores, gallery-style shops and artist’s studios in Southeastern Vermont’s towns and villages in search of locally-made goods and one-of-a-kind artisan gifts. The region’s booksellers have capitalized on the fact that travelers and locals alike cross paths in their cozy shops to chat, browse the selections and share their opinions on the “best read” of the moment.
It was the legendary Mae West who said, “Too much of a good thing is wonderful.” Little did she know that shopping in Southeastern Vermont’s small towns and country villages is very nearly too much of a good thing. The country stores and quaint shops in what city-folk refer to as “out-of-the way” places between Brattleboro and Bellows Falls and from Putney to Wilmington are well-stocked with sophisticated goods, kitchen-crafted comestibles and artful gifts. Those who are passionate about provenance have to confess their shopping secrets: that it is in the “farm road” shops where the best treasures are always found. For others, the region is a reader’s paradise with new and used bookstores at nearly every crossroads.In between outdoor adventures, such as hiking the trails in the region’s three state parks or canoeing down the Connecticut River, leisure travelers still find time to shop. So do cultural travelers – after visits to the area’s museums and recreational attractions, there’s always an extra stop for shopping. In fact, about four in ten travelers, reports the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA), stated that a trip is not complete without going shopping.
According to recent domestic travel surveys available through TIA, most leisure travelers, whether day-trippers or overnight visitors, “feel that stores should be unique or different from stores they can find at home.” That is an easy bill to fill in Southeastern Vermont. Browsing a broad variety of retail venues in the region is possible because the towns and villages are so close to one another. Shoppers can amble along Main Streets in Brattleboro or Bellows Falls for some great window-shopping in the morning, and after lunch, they can tour the scenic byways in search of eclectic antique shops. After-hours on special “gallery nights,” they can tour artists’ studios and trendy fine art galleries.
GALLERY HOPPING, ANTIQUING AND TREASURE HUNTING, some experts said, waned as a leisure pastime in the 1990s, but since the turn of the millennium a noteworthy up tick in the values of antiques have spawned a whole new passion for items old and interesting, particularly throughout New England’s colonial territory. From grandiose furniture such as a roll top writing desk to more intimate items like a hundred-year-old sterling silver pocket watch, treasure hunters on a quest for the perfect gift or historic “souvenir” can visit the eclectic shops in Southeastern Vermont. Dozens of fine antique shops offer varied collections, and dealers skilled in locating special pieces always have their welcome mat out. Shop by shop, visitors who love looking at old things can talk personally with dealers in an unhurried atmosphere.The historic area of Newfane is dense with above-average antique shops, all lined up along Route 30: among them, Auntie M’s Attic, Jack Winner and Schoomer Antiques. Farther south in Dummerston, right across from the covered bridge, is Jeff’s Basement, which is really a treasure-trove of old furniture. Slightly west of Townsend center on Route 35, is Colt Barn Antiques, a shop with a most tasteful array of desirable primitives and folk art plus top-quality antique tables, chairs and chests. Also in Townshend, the Taft Hill Collection features a creative mix of hand painted glass and china, an art gallery and original gifts for the home and garden, and not far away is the Riverdale Antiques group shop, a well-liked place for scouting collectibles.
Jamaica center on Route 30 and Grafton center on Route 35 both have a mix of remarkably upscale galleries and antique shops; there are more than a half-dozen locations to browse in Grafton, all within walking distance, and an equal number of venues in Jamaica, including Margie’s Muse Handweaving Gallery features an eclectic variety of handmade treasures and gifts. Fine art galleries in Grafton include Gallery North Star, Hunter Gallery of Fine Art and Jud Hartmann’s Gallery of limited edition bronze sculptures. Newell Hill Farm Antiques, located in a historic farmhouse off Route 100 in West Wardsboro, is worth the ride up the steep lane for the shop’s vintage and folksy inventory, as well as for the view from the top.A huge assortment of collectibles can be found along Route 5 in Bellows Falls at Big Red Barn Antiques, a group shop, and in the center of town there are two tiny shops guaranteed to have undiscovered treasures: Klick Antiques and Sharon Boccelli & Company Antiques. Not to be overlooked in Putney is a pint-sized place on Route 5 called Swirl – it is part vintage clothing and part group shop stuffed with collectibles, small furnishings and decorative objects. The largest antiques group shop and consignment business in Windham County is Twice Upon a Time on Main Street in Brattleboro with its three department-store sized levels; the basement is all furniture, the main floor is a mix of collectibles and furniture, and the mezzanine is jam-packed with vintage clothing and funky accessories. Just down the street is Verde for Home & Garden and across the street is Dragon Fly Drygoods—both offer a variety of treasures for the home and garden.
COUNTRY STORES were not invented in the Green Mountain State, but the art of stocking the idyllic village shop with desirable goods and gifts certainly seems to have been perfected there. Up front, most stores are guaranteed to carry the usual convenience items, everything from soup to soap, but in between the aisles there are likely to be knitted, crocheted or quilted clothing and decorator items, artisan foods, such as chutneys, wild berry jams and native honey, interesting arts and handicrafts, and, oh yes, barrelsful of old-fashioned made-from-maple syrup candy. Route 30 from Brattleboro travels past the Newfane Country Store, a shop with its authentic 19th century interior still intact; clerks there weigh out every kind of penny candy ever made and, in addition, regularly stock more than 150 hand-stitched quilts. Off Route 5, is the Putney General Store, housed in a historic building where the bare-wood floors still creak underfoot - it has a deli, scoop shop and an old-fashioned soda fountain. The Grafton Village Store, purveyors of full-deli meals, fine wines, and Grafton Cheese, has a space reserved between the pot-bellied stove and the coffee counter just for “settin’ and chattin’.”
Another small-town classic, with a screen door that bangs loudly every time customers walk in and out, is the Wardsboro Country Store off Route 100 selling local honey, jams, jellies, maple syrup and hand-made candies, all of which are the ideal take-home gifts for visitors.The tiny-but-gourmet-chic Williamsville Country Store offers a wide-variety of made-to-order items from its deli kitchen and, overall, it is an excellent place to put together a sumptuous picnic heavy with imported specialties and local delicacies. A highlight of The Vermont Country Store in Rockingham is the famous mail order catalog company’s Common Cracker machine where visitors can watch the biscuits being cranked out while nibbling on free samples. It is a popular emporium of household goods, woodenwares, toys, personal care products, clothing and you-name-it paraphernalia.
FINE ARTS and CRAFTS are typically the most sought items after by shoppers in Southeastern Vermont. A region that for centuries has been fertile for creativity in the form of Yankee ingenuity, turns out to be even an more inspiring setting for hundreds of talented artists. From paintings to pottery, from hand-stitched quilts to hand-turned wooden bowls, most shops and galleries have a mix of media, styles and price ranges in artisan goods and fine arts. In Brattleboro, Vermont Artisan Designs is the best place for art lovers to get the big picture of the diversity of quality painting, photography and crafts that the region has to offer because it has more than 300 artists and artisans represented on two elegantly-designed levels. Also in Brattleboro, the Cotton Mill Studios, a three-story century-old brick and wood-beam complex, allows visitors to see over 25 artists in action making furniture, blown glass, ceramics, paintings, films, music, toys and more. It’s been called “a burgeoning artists enclave.” The artists’ December open house and annual sale is an exciting way to learn about arts and crafts techniques as well as to shop for not-from-the-mall Secret Santa gifts.Off by itself in a quiet corner of Windham County, is the Jelly Bean Tree on Route 121 in Saxton’s River; more than 60 country artists and craftspeople co-op this compact and colorful gallery space which is part of a larger and vibrant community arts education center.Village fairs and holiday weekends give visitors some of the best opportunities to shop for arts and crafts, and among the premier shows is the Newfane Heritage Festival on Columbus Day Weekend. Two years ago, the Philadelphia Inquirer named this juried show one of its best "10 for the Road" events from the mid-Atlantic to New England. During the annual 4th of July Parade in Wardsboro Village, dozens of regional painters and hometown crafters set up an artsy street market several hours before the marching begins and thousands of people stroll Main Street to browse the booths and tents. In July, in South Newfane, visitors can follow wherever the road, river or curiosity takes them to visit the 18 artist’s studios that make up the Rock River Artists Open Studio Tour. Each November in Putney, along Route 5, resident artists host a weekend of casual self-guided Studio Crafts Tours.
BOOKSTORES are a lot like community centers in many Southeastern Vermont towns. Most are independent-owned and have evolved into family-friendly gathering places where folks can search for a good vacation read, buy the latest biography, score a first-edition classic, or pick up books on local lore and history. The bookworms’ favorite shops are the ones with cozy nooks and comfy seats where they can steal a few quiet literary moments.
Travelers who read and readers who travel can find all the classic and modern literature they need in Brattleboro’s bookstores, all clustered within walking distance: Everyone’s Books, Collected Works, Baskets Paperback Palace, Brattleboro Books (well known as southern Vermont’s largest used bookstore) and The Book Cellar are all well-stocked shops. A few miles north on Route 5 in Putney is Hearthstone Books, a community-minded shop selling both new and used books. Route 5 leads into Bellows Falls, the location of Village Square Booksellers, which offers an eclectic and current selection, and Arch Bridge Bookshop, a goldmine of used books. At Austin’s Antiquarian Books, one-half mile west of Wilmington Center, shoppers find fine old leather bindings and shelves loaded with books on antiques, art and history.
Back to Opening Page
SHOPPING IN SOUTHERN VERMONT
Majority of Leisure Travelers to Southeastern Vermont Shop for Antique Treasures, Country Wares, Fine Arts & Crafts and Good Books
By Anita Rafael
Savvy travelers skip the sprawl-malls to browse country stores, gallery-style shops and artist’s studios in Southeastern Vermont’s towns and villages in search of locally-made goods and one-of-a-kind artisan gifts. The region’s booksellers have capitalized on the fact that travelers and locals alike cross paths in their cozy shops to chat, browse the selections and share their opinions on the “best read” of the moment.
It was the legendary Mae West who said, “Too much of a good thing is wonderful.” Little did she know that shopping in Southeastern Vermont’s small towns and country villages is very nearly too much of a good thing. The country stores and quaint shops in what city-folk refer to as “out-of-the way” places between Brattleboro and Bellows Falls and from Putney to Wilmington are well-stocked with sophisticated goods, kitchen-crafted comestibles and artful gifts. Those who are passionate about provenance have to confess their shopping secrets: that it is in the “farm road” shops where the best treasures are always found. For others, the region is a reader’s paradise with new and used bookstores at nearly every crossroads.In between outdoor adventures, such as hiking the trails in the region’s three state parks or canoeing down the Connecticut River, leisure travelers still find time to shop. So do cultural travelers – after visits to the area’s museums and recreational attractions, there’s always an extra stop for shopping. In fact, about four in ten travelers, reports the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA), stated that a trip is not complete without going shopping.
According to recent domestic travel surveys available through TIA, most leisure travelers, whether day-trippers or overnight visitors, “feel that stores should be unique or different from stores they can find at home.” That is an easy bill to fill in Southeastern Vermont. Browsing a broad variety of retail venues in the region is possible because the towns and villages are so close to one another. Shoppers can amble along Main Streets in Brattleboro or Bellows Falls for some great window-shopping in the morning, and after lunch, they can tour the scenic byways in search of eclectic antique shops. After-hours on special “gallery nights,” they can tour artists’ studios and trendy fine art galleries.
GALLERY HOPPING, ANTIQUING AND TREASURE HUNTING, some experts said, waned as a leisure pastime in the 1990s, but since the turn of the millennium a noteworthy up tick in the values of antiques have spawned a whole new passion for items old and interesting, particularly throughout New England’s colonial territory. From grandiose furniture such as a roll top writing desk to more intimate items like a hundred-year-old sterling silver pocket watch, treasure hunters on a quest for the perfect gift or historic “souvenir” can visit the eclectic shops in Southeastern Vermont. Dozens of fine antique shops offer varied collections, and dealers skilled in locating special pieces always have their welcome mat out. Shop by shop, visitors who love looking at old things can talk personally with dealers in an unhurried atmosphere.The historic area of Newfane is dense with above-average antique shops, all lined up along Route 30: among them, Auntie M’s Attic, Jack Winner and Schoomer Antiques. Farther south in Dummerston, right across from the covered bridge, is Jeff’s Basement, which is really a treasure-trove of old furniture. Slightly west of Townsend center on Route 35, is Colt Barn Antiques, a shop with a most tasteful array of desirable primitives and folk art plus top-quality antique tables, chairs and chests. Also in Townshend, the Taft Hill Collection features a creative mix of hand painted glass and china, an art gallery and original gifts for the home and garden, and not far away is the Riverdale Antiques group shop, a well-liked place for scouting collectibles.
Jamaica center on Route 30 and Grafton center on Route 35 both have a mix of remarkably upscale galleries and antique shops; there are more than a half-dozen locations to browse in Grafton, all within walking distance, and an equal number of venues in Jamaica, including Margie’s Muse Handweaving Gallery features an eclectic variety of handmade treasures and gifts. Fine art galleries in Grafton include Gallery North Star, Hunter Gallery of Fine Art and Jud Hartmann’s Gallery of limited edition bronze sculptures. Newell Hill Farm Antiques, located in a historic farmhouse off Route 100 in West Wardsboro, is worth the ride up the steep lane for the shop’s vintage and folksy inventory, as well as for the view from the top.A huge assortment of collectibles can be found along Route 5 in Bellows Falls at Big Red Barn Antiques, a group shop, and in the center of town there are two tiny shops guaranteed to have undiscovered treasures: Klick Antiques and Sharon Boccelli & Company Antiques. Not to be overlooked in Putney is a pint-sized place on Route 5 called Swirl – it is part vintage clothing and part group shop stuffed with collectibles, small furnishings and decorative objects. The largest antiques group shop and consignment business in Windham County is Twice Upon a Time on Main Street in Brattleboro with its three department-store sized levels; the basement is all furniture, the main floor is a mix of collectibles and furniture, and the mezzanine is jam-packed with vintage clothing and funky accessories. Just down the street is Verde for Home & Garden and across the street is Dragon Fly Drygoods—both offer a variety of treasures for the home and garden.
COUNTRY STORES were not invented in the Green Mountain State, but the art of stocking the idyllic village shop with desirable goods and gifts certainly seems to have been perfected there. Up front, most stores are guaranteed to carry the usual convenience items, everything from soup to soap, but in between the aisles there are likely to be knitted, crocheted or quilted clothing and decorator items, artisan foods, such as chutneys, wild berry jams and native honey, interesting arts and handicrafts, and, oh yes, barrelsful of old-fashioned made-from-maple syrup candy. Route 30 from Brattleboro travels past the Newfane Country Store, a shop with its authentic 19th century interior still intact; clerks there weigh out every kind of penny candy ever made and, in addition, regularly stock more than 150 hand-stitched quilts. Off Route 5, is the Putney General Store, housed in a historic building where the bare-wood floors still creak underfoot - it has a deli, scoop shop and an old-fashioned soda fountain. The Grafton Village Store, purveyors of full-deli meals, fine wines, and Grafton Cheese, has a space reserved between the pot-bellied stove and the coffee counter just for “settin’ and chattin’.”
Another small-town classic, with a screen door that bangs loudly every time customers walk in and out, is the Wardsboro Country Store off Route 100 selling local honey, jams, jellies, maple syrup and hand-made candies, all of which are the ideal take-home gifts for visitors.The tiny-but-gourmet-chic Williamsville Country Store offers a wide-variety of made-to-order items from its deli kitchen and, overall, it is an excellent place to put together a sumptuous picnic heavy with imported specialties and local delicacies. A highlight of The Vermont Country Store in Rockingham is the famous mail order catalog company’s Common Cracker machine where visitors can watch the biscuits being cranked out while nibbling on free samples. It is a popular emporium of household goods, woodenwares, toys, personal care products, clothing and you-name-it paraphernalia.
FINE ARTS and CRAFTS are typically the most sought items after by shoppers in Southeastern Vermont. A region that for centuries has been fertile for creativity in the form of Yankee ingenuity, turns out to be even an more inspiring setting for hundreds of talented artists. From paintings to pottery, from hand-stitched quilts to hand-turned wooden bowls, most shops and galleries have a mix of media, styles and price ranges in artisan goods and fine arts. In Brattleboro, Vermont Artisan Designs is the best place for art lovers to get the big picture of the diversity of quality painting, photography and crafts that the region has to offer because it has more than 300 artists and artisans represented on two elegantly-designed levels. Also in Brattleboro, the Cotton Mill Studios, a three-story century-old brick and wood-beam complex, allows visitors to see over 25 artists in action making furniture, blown glass, ceramics, paintings, films, music, toys and more. It’s been called “a burgeoning artists enclave.” The artists’ December open house and annual sale is an exciting way to learn about arts and crafts techniques as well as to shop for not-from-the-mall Secret Santa gifts.Off by itself in a quiet corner of Windham County, is the Jelly Bean Tree on Route 121 in Saxton’s River; more than 60 country artists and craftspeople co-op this compact and colorful gallery space which is part of a larger and vibrant community arts education center.Village fairs and holiday weekends give visitors some of the best opportunities to shop for arts and crafts, and among the premier shows is the Newfane Heritage Festival on Columbus Day Weekend. Two years ago, the Philadelphia Inquirer named this juried show one of its best "10 for the Road" events from the mid-Atlantic to New England. During the annual 4th of July Parade in Wardsboro Village, dozens of regional painters and hometown crafters set up an artsy street market several hours before the marching begins and thousands of people stroll Main Street to browse the booths and tents. In July, in South Newfane, visitors can follow wherever the road, river or curiosity takes them to visit the 18 artist’s studios that make up the Rock River Artists Open Studio Tour. Each November in Putney, along Route 5, resident artists host a weekend of casual self-guided Studio Crafts Tours.
