According to a contemporaneous newspaper account, the citizens of Boonsboro, MD, decided in 1827 to build a monument to the young nation's first president.  This was a grassroots effort, and on July 4 of that year, most of the town's citizens assembled behind an American flag and paraded with a drum and fife corps to the summit of nearby South Mountain.  Using granite stones found on site, the citizens worked until noon and then held a dedication ceremony. They resumed work and by 4 p.m. the monument stood 15 feet high on a 54-foot circular base (pictured above). The day ended with the reading of the Declaration of Independence and a three-round salute fired by Revolutionary War veterans. Workers returned in September to finish the monument which stood 32 feet high upon completion.  Today, as then, visitors can climb to the top for a great view of the valley below.  (For some strange reason, we left there thinking about a nice glass of milk.)
    

"Find the large flat rock."

Before leaving the area, we talked to some hikers and took a short walk on the Appalachian Trail, which traverses the park.  Off the trail, we found a couple of letterboxes, including one which asked us to find the "very large flat rock" in an ocean of granite.  We were quite astonished when we actually uncovered the letterbox.
    
From Boonsboro, we drove ten miles to Sharpsburg to visit Antietam National Battlefield.  As in Gettysburg yesterday, we found the parking lot at Antietam pretty full.  Based on our positive experience with advice from a savvy ranger at Saratoga National Historical Park and our limited time, we asked one of the park rangers to point out the top priority sites on the driving tour.  He cited the cornfield, sunken road, and lower bridge, the three areas that were the centers of fighting during the battle, so those are the places we visited.
    
On September 17, 1862, more than 23,000 were killed or wounded at Antietam, the bloodiest single-day battle in U.S. history.  The First Texas Infantry lost 82% of their men killed, wounded or missing while fighting in Miller's Cornfield, the highest casualty rate for any Confederate regiment in one battle of the Civil War.
    
From dawn to 9:30 a.m., a storm of lead, iron and flame flew across a Maryland cornfield, as 27,000 troops engaged in a fierce battle.  By the end of fighting, more than 8,000 lay dead or dying.  Union General Hooker described the scene:  "Every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows precisely as they stood in their ranks a few moments before.  It was never my fortune to witness a more bloody, dismal battlefield." 
      

After the morning of slaughter at the cornfield, the battle moved to where the middle of the Confederate line was anchored on a track that locals called Sunken Road.  By the end of the day, this strip was known as "Bloody Lane," the site of an intense four hours of brutal fighting.
     
The third and last phase of the battle focused on the efforts of a greatly outnumbered Confederate force to hold onto a bridge that spanned Antietam Creek. Their success in delaying the Union capture of this critical junction allowed Confederate reinforcements to arrive from Harpers Ferry.  This addition to the Southern force, coupled with Union commander McClellan's errors in judgment, resulted in a stand-off at the end of the day.  The following day, with no clear victory for either side, Lee withdrew his army back into Virginia.
     

Confederate soldiers near Dunker Church  (image from Library of Congress)

Antietam was the first American battlefield photographed before the dead were buried, and the graphic images shocked the nation and the world.  The photo here of dead Confederate soldiers and a crippled artillery limber was taken by Alexander Gardner two days after the battle.
     

Battlefield Monument

In the midst of dozens of formal and traditional granite monuments on the battlefield was an unusual but meaningful tribute to Pennsylvania soldiers who fought at Antietam.  The inscription reads:  "Here fought the 90th Penna. (Phila.).  Sept. 17, 1862.  A hot place."
     
In an odd twist, we saw the park service implementing the flip side of restoration work we encountered at the Vicksburg (MS) National Military Park in January.  Whereas a large section of the Mississippi park had been deforested to restore it to its condition at the time of that battle, trees have been planted at Antietam in an effort to re-establish the forest which flourished here in September, 1862.
     
