What a Difference a State Makes!
On the History Highway, Day 49: Brattleboro, VT to Saratoga Springs, NYYesterday we put our nightmare and Manchester, NH, behind us and drove to Brattleboro, VT, where we had spent some time a couple of years ago on a trip through this area. Rain fell all day, and while that normally wouldn't keep us from letterboxing, we both had projects that needed attention. So we spent much of the day in our hotel room and took a break from sightseeing and letterboxing.
This morning we were ready to hit the road, and locating a placement for our Vermont letterbox was at the top of our priority list. Our first attempt was at the Dummerston covered bridge, built in 1872. While we found the bridge fascinating, there was no safe place to hide the box without risk of its dropping down into the West River, so we pressed on.
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Dummerston Covered Bridge |
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Windam County Court House in Newfane |
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Townshend State Park Visitor Center |
The park provided the perfect setting for a letterbox home—rock-strewn hills populated with towering hemlocks and hardwoods. Since the park is officially open only from Memorial Day to Labor Day, we found a cozy spot close to the entrance, where off-season day users can easily access it.
For the first time on this trip, we had been without cell service for more than an hour as we left the park. Normally this would not be an issue, but we've become completely dependent on our letterboxing app, Clue Tracker, to locate boxes and access clues. And having become accustomed to being able to search any time, anywhere, neither of us had saved (for offline use) clues for the places we'd be passing through on our way to New York.
It was still misting rain as we passed through Jamaica, VT, where we knew there were letterboxes. Still with no service, there was nothing to do but continue driving through the Green Mountains enjoying the stellar scenery.
Finally as we turned back south near Manchester (VT, not NH!), we connected with a cell tower again and immediately searched for letterboxes nearby. It turned out that Manchester (VT, not NH!) is home to Robert Todd Lincoln's homestead, Orvis, and lots of letterboxes.
Our first letterboxing stop in Manchester (VT, not NH!) was Dellwood Cemetery, a beautiful graveyard with burials dating back to the early 1800s. We ran into the cemetery superintendent while there and he told us that the graveyard was originally in the center of town, but in the late 1700s, someone donated this piece of property to the city for a cemetery, so a group of women in the town banded together to disinter the folks in the original burial yard and move their remains and headstones to the new site. He also pointed out some interesting markers, such as the angel erected by a grieving wife after her husband committed suicide following the 1929 stock market crash.
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Dellwood Cemetery |
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Robert Todd Lincoln's Hildene |
In a very odd coincidence, Robert Todd Lincoln was once saved from injury or even death by Edwin Booth, the brother of John Wilkes Booth, who would later assassinate Lincoln's father. The incident occurred shortly before Abraham Lincoln's assassination. In Jersey City, New Jersey, Robert Todd Lincoln stood among a group of passengers waiting to board a train. The train began to move, and Lincoln was pressed by the crowd over the edge of the platform and might have fallen under the train had he not been grabbed by the collar and jerked back upon the platform by Edwin Booth, a famous actor of the day.
As Lincoln described the scene: "Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name."
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Hildene Garden |
After touring the house and garden for two hours (and finding some letterboxes there), we finally made our way to a local restaurant, Spiral Cafe, for lunch about 3:45. They served a great healthy meal, giving us the opportunity to leave Manchester (VT not NH!) with just the boost we needed to send us on our way to New York.
We headed toward Saratoga Springs, finding a few letterboxes along the way, and checked in at our hotel around seven.
More Photos from Today
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Do you flip a coin to determine which way to park? |
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Kitchen scene at Hildene |
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Linen closet at Hildene |
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Hildene's player organ and some of its 250 song rolls |
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Abe Lincoln's stovepipe hat on exhibit at Hildene (one of only three existing) |
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One of Vermont's smoooooth unpaved roads |