BOOKSTORES are a lot like community centers in many Southeastern Vermont towns. Most are independent-owned and have evolved into family-friendly gathering places where folks can search for a good vacation read, buy the latest biography, score a first-edition classic, or pick up books on local lore and history. The bookworms’ favorite shops are the ones with cozy nooks and comfy seats where they can steal a few quiet literary moments.
Travelers who read and readers who travel can find all the classic and modern literature they need in Brattleboro’s bookstores, all clustered within walking distance: Everyone’s Books, Collected Works, Baskets Paperback Palace, Brattleboro Books (well known as southern Vermont’s largest used bookstore) and The Book Cellar are all well-stocked shops. A few miles north on Route 5 in Putney is Hearthstone Books, a community-minded shop selling both new and used books. Route 5 leads into Bellows Falls, the location of Village Square Booksellers, which offers an eclectic and current selection, and Arch Bridge Bookshop, a goldmine of used books. At Austin’s Antiquarian Books, one-half mile west of Wilmington Center, shoppers find fine old leather bindings and shelves loaded with books on antiques, art and history.
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Saturday, December 15, 2007
VERMONT TOURING 2
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ARTISAN FOOD OF SOUTHERN VERMONT
The Taste of Southern Vermont Is Distinctly Artisan and Lovingly Homegrown
by Anita Rafael
Maple syrup, it says on the brochures, is Vermont’s official flavor! True enough – after all who could argue that the Green Mountain State’s climate isn’t ideal for tsunamis of sap to flow every March? However, with a multitude of small organic farms plus many artisan cheese makers, bakers, specialty food producers and farmer’s markets, the true taste test of Southern Vermont just might be a year-round smorgasbord of homegrown flavors and sophisticated eating.
The word “artisan” is suddenly popping up on everything from bread wrappers to salad dressing labels. Shoppers see it on baskets of fresh tomatoes, on jars of apple chutney and on packets of ground spices. The implication is that good food is an art form; it is meant to specify that certain foods are “crafted” by hand or made using traditional recipes. However, it takes a lot more than a folksy looking label to be able to call a food product artisan. To be legitimate, the food must make a statement about where it comes from and who grows or produces it.Such a statement is loud and clear in the cheeses produced at Peaked Mountain Farm in Townshend. On a road that winds up a hillside above the village center, Bob and Ann Works and their helpers annually produce about 1,500 pounds raw sheep milk cheeses, as well as cow and mixed milk varieties. Because their sheep graze on wild grasses, including plants such as wild mint and thyme in the meadows, their feta, Camembert and tomme cheeses cannot help but have the flavor of Vermont in every bite. Rather than blending particular nuances out of the finished product to produce something “standard,” artisan cheese makers like the Works commit to the opposite. They strive to identify and enhance the uniqueness of their product, to make it taste like nothing else but what it is – that’s what makes it artisan. A subtle suggestion of what winemakers refer to as terroir is now also the sacred mantra of specialty food farms like this one.The late Henry Tewksbury, who celebrated Vermont’s “land-to-cheese” continuum in his book The Cheeses of Vermont, described Peaked Mountain’s Camembert as having a “mouth-puckering tang.” Their cheeses and other artisan foods are available at the farm, as well as at the Brattleboro Co-op and other co-ops, at the Shelburne Supermarket, or by mail order.
By the way, if you head that way to tour the farm’s cheese room and then drive home on the back road, don’t be surprised to see 50 or 60 buffalo grazing a few fields over at Carl and Eloise Steiner’s East Hill Bison Farm. Their packaged cuts of inspected, low-fat, low-cholesterol meat are sold at the farmhouse. Buffalo entrees are also on the menu at some local eateries, including Townshends’s Dam Diner on Route 30. Sticking to the state’s illustrious “Cheese Trail,” a tourism brainchild of the Vermont Cheese Council, leads hungry travelers to five more cheese makers situated in the southeastern corner of the state. Look at the map to find Vermont Shepherd at the Major Farm on Patch Road in Putney. Cheese makers David and Cindy Major are credited with jump-starting widespread appreciation for specialty sheep’s milk cheeses made in Vermont over a decade ago. Even though the 250-acre farm ships thousands pounds annually, the product is still considered artisan because there is a limited production. That’s the key: it’s made in small batches of 10 or 20 wheels, and given “love and attention” every single day throughout the entire 3 to 6 month aging process.
Patience is a common ingredient in all artisan products. If you have never tasted their signature cheese, expect to experience a rich creamy texture with an earthy flavor. No matter where you buy Major Farm’s Vermont Shepherd – in local stores or in California, Michigan or Tennessee - eventually, it, too, will be something your memory will hold onto forever as “tasting like Vermont.”
Few foods in Southern Vermont are more convincingly artisan than bread made by hand. Few bakers are as dedicated to the creative potential of each and every loaf as those at the spiritual community living at the 120-acre Basin Farm on Basin Farm Road in Bellows Falls. Typically, breadbaking starts with “preheat oven.” Their recipe starts months before in the farm’s certified organic fields. They sow about 5 acres of organic spelt annually. They do the tilling, watering, weeding and harvesting of the grain, and some 1,600 bushels is eventually ground into flour. For James Bergeron, one of the bakers in the group, the daily bread making is not just “the farm lifestyle.” To him, mixing, kneading, proofing and baking every loaf of bread is ultimately symbolic of what agriculture is all about. There is no disconnect between who the Basin Farm bakers are and the hearty breads they sell, which is exactly what makes these loaves artisan by definition. Their bread – everything from plain spelt to caraway seed or calamata olive flavors – is sold at the weekly Bellow Falls Farmer’s Market, at Brattleboro’s Wednesday Farmer’s Market and at their new bakery, the Common Loaf on Main Street in Brattleboro.There is no better explanation of “eating artisan” than putting a meal on the table that contains part of a family’s history and many of their traditions as well. Consider for example, something as commonplace as the small signs along the roadside that say “Fresh Eggs” or “Grass Fed Beef” like those on Route 100 at the foot of Newell Hill Road in West Wardsboro. It may not be immediately apparent to a passer-by, but, in Southern Vermont, signs like that often mean that the farm families who sell those products still work the land that has been handed down for generations. In the case of the Newell Farm, make that six generations. The farm grazes a couple dozen beef cattle each season and raises several hogs. More than 100 free-range chickens enjoy the spectacular views from the hilltop property as well. Unlike typical beef which is largely corn-fed and therefore has the same generic flavor no matter where its bought, beef sold at the Newell Farm tastes unmistakably like the Newell Farm, and it’s the same as it tasted a century ago. No one needs a consumer information label to tell them that the farm’s eggs are different than commercially produced eggs because anyone can see at a glance that the plump yolks are the sunniest yellow.All the heritage that’s in the Newell’s land is in the food that the family has produced for themselves and their neighbors since the 1800s. Another tidbit about the Newell’s farm products: most of their acreage is sugarbush, so if you truly believe that the official flavor of Vermont is maple, then, you should also know there is no more authentic elixir of that than the maple syrup Brent and Lorraine Newell produce. Newell Farm products are sold at the farm itself.
The nationally-recognized Vermont Specialty Foods Association, headquarted in Rutland, Vermont, tallies that the state‘s 300 specialty food producers annually generate more than $700 million in sales. With more people finding viable ways of staying close to the land, a century-old lament about Vermont’s “lost agriculture” is gradually being transformed into a chorus of praise for the state’s smartest, and in many instances, bravest, new entrepreneurs.Buying ingredients that are both local and organic whenever she can, chef Sharon Myers runs a successful business making artisan marmelades and chutneys in her professional home kitchen in Brattleboro. Purple Chef LLC began production in 2006 with a collection of original recipes Myers used for more than 20 years on her own table and in her award-winning catering business. She makes everything by hand in small batches several times a week from ingedients she herself has selected, inspected and taste-tested.Food that consumers can trust, whether it ranks as a daily staple or a delicacy with a cross-cultural heritage, is another fundamental way to describe specialty foods. It is the philosphy behind Myers products and it is what motivates her to always add her personal touch to every jar. The way Myers see it, people ought to be able to taste the integrity in artisan products. Presently, the Purple Chef pantry includes seven sweet and savory products: Mango Chutney, Tomato Marmalade, Orange Marmalade, Apple Chutney, Jalapeno & Tomato Marmalade, Fire-Roasted Marma-Lava, and Orange Fennel Olives. The short list of where Purple Chef products are sold includes the Brattleboro Food Co-op; Clearbrook Farm, Shaftsbury; Grafton Village Cheese Co.; JK Adams, Dorset; Taylor Farms, Londonderry; Boccelli’s On The Canal, Bellows Falls, Whole Foods in Hadley, MA, and many other quality retail markets.Every day in Southern Vermont dawns on brighter future than ever before for organic farmers and independent, specialty food producers as more people realize that the basic element of enjoying good health is finding good food. They want food that goes directly from farm to kitchen; they want to sit down at the table to meals made from ingredients that were treated with nothing more than a quick trip in a pick-up truck.
As you travel from Weston to Wilmington, from Saxton’s River to Stratton discovering new foods, old farms and traditional purveyors, you’ll meet couples, families and friends who will share with you all their secrets about exactly what this piece of God’s country tastes like.
Back to Opening Page
ARTISAN FOOD OF SOUTHERN VERMONT
The Taste of Southern Vermont Is Distinctly Artisan and Lovingly Homegrown
by Anita Rafael
Maple syrup, it says on the brochures, is Vermont’s official flavor! True enough – after all who could argue that the Green Mountain State’s climate isn’t ideal for tsunamis of sap to flow every March? However, with a multitude of small organic farms plus many artisan cheese makers, bakers, specialty food producers and farmer’s markets, the true taste test of Southern Vermont just might be a year-round smorgasbord of homegrown flavors and sophisticated eating.
The word “artisan” is suddenly popping up on everything from bread wrappers to salad dressing labels. Shoppers see it on baskets of fresh tomatoes, on jars of apple chutney and on packets of ground spices. The implication is that good food is an art form; it is meant to specify that certain foods are “crafted” by hand or made using traditional recipes. However, it takes a lot more than a folksy looking label to be able to call a food product artisan. To be legitimate, the food must make a statement about where it comes from and who grows or produces it.Such a statement is loud and clear in the cheeses produced at Peaked Mountain Farm in Townshend. On a road that winds up a hillside above the village center, Bob and Ann Works and their helpers annually produce about 1,500 pounds raw sheep milk cheeses, as well as cow and mixed milk varieties. Because their sheep graze on wild grasses, including plants such as wild mint and thyme in the meadows, their feta, Camembert and tomme cheeses cannot help but have the flavor of Vermont in every bite. Rather than blending particular nuances out of the finished product to produce something “standard,” artisan cheese makers like the Works commit to the opposite. They strive to identify and enhance the uniqueness of their product, to make it taste like nothing else but what it is – that’s what makes it artisan. A subtle suggestion of what winemakers refer to as terroir is now also the sacred mantra of specialty food farms like this one.The late Henry Tewksbury, who celebrated Vermont’s “land-to-cheese” continuum in his book The Cheeses of Vermont, described Peaked Mountain’s Camembert as having a “mouth-puckering tang.” Their cheeses and other artisan foods are available at the farm, as well as at the Brattleboro Co-op and other co-ops, at the Shelburne Supermarket, or by mail order.
By the way, if you head that way to tour the farm’s cheese room and then drive home on the back road, don’t be surprised to see 50 or 60 buffalo grazing a few fields over at Carl and Eloise Steiner’s East Hill Bison Farm. Their packaged cuts of inspected, low-fat, low-cholesterol meat are sold at the farmhouse. Buffalo entrees are also on the menu at some local eateries, including Townshends’s Dam Diner on Route 30. Sticking to the state’s illustrious “Cheese Trail,” a tourism brainchild of the Vermont Cheese Council, leads hungry travelers to five more cheese makers situated in the southeastern corner of the state. Look at the map to find Vermont Shepherd at the Major Farm on Patch Road in Putney. Cheese makers David and Cindy Major are credited with jump-starting widespread appreciation for specialty sheep’s milk cheeses made in Vermont over a decade ago. Even though the 250-acre farm ships thousands pounds annually, the product is still considered artisan because there is a limited production. That’s the key: it’s made in small batches of 10 or 20 wheels, and given “love and attention” every single day throughout the entire 3 to 6 month aging process.
Patience is a common ingredient in all artisan products. If you have never tasted their signature cheese, expect to experience a rich creamy texture with an earthy flavor. No matter where you buy Major Farm’s Vermont Shepherd – in local stores or in California, Michigan or Tennessee - eventually, it, too, will be something your memory will hold onto forever as “tasting like Vermont.”
Few foods in Southern Vermont are more convincingly artisan than bread made by hand. Few bakers are as dedicated to the creative potential of each and every loaf as those at the spiritual community living at the 120-acre Basin Farm on Basin Farm Road in Bellows Falls. Typically, breadbaking starts with “preheat oven.” Their recipe starts months before in the farm’s certified organic fields. They sow about 5 acres of organic spelt annually. They do the tilling, watering, weeding and harvesting of the grain, and some 1,600 bushels is eventually ground into flour. For James Bergeron, one of the bakers in the group, the daily bread making is not just “the farm lifestyle.” To him, mixing, kneading, proofing and baking every loaf of bread is ultimately symbolic of what agriculture is all about. There is no disconnect between who the Basin Farm bakers are and the hearty breads they sell, which is exactly what makes these loaves artisan by definition. Their bread – everything from plain spelt to caraway seed or calamata olive flavors – is sold at the weekly Bellow Falls Farmer’s Market, at Brattleboro’s Wednesday Farmer’s Market and at their new bakery, the Common Loaf on Main Street in Brattleboro.There is no better explanation of “eating artisan” than putting a meal on the table that contains part of a family’s history and many of their traditions as well. Consider for example, something as commonplace as the small signs along the roadside that say “Fresh Eggs” or “Grass Fed Beef” like those on Route 100 at the foot of Newell Hill Road in West Wardsboro. It may not be immediately apparent to a passer-by, but, in Southern Vermont, signs like that often mean that the farm families who sell those products still work the land that has been handed down for generations. In the case of the Newell Farm, make that six generations. The farm grazes a couple dozen beef cattle each season and raises several hogs. More than 100 free-range chickens enjoy the spectacular views from the hilltop property as well. Unlike typical beef which is largely corn-fed and therefore has the same generic flavor no matter where its bought, beef sold at the Newell Farm tastes unmistakably like the Newell Farm, and it’s the same as it tasted a century ago. No one needs a consumer information label to tell them that the farm’s eggs are different than commercially produced eggs because anyone can see at a glance that the plump yolks are the sunniest yellow.All the heritage that’s in the Newell’s land is in the food that the family has produced for themselves and their neighbors since the 1800s. Another tidbit about the Newell’s farm products: most of their acreage is sugarbush, so if you truly believe that the official flavor of Vermont is maple, then, you should also know there is no more authentic elixir of that than the maple syrup Brent and Lorraine Newell produce. Newell Farm products are sold at the farm itself.
The nationally-recognized Vermont Specialty Foods Association, headquarted in Rutland, Vermont, tallies that the state‘s 300 specialty food producers annually generate more than $700 million in sales. With more people finding viable ways of staying close to the land, a century-old lament about Vermont’s “lost agriculture” is gradually being transformed into a chorus of praise for the state’s smartest, and in many instances, bravest, new entrepreneurs.Buying ingredients that are both local and organic whenever she can, chef Sharon Myers runs a successful business making artisan marmelades and chutneys in her professional home kitchen in Brattleboro. Purple Chef LLC began production in 2006 with a collection of original recipes Myers used for more than 20 years on her own table and in her award-winning catering business. She makes everything by hand in small batches several times a week from ingedients she herself has selected, inspected and taste-tested.Food that consumers can trust, whether it ranks as a daily staple or a delicacy with a cross-cultural heritage, is another fundamental way to describe specialty foods. It is the philosphy behind Myers products and it is what motivates her to always add her personal touch to every jar. The way Myers see it, people ought to be able to taste the integrity in artisan products. Presently, the Purple Chef pantry includes seven sweet and savory products: Mango Chutney, Tomato Marmalade, Orange Marmalade, Apple Chutney, Jalapeno & Tomato Marmalade, Fire-Roasted Marma-Lava, and Orange Fennel Olives. The short list of where Purple Chef products are sold includes the Brattleboro Food Co-op; Clearbrook Farm, Shaftsbury; Grafton Village Cheese Co.; JK Adams, Dorset; Taylor Farms, Londonderry; Boccelli’s On The Canal, Bellows Falls, Whole Foods in Hadley, MA, and many other quality retail markets.Every day in Southern Vermont dawns on brighter future than ever before for organic farmers and independent, specialty food producers as more people realize that the basic element of enjoying good health is finding good food. They want food that goes directly from farm to kitchen; they want to sit down at the table to meals made from ingredients that were treated with nothing more than a quick trip in a pick-up truck.