Our last major stop of the day was at Harpers Ferry, WV, just 14 miles from Antietam.  When we arrived, we tried to locate a tri-state marker at this spot where Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet, but all the locals we asked said there wasn't one.
     

Harpers Ferry

Standing at the crossroads where the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers meet before crashing their way through the mountains, Harpers Ferry has been the scene of many historic events.  In 1796, President Washington persuaded Congress to establish a federal arsenal and weapons production facility in the town, the genesis of its expansion and, later, of its destruction.  In 1803, the armory supplied Meriwether Lewis with weapons and other items his expedition party would need for their exploration of the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. 
     

Firehouse used as John Brown's fortress

     

Fifty-six years later, in 1859, the radical abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 raiders in an attack on the armory, hoping to capture weapons to be used in a widespread slave uprising.  Local militia penned the invaders in the armory's firehouse until U.S. Marines, under the command of Lt.Col. Robert E. Lee, arrived and captured Brown and his followers. Since this infamous event, the building has been vandalized by souvenir seekers, dismantled, taken on tour, and moved four times, before it was finally re-situated within 150 feet of its original location by the National Park Service in 1968.
     
Made desirable because of its armory, Harpers Ferry changed hands several times during the course of the Civil War.  Each time an occupying army left the town, fires were set to keep weapon-making capabilities out of the hands of the other side.
     
By the end of the war, what had been a prosperous town was a ghost of its former self.  Many years of rebuilding were needed and the town was never the same.  In 1944, most of the town became Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.  Since then a few businesses have grown up to serve tourists and outdoor enthusiasts who come to the area for such activities as rafting and rock climbing.
     
With its location near the midway point of the 2,181-mile Georgia-to-Maine Appalachian Trail, Harpers Ferry is home to the AT Conservancy, which coordinates maintenance and protection of the trail, as well as education and awareness activities.  Harpers Ferry is one of only a few towns that the trail passes through.

Appalachian Trail goes up the stairs.

Part of the path the trail takes through the town leads up a set of stairs past an old church, and uphill to Jefferson Rock overlooking the river.  While up in the area near the rock, we planted our West Virginia letterbox before leaving the town and the state.  Rain followed us all the way to Strasburg, VA, our stopping place for the night.
     

     

When we arrived at the visitor center at Gettysburg National Military Park, we found a ticket concession selling admission to a tour, museum, and/or cyclorama.  Hmmm.  We started at the gift shop to stamp our National Park "Passport," where we were amazed at the array of items for sale, including $4,000 replicas of Robert E. Lee's field desk, made with wood from "battlefield trees."  There were also hiking sticks made with wood from "battlefield trees," even specifying whether the wood came from a Confederate or a Union field position.  Wait.  This is a national park gift shop?

We were a bit confused.  So we headed to the desk with the INFORMATION sign.  There we met a friendly U.S. park ranger.  "What about our NPS pass?" we asked.  "Does it gain us admission to anything here?"
     
"The lobby," he replied.  Then he informed us that the NPS has partnered with a private vendor to operate the various activities at the site.  However, he did offer to usher us through a back door to the museum, and we happily accepted.
     
Two hours later, we left the excellent museum after seeing only a tiny portion of the park's more than one million artifacts from the Battle of Gettysburg.  The museum's interpretation of the battle provided an informative context of its importance within the war and in the broader picture of U.S. history, as well as detailing the events of the battle in archival documents, arms, and relics from the battlefield
     
In three days of fighting at Gettysburg, about 7,000 soldiers and 3,000 horses died on the battlefield—almost three times the population of the town.  More than 25 square miles of ground were littered with bodies.  No one present had ever seen death on such a scale. 
     
Gettysburg was the deadliest battle of the war.  "We could not open our windows for weeks because of the horrible stench," one Gettysburg resident was quoted as saying.  An exhibit at the museum puts faces to the names of some of the Americans who were killed in the battle.
     

