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2005—Ghost Story |
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(…concluded from previous page)
So we were tooling along Interstate 84, following the green-brick road to Hartford. As we crested the hill from which we could see the big Newburgh-Beacon Bridge over the Hudson River, the brake-lights of the cars ahead of us suddenly started to flash toward us like so many red dominoes, and traffic began to slow down. We turned on the radio and learned that a semi- trailer truck had jackknifed at the entrance to the bridge; we were counseled to “seek alternate routes.”
Got off the big highway and proceeded north, paralleling the west side of the Hudson, to the next bridge: U.S. 44 at Poughkeepsie. Consulted our map, and ascertained that Route 44 was the most direct path to our reserved sack in Hartford. Then noticed, not without a shiver, that going to Hartford by Route 44 would take us through Canaan and Winsted: towns neighboring Colebrook! At that moment it dawned on us that somebody wanted us to go there sooner and more surely than we’d planned. The Sandisfield/Colebrook neighborhood is well off the proverbial beaten track. It isn’t easy to get to, from any direction. You’re not likely to find yourself there by accident. But an accident firmed up our plans in a way we hadn’t anticipated. Before returning to Utah, we had documented the “Seven Little Stillmans” from their Colebrook gravestone, the only surviving record of their brief lives. And we made a stop, on their behalf, at the Nauvoo Temple. I’ve been moved to assert, since, that I might well recognize Uncle Robert or Aunt Zipporah Stillman, were I to meet them on the street... |
| Well, we reached Boston (the smoked fish in Vernon was scrumptious, both times) and settled in by the kindness of Chris and Mary Beth in their Somerville apartment. |
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In between Commencement events and other doings on our home ground, a little research identified Norton Fletcher of Sandisfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, as the past president of the Sandisfield Historical Society. A phone call to Norton revealed him as a charming, hospitable gentleman, eager to meet descendants of his community’s founding families. Such as my Stillmans and Smiths of the mid-1700s, who had brought their families to this frontier from Cape Cod and Connecticut, in search of new opportunities.
We set up a meeting for the 24th of the month, near the end of our planned Eastern stay. While Chris and Mary Beth were at work at Angell Memorial Hospital (where Chris ran the computers and Mary Beth dispatched the law enforcement folks of the Massachusetts SPCA), Valerie made the rounds of the fabric stores and drank in the Boston ambience. Meanwhile, I spent time (via Hepzibah) at the New England Historic Genealogical Society’s superb library on Newbury Street in the Back Bay, collecting what I could find about my Berkshire pioneer family, in preparation for the coming visit. |
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