As you travel from Weston to Wilmington, from Saxton’s River to Stratton discovering new foods, old farms and traditional purveyors, you’ll meet couples, families and friends who will share with you all their secrets about exactly what this piece of God’s country tastes like.
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Saturday, July 29, 2006
OUTDOORS 2
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SACHUEST POINT NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
Raise your hand if you know anything about common mummichogs. Does Fundulus heteroclitus ring a bell? Probably not, but if you head out for walk along the trails past the salt marshes at Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge, they’ll be happy to have your company.
The common mummichog, it turns out, is the common minnow – a 5- or 7-inch fish that loves tidal creeks and brackish water. Thanks to the salt marsh restoration project at and near Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge last year, it is going to be mummichog heaven out on Middletown’s southernmost tip from now on. The refuge is a 242-acre wildlife sanctuary encompassing not only mummichog habitats, but also rocky and sandy beaches, dunes, grasslands, shrublands, woodlands and freshwater ponds. The entire site is looped by a 1.2 mile hiking trail, which the mummichogs, having no feet, don’t use much. Thankfully, you can.
Here’s the best news: you can go to Sachuest for free. This extraordinarily scenic wind-pruned point is only a tiny fraction (0.00026%) of the territory that is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The first federal refuge was created by President Teddy Roosevelt to protect Pelican Island, Florida, placing it under the eye of the Bureau of Biological Survey in 1903. That agency and the Bureau of Fisheries were combined in 1940 to create the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Two years later, Pelican Island (now a 5,413-acre sanctuary) and other early federal reservations were re-designated as "national wildlife refuges.” Sachuest was named to the list in 1973. Today more than 7,500 employees, and countless volunteers, oversee almost 100 million protected acres nationwide throughout more than 520 refuge areas and smaller sites.
Sachuest’s schools of mummichogs, along with an uncountable number of other fish, birds, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects, plus a handful of seasonal staff and about 25 volunteers, along with some 160,000 visitors annually, are all under the watchful eye of assistant National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) manager, Sharon Ware. With that many living things to watch out for, she has a huge responsibility, “Thankfully,” Ware remarked, “the people who appreciate the refuge and wildlife far outnumber the people who don’t, so knowing that makes what I do a little easier on a tough day.”
Summer (Jun-Aug)
Fall (Sep-Nov)
Field Trips For Families
Visit all 5 of Rhode Island’s National Wildlife Refuges -
SACHUEST POINT NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
by Anita Rafael
Raise your hand if you know anything about common mummichogs. Does Fundulus heteroclitus ring a bell? Probably not, but if you head out for walk along the trails past the salt marshes at Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge, they’ll be happy to have your company.
The common mummichog, it turns out, is the common minnow – a 5- or 7-inch fish that loves tidal creeks and brackish water. Thanks to the salt marsh restoration project at and near Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge last year, it is going to be mummichog heaven out on Middletown’s southernmost tip from now on. The refuge is a 242-acre wildlife sanctuary encompassing not only mummichog habitats, but also rocky and sandy beaches, dunes, grasslands, shrublands, woodlands and freshwater ponds. The entire site is looped by a 1.2 mile hiking trail, which the mummichogs, having no feet, don’t use much. Thankfully, you can.
Here’s the best news: you can go to Sachuest for free. This extraordinarily scenic wind-pruned point is only a tiny fraction (0.00026%) of the territory that is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The first federal refuge was created by President Teddy Roosevelt to protect Pelican Island, Florida, placing it under the eye of the Bureau of Biological Survey in 1903. That agency and the Bureau of Fisheries were combined in 1940 to create the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Two years later, Pelican Island (now a 5,413-acre sanctuary) and other early federal reservations were re-designated as "national wildlife refuges.” Sachuest was named to the list in 1973. Today more than 7,500 employees, and countless volunteers, oversee almost 100 million protected acres nationwide throughout more than 520 refuge areas and smaller sites.
Sachuest’s schools of mummichogs, along with an uncountable number of other fish, birds, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects, plus a handful of seasonal staff and about 25 volunteers, along with some 160,000 visitors annually, are all under the watchful eye of assistant National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) manager, Sharon Ware. With that many living things to watch out for, she has a huge responsibility, “Thankfully,” Ware remarked, “the people who appreciate the refuge and wildlife far outnumber the people who don’t, so knowing that makes what I do a little easier on a tough day.”
On The Ocean View Trail
Plan to start your first visit to the Sachuest Refuge by spending a few minutes in the Visitors Center, which was enlarged and totally rehabbed in 2003. Look for the interpretive exhibits and artwork, especially the giant mural by Portsmouth artist Amy Bartlett Wright. Take a peek to see what’s new in the teeny-tiny Bayberry Boutique that is run by volunteers and a membership organization called Friends of Rhode Island National Wildlife Refuges. You can study the latest list of bird and wildlife sightings on the bulletin boards, get a weather update, check the tide tables, scope out the fishing reports, sign-up if there are any (free) guided walking tours being offered, chat with the volunteers and other wanderers, and, most importantly, pick up a copy of the trail map. Another added bonus: The Visitors Center’s restrooms are super-clean and universally accessible.
Once you have your updates, your bearings, and your map, leave from the front of the Visitor Center building, and turn towards the left, or south if you have your pocket GPS fired up. Pick up the Ocean View trail in front of the building. Keep in mind that the refuge is not really a speed-walkers’ milieu. You’ll want to slow down to enjoy it thoroughly, and walk only on the marked trails that are designated as open for visitors during the time you are there. The paths at Sachuest are rated as easy terrain and are trimmed wide, mowed often, and for the most part, all level. Geologically speaking, Sachuest is a drumlin, a small hill composed of glacial drift. A glance at the map, however, tells you that you are on a little peninsula with Sachuest Bay on one side, and Sakonnet River, actually an estuary, on the other. (Sachuest and Sakonnet are words from the native Narragansett language that translate as “little hill at the outlet” and “rocky outlet.”)
Westward, you will see Second Beach, and directly across, you will be able to make out the big crack in the ledge at Purgatory Chasm, and on a distant point beyond that, you may be able to see chimney tops of the mansions along the southernmost end of Newport’s Cliff Walk. Knowing how popular Aquidneck Island became as a summer resort among the high-society set of the Gilded Age, you’d expect to find mansions on this picturesque point, too. However, no grand villas ever stood here. On Sachuest’s landscape today hardly any manmade evidence is visible that would convince you that from the 1600s through the 1800s, the whole area was cleared farmland and inhabited mainly by grazing sheep.
At Sachuest Point
In about 10 minutes, you will reach the rocky point of Sachuest Point and an interpretive wayside sign. You can reach the rocks easily and safely at the designated access points. This is a good place to take stop and enjoy the panoramic ocean views. The beauty of this particular spot on Aquidneck Island is all-but indescribable. Author Herman Melville had an expression for places that take your mind and spirit into another realm – he called them a “Tahiti of The Soul.” The best part: hallelujah, no automobiles.
On days when big rolling waves are crashing onto the shore, the surf can be dramatic. Deadly, even, if you get too close. It might be best to sit on the bench and not climb down the bluffs. There is usually lots of activity along the shoreline – you may see lobster boats, sport fisherman, plein air artists, nature photographers, bird watchers, diving birds (cormorants are fun to spy on), any number of different gulls, winter’s handsome harlequin ducks and, on occasions only at low tide in winter also, blubbery harbor seals.
It seems so idyllic at Sachuest that it is nearly impossible to believe this was once a booming place – literally. The Coast Artillery temporarily installed two 4.72-inch guns pointing out to sea during World War I. During World War II, for the strategic defense of Narragansett Bay, the U.S. Army re-armed the location with really big guns (reassuringly capable of hitting Martha’s Vineyard, in fact). It was called Fort Church, in honor of a Rhode Island colonial era citizen-soldier. The Navy also built small-arms ranges on about 150 acres at Sachuest. Concurrent with the military’s massive pullout from its Rhode Island installations, ambitious plans to reclaim the land as open space and wildlife habitat began with a 70-acre gift from the state’s chapter of the Audubon Society in 1970.
Nearly all the defensive structures at Sachuest have been removed, but if you know where to look and what you are looking for, scraps of the military’s presence remain. Some of us at NLM remember happily driving all over the point and stopping to picnic in the shade beside the concrete ruins of graffiti-covered barricades, batteries, barracks and a radar tower, all of which were supposedly built to resemble the barns, cottages and silo on “a working farm.” They didn’t fool us for one second and we have a hard time believing they would have duped our enemies either. “The Visitors Center,” NWR manager Ware explained, “was a Naval radio receiver communication center.”
Birds are everywhere at Sachuest, and hushed hikers will always hear more than they see. It is estimated that more than 200 species have a seasonal presence at the refuge, representing 15 orders and 32 families. In descending sequence, the major groups seen are: waterfowl, raptors, shorebirds and passerines. Ten species of small mammals inhabit this small parcel, too, including coyotes that must enjoy having a steady diet of plump Eastern cottontails. A nature note: Coyotes sleep all day hidden in old woodchuck burrows and are people-shy. You’ll spot plenty of bunny tails on the bunny trails, but no coyotes.
Along Flint Point Trail and Island Rocks
Next, the route rounds the tip and continues coastwise, for less than one mile. The Ocean View trail eventually joins the Flint Point trail. There is an observation platform directly in front of the rocks an offshore outcropping known as Island Rocks, and another interpretive wayside sign. (Look for seals on the rocks at low-tide in winter.) You may see cross-routes that circle through the interior, too, but stick to the main outermost trail. Eastward, you can see the gently sloping fields and farmlands of Little Compton and the light at Sakonnet Point.
All along the way, you will see each season’s most familiar wildflowers – wild roses, asters, goldenrod – blooming high and low among the branches and towering brambles. Here and there, is a sparse tree or two, and an open field now and then. Be aware that some of the most vigorous vines are poison ivy, an aggressive plant the USFWS refers to as an “undesirable species,” not to mention that, if you touch it, the itch is maddening. A larger portion of the tangle, however, is Asiatic bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), which, although its leaves and berries make a brilliant autumn showing, is “invasive” (meaning it is taking over everything and choking out important plants which provide better food sources or habitats for birds and animals). Currently, over 70% of the vegetation on the refuge is considered invasive, and controlling the spread of both non-native and invasive flora is a priority for refuge manager Ware and the NWR staff. In a long-term effort to restore 82 acres to native grasses and shrubs, the bittersweet is being hydro-axed, mowed and finally “stressed” out of existence with EPA-approved herbicides.
On the topic of invasive species, you should keep in mind that the USFWS, while it welcomes your enthusiasm for the great outdoors, considers you to be more or less of an invader, too. Ware defends this position, and said “By Federal mandate, the wildlife and habitats always come first.” In some publications, recommendations for site conservation urge severe reduction or elimination altogether of soil-compacting, ground-flora trampling recreation. How thwarting to think that even the most mild-mannered, binoculared bobolink watchers, just by stepping into open fields, are habitat-wreckers. Zealot environmentalists have said worse things about people who, intentionally or not, upset the delicate balance of the natural world, but before you become offended, remember that our species is not at risk of extinction – at least not yet. NWR manager Ware names a few of the endangered birds she monitors: “From the Rhode Island list, at Sachuest we see nesting piping plovers, peregrine falcons, short-eared owls and harrier hawks.”
Back To Visitors Center
The final leg of the Flint Point trail makes a turn away from the shore. Facing in the direction of the Norman Bird Sanctuary’s famous Hanging Rock, you are overlooking Third Beach, Gardiner Pond and the salt marsh restoration project that began in 1998. After being abused for decades as a trash dump, this “impacted wetland” is making a speedy recovery now that the tidal flow has been re-established. “Marsh flora and fauna both responded strongly to the restoration,” the experts wrote in an official report about this site, “by becoming more like the biological communities present in unimpacted marshes.” In plain talk, what they meant was, as wetlands go, it seems to be working, and you can hardly tell the difference from the real thing. What good news. It is a quick 10-minute walk along this inland path to the large informational kiosk at the corner of the parking area and the Visitors Center.
Seven years ago, when President Bill Clinton signed the country’s first comprehensive refuge improvement act into law, he said, "The National Wildlife Refuge System is the world's greatest system of lands dedicated to the conservation of fish and wildlife.” On behalf of the mummichogs, we agree, it is great. By the way, you’re probably not going to actually see any mummichogs while you’re on the trails at Sachuest, but be comforted by the fact that thousands of them are swimming nearby, merrily munching away at the all-you-can-eat mosquito larvae buffet. That adds up to about a trillion fewer itchy bites for you.
What To Know Before You Go
Sachuest is open sunrise to sunset, and after-dark sport fisherman require a $15 permit for access. There are a limited number of parking spaces. During tick season, take every recommended precaution to avoid Lyme disease. For all the details, call 401-847-5511 or 401-364-9124, which is the Charlestown USFWS Rhode Island office.
· Things to bring: good walking shoes, water, a hat, sun screen lotion, binoculars, camera, extra film, and a favorite nature field guide.
· Things to leave in your car: kites, radio-control planes, bikes, roller blades, motorized vehicles, paintball guns, fireworks, boom-boxes, alcoholic beverages and trash.
Because it is a protected wildlife area, Sachuest has the usual rules and regulations, all of which make perfect sense to the birds and animals who live there, and hopefully, to you, too. Since dog walking has been determined to be incompatible with the NWR mission of wildlife protection, leave your pooch at home.
· Things to remember: don’t litter, don’t light campfires or cooking grills, don’t pick wild flowers or berries, don’t dig up plants, don’t touch small mammals (however innocent they look, they may carry the rabies virus).
Getting There
Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge Wildlife Calendar
Spring (Mar-May)
Plan to start your first visit to the Sachuest Refuge by spending a few minutes in the Visitors Center, which was enlarged and totally rehabbed in 2003. Look for the interpretive exhibits and artwork, especially the giant mural by Portsmouth artist Amy Bartlett Wright. Take a peek to see what’s new in the teeny-tiny Bayberry Boutique that is run by volunteers and a membership organization called Friends of Rhode Island National Wildlife Refuges. You can study the latest list of bird and wildlife sightings on the bulletin boards, get a weather update, check the tide tables, scope out the fishing reports, sign-up if there are any (free) guided walking tours being offered, chat with the volunteers and other wanderers, and, most importantly, pick up a copy of the trail map. Another added bonus: The Visitors Center’s restrooms are super-clean and universally accessible.
Once you have your updates, your bearings, and your map, leave from the front of the Visitor Center building, and turn towards the left, or south if you have your pocket GPS fired up. Pick up the Ocean View trail in front of the building. Keep in mind that the refuge is not really a speed-walkers’ milieu. You’ll want to slow down to enjoy it thoroughly, and walk only on the marked trails that are designated as open for visitors during the time you are there. The paths at Sachuest are rated as easy terrain and are trimmed wide, mowed often, and for the most part, all level. Geologically speaking, Sachuest is a drumlin, a small hill composed of glacial drift. A glance at the map, however, tells you that you are on a little peninsula with Sachuest Bay on one side, and Sakonnet River, actually an estuary, on the other. (Sachuest and Sakonnet are words from the native Narragansett language that translate as “little hill at the outlet” and “rocky outlet.”)
Westward, you will see Second Beach, and directly across, you will be able to make out the big crack in the ledge at Purgatory Chasm, and on a distant point beyond that, you may be able to see chimney tops of the mansions along the southernmost end of Newport’s Cliff Walk. Knowing how popular Aquidneck Island became as a summer resort among the high-society set of the Gilded Age, you’d expect to find mansions on this picturesque point, too. However, no grand villas ever stood here. On Sachuest’s landscape today hardly any manmade evidence is visible that would convince you that from the 1600s through the 1800s, the whole area was cleared farmland and inhabited mainly by grazing sheep.
At Sachuest Point
In about 10 minutes, you will reach the rocky point of Sachuest Point and an interpretive wayside sign. You can reach the rocks easily and safely at the designated access points. This is a good place to take stop and enjoy the panoramic ocean views. The beauty of this particular spot on Aquidneck Island is all-but indescribable. Author Herman Melville had an expression for places that take your mind and spirit into another realm – he called them a “Tahiti of The Soul.” The best part: hallelujah, no automobiles.
On days when big rolling waves are crashing onto the shore, the surf can be dramatic. Deadly, even, if you get too close. It might be best to sit on the bench and not climb down the bluffs. There is usually lots of activity along the shoreline – you may see lobster boats, sport fisherman, plein air artists, nature photographers, bird watchers, diving birds (cormorants are fun to spy on), any number of different gulls, winter’s handsome harlequin ducks and, on occasions only at low tide in winter also, blubbery harbor seals.
It seems so idyllic at Sachuest that it is nearly impossible to believe this was once a booming place – literally. The Coast Artillery temporarily installed two 4.72-inch guns pointing out to sea during World War I. During World War II, for the strategic defense of Narragansett Bay, the U.S. Army re-armed the location with really big guns (reassuringly capable of hitting Martha’s Vineyard, in fact). It was called Fort Church, in honor of a Rhode Island colonial era citizen-soldier. The Navy also built small-arms ranges on about 150 acres at Sachuest. Concurrent with the military’s massive pullout from its Rhode Island installations, ambitious plans to reclaim the land as open space and wildlife habitat began with a 70-acre gift from the state’s chapter of the Audubon Society in 1970.