The stove, cot, medical chest and field desk that traveled with General Robert E. Lee during the invasion of Pennsylvania are among the many artifacts on exhibit at the museum.  Lee's modest headquarters did not reflect his importance to the Southern cause.  In contrast, General Meade, the Union commander at Gettysburg, set up his HQ in a local farmhouse.
     
An entire room of the museum was devoted to Abraham Lincoln's acclaimed "Gettysburg Address."   While the speech through the lens of history is praised for its classical elegance and heartfelt emotion, it was roundly criticized for its brevity and "inappropriateness" by some newspaper accounts in the days after it was delivered.
     

By the time we left the museum, rain was steadily falling.  After checking out and rejecting the visitor center restaurant, we went to the car and put together an automotive picnic of peanut butter sandwiches and a small bag of chips (something we rarely eat, purchased at the visitor center for $1.59).

      
Then we walked in the rain to the Soldier's National Cemetery where that 10-sentence, two-minute speech was delivered.  Although the visitor center was crammed with more than 500 tourists, only three other people were strolling in the foot-traffic only cemetery on this rainy day.
     
We continued our Gettysburg visit with part of the 24-mile driving tour, stopping at some of the critical locations and the sites of various state memorials before visiting The Horse Soldier, a local military memorabilia shop, to look for a letterbox. The business was started by a local couple in 1970 from relics their kids found on the family farm.  They set up a card table in their living room and sold artifacts from there before opening a shop.

   

Photos of soldiers who died in the Battle of Gettysburg

The collection of items in their inventory was remarkable, from the Civil War era and other periods.  We ended up getting a good look at much of the merchandise as we wandered around the two-room shop for half an hour searching for the letterbox.  After the first 15 minutes, we asked the shop owner a coded question which would tell us if she was aware of the letterbox.  She was but told us we had to locate it ourselves.  At that point, we felt we had to spend whatever time it took to find it because she was so earnest and really wanted us to "win the prize."  And what a prize it was.  The stamp was an intricate carve, specific to Gettysburg and its history.  By the time we finally located it and stamped in, we felt quite obligated to make a purchase from the kindly shop owner and we did.

Gettysburg is full of shops catering to the tourist industry.  With more than 3 million visitors  per year, tourism is the top industry in Adams County.  Regardless of the profusion of tourist shops, we found the national park's interpretation of those awful three days in July, 1863, to be dignified and profound.

A short drive from Gettysburg took us to Hagerstown, MD, where we learned that the internet service at our hotel was down.  Ah, well, in light of what we had just learned about, it was less than a minor inconvenience.

     

Arriving in the city of Lancaster, our first stop was at Greenwood Cemetery, where Ohio's Safari Man had planted some new letterboxes recently.  We located boxes #1 and #2, but box #3 was protected by an ocean of chest-high stinging nettle, which the planter could not have foreseen in February, so we decided not to attempt it.
     
In the meantime, we had discovered that President James Buchanan was buried in the cemetery next to Greenwood, so we headed over to visit him.  The only president from Pennsylvania and the only president to remain a lifelong bachelor, Buchanan had the misfortune to be in office when seven Southern states seceded in 1860.  As a result of his response (or lack of response) to this growing national crisis near the end of his term in office, Buchanan is routinely judged to be among the least effective U.S. presidents.
     

President Buchanan's marker at Woodward Hill Cemetery

His final resting place in Woodward Hill Cemetery in Lancaster is a humble marker in a neglected graveyard.  When we arrived, there was a wreath of dead flowers perched in front of the marker, which a local garden club maintains.  Of all the presidential tombstones we have seen on this journey, Buchanan's is certainly the least impressive.
     
By this time, we had been in Lancaster for a couple of hours and still had not seen any Amish buggies.  When I pointed this out to Ken—repeatedly, he patiently explained—again—that Amish people are often farmers and probably do not live in a city of 60,000 people like Lancaster.  Rather they live in Lancaster County.  Realizing that I wouldn't stop until I saw someone Amish, Ken decided to drive a bit further east.  Bingo!  We found Amish country.
     