Nearly all the defensive structures at Sachuest have been removed, but if you know where to look and what you are looking for, scraps of the military’s presence remain. Some of us at NLM remember happily driving all over the point and stopping to picnic in the shade beside the concrete ruins of graffiti-covered barricades, batteries, barracks and a radar tower, all of which were supposedly built to resemble the barns, cottages and silo on “a working farm.” They didn’t fool us for one second and we have a hard time believing they would have duped our enemies either. “The Visitors Center,” NWR manager Ware explained, “was a Naval radio receiver communication center.”
Birds are everywhere at Sachuest, and hushed hikers will always hear more than they see. It is estimated that more than 200 species have a seasonal presence at the refuge, representing 15 orders and 32 families. In descending sequence, the major groups seen are: waterfowl, raptors, shorebirds and passerines. Ten species of small mammals inhabit this small parcel, too, including coyotes that must enjoy having a steady diet of plump Eastern cottontails. A nature note: Coyotes sleep all day hidden in old woodchuck burrows and are people-shy. You’ll spot plenty of bunny tails on the bunny trails, but no coyotes.
Along Flint Point Trail and Island Rocks
Next, the route rounds the tip and continues coastwise, for less than one mile. The Ocean View trail eventually joins the Flint Point trail. There is an observation platform directly in front of the rocks an offshore outcropping known as Island Rocks, and another interpretive wayside sign. (Look for seals on the rocks at low-tide in winter.) You may see cross-routes that circle through the interior, too, but stick to the main outermost trail. Eastward, you can see the gently sloping fields and farmlands of Little Compton and the light at Sakonnet Point.
All along the way, you will see each season’s most familiar wildflowers – wild roses, asters, goldenrod – blooming high and low among the branches and towering brambles. Here and there, is a sparse tree or two, and an open field now and then. Be aware that some of the most vigorous vines are poison ivy, an aggressive plant the USFWS refers to as an “undesirable species,” not to mention that, if you touch it, the itch is maddening. A larger portion of the tangle, however, is Asiatic bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), which, although its leaves and berries make a brilliant autumn showing, is “invasive” (meaning it is taking over everything and choking out important plants which provide better food sources or habitats for birds and animals). Currently, over 70% of the vegetation on the refuge is considered invasive, and controlling the spread of both non-native and invasive flora is a priority for refuge manager Ware and the NWR staff. In a long-term effort to restore 82 acres to native grasses and shrubs, the bittersweet is being hydro-axed, mowed and finally “stressed” out of existence with EPA-approved herbicides.
On the topic of invasive species, you should keep in mind that the USFWS, while it welcomes your enthusiasm for the great outdoors, considers you to be more or less of an invader, too. Ware defends this position, and said “By Federal mandate, the wildlife and habitats always come first.” In some publications, recommendations for site conservation urge severe reduction or elimination altogether of soil-compacting, ground-flora trampling recreation. How thwarting to think that even the most mild-mannered, binoculared bobolink watchers, just by stepping into open fields, are habitat-wreckers. Zealot environmentalists have said worse things about people who, intentionally or not, upset the delicate balance of the natural world, but before you become offended, remember that our species is not at risk of extinction – at least not yet. NWR manager Ware names a few of the endangered birds she monitors: “From the Rhode Island list, at Sachuest we see nesting piping plovers, peregrine falcons, short-eared owls and harrier hawks.”
Back To Visitors Center
The final leg of the Flint Point trail makes a turn away from the shore. Facing in the direction of the Norman Bird Sanctuary’s famous Hanging Rock, you are overlooking Third Beach, Gardiner Pond and the salt marsh restoration project that began in 1998. After being abused for decades as a trash dump, this “impacted wetland” is making a speedy recovery now that the tidal flow has been re-established. “Marsh flora and fauna both responded strongly to the restoration,” the experts wrote in an official report about this site, “by becoming more like the biological communities present in unimpacted marshes.” In plain talk, what they meant was, as wetlands go, it seems to be working, and you can hardly tell the difference from the real thing. What good news. It is a quick 10-minute walk along this inland path to the large informational kiosk at the corner of the parking area and the Visitors Center.
Seven years ago, when President Bill Clinton signed the country’s first comprehensive refuge improvement act into law, he said, "The National Wildlife Refuge System is the world's greatest system of lands dedicated to the conservation of fish and wildlife.” On behalf of the mummichogs, we agree, it is great. By the way, you’re probably not going to actually see any mummichogs while you’re on the trails at Sachuest, but be comforted by the fact that thousands of them are swimming nearby, merrily munching away at the all-you-can-eat mosquito larvae buffet. That adds up to about a trillion fewer itchy bites for you.
What To Know Before You Go
Sachuest is open sunrise to sunset, and after-dark sport fisherman require a $15 permit for access. There are a limited number of parking spaces. During tick season, take every recommended precaution to avoid Lyme disease. For all the details, call 401-847-5511 or 401-364-9124, which is the Charlestown USFWS Rhode Island office.
· Things to bring: good walking shoes, water, a hat, sun screen lotion, binoculars, camera, extra film, and a favorite nature field guide.
· Things to leave in your car: kites, radio-control planes, bikes, roller blades, motorized vehicles, paintball guns, fireworks, boom-boxes, alcoholic beverages and trash.
Because it is a protected wildlife area, Sachuest has the usual rules and regulations, all of which make perfect sense to the birds and animals who live there, and hopefully, to you, too. Since dog walking has been determined to be incompatible with the NWR mission of wildlife protection, leave your pooch at home.
· Things to remember: don’t litter, don’t light campfires or cooking grills, don’t pick wild flowers or berries, don’t dig up plants, don’t touch small mammals (however innocent they look, they may carry the rabies virus).
Getting There
Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge is located in Middletown, Rhode Island. In downtown Newport, pick up Route 138A, or Memorial Boulevard. Continue past First (or Newport) Beach. After the beach, bear right onto Purgatory Road. Take a right onto Sachuest Point Road, pass the state beach, and continue to the end. It leads directly into the refuge’s parking lot. On summer weekends when the beach traffic is at peak, allow a little extra time to get to and from Sachuest Point.
Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge Wildlife Calendar
Spring (Mar-May)
Bluefish, blackfish and striped bass move into coastal waters as temperatures
rise.
Winter cress, bulbous buttercup and other wildflowers in bloom
Common yellowthroat, American goldfinch and other songbirds in full chorus.
Common tern arrive to nest on offshore islands.
Summer (Jun-Aug)
Scarlet pimpernel, thistles and many other wildflowers in blossom.
Fledged
young of resident birds appear.
Wood nymph and many other butterflies
present.
Fall (Sep-Nov)
Large flocks of tree swallows gather in late August and early September.Winter (Dec-Feb)
Monarch butterfly migration peaks in late September.
Hawk migration best mid-September through early October.
Harlequin, eiders, scoters and other migratory waterfowl arrive; many species winter over here.
Snowy owls, short-eared owls and rough-legged hawks often present.
Purple sandpipers and sanderlings winter along rocky shore.
Field Trips For Families
Visit all 5 of Rhode Island’s National Wildlife Refuges -
Block Island National Wildlife Refuge, Block Island, 127
Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge, Charlestown, 400 acres
Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge, Middletown, 242 acres
Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge, South Kingstown, 800 acres
John H. Chafee (Pettaquamscutt Cove) National Wildlife Refuge, Narragansett and South Kingstown, 317 acres, accessible by canoe or kayak, no trails
Thursday, July 27, 2006
FARMING 1
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BELTIES
Lookin’ good! Friendly cows with excellent fashion sense.
Seriously, did you really think they are called Oreo cookie cows? True, their crisp black-white-black coat patterns might make you think of your favorite snack, but they are called belted cows, and the ones you can see from the roadside at the Swiss Village Foundation farm on Harrison Avenue are the eight Dutch Belteds or a lone Belted Galloway.
All the cows look alike to most passersby, but livestock manager Sarah LaFreniere can easily tell which are which. “The one Belted Galloway we have,” she says, “is shorter and stouter than the others which are the Dutch Belteds.” The Dutch Belteds are more angular and a little skinny, she adds. From time to time, their small herd of nine animals also grazes over at the nearby pastures at Hammersmith Farm.
In the bovine family tree, Dutch Belteds have a distinguished pedigree with strong ties to Holland that date back for centuries. The Dutch, some say, may have originally taken the "Gurtenvieh” out of the mountain pastures meadows of Tyrol into the Low Countries to supplement their own butter and cheese making industries.
In the 1700s, Dutch noblemen particularly prized this breed for its milking and fattening traits so much so that they seldom sold any to others. They also fiddled with animal genes enough to produce belted rabbits, goats, poultry and swine, presumably to match their cows. Someone in the Netherlands must have parted with a few head of cattle, however, because by 1840 the showman P.T. Barnum charged circus-goers to see a small herd that he had on display along with his two-headed snakes, midgets and bearded ladies. Less than 100 years later, Dutch Belteds wowed milkers at the California State Fair where one cow, Julia Marlow-1187, made history. She gave the most butterfat at each milking for five consecutive days to win first place over all other breeds.
To ensure genetic consistency, the Dutch Belted Cattle Association of America, an organization that claims it has the oldest continuous registry for belted cattle in the world, keeps a herdbook. Since 1886, every registered Dutch Belted, including the ones at the SVF, is born with its heredity fully documented. According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, they are considered critically rare in North America, with fewer than 200 registered animals in the country and about 1,000 worldwide. LaFreniere, who has been with the SVF for more than two years, says that the farm raises belted cattle for two reasons: the most important one being their germplasm (the genetic material that carries the inherited characteristics of the breed) which is stored for future reproduction.
As for the Belted Galloways, sometimes called ‘belties,” there is not much proof about how or when the breed evolved, but cattlemen surmise that it was from a cross of the Dutch Belteds with the solid-colored Galloways that occurred in Scotland during the 16th century. They are sometimes red, brownish or dun colored, as well, and are valued as beef animals for their tender, lean (about as much fat content as chicken) and flavorful meat rather than as dairy cows. Canada had belties in 1939 and in 1950 a herd was brought into the United States.
Like thoroughbred racehorses, every characteristic of registered cattle is judged for specific traits. Here is what one expert, Lord David Stuart wrote in his 1970 book An Illustrated History of Belted Cattle about the Galloway’s coat, for example, "The skin should be mellow and moderately thick, covered with soft, wavy hair with a mossy undercoat… Hard, wiry hair with no undercoat is objectionable, and so is a jet-black coat. This should be black with a brownish tinge." With double-layer hair that protects the cows from the driving rain, biting wind and icy snow of a Scottish highland winter, it is no wonder that farmers used Galloway hides as cozy floor rugs for their homes or, before Gore-Tex®, sewed hides into impermeable outerwear for themselves.
LaFreniere believes that, historically, belted cows were raised in the Newport area as far back as the early 1900s. She says that both the Dutch Belted and the Galloway breeds are easy to work with and even easier to halter-break because of their docile, friendly nature.
Oh, are you left pondering what could be the other reason why the SVF keeps belties? “Well,” LaFreniere says, “we just like the way they look.” Yep we’ll second that.
BELTIES
by Anita Rafael
Lookin’ good! Friendly cows with excellent fashion sense.
Seriously, did you really think they are called Oreo cookie cows? True, their crisp black-white-black coat patterns might make you think of your favorite snack, but they are called belted cows, and the ones you can see from the roadside at the Swiss Village Foundation farm on Harrison Avenue are the eight Dutch Belteds or a lone Belted Galloway.
All the cows look alike to most passersby, but livestock manager Sarah LaFreniere can easily tell which are which. “The one Belted Galloway we have,” she says, “is shorter and stouter than the others which are the Dutch Belteds.” The Dutch Belteds are more angular and a little skinny, she adds. From time to time, their small herd of nine animals also grazes over at the nearby pastures at Hammersmith Farm.
In the bovine family tree, Dutch Belteds have a distinguished pedigree with strong ties to Holland that date back for centuries. The Dutch, some say, may have originally taken the "Gurtenvieh” out of the mountain pastures meadows of Tyrol into the Low Countries to supplement their own butter and cheese making industries.
In the 1700s, Dutch noblemen particularly prized this breed for its milking and fattening traits so much so that they seldom sold any to others. They also fiddled with animal genes enough to produce belted rabbits, goats, poultry and swine, presumably to match their cows. Someone in the Netherlands must have parted with a few head of cattle, however, because by 1840 the showman P.T. Barnum charged circus-goers to see a small herd that he had on display along with his two-headed snakes, midgets and bearded ladies. Less than 100 years later, Dutch Belteds wowed milkers at the California State Fair where one cow, Julia Marlow-1187, made history. She gave the most butterfat at each milking for five consecutive days to win first place over all other breeds.
To ensure genetic consistency, the Dutch Belted Cattle Association of America, an organization that claims it has the oldest continuous registry for belted cattle in the world, keeps a herdbook. Since 1886, every registered Dutch Belted, including the ones at the SVF, is born with its heredity fully documented. According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, they are considered critically rare in North America, with fewer than 200 registered animals in the country and about 1,000 worldwide. LaFreniere, who has been with the SVF for more than two years, says that the farm raises belted cattle for two reasons: the most important one being their germplasm (the genetic material that carries the inherited characteristics of the breed) which is stored for future reproduction.
As for the Belted Galloways, sometimes called ‘belties,” there is not much proof about how or when the breed evolved, but cattlemen surmise that it was from a cross of the Dutch Belteds with the solid-colored Galloways that occurred in Scotland during the 16th century. They are sometimes red, brownish or dun colored, as well, and are valued as beef animals for their tender, lean (about as much fat content as chicken) and flavorful meat rather than as dairy cows. Canada had belties in 1939 and in 1950 a herd was brought into the United States.
Like thoroughbred racehorses, every characteristic of registered cattle is judged for specific traits. Here is what one expert, Lord David Stuart wrote in his 1970 book An Illustrated History of Belted Cattle about the Galloway’s coat, for example, "The skin should be mellow and moderately thick, covered with soft, wavy hair with a mossy undercoat… Hard, wiry hair with no undercoat is objectionable, and so is a jet-black coat. This should be black with a brownish tinge." With double-layer hair that protects the cows from the driving rain, biting wind and icy snow of a Scottish highland winter, it is no wonder that farmers used Galloway hides as cozy floor rugs for their homes or, before Gore-Tex®, sewed hides into impermeable outerwear for themselves.
LaFreniere believes that, historically, belted cows were raised in the Newport area as far back as the early 1900s. She says that both the Dutch Belted and the Galloway breeds are easy to work with and even easier to halter-break because of their docile, friendly nature.
Oh, are you left pondering what could be the other reason why the SVF keeps belties? “Well,” LaFreniere says, “we just like the way they look.” Yep we’ll second that.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
HISTORIC SITE 3
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by Anita Rafael
Too breezy for a beach day?
Then it’s the perfect weather for windmill watching. You can find the state’s last three historic smock-style windmills still standing in Jamestown, Middletown and Portsmouth.
Stop and think about this simple logic for a minute: on a small island such as ours, or one like Conanicut to our west, there are no mighty rivers. No rivers means that early settlers, except when there was a springtime freshet in the small streams, could not reliably harness flowing water to run their gristmills. What our coastal islands lack in waterpower, however, they more than make up for in strong and steady sea breezes for windmills. In the late 1800s, more than 20 windmills were still standing throughout the state, most of them in and around Portsmouth.
The Jamestown Windmill
382 North Main Road, not far from the historic Watson Farm
Claim to fame This is the only surviving 18th century windmill in the state.
Records show that in 1728, the people of Jamestown built themselves a windmill for grinding corn, saving themselves the trouble of having to ferry it over to Aquidneck Island and back. That one was replaced in 1787 by this one, which was faithfully run and maintained by a succession of eleven different millers until 1896. Unlike the two other windmills still standing on Aquidneck Island, the Jamestown windmill, which does not seem to have a proper name, is in its original place, atop a rubble-stone foundation. The miller’s house (not open to the public) sits in its shadow, closer to the road.
The structure quickly fell into disrepair once the millers left, but within a decade, it was rescued by a concerned group of preservation-minded island residents. They worked to save it beginning in 1904, giving it to the Jamestown Historical Society eight years later.
Situated to take full advantage of the wind from all directions on a rise that became known as Windmill Hill, the tower’s exposed location also meant it was especially vulnerable to hurricane damage. It has been restored again and again. The mill narrowly made it through “the big one” in 1938, but after the 1954 hurricane, the 25-foot vanes had to be replaced and the tower had to be stabilized with hefty oak timbers. In 1974, all four vanes were broken off in a gale, and again replaced. The last touch-up it received was just five years ago. The once-rotating cap is now fixed to face Narragansett Bay’s gentler southerlies.
In a picture-perfect setting, the windmill seems to stand guard over acres of farmlands that are still being worked, just as it has for nearly 300 years. With the land around it, which reaches from shore to shore at this part of Conanicut, now in trust as preserved open space, it is not likely to ever be developed. That leads to a reassuring thought: If you take your children to visit the windmill this summer, and someday in the future, if they take their grandchildren to visit it, the landscape and the 30-foot high tower will hopefully look the same as they do now.
On Sunday afternoons this summer, when the winds are favorable, volunteers from the Jamestown Historical Society with a mariner’s knack for predicting the shifting sea breezes, will set the canvas sails so you can watch the windmill in action. No meal is sold here, however.
The Windmill at Prescott Farm also known as The Sherman Mill
2009 West Main Road, Portsmouth
Claim to fame This windmill has twin sets of grinding stones.
“It’s typical for windmills to have been moved from time to time, and this one is no exception,” says Robert Foley, preservation coordinator of the Newport Restoration Foundation, owners of the 4-story windmill at Prescott Farm. This wood-frame tower happens to be particularly well-traveled, and is now at its fifth site. Originally built about 1811 in Warren, Rhode Island, it was moved to Fall River, Massachusetts, then again to Quaker Hill in Portsmouth. The mill became known as the Robert Sherman windmill with that relocation because he was the one who took it down and put it back up. It was moved to yet another site on West Main Road, and then in the early 1900s, the Newport Historical Society owned it even though it was in Portsmouth at the time. Almost 70 years later, it changed hands again, and was moved one more time.
Are you wondering how you move a windmill? Foley remembers: “We used a crane to lift off the bonnet, or the top, which is easy to do since it is a separate piece that is meant to rotate into the wind. Then, we cut all the pegs and tenons in the tower, dividing it into two halves which we laid one at a time onto a flat bed trailer truck.” He makes it sound so easy, but nearly two years elapsed before the mill was in working order again.
During the rehabilitation, it was hoped that the mill might someday earn its keep by grinding enough meal to sell and so the restorers installed Department of Health-approved stainless steel bins for the grains. This particular mill, however, has mostly been non-productive, but nonetheless scenically so, for more than twenty years.
“It’s a big, dangerous machine,” Foley says. “Watching the wind and the weather is as critical, if not more so almost more so than on a sailboat. Basically,” he says, “when the wind turns, you have to tack.” That explains why a miller is sometimes called a dry-land sailor.
This summer, mill is running; however no meal will be sold there. On your visit, be sure to ask the site manager for a mini-engineering lesson on how the double grindstones work. State-of-the art for its day, this windmill was designed so that the miller could engage just one set, or both.
CAPTION
A recent grant from the Rhode Island State Heritage and Historic Preservation Commission made it possible for the Newport Restoration Foundation to build new sail panels (the lattice-like wooden frames that hold the cloth sails), in addition to installing two new 45-foot stocks or arms.
The Windmill at Paradise Park, also known as Boyd’s Gristmill
Green End Avenue, Middletown
Claim to fame This windmill has eight vanes.
It has been one hundred and four years since Benjamin Boyd decided that eight vanes were better than four on the old smock mill that his grandfather had bought in 1815. He was hoping that double the sail area would boost the power output of this giant grinding machine, especially in light winds. Did he realize he was making twice the work and worry for himself as well? Apparently so. Even though Boyd himself said it was “an experiment like Noah’s Ark,” five years later he gave up trying to furl and unfurl all that canvas across the giant arms and instead, he installed a gasoline engine to rotate the millstones.
Built in 1810 by John Peterson at the corner of West Main Road and Mill Lane in Portsmouth, the mill became known as Boyd’s Mill when William Boyd leased it not long after. It was a typical hard-working four-vane mill until his grandson Benjamin added four more arms in 1901. According to Stanley Grossman of the Middletown Historical Society, young Boyd’s engineering, although based on sound English designs, may have caused the vanes to spin themselves to pieces, necessitating the gasoline engine after all.
By the end of the 20th century, the mill had been unused for more than fifty years, and in summertime, was partially hidden by tall trees that had grown up around it. Weathered and silent, thousands of people zoomed by it on the busy road, and few ever glanced its way. In 1990, Boyd’s heirs donated the structure to the Middletown Historical Society, but before it could be restored, it had to be moved.
Eleven years later, after being dismantled and trucked to the new Paradise Park location and then rebuilt by a team that included Newport architect Richard Long and millwright specialist Andrew Shrake of Dennis, Massachusetts, Boyd’s Mill was dedicated at a great celebration. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
On Sundays, visitors can see for themselves what kind of life the three-generations of Boyd’s led. Volunteers from the Society share all they know about the Boyd family, and in fair winds, they demonstrate the step-by-step process of grinding corn.
CAPTION
In the end, Benjamin Boyd was the last miller to earn his living there. His reminiscences appeared in the Fall River Herald News. In 1942, he wrote about knowing how fickle island weather can be and the importance of having steady nerves while running the mill in a sudden gale.
When the miller was running his mill … in one of these storms, he could not tell whether in five minutes a heavier squall would wreck him, or whether he might be in the midst of a calm.
CAPTION
Shipwright or millwright? The mill’s builder, John Peterson, cut the oak timbers for his mill across the bay, bringing them to Aquidneck Island on his schooner. When the vessel was wrecked, he salvaged oak knees and timbers from it to finish constructing his mill. The total height of the mill 38 feet. It is 18 feet wide at the bottom and 15 feet in diameter at the top.
.
BLOWING IN THE WIND
by Anita Rafael
Too breezy for a beach day?
Then it’s the perfect weather for windmill watching. You can find the state’s last three historic smock-style windmills still standing in Jamestown, Middletown and Portsmouth.
Stop and think about this simple logic for a minute: on a small island such as ours, or one like Conanicut to our west, there are no mighty rivers. No rivers means that early settlers, except when there was a springtime freshet in the small streams, could not reliably harness flowing water to run their gristmills. What our coastal islands lack in waterpower, however, they more than make up for in strong and steady sea breezes for windmills. In the late 1800s, more than 20 windmills were still standing throughout the state, most of them in and around Portsmouth.
The Jamestown Windmill
382 North Main Road, not far from the historic Watson Farm
Claim to fame This is the only surviving 18th century windmill in the state.
Records show that in 1728, the people of Jamestown built themselves a windmill for grinding corn, saving themselves the trouble of having to ferry it over to Aquidneck Island and back. That one was replaced in 1787 by this one, which was faithfully run and maintained by a succession of eleven different millers until 1896. Unlike the two other windmills still standing on Aquidneck Island, the Jamestown windmill, which does not seem to have a proper name, is in its original place, atop a rubble-stone foundation. The miller’s house (not open to the public) sits in its shadow, closer to the road.
The structure quickly fell into disrepair once the millers left, but within a decade, it was rescued by a concerned group of preservation-minded island residents. They worked to save it beginning in 1904, giving it to the Jamestown Historical Society eight years later.
Situated to take full advantage of the wind from all directions on a rise that became known as Windmill Hill, the tower’s exposed location also meant it was especially vulnerable to hurricane damage. It has been restored again and again. The mill narrowly made it through “the big one” in 1938, but after the 1954 hurricane, the 25-foot vanes had to be replaced and the tower had to be stabilized with hefty oak timbers. In 1974, all four vanes were broken off in a gale, and again replaced. The last touch-up it received was just five years ago. The once-rotating cap is now fixed to face Narragansett Bay’s gentler southerlies.
In a picture-perfect setting, the windmill seems to stand guard over acres of farmlands that are still being worked, just as it has for nearly 300 years. With the land around it, which reaches from shore to shore at this part of Conanicut, now in trust as preserved open space, it is not likely to ever be developed. That leads to a reassuring thought: If you take your children to visit the windmill this summer, and someday in the future, if they take their grandchildren to visit it, the landscape and the 30-foot high tower will hopefully look the same as they do now.
On Sunday afternoons this summer, when the winds are favorable, volunteers from the Jamestown Historical Society with a mariner’s knack for predicting the shifting sea breezes, will set the canvas sails so you can watch the windmill in action. No meal is sold here, however.
The Windmill at Prescott Farm also known as The Sherman Mill
2009 West Main Road, Portsmouth
Claim to fame This windmill has twin sets of grinding stones.
“It’s typical for windmills to have been moved from time to time, and this one is no exception,” says Robert Foley, preservation coordinator of the Newport Restoration Foundation, owners of the 4-story windmill at Prescott Farm. This wood-frame tower happens to be particularly well-traveled, and is now at its fifth site. Originally built about 1811 in Warren, Rhode Island, it was moved to Fall River, Massachusetts, then again to Quaker Hill in Portsmouth. The mill became known as the Robert Sherman windmill with that relocation because he was the one who took it down and put it back up. It was moved to yet another site on West Main Road, and then in the early 1900s, the Newport Historical Society owned it even though it was in Portsmouth at the time. Almost 70 years later, it changed hands again, and was moved one more time.
Are you wondering how you move a windmill? Foley remembers: “We used a crane to lift off the bonnet, or the top, which is easy to do since it is a separate piece that is meant to rotate into the wind. Then, we cut all the pegs and tenons in the tower, dividing it into two halves which we laid one at a time onto a flat bed trailer truck.” He makes it sound so easy, but nearly two years elapsed before the mill was in working order again.
During the rehabilitation, it was hoped that the mill might someday earn its keep by grinding enough meal to sell and so the restorers installed Department of Health-approved stainless steel bins for the grains. This particular mill, however, has mostly been non-productive, but nonetheless scenically so, for more than twenty years.
“It’s a big, dangerous machine,” Foley says. “Watching the wind and the weather is as critical, if not more so almost more so than on a sailboat. Basically,” he says, “when the wind turns, you have to tack.” That explains why a miller is sometimes called a dry-land sailor.
This summer, mill is running; however no meal will be sold there. On your visit, be sure to ask the site manager for a mini-engineering lesson on how the double grindstones work. State-of-the art for its day, this windmill was designed so that the miller could engage just one set, or both.
CAPTION
A recent grant from the Rhode Island State Heritage and Historic Preservation Commission made it possible for the Newport Restoration Foundation to build new sail panels (the lattice-like wooden frames that hold the cloth sails), in addition to installing two new 45-foot stocks or arms.
The Windmill at Paradise Park, also known as Boyd’s Gristmill
Green End Avenue, Middletown
Claim to fame This windmill has eight vanes.
It has been one hundred and four years since Benjamin Boyd decided that eight vanes were better than four on the old smock mill that his grandfather had bought in 1815. He was hoping that double the sail area would boost the power output of this giant grinding machine, especially in light winds. Did he realize he was making twice the work and worry for himself as well? Apparently so. Even though Boyd himself said it was “an experiment like Noah’s Ark,” five years later he gave up trying to furl and unfurl all that canvas across the giant arms and instead, he installed a gasoline engine to rotate the millstones.
Built in 1810 by John Peterson at the corner of West Main Road and Mill Lane in Portsmouth, the mill became known as Boyd’s Mill when William Boyd leased it not long after. It was a typical hard-working four-vane mill until his grandson Benjamin added four more arms in 1901. According to Stanley Grossman of the Middletown Historical Society, young Boyd’s engineering, although based on sound English designs, may have caused the vanes to spin themselves to pieces, necessitating the gasoline engine after all.
By the end of the 20th century, the mill had been unused for more than fifty years, and in summertime, was partially hidden by tall trees that had grown up around it. Weathered and silent, thousands of people zoomed by it on the busy road, and few ever glanced its way. In 1990, Boyd’s heirs donated the structure to the Middletown Historical Society, but before it could be restored, it had to be moved.
Eleven years later, after being dismantled and trucked to the new Paradise Park location and then rebuilt by a team that included Newport architect Richard Long and millwright specialist Andrew Shrake of Dennis, Massachusetts, Boyd’s Mill was dedicated at a great celebration. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
On Sundays, visitors can see for themselves what kind of life the three-generations of Boyd’s led. Volunteers from the Society share all they know about the Boyd family, and in fair winds, they demonstrate the step-by-step process of grinding corn.
CAPTION
In the end, Benjamin Boyd was the last miller to earn his living there. His reminiscences appeared in the Fall River Herald News. In 1942, he wrote about knowing how fickle island weather can be and the importance of having steady nerves while running the mill in a sudden gale.
When the miller was running his mill … in one of these storms, he could not tell whether in five minutes a heavier squall would wreck him, or whether he might be in the midst of a calm.
CAPTION
Shipwright or millwright? The mill’s builder, John Peterson, cut the oak timbers for his mill across the bay, bringing them to Aquidneck Island on his schooner. When the vessel was wrecked, he salvaged oak knees and timbers from it to finish constructing his mill. The total height of the mill 38 feet. It is 18 feet wide at the bottom and 15 feet in diameter at the top.
.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
NATURE 2
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FIDDLING AROUND AT THE SHORE
by Anita Rafael
Not far from Newport, Rhode Island, in the electronic research labs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, serious scientists are spending their summer building robotic fiddler crabs. The purpose of this undoubtedly expensive and ultra-high tech project is to make a teleoperated ten-legged Uca puglax, which they say will help us (the non-geniuses of the world) better comprehend what these fascinating little creatures are all about. Nice try, guys, but we’d prefer to be hanging out at the beach this July rather than indoors at your lab. Luckily, you don’t have to be a scientist to be a fiddler crab spotter. Look for them munching algae and organic debris in tidal puddles along the shoreline. They are everywhere where there is brackish water and marsh like conditions – all around Narragansett Bay, Fiddlers, however, are not a true aquatic species because they breathe air, not water, through their gills. Also known as mud fiddlers, they dig foot-deep burrows, and, when the tide rises, they plug up their hiding places with a balls of mud and breathe the air they have trapped inside. Sometimes their burrows are interconnected deep below the sand. As the tide recedes, the crabs come out to forage and feed again. They are active most of the day, which makes them fun to watch, and because they are so abundant, they are easy to find. Fiddlers are brownish, with the front of the shell and eyestalks ranging from blue to turquoise. The large claw of the male is usually yellowish-orange to yellowish-white, sometimes in a speckled or marbleized pattern. There are about 100 species and sub-species of Uca, first-cousin to the common ghost crab, and they have many interesting names around the globe. In Barbados, they are known as fever crabs; in Japan, siho maneki, which loosely translates "beckoning for the return of the tide.” Jamaicans call them deaf ear crabs because of a belief that crushing a live crab and pouring the juice into your ear could cure deafness and earache. (Not our best medical advice – go see a doctor.) Now, about that fiddle, or as taxonomists call it, the cheliped. What looks like a gross deformity in the male of this 2-inch crustacean, its giant claw that is sometimes 20 times the size of its walking legs, is actually its best defense against predators, not to mention nosy lab researchers. The “fiddle” is the major claw, and as the creature eats using its less cumbersome minor claw, the back and forth motion makes it look like it is using a violinist’s bow. (You can get a better idea of this effect when you are looking at them straight on at crab eye level.) The more symmetrical females lack the big claw and have two small claws, which makes it easier and more efficient for them to feed. Like us, fiddlers are either left- or right-handed, and it is this large claw that is the most important part of the crab dating game. It’s a guy thing – the males line up side-by-side outside their entrances, and, to impress the females, they wave their big appendages at them. On occasion, there are too many males in a colony vying for one mate and they violently arm-wrestle over who gets the girl. When a she-crab likes what she sees, and presumably size matters because females have been observed to be pretty picky about who they go to burrow with, she gets a deep-stare, eye-contact thing going with him. Then, she follows him into his tunnel for about two weeks of private time before she emerges with her incubated eggs. Both genders hide during the semi-annual molting of their shell, and understandably, with absolutely nothing to wear, you would stay inside, too. Everything fiddler crabs do – foraging, eating, molting, tunneling, hiding, mating, and fighting – is part of the big picture of the ecosystem of Narragansett Bay. They clean up the detritus from plants, and their burrows aerate the terrain around marsh grasses, and thus support the growth of vegetation. Of course, fiddlers are part of the food chain – tasty morsels for many large predators, including blue crabs, waterbirds such as egrets and herons, and small mammals such as raccoons. The crab’s worst threat is people, no surprise here, who carelessly pollute the water. While there is no commercial fishing of fiddler crabs, aquarium stores sell teeny tiny ones as house pets. However, crustaceans in general are fairly low on the list of wild things you’d like to cuddle with and, besides, they have a minimal life expectancy in captivity. Instead, get outdoors and spend a little time at the shore spying on the busy little fellows, and while you’re enjoying the sunshine and the fresh air and your new arthropod friends, have a little sympathy for those mechanism-minded inventors back in the M.I.T. lab working to assemble their scale model robo-crab. Seriously, have you ever heard of anyone who needs any sci-fi help to fiddle away a day at the beach?