Lancaster County sight

The whole Amish Country obsession just fascinates me.  More than seven million tourists flock to Lancaster County, PA, each year to gawk at 22,000 Amish residents as they go about their daily lives.  Two questions immediately come to mind.

1.  Why are we non-Amish so obsessed with staring at these simple-living, plain-dressing folk?
2.  Why are these simple-living, plain-dressing folk willing to be the objects of such overblown curiosity? 

A bit of research turned up some useful information.  Apparently, while the non-Amish locals (including Mennonites) have learned to capitalize on the general public's fascination with the Amish way of life, the simple living folk themselves do not engage in the tourist enterprise.  They do, however, produce quilts and other crafts which are sold to tourists in shops owned by other locals.  And make no mistake.  This is an area that caters to the tourist trade, from B&Bs to themed amusement parks (Dutch Wonderland) to countless gift shops (e.g., Amish Stuff, etc.), where you can purchase salt and pepper shakers that look like an Amish couple with spices sprinkling out of their heads. 

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not criticizing the 7 million.  I found myself caught up in Amish stalking, too.  "Follow that buggy!"  I exclaimed over and over, until finally Ken suggested that there might be a twelve-step program that could help me.

"Hi.  My name is Dianne and I'm an Amish stalker."

That bit of perspective was the wake-up call I needed.  I finally agreed that it was time to leave Amish country and edge back toward the modern world, driving toward Hanover, our stop for the night in anticipation of visiting Gettysburg tomorrow.  

MONDAY, 7 MAY 2012

Amish garage.  Note bicycle scooter

Amish horse-drawn milk tanker

Laundry day

On this spectacular Sunday, we veered into the EXIT ONLY lane on the history highway and found ourselves heading south on a geography journey.  We started the day searching for a couple of letterboxes in Oneonta, but both turned out to be hidden in singularly unsavory locations.  After finding the first behind a restaurant near the garbage and used grease storage (yuck!), we bailed when we discovered that the next box by the same planter would take us onto what was clearly private property in an overgrown area near abandoned buildings.  Fool us once, yes, but not twice.  Starbucks seemed a better idea, but the only location in Oneonta was in the student union on a college campus and didn't open until noon, so south we went.
   

Although we realize what a pest it is, the lowly dandelion provided some beautiful scenic vistas (sample above) as we drove through the foothills of the Catskills.  Broad fields of yellow blooms at the feet of rolling tree-covered mountains.  The blue sky contrast completed the picture perfect scene.

Shortly after noon, we took an inventory of our grocery holdings in the car in search of lunch, since none of the towns we were passing through seemed to be filled with healthy offerings.  We came up with an apple and a raw sweet potato, both of which we peeled and sliced.  Add some raw almonds and seeded multigrain crackers, and we've got lunch.  Though we both were happy with this meal, we laughed, musing that no one else would probably have found it appealing.

When we started the day, we still had letterboxes to plant in New York, New Jersey (yes, we were going to get close enough to get this one checked off), and Pennsylvania.  Having discovered a point on the map where all three states meet, we thought it might be fun to hide the three boxes within close proximity to each other but in different states.  Ken had determined that Port Jervis, NY, was the place to find the tri-state marker, so we set the GPS for that location.
     

A drive through Laurel Grove Cemetery on a peninsula in the Delaware River leads you to a spot under an I-84 bridge across the river.  Beneath the bridge is a New York-New Jersey boundary marker, put there in 1884.  About 75 feet away is the tri-state marker on the shore of the Delaware River allegedly marking the place where New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania join, even though the actual border is said to be in the middle of the river.

We were fascinated by all the activity in this popular tri-state area.  Another couple was there when we arrived, and the guy, a congenial New Jersey native, told us about a photo of himself taken on the tri-state monument back in the 1980s, when he was in his teens. He insisted on taking a photo of us sitting on the marker, ensuring that we positioned ourselves so that the marker could be seen.  Nearby a dad and his two daughters were trying their hand at fishing, while couples romancing in the adjacent parking lot came and went.
     