FIDDLING AROUND AT THE SHORE
by Anita Rafael
Not far from Newport, Rhode Island, in the electronic research labs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, serious scientists are spending their summer building robotic fiddler crabs. The purpose of this undoubtedly expensive and ultra-high tech project is to make a teleoperated ten-legged Uca puglax, which they say will help us (the non-geniuses of the world) better comprehend what these fascinating little creatures are all about. Nice try, guys, but we’d prefer to be hanging out at the beach this July rather than indoors at your lab. Luckily, you don’t have to be a scientist to be a fiddler crab spotter. Look for them munching algae and organic debris in tidal puddles along the shoreline. They are everywhere where there is brackish water and marsh like conditions – all around Narragansett Bay, Fiddlers, however, are not a true aquatic species because they breathe air, not water, through their gills. Also known as mud fiddlers, they dig foot-deep burrows, and, when the tide rises, they plug up their hiding places with a balls of mud and breathe the air they have trapped inside. Sometimes their burrows are interconnected deep below the sand. As the tide recedes, the crabs come out to forage and feed again. They are active most of the day, which makes them fun to watch, and because they are so abundant, they are easy to find. Fiddlers are brownish, with the front of the shell and eyestalks ranging from blue to turquoise. The large claw of the male is usually yellowish-orange to yellowish-white, sometimes in a speckled or marbleized pattern. There are about 100 species and sub-species of Uca, first-cousin to the common ghost crab, and they have many interesting names around the globe. In Barbados, they are known as fever crabs; in Japan, siho maneki, which loosely translates "beckoning for the return of the tide.” Jamaicans call them deaf ear crabs because of a belief that crushing a live crab and pouring the juice into your ear could cure deafness and earache. (Not our best medical advice – go see a doctor.) Now, about that fiddle, or as taxonomists call it, the cheliped. What looks like a gross deformity in the male of this 2-inch crustacean, its giant claw that is sometimes 20 times the size of its walking legs, is actually its best defense against predators, not to mention nosy lab researchers. The “fiddle” is the major claw, and as the creature eats using its less cumbersome minor claw, the back and forth motion makes it look like it is using a violinist’s bow. (You can get a better idea of this effect when you are looking at them straight on at crab eye level.) The more symmetrical females lack the big claw and have two small claws, which makes it easier and more efficient for them to feed. Like us, fiddlers are either left- or right-handed, and it is this large claw that is the most important part of the crab dating game. It’s a guy thing – the males line up side-by-side outside their entrances, and, to impress the females, they wave their big appendages at them. On occasion, there are too many males in a colony vying for one mate and they violently arm-wrestle over who gets the girl. When a she-crab likes what she sees, and presumably size matters because females have been observed to be pretty picky about who they go to burrow with, she gets a deep-stare, eye-contact thing going with him. Then, she follows him into his tunnel for about two weeks of private time before she emerges with her incubated eggs. Both genders hide during the semi-annual molting of their shell, and understandably, with absolutely nothing to wear, you would stay inside, too. Everything fiddler crabs do – foraging, eating, molting, tunneling, hiding, mating, and fighting – is part of the big picture of the ecosystem of Narragansett Bay. They clean up the detritus from plants, and their burrows aerate the terrain around marsh grasses, and thus support the growth of vegetation. Of course, fiddlers are part of the food chain – tasty morsels for many large predators, including blue crabs, waterbirds such as egrets and herons, and small mammals such as raccoons. The crab’s worst threat is people, no surprise here, who carelessly pollute the water. While there is no commercial fishing of fiddler crabs, aquarium stores sell teeny tiny ones as house pets. However, crustaceans in general are fairly low on the list of wild things you’d like to cuddle with and, besides, they have a minimal life expectancy in captivity. Instead, get outdoors and spend a little time at the shore spying on the busy little fellows, and while you’re enjoying the sunshine and the fresh air and your new arthropod friends, have a little sympathy for those mechanism-minded inventors back in the M.I.T. lab working to assemble their scale model robo-crab. Seriously, have you ever heard of anyone who needs any sci-fi help to fiddle away a day at the beach?
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
GARDENS 1
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We’re Talkin’ Dirty
Here’s the dirt on giving your vegetable garden an all-organic makeover right now.
It is easier than you think to remake your backyard vegetable garden into an organic Eden. All it takes is a little extra tilling in the spring and a big promise not to buy any more chemical pesticides or synthetic fertilizers ever again.
What is the first step to starting your garden makeover? “Get a soil test done,” advises Nicole Vitello, who tills a rocky, seven-acre tract called Manic Organic Farm at the foot of Quaker Hill in Portsmouth. “It only costs a few dollars, and then you know exactly what’s in your soil,” she says. Armed with the results each season, you can doctor the pH of the soil and adjust the nutrients which are out of balance. You will also know whether you should completely strip away the soil you have or cover it with a thick, new layer. Your plot, Vitello points out, could have a high amount of copper or lead in it if there was once a building on the site.
We’re Talkin’ Dirty
by Anita Rafael
Here’s the dirt on giving your vegetable garden an all-organic makeover right now.
It is easier than you think to remake your backyard vegetable garden into an organic Eden. All it takes is a little extra tilling in the spring and a big promise not to buy any more chemical pesticides or synthetic fertilizers ever again.
What is the first step to starting your garden makeover? “Get a soil test done,” advises Nicole Vitello, who tills a rocky, seven-acre tract called Manic Organic Farm at the foot of Quaker Hill in Portsmouth. “It only costs a few dollars, and then you know exactly what’s in your soil,” she says. Armed with the results each season, you can doctor the pH of the soil and adjust the nutrients which are out of balance. You will also know whether you should completely strip away the soil you have or cover it with a thick, new layer. Your plot, Vitello points out, could have a high amount of copper or lead in it if there was once a building on the site.
Few people on Aquidneck Island know dirt better than Nicole Vitello. Her certified-organic produce, sold at area farmers’ markets and through a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture is an arrangement where people buy advance shares in her harvest and take home a big bin of fresh vegetables once a week), ends up on the dining tables of more than 150 local families.
That’s a lot of mouths to feed and since 1999, Vitello has been growing her heirloom and hybrid vegetables, tender greens and herbs with absolutely no help from Dow, Bayer or anyone else in the agricultural chemical industry. She is so passionate about keeping her fields naturally fertile so they sustain her livelihood as an organic grower that she practically thinks of the microorganisms living in the soil as her pets. True, she can’t see them with the naked eye, much less cuddle with them on the couch, but it’s fairly obvious that she has cultivated a symbiotic relationship with zillions of them.
Her healthy, contented microorganisms feed her crops; her chemical-free crops feed her and her customers. “It’s all one system,” she says, making the point that eating dinner and growing food are not separate events.
You can always improve the soil in your garden by simply adding a nutrient-rich, all-natural compost which means you need to become friendly with the folks at Highland Farm on Middle Road in Portsmouth. The Escobars compost manure from their dairy cows which they sell for a few dollars a bag. Amending soil is easy – some of the other organic things you might add, for example, are peat, bone meal or rock phosphates, all derived from natural sources and all inexpensive compared to costly agro-science synthetics.
“To really mix the soil and compost correctly, rent a rototiller,” says Vitello. “It’s the only way to thoroughly reach the ‘active’ layer which is the top 10 or 12 inches. That’s where everything grows.” When you and your family are enjoying the first luscious vegetables that you grew organically, you, too, will realize that among other things, a ten-pound bag of cow manure is, well – worth its weight in sweet-tasting Sungold cherry tomatoes.
Next, pledge not to quick draw your pesticide pistol at the first sight of crawly things on the potatoes. Beetles have a place the ecosystem, too, in spite of the fact that some of them may be eating your future French fries. Instead, take time to really observe the bugs in your garden. Are there only two or three insects or a frightening infestation? Are they a food source for other welcome creatures? Birds, toads and salamanders in your yard may be doing a slow, but adequate extermination job for you.
“Try using plants to discourage bugs,” says Vitello. “I set out marigolds everywhere to deter bean beetles, squash bugs, tomato worms, and whitefly.” Chives repel aphids and spider mites, two very common garden pests. There are dozens more ordinary plants that drive bugs away. Odds are a few insects will not wipe out your whole garden, and you might opt to let them snack on rather than pitching poisons all over the food you plan to serve to your kids later.
Vitello has a simple tip for homeowners when it comes to outsmarting pests and diseases in their vegetable gardens. She says not to plant all the eggplant in one spot, and all the parsley in another. “Lay out multiple rows or patches of the same plant far apart,” she explains, “so that if the weird brown bugs or a nasty mildew get into one section of the crop, they might leave the rest of it alone.”
In the Manic Organic fields, Vitello also uses row covers to control insect damage to seedlings because according to the regulations for organic farming, she cannot apply toxic compounds. “First of all,” she says, “a healthy plant is less likely to be a target for insects and young plants grow strong beneath protection like special material or micro-mesh which lets in air, light and water but keeps the pests out.”
Finally, try to come to terms with the fact that the big, fat weeds taking over your garden are not a sign of failure! Colossal chickweeds choking out the rows of rutabagas are proof that your soil is, in fact, first-rate and fertile. Instead of zapping weeds with powerful herbicides, use mulch to suppress their growth. Mulch, mulch, mulch has always been the mantra of all gardeners, especially the lazy ones who refuse to spend backbreaking hours hoeing weeds. Not only does 2 to 4 inches of mulch preserve warmth and moisture in the garden, it’s common sense that organic materials – such as sawdust, straw, grass clippings, leaves, or shredded bark – will add even more nutrients to the soil as they decompose. “You should never leave the ground bare,” warns Vitello, who believes that dry, naked dirt is “in agony.”
This coming July, when you roll out a wheelbarrow full of juicy, organically-grown watermelons, at least you will know the secret to what made your garden so productive – it wasn’t some formula that Monsanto’s biotech engineers concocted in a laboratory, it was you, your happy microorganisms, and Mother Nature. What a team!
That’s a lot of mouths to feed and since 1999, Vitello has been growing her heirloom and hybrid vegetables, tender greens and herbs with absolutely no help from Dow, Bayer or anyone else in the agricultural chemical industry. She is so passionate about keeping her fields naturally fertile so they sustain her livelihood as an organic grower that she practically thinks of the microorganisms living in the soil as her pets. True, she can’t see them with the naked eye, much less cuddle with them on the couch, but it’s fairly obvious that she has cultivated a symbiotic relationship with zillions of them.
Her healthy, contented microorganisms feed her crops; her chemical-free crops feed her and her customers. “It’s all one system,” she says, making the point that eating dinner and growing food are not separate events.
You can always improve the soil in your garden by simply adding a nutrient-rich, all-natural compost which means you need to become friendly with the folks at Highland Farm on Middle Road in Portsmouth. The Escobars compost manure from their dairy cows which they sell for a few dollars a bag. Amending soil is easy – some of the other organic things you might add, for example, are peat, bone meal or rock phosphates, all derived from natural sources and all inexpensive compared to costly agro-science synthetics.
“To really mix the soil and compost correctly, rent a rototiller,” says Vitello. “It’s the only way to thoroughly reach the ‘active’ layer which is the top 10 or 12 inches. That’s where everything grows.” When you and your family are enjoying the first luscious vegetables that you grew organically, you, too, will realize that among other things, a ten-pound bag of cow manure is, well – worth its weight in sweet-tasting Sungold cherry tomatoes.
Next, pledge not to quick draw your pesticide pistol at the first sight of crawly things on the potatoes. Beetles have a place the ecosystem, too, in spite of the fact that some of them may be eating your future French fries. Instead, take time to really observe the bugs in your garden. Are there only two or three insects or a frightening infestation? Are they a food source for other welcome creatures? Birds, toads and salamanders in your yard may be doing a slow, but adequate extermination job for you.
“Try using plants to discourage bugs,” says Vitello. “I set out marigolds everywhere to deter bean beetles, squash bugs, tomato worms, and whitefly.” Chives repel aphids and spider mites, two very common garden pests. There are dozens more ordinary plants that drive bugs away. Odds are a few insects will not wipe out your whole garden, and you might opt to let them snack on rather than pitching poisons all over the food you plan to serve to your kids later.
Vitello has a simple tip for homeowners when it comes to outsmarting pests and diseases in their vegetable gardens. She says not to plant all the eggplant in one spot, and all the parsley in another. “Lay out multiple rows or patches of the same plant far apart,” she explains, “so that if the weird brown bugs or a nasty mildew get into one section of the crop, they might leave the rest of it alone.”
In the Manic Organic fields, Vitello also uses row covers to control insect damage to seedlings because according to the regulations for organic farming, she cannot apply toxic compounds. “First of all,” she says, “a healthy plant is less likely to be a target for insects and young plants grow strong beneath protection like special material or micro-mesh which lets in air, light and water but keeps the pests out.”
Finally, try to come to terms with the fact that the big, fat weeds taking over your garden are not a sign of failure! Colossal chickweeds choking out the rows of rutabagas are proof that your soil is, in fact, first-rate and fertile. Instead of zapping weeds with powerful herbicides, use mulch to suppress their growth. Mulch, mulch, mulch has always been the mantra of all gardeners, especially the lazy ones who refuse to spend backbreaking hours hoeing weeds. Not only does 2 to 4 inches of mulch preserve warmth and moisture in the garden, it’s common sense that organic materials – such as sawdust, straw, grass clippings, leaves, or shredded bark – will add even more nutrients to the soil as they decompose. “You should never leave the ground bare,” warns Vitello, who believes that dry, naked dirt is “in agony.”
This coming July, when you roll out a wheelbarrow full of juicy, organically-grown watermelons, at least you will know the secret to what made your garden so productive – it wasn’t some formula that Monsanto’s biotech engineers concocted in a laboratory, it was you, your happy microorganisms, and Mother Nature. What a team!
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
HISTORIC SITE 1
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Whitehall House – the tale of a hardworking farm, a famous philosopher and a fine house.
Joseph Whipple sold it in 1729. The Reverend George Berkeley enlarged it, named it and wrote brilliant philosophy in it. Yale got it as a gift and innkeeper Abigail Stoneman was among those who ran a tavern in it. During the American Revolution, enemy British troops occupied it. Five generations of the Brown family were the tenant farmers there. The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of Rhode Island made a museum out of it and you, too, can visit Whitehall House and its pretty walled grounds and herb garden.
Although those crib notes take two seconds to recite, it takes some guesswork to determine how Whitehall, Middletown’s most venerable historic dwelling, came to look the way it does. It is yet another one of those “old house puzzles” that make early American architecture such a beguiling subject.
Some historians have surmised that the reason why the scholarly reverend bought a farm on Aquidneck Island in the first place is the direct consequence of an inept sea captain who failed make port at Bermuda after about 180 days at sea. Whether Berkeley (b.1684-d.1753) arrived here by accident or design in January of 1729, he was on a mission to start a college in Bermuda. The then 44-year old Berkeley, who as Dean of Londonderry was the highest ranking English churchman to have ever visited New England up to that time, and his young wife Anne, began a sort of celebrity sojourn that lasted a little less than three years.
Berkeley, an Irish-born educator, published philosopher, mathematician, poet, and soon to be country farmer and general contractor, paid Joseph Whipple the considerable sum of £2,500 for 96 acres consisting of tillable land, a dwelling and outbuildings. He named his rural estate, situated about an hour’s walk from nearby Newport with its 4,500 or so residents, Whitehall for the royal palace in London and undertook its first extreme makeover.
Some say that the house there today was built entirely from the ground up in 1729, but it is not certain whether Berkeley tore down some or all of the original farmhouse, or simply added grand rooms onto what was a humble structure. One vintage photograph of the now 9-room, 2-story house taken from the rear before its first restoration, shows both old and new elements.
Berkley, whose entourage included, among others, the British architect Richard Dalton, is credited with giving the symmetrical 5-bay façade its high-style features. Wide, pilastered and pedimented, the Palladian-inspired double door is right out of the 1721 style book of classical designs by Indigo Jones. It makes a great impression, fit for an English squire’s house, however, a grand entrance it is not. Just the right hand side of the pair opens, leading into a cramped, stairless hallway; the left side is a false door which, on the inside, is just a plain parlor wall.
When it became evident that Berkeley’s plan for the college fell through, he left Newport in 1731, but his name and legacy remain forever linked to this quiet retreat. He gave the house and a thousand books to Yale College. (Harvard got 800 books and no house.). Upon his return to England, Berkeley became all the more eminent when he was elevated to Bishop of Cloyne, Ireland.
Not particularly interested in overseeing a coastal farm from a hundred miles away, Yale’s administrators leased Whitehall to tavernkeepers and farmers. According to advertisements in the Newport Mercury in the decades prior to the American Revolution one proprietor dubbed it Vaux Hall for a time and ran it as a “tea-house.”
Beginning in 1824, successive generations of the Brown family adapted Whitehall to their needs while they worked the land and sold milk, butter and eggs from their cows and chickens. In the 1890s, Abraham A. Brown built a modern and commodious home, one with indoor plumbing, practically next door to the old house. In the spirit of Yankee thrift though, Farmer Brown put the vacated Whitehall to practical use as a hay barn.
The rain-soaked structure was all but rotten, roof, floors and all, when three philanthropically-minded Newport women took it upon themselves in 1897 to save it for its virtue as a genuine colonial artifact, as well as for its connection to the by then legendary Berkeley. One of the women, Mrs. Livingston Mason, wrote an essay to motivate potential supporters, employing a bit of Victorianesque melodrama to describe Whitehall’s sorry state:
“… a great vine slowly coils in and out of its broken windows, like
some huge monster crushing its ribs and absorbing its last breath.”
Charles McKim, of the famed architectural firm McKim, Mead and White, probably should be given the most credit for why Whitehall still exists. He published this evocative photograph of it in 1874. The image, taken from the angle of the back northwest corner, is Number 26 of 29 photographs in a book titled, New York Sketch-Book of Architecture. Had he not shown and described his own heartfelt admiration for the character and construction of this house, others might not have been awakened to its significance.Seeing beyond the merely picturesque aspects of its sagging 17th century salt box roof and weather-beaten clapboards, he wrote, “…[old buildings] are always reasonable, simple in outline and frequently show great beauty of detail.”
The campaign to buy the site and a scrap of land was successful and Whitehall underwent a cellar-to-rafter restoration in 1898. Two years later, the women deeded it over to the National Society of the Colonial Dames in the State of Rhode Island, with the provision that it should be maintained as a memorial to Berkeley. In 1936, Norman Isham (praised for his pioneering preservation work at Newport’s Old Colony House and the Wanton-Lyman Hazard House) did more interior restoration. Blasted by the Great Hurricane of 1938, Whitehall once again needed repair, but for the most part, its stalwart hand-hewn timbers stood up to the blow. The look of the house was reinterpreted a third time between 1966 and ’68, and shortly after the work was completed, Whitehall was proudly listed on the National Register of Historic Properties.
The Newport Garden Club maintains an 18th century herb garden on the east side of Whitehall. Helen H. Hart originally conceived the design in 1953, and there is a marker commemorating her initiation of the project. The plantings are representative of the three categories of herbs that a practical-minded colonial housewife might have needed most. There are the usual herbs for cooking, plus plants for medicine and personal use (such as sage for brushing teeth and lavender for bathing) and housekeeping herbs (for example, thyme for keeping bugs off stored linens.)
What was once a secluded vale surrounding the house is now a klatch of clone-like condominiums and spanky ranch houses, but visitors need only to step inside Whitehall to time-travel back nearly three centuries. To the left of the paneled entry hall is the bright southwest parlor with its tile-adorned fireplace, and towards the back, is the old kitchen with its broad brick hearth where members of the Colonial Dames occasionally taste-test Indian pudding recipes stirred over the open fire. There is a small north bedchamber beside an oddly situated stair hall in the rear of the house, and a southeast parlor, which is furnished to show how the Reverend’s study might have looked. The second floor, with sitting rooms and two bedrooms, is a private apartment used by members of the International Berkeley Society who summer at Whitehall as guest scholars. A rustic loft space under the eaves has an assortment of early household implements on display.
The Reverend Berkley may have made Whitehall House famous, but all the kudos these days go to the Colonial Dames of the State of Rhode Island. For one-hundred and five years so far, they have been unwavering in their promise to keep it in a sound state of repair while welcoming the public for guided tours and to their popular open house days. Only the right half of Whitehall’s stately double entrance is a real door, but it is a door well worth knocking on for a privileged peek inside and for the pleasure of some old-fashioned hospitality.
THE DEAN OF DERRY AND THE DAMES
by Anita Rafael
Whitehall House – the tale of a hardworking farm, a famous philosopher and a fine house.
Joseph Whipple sold it in 1729. The Reverend George Berkeley enlarged it, named it and wrote brilliant philosophy in it. Yale got it as a gift and innkeeper Abigail Stoneman was among those who ran a tavern in it. During the American Revolution, enemy British troops occupied it. Five generations of the Brown family were the tenant farmers there. The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of Rhode Island made a museum out of it and you, too, can visit Whitehall House and its pretty walled grounds and herb garden.
Although those crib notes take two seconds to recite, it takes some guesswork to determine how Whitehall, Middletown’s most venerable historic dwelling, came to look the way it does. It is yet another one of those “old house puzzles” that make early American architecture such a beguiling subject.
Some historians have surmised that the reason why the scholarly reverend bought a farm on Aquidneck Island in the first place is the direct consequence of an inept sea captain who failed make port at Bermuda after about 180 days at sea. Whether Berkeley (b.1684-d.1753) arrived here by accident or design in January of 1729, he was on a mission to start a college in Bermuda. The then 44-year old Berkeley, who as Dean of Londonderry was the highest ranking English churchman to have ever visited New England up to that time, and his young wife Anne, began a sort of celebrity sojourn that lasted a little less than three years.
Berkeley, an Irish-born educator, published philosopher, mathematician, poet, and soon to be country farmer and general contractor, paid Joseph Whipple the considerable sum of £2,500 for 96 acres consisting of tillable land, a dwelling and outbuildings. He named his rural estate, situated about an hour’s walk from nearby Newport with its 4,500 or so residents, Whitehall for the royal palace in London and undertook its first extreme makeover.
Some say that the house there today was built entirely from the ground up in 1729, but it is not certain whether Berkeley tore down some or all of the original farmhouse, or simply added grand rooms onto what was a humble structure. One vintage photograph of the now 9-room, 2-story house taken from the rear before its first restoration, shows both old and new elements.
Berkley, whose entourage included, among others, the British architect Richard Dalton, is credited with giving the symmetrical 5-bay façade its high-style features. Wide, pilastered and pedimented, the Palladian-inspired double door is right out of the 1721 style book of classical designs by Indigo Jones. It makes a great impression, fit for an English squire’s house, however, a grand entrance it is not. Just the right hand side of the pair opens, leading into a cramped, stairless hallway; the left side is a false door which, on the inside, is just a plain parlor wall.
When it became evident that Berkeley’s plan for the college fell through, he left Newport in 1731, but his name and legacy remain forever linked to this quiet retreat. He gave the house and a thousand books to Yale College. (Harvard got 800 books and no house.). Upon his return to England, Berkeley became all the more eminent when he was elevated to Bishop of Cloyne, Ireland.
Not particularly interested in overseeing a coastal farm from a hundred miles away, Yale’s administrators leased Whitehall to tavernkeepers and farmers. According to advertisements in the Newport Mercury in the decades prior to the American Revolution one proprietor dubbed it Vaux Hall for a time and ran it as a “tea-house.”
Beginning in 1824, successive generations of the Brown family adapted Whitehall to their needs while they worked the land and sold milk, butter and eggs from their cows and chickens. In the 1890s, Abraham A. Brown built a modern and commodious home, one with indoor plumbing, practically next door to the old house. In the spirit of Yankee thrift though, Farmer Brown put the vacated Whitehall to practical use as a hay barn.
The rain-soaked structure was all but rotten, roof, floors and all, when three philanthropically-minded Newport women took it upon themselves in 1897 to save it for its virtue as a genuine colonial artifact, as well as for its connection to the by then legendary Berkeley. One of the women, Mrs. Livingston Mason, wrote an essay to motivate potential supporters, employing a bit of Victorianesque melodrama to describe Whitehall’s sorry state:
“… a great vine slowly coils in and out of its broken windows, like
some huge monster crushing its ribs and absorbing its last breath.”
Charles McKim, of the famed architectural firm McKim, Mead and White, probably should be given the most credit for why Whitehall still exists. He published this evocative photograph of it in 1874. The image, taken from the angle of the back northwest corner, is Number 26 of 29 photographs in a book titled, New York Sketch-Book of Architecture. Had he not shown and described his own heartfelt admiration for the character and construction of this house, others might not have been awakened to its significance.Seeing beyond the merely picturesque aspects of its sagging 17th century salt box roof and weather-beaten clapboards, he wrote, “…[old buildings] are always reasonable, simple in outline and frequently show great beauty of detail.”
The campaign to buy the site and a scrap of land was successful and Whitehall underwent a cellar-to-rafter restoration in 1898. Two years later, the women deeded it over to the National Society of the Colonial Dames in the State of Rhode Island, with the provision that it should be maintained as a memorial to Berkeley. In 1936, Norman Isham (praised for his pioneering preservation work at Newport’s Old Colony House and the Wanton-Lyman Hazard House) did more interior restoration. Blasted by the Great Hurricane of 1938, Whitehall once again needed repair, but for the most part, its stalwart hand-hewn timbers stood up to the blow. The look of the house was reinterpreted a third time between 1966 and ’68, and shortly after the work was completed, Whitehall was proudly listed on the National Register of Historic Properties.
The Newport Garden Club maintains an 18th century herb garden on the east side of Whitehall. Helen H. Hart originally conceived the design in 1953, and there is a marker commemorating her initiation of the project. The plantings are representative of the three categories of herbs that a practical-minded colonial housewife might have needed most. There are the usual herbs for cooking, plus plants for medicine and personal use (such as sage for brushing teeth and lavender for bathing) and housekeeping herbs (for example, thyme for keeping bugs off stored linens.)
What was once a secluded vale surrounding the house is now a klatch of clone-like condominiums and spanky ranch houses, but visitors need only to step inside Whitehall to time-travel back nearly three centuries. To the left of the paneled entry hall is the bright southwest parlor with its tile-adorned fireplace, and towards the back, is the old kitchen with its broad brick hearth where members of the Colonial Dames occasionally taste-test Indian pudding recipes stirred over the open fire. There is a small north bedchamber beside an oddly situated stair hall in the rear of the house, and a southeast parlor, which is furnished to show how the Reverend’s study might have looked. The second floor, with sitting rooms and two bedrooms, is a private apartment used by members of the International Berkeley Society who summer at Whitehall as guest scholars. A rustic loft space under the eaves has an assortment of early household implements on display.
The Reverend Berkley may have made Whitehall House famous, but all the kudos these days go to the Colonial Dames of the State of Rhode Island. For one-hundred and five years so far, they have been unwavering in their promise to keep it in a sound state of repair while welcoming the public for guided tours and to their popular open house days. Only the right half of Whitehall’s stately double entrance is a real door, but it is a door well worth knocking on for a privileged peek inside and for the pleasure of some old-fashioned hospitality.
Monday, March 13, 2006
PRESERVE AMERICA PROJECT
Back to Opening Page
Project: Researching and Writing 24 Preserve America Nominations, Dec. 2003 to Feb. 2004
In November 2003, I was contracted by the National Park Service in partnership with the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council of Rhode Island to be the author for nominations for Preserve America designations for 11 communities in Rhode Island and 13 communities in Massachusetts – a total of 24 applications in all. Preserve America is a 2003 White House initiative to encourage and support community efforts for the preservation and enjoyment of America's priceless cultural and natural heritage. This ongoing program celebrates communities that protect and use their historic assets for economic development and community revitalization, and encourage people to experience and appreciate local historic resources through education and heritage tourism programs.
Benefits to the communities include White House recognition; a certificate of designation; a Preserve America Community road sign; authorization to use the Preserve America logo on signs, flags, banners, and promotional materials; listing in a web-based Preserve America Community directory; inclusion in national and regional press releases;official notification of designation to State tourism offices and visitor bureaus; and enhanced community visibility and pride.
The work I did prior to actually writing the application essays was painstaking. (The blank form is online at www.preserveamerica.gov.) I did hours of research to collect interesting facts about each community’s history and developed a working knowledge of its continued efforts in historic preservation, its management of its historic assets, its preservation education and its heritage tourism. The legwork required to obtain the information for the even simple check-box parts of the application was nothing short of a marathon effort. For weeks, I visited historic sites, conducted detailed interviews with each community’s public officials and met with historic preservation partners both in the public and private sectors. I also accumulated the documents and images that would support each individual nomination. In addition, the applications were backed by letters of recommendation from dozens of elected representatives, public officials, community leaders and respected private citizens – using a template as a suggested format, these too, had to be solicited, complied and verified.
The final phase of the application process consisted of creating and then writing the text for each nomination as a coherent, convincing “story.” My objective was to leave little or no room for rejection by the review committee at the Washington, DC office of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the independent Federal agency that advises the President and Congress on national historic preservation policy.
My work was 100% successful. On June 25, 2004, every one of the 24 applications
that I wrote was approved and, as a result, each of the communities is now proudly displaying the signage honoring it as a Preserve America community.
Winning nominations for the following towns and cities written by Anita Rafael -
Project Writer: Anita Rafael: Research, text and compilation of supporting materials.
Preserve America Nominations
Dec. 2003-Feb. 2004
Sample of a completed Preserve America nomination. The facts and story line of each nomination varies greatly as every community has its own unique way of preserving and using its historic and cultural assets.
Preserve America Nomination for the Town of Hopedale, Massachusetts
Introduction The Town of Hopedale is located in the south-central part of the State of Massachusetts. It is one of the 24 communities along the Blackstone River Valley which were designated by Congress in 1986 as having national significance as "The Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution." Hopedale is a 5-square mile community of 6,000 residents whose industrial past is everywhere evident, but whose lifestyle today is largely suburban in nature. Hopedale was, in fact, conceived by Reverend Adin Ballou as a Christian-based "dale of hope" in 1841, making it unique among the towns in the region. The town's official founding in 1886 was because of the success of the Draper family in manufacturing mechanical looms for the textile industry, an enterprise spanning an entire century. Like several other small towns in the region that have easy access to Interstate 495 and Route 128, Hopedale is expected to grow rapidly within the decade. Hopedale's commitment to historic preservation is evident in its new listing on the National Register of Historic Places of an historic district that encompasses virtually the entire village - some 8000 acres in all.
Recent Project The Town of Hopedale has successfully undertaken a massive historic preservation effort in listing the village center on the National Register of Historic Places, a district recognized in 2002 as having some 600 significant homes, buildings, structures and items which are both publicly and privately owned. The sites have a period of significance ranging from 1825 to the late 20th century. In addition, the Town of Hopedale has begun a project, with public-private partnership support to develop a plan for restoration and purposeful use of an historic site known as the (Little) Red Shop.
In late 2002, the Town of Hopedale, with support from the Heritage Corridor and the volunteer participation of interested citizens, along with private, non-profit organizations known as the Friends of Historic Hopedale and Friends of Adin Ballou, plus town officials, and others, participated in the development of a preliminary planning report for the Red Shop. The Red Shop, locally considered an “icon,” was built in the mid-1840s. It is the first shop built by the community, and is the town’s oldest industrial remnant of an enterprise that shaped the town for nearly two centuries. It is a small wood-frame building that has been moved four times, as recently as the 1950s to a prominent location on town property. The 20’ x 90’ shop as it is now may, in fact, be only a portion of a structure that was originally larger, perhaps 2-stories with a cupola. It has had various uses - workshop for making machinery, sales room, storage shed, repository of artifacts, and until recently, as a museum. Only occasionally open, it is in disrepair and lacks heat and restrooms. The outcome of the project was a preliminary plan, published in March of 2003 that recognizes the unique potential of the Red Shop as a museum or educational facility and heritage attraction. The report also outlines a recommended plan of action to meet the goal of preserving the historical character of the building, enhancing its historical meaning and usefulness, as well as using the site to tell the story of Hopedale’s industrial past and the community’s role in the industrial development of the Blackstone River Valley region.
Fund-raising efforts and awareness-raising efforts regarding the Red Shop project are currently in progress. In 2002, for example, the Hopedale Junior/Senior High School used a mini-grant from the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce for a multi-disciplinary project which provided the students with a hands-on community-based learning experience about local history and the culture of a textile mill village. Students made and sold artistic representations of their study to benefit the Red Shop restoration project. In a current effort to bring to light the significance of the site, the Friends of Adin Ballou have included the Red Shop in a 16-page self-guided walking/ biking guidebook titled “Early Hopedale Community.” The book was funded in part by the Heritage Corridor.
Ongoing Project The Town of Hopedale in partnership with the Heritage Corridor, the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council and the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce participates in a Heritage Tourism Initiative which promotes historic and cultural sites by making use of its library, town hall, historic attractions and businesses as distribution points for brochures, maps, self-guided tours and literature of interest to residents and tourists. As part of a regional heritage and cultural cross-promotion network, the sites in Hopedale are part of a 150-site chain of distribution points throughout the Blackstone Valley. Additional information about Hopedale’s historic sites is available year-round at the Heritage Corridor Visitors Center in nearby Uxbridge and Mendon.
Additional Project The Town of Hopedale in partnership with the Heritage Corridor participates in a Heritage Tourism Initiative with Identity Signage, indicating it is part of the historically significant region known as the Blackstone River Valley. In the Town of Hopedale several interpretive signs provide visitors with information about historic sites and historic monuments in Hopedale.
Appended: Photography of Hopedale, MA.
Resolution The Town of Hopedale has adopted a resolution indicating its commitment
to the preservation of its historic assets.
Appended: Copy of resolution of Hopedale, MA.
Category 1 / Discovering
1.1 An ongoing publicly available inventory of historic properties.
The Town of Hopedale has a publicly available inventory of historic properties listed by the Massachusetts Historic Commission (MHC). The document is available at the local library, town hall, at the Heritage Corridor office, and at the MHC office in Boston, MA. An additional inventory was compiled and is updated by the Heritage Corridor office and is available to the public. Properties are selected for inclusion on the basis of their individual significance or their value as indicators of the town’s physical, social or economic development. More than 20 homes and buildings, plus a pre-settlement era archaeological site along the Mill River, have been identified as significant in the Town of Hopedale.
1.2 A community supported museum, interpretive facility, archive or local history
records collection. In the Town of Hopedale, the public library has taken an active role in archiving books and printed material related to the history of the town. The town has appointed local residents as curators who have begun collecting items as a first step towards establishing a new museum.
1.3 Active citizen volunteer involvement.
Citizen volunteers in the Town of Hopedale participate in several events related to fund-raising for the Red Shop restoration project and on behalf of a private, non-profit organization known as Friends of Historic Hopedale. Events at which volunteers are active include the annual Day In The Parks celebration, a town-wide “fair” coordinated by members of the Hopedale Cultural Council. The activities include historical walking tours, trolley tours, and horse-drawn-wagon tours of Hopedale’s historic sites. Volunteers also coordinate a holiday house tour of private historic homes in Hopedale to benefit local historic preservation efforts.
1.4 Opportunities for children to learn about local heritage in the schools.
In the Town of Hopedale, the public school system makes use of opportunities for children to learn about local heritage through its partnership with the Heritage Corridor. National Park Service Rangers present programming in local schools, and educators specializing in teaching local history are partnering with the Heritage Corridor to update and revise curriculum-based programs which meet the Massachusetts Board of Education criteria. Additionally, using the information contained a new, widely-distributed 60-page handbook titled “An Educator’s Guide To The Blackstone Valley - A Comprehensive Guide to the Cultural, Natural and Historic Resources Throughout the Blackstone River Valley” teachers in Hopedale can access in-school programs from all the museums and organizations listed. The publication is a project of the Blackstone Valley Educator’s Network in partnership with the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council and the Heritage Corridor.