Finding no likely place to hide our letterboxes near the tri-states site, we thought we'd put the New York box in Laurel Grove Cemetery.  However, the burial yard was a study in contrasts.  In the area around the graves, grass was neatly clipped and meticulously maintained, making it difficult to find a location to hide a letterbox.  On the other hand, the periphery of the cemetery was a hotbed of poison ivy, not a great host for a letterbox either.
     
On to plan B, or maybe it was C, by now.  Across the Delaware River was a very special location-- the highest point in New Jersey.  And there was even a state park to commemorate it.  We were really just looking for a place to plant these boxes at this point, especially the New York and New Jersey ones.  Tonight's resting place was in Pennsylvania.  If we didn't find a home for the NY and NJ boxes, we'd end up taking them home with us.
     
Frankly not expecting much, we were blown away by New Jersey's High Point State Park in Sussex.  From the summit at 1,800 feet, the view is a panorama of rich farmland and forest in three states.  At the top is a 220 foot obelisk, completed in 1929.  During the summer season, visitors can climb to the top for spectacular views of the Catskills to the north and Poconos to the west. 
     
Of course, we couldn't resist searching for a letterbox planted near the apex.  By the time we found it around 4:30, we had to skip the other two boxes planted in the park and return to the task of finding homes for our own NJ and NY boxes.  Since Ken has an affinity for the Appalachian Trail and it traverses the park, the combination seemed the ideal fit for our NJ box.  None of the other boxes in the park were near the AT, so everything fell into place.  The NJ box found an cozy home along the legendary trail.
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But we still had to locate a residence for our NY box because we were about to leave the state.  We tried tracing the AT into NY, but it was only a very brief stretch and totally unsuitable, as the trail wound through an ocean of poison ivy.  What to do?  What to do?

In the nearby town of Unionville, we located a charming village cemetery.  As in the other New York cemetery we visited earlier, everything seemed to be either obsessively manicured or covered in poison ivy.  Finally, Ken pointed to the perfect spot, and our letterbox slipped right in, a perfect fit.

At last, we were free to go to Pennsylvania.  Our drive down I-81 in both New York and Pennsylvania today proved to be just as picturesque as that highway is through Virginia.  We finally arrived at our hotel in Wilkes-Barre around 7:30 with two boxes planted and Pennsylvania still to go.  No problem.  As Miss Scarlett said, "Tomorrow is another day."

DAILY STATS

• Mountains:  237
• Bugs hitting our windshield:  7,291
• Rejected sites for letterbox plants:  6

     
Last night as we were sketching out plans for the remaining ten days of this trip, we suddenly realized that we had completely forgotten Prayer Rock.  Planted in April, 1998, Prayer Rock is one of the two oldest letterboxes in the United States.  How could we forget Prayer Rock, especially after we successfully searched for Max Patch, the other original box in North Carolina on this very trip?
    
Checking the map, we discovered that we had been within 38 miles of Prayer Rock yesterday when we were in Ticonderoga.  The box is located near the town of Bristol, Vermont, at the site of a most unusual local landmark (pictured above).
    
On the bank of the New Haven River just outside Bristol, a huge boulder sits at the very edge of the roadside, so close that the corner of the massive rock is painted white to help drivers avoid hitting it as they pass by.  Engraved on the rock is the text of the Lord's Prayer. Inspired by hieroglyphic inscriptions he had seen while traveling in Egypt, Buffalo physician, Joseph Greene, paid a carver to do the job in 1891.  The most popular legend to explain this unusual act was that Greene frequently stopped there as a boy when he delivered logs to a Bristol sawmill.
     
It didn't take us long to decide that we wanted to go to Bristol today.  The opportunity to find both these legendary letterboxes in one trip was one we couldn't pass up.  So this morning we packed up and headed back north, driving to the new Lake Champlain Bridge in Crown Point to get over to Vermont.
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Lake Champlain bridge (opened in 2011)

Fortunately, Bristol was only 20 miles away when we reached the eastern side of the lake.  To prolong the anticipation, we decided to stop at Greenwood Cemetery west of Bristol to search for a series of three letterboxes there.  After all, this was Prayer Rock, an old and revered treasure in the world of American letterboxing.  We couldn't just rush into it.
     

Greenwood Cemetery

Having found the boxes at Greenwood, we moseyed into Bristol and shopped for a few groceries for a picnic lunch.  Then we looked around the village a bit and finally drove east out of town in search of the big rock.  Even though the prayer was on the opposite side from our approach, the giant slab was hard to miss.  As luck would have it, there was even a small parking area next to it.
     
The river was pretty tame today, but we could see that at times it grows much larger.  We checked out the engraving and read the clue for the letterbox.  Following each step carefully, we soon had it in our hands—Prayer Rock!  Sadly the container was half full of water, but the contents were still safe and sound thanks to multiple layers of ziploc bags.
    
In the interest of full disclosure, we have to say that this is not the original Prayer Rock letterbox.  That veteran of many finds floated down the river in a flood in 2007, just before its tenth birthday.  Since the original planter, the Vermont Viking, was deceased by that time, another letterboxer replanted Prayer Rock in his memory, presumably with a stamp that matched the original.  So the spirit of the original lives on, and finding it today was still a thrill.
     
After relishing this treasure, we retraced our steps back south and drove on to Oneonta, New York, for the night.  Tomorrow we'll return to Pennsylvania on our way to Gettysburg.
      

We stopped along the way to search for letterboxes and enjoy the scenery and arrived in Ticonderoga to visit a couple of forts involved in significant Revolutionary War battles. Unfortunately we were five days early.  The forts open for the summer season next week.
     
Stopping in at the local Burleigh Luncheonette in Ticonderoga was like stepping back into the 1960s.  Not only was the decor a retro fest, even the prices reflected an earlier time.  While seated on our stools at the counter having lunch, we had a great visit with a friendly local guy named Patrick, who shared some insider information about the area.  For example, he told us that, like many other parts of the country, Ticonderoga had a mild winter this year with only 25" of snow instead of the usual 75".
     

Patrick and Ken

Driving back down to our hotel in the town of Lake George, we tried out the "Northway" (I-87), another scenic route, finding a few more letterboxes and enjoying the picturesque vistas.
     
When the most exciting event of the day is encountering a 12" turtle in a cemetery, there's not too much to report about.  That is not a complaint.  We'll gladly take an ordinary day over one when unwarranted guests arrive at our hotel room door for a little Q & A.
     

Tomorrow, we'll head south, the beginning of the end of this journey.

Holding vault used to store remains when frozen ground prevents winter burials

     
Our day started with a visit to the Saratoga Monument in nearby Schuylerville.  One hundred years after the pivotal American victory in the Battle of Saratoga, local citizens united to build a 155-foot granite monument to honor the victory.  Unfortunately, visitors cannot climb the stairs to the top until summer season begins on Memorial Day.

We letterboxed our way from the memorial to the Saratoga National Historic Park in nearby Stillwell.  Fully expecting to be met with another "Open Memorial Day to Labor Day" sign, we were pleasantly surprised to find the historic park open.  One of the friendly park rangers greeted us and eagerly shared some informed tips on how to make the most of the driving tour, even if we didn't have time to drive the entire route.  We continue to be impressed with how knowledgeable the park rangers are at the sites we have visited. 

From the visitors center we could see a group of middle schoolers getting a lesson on colonial battle styles, and the ranger advised us about when the student groups would be changing activities and the noise level to expect when that occurred.