In addition, a volunteer member of the current historical commission provides in-school programs about the history of Hopedale.
Appended: A postcard (promotional mailing) for a handbook which all educators in Hopedale, MA receive listing educational opportunities for in-school programs and field trips.
Category 2 / Protecting
2.1 A local government body such as a board or commission, charged with leading historic preservation activities.
The Town of Hopedale has a 7-member historical commission. It is a volunteer board, created by town ordinance, which leads historic preservation activities in the town. The board is made up of interested citizens and subject (history, architecture, folklore) experts. The board meets regularly and is charged, among its duties,with advising residents and other town agencies on preservation issues. Current initiatives include grant writing for the Red Shop project.
2.2 Adopted a community-wide historic preservation plan.
The Town of Hopedale has a current comprehensive plan was adopted in the early 1990s as mandated by Massachusetts state law. The document contains a section relating to use and preservation of historic and cultural resources. The plan was developed after extensive consultation with many constituencies, including residents interested in and committed to the preservation of the town’s historic and archeological resources. Additionally, the town acknowledges the guidelines of the regional management plan developed and adopted by the Heritage Corridor which includes historic and cultural sites in Hopedale. The town is currently updating its mater plan, as well.
Category 3 / Promoting
3.1 A local heritage tourism program or activity, or active participation in a regional program, with such promotional material as a walking/ driving trail or tour itinerary, map of historic resources, etc.
The Town of Hopedale promotes awareness of its historic assets and promotes heritage tourism though its Self-Guided Walking Tour. This self-guided walking tour highlighting how Hopedale's beginnings as a utopian community in the mid-19th century shaped its destiny is one of a series consisting of 27 similar publications distributed throughout the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor. The primary mission of the interpretive narrative is to tell previously untold stories about the community's past, present and future by highlighting the local people, places and events. With more than 20,000 copies in distribution to date, the brochure also successfully fulfills a secondary mission to reach heretofore untapped audiences giving them an opportunity to explore and enjoy the communities which form the Heritage Corridor. This brochure is particularly appealing to area residents, drawing them to discover more about the neighborhood in which they live and historic places in their hometown. Visitors find that the self-guided format gives them the option to explore and travel at their own pace, selecting sites that relate to their own tastes, interests and budget. Most importantly, the brochure combines a simplified map with an easy-to-follow tour itinerary for a short enjoyable stroll, especially suitable and safe for families with children of all ages, to seven sites in Hopedale that underscore the great textile empire and lifestyle created by the Draper family. A unique feature of this publication is the section titled "Along The Way" which appears on the back panel. The list of things to see and do nearby inspires even casual explorers to seek more information about the historic and cultural heritage of Hopedale while enticing them to visit other interesting historic sites and fun attractions. Updated as needed, this self-guided walking tour brochure continues in print and in circulation. Widely available year-round for free to residents and visitors to Hopedale, it is on display at the River Bend Farm Visitor Center in Uxbridge, at museums, libraries, hotels, and at other attractions throughout the town and the Heritage Corridor region. It is also available by mail through the Heritage Corridor Office located in Woonsocket, RI.
The initial project consisted of a partnership between community writers, local graphic artists,the Rhode Island Historical Society's Education Department and Graphics Library and the National Park Service Rangers of the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor and their project administrators. Several community organizations, such as the Hopedale Historical Society, the Hopedale Public Library, the Blackstone Chamber of Commerce, the Massachusetts State Historic Commission, and individual community residents supported the production of this walking tour of Hopedale by providing information, interviews, volunteer assistance, research materials, and graphic images in addition to volunteering advice and commentary on its content and accuracy. Funding is provided by the Heritage Corridor under its Interpretive Program.
Appended: brochure sample plus miscellaneous other publications/ material currently
in circulation to promote use of and appreciation of historic assets Hopedale, MA.
Appended: Letters of Recommendation to support nomination for Hopedale, MA.
Appended: CD of captioned images of Hopedale, MA.
NB: One of 24 Preserve America applications prepared by AR that were submitted and approved in 2004.
Project: Researching and Writing 24 Preserve America Nominations, Dec. 2003 to Feb. 2004
In November 2003, I was contracted by the National Park Service in partnership with the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council of Rhode Island to be the author for nominations for Preserve America designations for 11 communities in Rhode Island and 13 communities in Massachusetts – a total of 24 applications in all. Preserve America is a 2003 White House initiative to encourage and support community efforts for the preservation and enjoyment of America's priceless cultural and natural heritage. This ongoing program celebrates communities that protect and use their historic assets for economic development and community revitalization, and encourage people to experience and appreciate local historic resources through education and heritage tourism programs.
Benefits to the communities include White House recognition; a certificate of designation; a Preserve America Community road sign; authorization to use the Preserve America logo on signs, flags, banners, and promotional materials; listing in a web-based Preserve America Community directory; inclusion in national and regional press releases;official notification of designation to State tourism offices and visitor bureaus; and enhanced community visibility and pride.
First Lady Laura Bush said, “"Preserve America promotes cultural and natural preservation and encourages greater appreciation of our national treasures - from monuments and buildings to landscapes and main streets. PresidentBush and I want every American, especially our children, to discover and learn about our Nation's heritage, a heritage our parents and grandparents bestowed upon us and that we continue to build upon."
The work I did prior to actually writing the application essays was painstaking. (The blank form is online at www.preserveamerica.gov.) I did hours of research to collect interesting facts about each community’s history and developed a working knowledge of its continued efforts in historic preservation, its management of its historic assets, its preservation education and its heritage tourism. The legwork required to obtain the information for the even simple check-box parts of the application was nothing short of a marathon effort. For weeks, I visited historic sites, conducted detailed interviews with each community’s public officials and met with historic preservation partners both in the public and private sectors. I also accumulated the documents and images that would support each individual nomination. In addition, the applications were backed by letters of recommendation from dozens of elected representatives, public officials, community leaders and respected private citizens – using a template as a suggested format, these too, had to be solicited, complied and verified.
The final phase of the application process consisted of creating and then writing the text for each nomination as a coherent, convincing “story.” My objective was to leave little or no room for rejection by the review committee at the Washington, DC office of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the independent Federal agency that advises the President and Congress on national historic preservation policy.
My work was 100% successful. On June 25, 2004, every one of the 24 applications
that I wrote was approved and, as a result, each of the communities is now proudly displaying the signage honoring it as a Preserve America community.
Winning nominations for the following towns and cities written by Anita Rafael -
MASSACHUSETTS
Blackstone
Douglas
Grafton
Hopedale * scroll down to see completed application
Leicester
Mendon
Millbury
Millville
Northbridge
Sutton
Upton
Uxbridge
Worcester
RHODE ISLAND
Burrillville
Central Falls
Cumberland
East
Providence
Gloucester
Lincoln
North
Smithfield
Pawtucket
Providence
Smithfield
Woonsocket
Project Writer: Anita Rafael: Research, text and compilation of supporting materials.
Preserve America Nominations
Dec. 2003-Feb. 2004
Sample of a completed Preserve America nomination. The facts and story line of each nomination varies greatly as every community has its own unique way of preserving and using its historic and cultural assets.
Preserve America Nomination for the Town of Hopedale, Massachusetts
Introduction The Town of Hopedale is located in the south-central part of the State of Massachusetts. It is one of the 24 communities along the Blackstone River Valley which were designated by Congress in 1986 as having national significance as "The Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution." Hopedale is a 5-square mile community of 6,000 residents whose industrial past is everywhere evident, but whose lifestyle today is largely suburban in nature. Hopedale was, in fact, conceived by Reverend Adin Ballou as a Christian-based "dale of hope" in 1841, making it unique among the towns in the region. The town's official founding in 1886 was because of the success of the Draper family in manufacturing mechanical looms for the textile industry, an enterprise spanning an entire century. Like several other small towns in the region that have easy access to Interstate 495 and Route 128, Hopedale is expected to grow rapidly within the decade. Hopedale's commitment to historic preservation is evident in its new listing on the National Register of Historic Places of an historic district that encompasses virtually the entire village - some 8000 acres in all.
Recent Project The Town of Hopedale has successfully undertaken a massive historic preservation effort in listing the village center on the National Register of Historic Places, a district recognized in 2002 as having some 600 significant homes, buildings, structures and items which are both publicly and privately owned. The sites have a period of significance ranging from 1825 to the late 20th century. In addition, the Town of Hopedale has begun a project, with public-private partnership support to develop a plan for restoration and purposeful use of an historic site known as the (Little) Red Shop.
In late 2002, the Town of Hopedale, with support from the Heritage Corridor and the volunteer participation of interested citizens, along with private, non-profit organizations known as the Friends of Historic Hopedale and Friends of Adin Ballou, plus town officials, and others, participated in the development of a preliminary planning report for the Red Shop. The Red Shop, locally considered an “icon,” was built in the mid-1840s. It is the first shop built by the community, and is the town’s oldest industrial remnant of an enterprise that shaped the town for nearly two centuries. It is a small wood-frame building that has been moved four times, as recently as the 1950s to a prominent location on town property. The 20’ x 90’ shop as it is now may, in fact, be only a portion of a structure that was originally larger, perhaps 2-stories with a cupola. It has had various uses - workshop for making machinery, sales room, storage shed, repository of artifacts, and until recently, as a museum. Only occasionally open, it is in disrepair and lacks heat and restrooms. The outcome of the project was a preliminary plan, published in March of 2003 that recognizes the unique potential of the Red Shop as a museum or educational facility and heritage attraction. The report also outlines a recommended plan of action to meet the goal of preserving the historical character of the building, enhancing its historical meaning and usefulness, as well as using the site to tell the story of Hopedale’s industrial past and the community’s role in the industrial development of the Blackstone River Valley region.
Fund-raising efforts and awareness-raising efforts regarding the Red Shop project are currently in progress. In 2002, for example, the Hopedale Junior/Senior High School used a mini-grant from the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce for a multi-disciplinary project which provided the students with a hands-on community-based learning experience about local history and the culture of a textile mill village. Students made and sold artistic representations of their study to benefit the Red Shop restoration project. In a current effort to bring to light the significance of the site, the Friends of Adin Ballou have included the Red Shop in a 16-page self-guided walking/ biking guidebook titled “Early Hopedale Community.” The book was funded in part by the Heritage Corridor.
Ongoing Project The Town of Hopedale in partnership with the Heritage Corridor, the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council and the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce participates in a Heritage Tourism Initiative which promotes historic and cultural sites by making use of its library, town hall, historic attractions and businesses as distribution points for brochures, maps, self-guided tours and literature of interest to residents and tourists. As part of a regional heritage and cultural cross-promotion network, the sites in Hopedale are part of a 150-site chain of distribution points throughout the Blackstone Valley. Additional information about Hopedale’s historic sites is available year-round at the Heritage Corridor Visitors Center in nearby Uxbridge and Mendon.
Additional Project The Town of Hopedale in partnership with the Heritage Corridor participates in a Heritage Tourism Initiative with Identity Signage, indicating it is part of the historically significant region known as the Blackstone River Valley. In the Town of Hopedale several interpretive signs provide visitors with information about historic sites and historic monuments in Hopedale.
Appended: Photography of Hopedale, MA.
Resolution The Town of Hopedale has adopted a resolution indicating its commitment
to the preservation of its historic assets.
Appended: Copy of resolution of Hopedale, MA.
Category 1 / Discovering
1.1 An ongoing publicly available inventory of historic properties.
The Town of Hopedale has a publicly available inventory of historic properties listed by the Massachusetts Historic Commission (MHC). The document is available at the local library, town hall, at the Heritage Corridor office, and at the MHC office in Boston, MA. An additional inventory was compiled and is updated by the Heritage Corridor office and is available to the public. Properties are selected for inclusion on the basis of their individual significance or their value as indicators of the town’s physical, social or economic development. More than 20 homes and buildings, plus a pre-settlement era archaeological site along the Mill River, have been identified as significant in the Town of Hopedale.
1.2 A community supported museum, interpretive facility, archive or local history
records collection. In the Town of Hopedale, the public library has taken an active role in archiving books and printed material related to the history of the town. The town has appointed local residents as curators who have begun collecting items as a first step towards establishing a new museum.
1.3 Active citizen volunteer involvement.
Citizen volunteers in the Town of Hopedale participate in several events related to fund-raising for the Red Shop restoration project and on behalf of a private, non-profit organization known as Friends of Historic Hopedale. Events at which volunteers are active include the annual Day In The Parks celebration, a town-wide “fair” coordinated by members of the Hopedale Cultural Council. The activities include historical walking tours, trolley tours, and horse-drawn-wagon tours of Hopedale’s historic sites. Volunteers also coordinate a holiday house tour of private historic homes in Hopedale to benefit local historic preservation efforts.
1.4 Opportunities for children to learn about local heritage in the schools.
In the Town of Hopedale, the public school system makes use of opportunities for children to learn about local heritage through its partnership with the Heritage Corridor. National Park Service Rangers present programming in local schools, and educators specializing in teaching local history are partnering with the Heritage Corridor to update and revise curriculum-based programs which meet the Massachusetts Board of Education criteria. Additionally, using the information contained a new, widely-distributed 60-page handbook titled “An Educator’s Guide To The Blackstone Valley - A Comprehensive Guide to the Cultural, Natural and Historic Resources Throughout the Blackstone River Valley” teachers in Hopedale can access in-school programs from all the museums and organizations listed. The publication is a project of the Blackstone Valley Educator’s Network in partnership with the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council and the Heritage Corridor.
In addition, a volunteer member of the current historical commission provides in-school programs about the history of Hopedale.
Appended: A postcard (promotional mailing) for a handbook which all educators in Hopedale, MA receive listing educational opportunities for in-school programs and field trips.
Category 2 / Protecting
2.1 A local government body such as a board or commission, charged with leading historic preservation activities.
The Town of Hopedale has a 7-member historical commission. It is a volunteer board, created by town ordinance, which leads historic preservation activities in the town. The board is made up of interested citizens and subject (history, architecture, folklore) experts. The board meets regularly and is charged, among its duties,with advising residents and other town agencies on preservation issues. Current initiatives include grant writing for the Red Shop project.
2.2 Adopted a community-wide historic preservation plan.
The Town of Hopedale has a current comprehensive plan was adopted in the early 1990s as mandated by Massachusetts state law. The document contains a section relating to use and preservation of historic and cultural resources. The plan was developed after extensive consultation with many constituencies, including residents interested in and committed to the preservation of the town’s historic and archeological resources. Additionally, the town acknowledges the guidelines of the regional management plan developed and adopted by the Heritage Corridor which includes historic and cultural sites in Hopedale. The town is currently updating its mater plan, as well.
Category 3 / Promoting
3.1 A local heritage tourism program or activity, or active participation in a regional program, with such promotional material as a walking/ driving trail or tour itinerary, map of historic resources, etc.
The Town of Hopedale promotes awareness of its historic assets and promotes heritage tourism though its Self-Guided Walking Tour. This self-guided walking tour highlighting how Hopedale's beginnings as a utopian community in the mid-19th century shaped its destiny is one of a series consisting of 27 similar publications distributed throughout the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor. The primary mission of the interpretive narrative is to tell previously untold stories about the community's past, present and future by highlighting the local people, places and events. With more than 20,000 copies in distribution to date, the brochure also successfully fulfills a secondary mission to reach heretofore untapped audiences giving them an opportunity to explore and enjoy the communities which form the Heritage Corridor. This brochure is particularly appealing to area residents, drawing them to discover more about the neighborhood in which they live and historic places in their hometown. Visitors find that the self-guided format gives them the option to explore and travel at their own pace, selecting sites that relate to their own tastes, interests and budget. Most importantly, the brochure combines a simplified map with an easy-to-follow tour itinerary for a short enjoyable stroll, especially suitable and safe for families with children of all ages, to seven sites in Hopedale that underscore the great textile empire and lifestyle created by the Draper family. A unique feature of this publication is the section titled "Along The Way" which appears on the back panel. The list of things to see and do nearby inspires even casual explorers to seek more information about the historic and cultural heritage of Hopedale while enticing them to visit other interesting historic sites and fun attractions. Updated as needed, this self-guided walking tour brochure continues in print and in circulation. Widely available year-round for free to residents and visitors to Hopedale, it is on display at the River Bend Farm Visitor Center in Uxbridge, at museums, libraries, hotels, and at other attractions throughout the town and the Heritage Corridor region. It is also available by mail through the Heritage Corridor Office located in Woonsocket, RI.
The initial project consisted of a partnership between community writers, local graphic artists,the Rhode Island Historical Society's Education Department and Graphics Library and the National Park Service Rangers of the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor and their project administrators. Several community organizations, such as the Hopedale Historical Society, the Hopedale Public Library, the Blackstone Chamber of Commerce, the Massachusetts State Historic Commission, and individual community residents supported the production of this walking tour of Hopedale by providing information, interviews, volunteer assistance, research materials, and graphic images in addition to volunteering advice and commentary on its content and accuracy. Funding is provided by the Heritage Corridor under its Interpretive Program.
Appended: brochure sample plus miscellaneous other publications/ material currently
in circulation to promote use of and appreciation of historic assets Hopedale, MA.
Appended: Letters of Recommendation to support nomination for Hopedale, MA.
Appended: CD of captioned images of Hopedale, MA.
NB: One of 24 Preserve America applications prepared by AR that were submitted and approved in 2004.
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