Not that we wouldn't love to hang out with a group of adolescents, but we took off for the driving tour while they were still at the visitor center.  At stop 4 on the driving tour is a spot where Benedict Arnold was wounded in the leg.  A century after the event, John Watts de Peyster, a New York author and military critic who had wrangled a position in the Saratoga Monument Association, donated a memorial known as the Boot Monument to commemorate Arnold's wounding at the battle.

     

As the man whose name has become synonymous with treachery and treason in American history, Arnold is not mentioned by name on the monument.  Rather, de Peyster offered this glowing anonymous tribute:


Returning to Saratoga Springs, we visited Saratoga Spa State Park, which we found to be quite a cut above the typical state park we have encountered.  With luxury facilities, two golf courses, two theaters, and at least two baths and museums, the park has been recognized as a National Historic Landmark.
   
While at the park, we located a couple of letterboxes, one in a forest that was littered with tiny maple trees, about 2 inches in diameter and 15 to 20 feet tall.  The other was near a golf course and spring.  Close to the box location, we spied a groundhog, who scampered quickly away as we walked in his direction.  Returning to the car, we spied another groundhog, who ran to the edge of a grove of trees and stopped.  He watched us as I crept ever closer, taking photos of him.

Finally I reached his tipping point and he darted down into his tunnel, which, unbeknownst to us, was right in front of where he had stopped to stare us down. It certainly was humbling to be outwitted by a woodchuck.
     
After an excellent lunch at Wheatfield's and one last letterbox in Saratoga Springs, we headed north for Lake George where we'll spend the next couple of days.  Between the two towns lay the Grant Cottage, where Ulysses S. Grant spent his final days.  Following the signs to the Grant Cottage from the town of Wilton, we were scratching our heads when the signs pointed the way to the guardhouse for Mt. McGregor Correctional Facility.
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When we told the guard we would like to visit the Grant Cottage, he barked that it wasn't open and when we asked, he replied that of course, we couldn't just drive by it, so we continued to Lake George.  After arriving at our hotel, we did our laundry, ate our dinner from the local grocery store salad bar, and rested up for some exploration of the Adirondacks tomorrow.

     

Our next idea for the letterbox was the village of Newfane (pop. 116).  Centered around a village green, the town features a collection of white clapboard buildings in the Greek Revival style with dark green shutters and trim.  This architectural consistency and the town's meticulous maintenance of these 19th century structures earned the village a listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
   

Though we found the compact village charming and attractive, there were no quiet corners where someone might locate a letterbox unobserved.  We found no park or cemetery near the village center, so we moved on, still searching for the perfect spot for our homeless letterbox.

Finally we chanced upon Townshend State Park located at the foot of Bald Mountain on a bend in the West River.  A project of the New Deal era's Civilian Conservation Corps, the park was completed in 1938.  Stones quarried from the surrounding forest were used to construct the 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.
     

When we finished letterboxing and exploring the cemetery, we went next door to Hildene, the summer home of Robert Todd Lincoln from 1905 to his death in 1926.  The house was home to Lincoln's descendents until 1975, when it was willed to the Christian Science Church.   After the church was unable to afford the upkeep on the 500-acre estate, a group of local residents banded together to keep Hildene out of the hands of developers.
     

Trained as a lawyer, Abraham Lincoln's only child to survive to adulthood practiced law in Chicago, eventually becoming general counsel to the Pullman Palace Car Company, manufacturer of the luxury "sleeping car" for railroads.  Upon the death of founder George Pullman, Lincoln became president of the company and served in that capacity until his death in 1926.

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." 

Hildene Garden

Behind Lincoln's Hildene house was a formal garden, a gift from Lincoln's daughter Jessie to her mother.  Jessie envisioned the garden as an American version of the French parterre, with closely-cropped privet hedges laid out to resemble a stained glass window when seen from her mother’s second floor sitting room. Each section of the garden would bloom in a different color.

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.
     
TUESDAY, 1 MAY & WEDNESDAY, 2 MAY 2012