Bar Harbor, Maine

Our campsite near Bar Harbor has a gorgeous view; too bad Maine grows mosquitoes so gigantic! 








We really like the Bar Harbor area, especially the fresh lobster!  Charlie enjoys searching the tide line for sea glass and has had some degree of success during this trip.  In fact that's what he's doing right now as I sit in the Side Street Cafe writing this blog post.  This cafe has free wifi with a strong signal, but is very limited in handling large files like pictures.  But the music is great, the clientele interesting, and the waiters patient with me. 

The town of Bar Harbor itself is okay, but I like Camden better - our next stop.  So I'm not drawn to Bar Harbor's shops.  Nevertheless, it's drizzling today and the coffee shop is very comfortable, so I'm happy to let Charlie search for sea glass without me.  But I must find an occasion to wear my new boots!

I'd be remiss not to mention that I'm missing my girls and their families.  Love to all!

Vermont in the fall

We arrived in Vermont just as the leaves were changing.  Wow!  What a great feeling to see the change of the season. 

Quechee Gulch looks really beautiful with the addition of nature's fall colors.

We spent everyday of our time in Vermont by visiting Woodstock for at least part of the day.  What a
lovely town.  For those traveling without towing a camper like us, there are some amazing old hotels and B&Bs.  For those shopping for unique and beautiful crafts and artwork, there are many small shops to explore.  And for those who are content to window shop and walk the pretty streets (accompanied by many fellow baby boomers!), the streets are tree lined and pedestrian friendly.

Scotchie enjoyed himself in Woodstock too!

Maine -- Freeport and Booth Bay

We stayed in Freeport, Maine.  There really isn't much of interest to me in Freeport, but we did make the requisite visit to LL Bean store that started it all.  We enjoyed an awesome bowl of clam chowder there.  And Charlie struck a pose.



Leaving our campground in Freeport, we stopped for delicious cheeseburgers at a local restaurant.  They were great, almost as good as the home-made cinnamon-sugar donuts we had for breakfast!

And isn't this unusual?  I had never heard of a cattle pound.

We visited Booth Bay on our way to Bar Harbor. 

We were lucky enough to find the Booth Bay public parking lot virtually deserted, so we were able to easily park the Ford and camper.  It wasn't a particularly warm day, but to be on the safe side we decided to leave Scotchie in the camper instead of the Ford so he wouldn't get too warm.  So after some ado, we set out to walk along the hilly streets and look in the shops.  I bought myself a pair of rubber boots that seem perfect for Maine shores.  (And I think they're cuter than the ones at LL Bean.) 

We had a really nice time in the galleries and walking along the harbor.  Imagine our surprised when we got back to the parking lot -- back door of the Ford was left wide open! O M G!  Yet not one person had touched a thing.  I guess that is the blessing of sightseeing when everyone except other retirees is either at work or school!  Or maybe there simply aren't so many hooligans in Maine as in Maryland!  In any event, we vow to pay closer attention for the rest of the trip, since we also left our front door open when we left home!  (Thanks, dear daughter!)

This last picture is for our grandson who loves monster trucks!

Hello Vermont!

Enough of cemeteries for now.  We're on our way to Vermont.  We stayed at the Brattleboro KOA where I loved the wifi and loved the cable channels.  The weekend before our arrival, the KOA had hosted a vintage camper rally.  A few of the campers were still there.  Very cool, and very small.

The leaves are really changing here in Vermont, but there are still beautiful flowers in bloom.  Why do their blooms always seem to be most intense in the fall?  Special fun was stopping at a quilt shop i the cute town of Wilmington.  Since I don't have my sewing machine with me, I think I'll try my hand at some hand piecing in a crazy quilt manner.  It's fun on those nights when there is no wifi and no cable.

Spencers Towne

Charlie's mother was a Spencer from New York.  As with his paternal ancestors, his maternal ancestors arrived in North America in the 1600's.  We decided that during this trip we would drive to Spencertown, New York, to visit the place where his third, fourth, and fifth great-grandfathers lived.  Spencers Towne is now the borough of Spencertown within the town of Austerlitz.

Prior to our trip Charlie tried to connect via email with a Spencertown local involved with the historical society.  That didn't work out but our visit was more fruitful.  As we were exploring the area we came across the Malay Center, named after the town's Nobel Prize winning poet.  We were lucky enough to arrive at the center while an open-hearth cooking exposition was taking place.  Best of all, Charlie was given the contact information of the historical society expert to contact for information about the Spencertown's early settlers.

We walked through Spencertown Cemetery, circa 1760, located behind the Presbyterian Church.  We were only able to find one grave stone from the 1700's, that of Elizabeth Spencer who died in 1764.  I don't know what sort of stone her grave marker is carved from but it, and others from the same stone, has stood the test of time and remains easily readable. 










We stayed at a private campground nearby.  The campground itself was fine, but we were still irritated.  Firstly, we were told at check-in that it would cost us an extra $3 per day if we wanted to run our air conditioner.  Charlie asked and was told that even running a fan would cost the $3 fee.  I wonder what that works out to in dollars per kilowatt!  Then we awoke to a flat tire on the Ford.  Charlie changed it and we set out to find a local garage to fix the tire. 





We found a small garage owned by a fellow Charlie described as a gear head.  After the tire repair, Charlie toured the garage that held a fabulous collections of beautiful old cars, many of which were British sports cars - Charlie's favorite.  While he was doing that, I chatted with the nice woman who was busy detailing a car wearing cute wedge shoes and a fun necklace.  I liked that!

 They directed us to Dan's Diner, where we had breakfast.  The diner had been totally restored by Dan, right down to the ice box (now refrigerated).  We had a great time sitting at the counter listening to the locals gossip and joke with one another, even if my omelet was over-cooked.

Old Burying Ground, Long Island

The Hortons who inhabited Long Island in the early days were Congregationalists.  We used that knowledge, and some information offered by a woman who was cataloging the grave stones in the cemetery where Barnabas Horton was buried, to identify another cemetery to check out.

We were able to locate grave sites for second, third, and fourth generation Hortons in the Old Burying Ground, including this one who died in 1772.

Long Island, New York

I have traveled to Long Island before for business and once for a wedding.  But we didn't really know anything about the area.  Long Island is BIG.  And RURAL. Who knew that such a beautiful place existed so close to New York City??  The soil of Long Island must be very fertile.  Surrounding the quaint towns, we saw fields of sunflowers, and cabbage, and tomatoes, and pumpkins, and corn, and beans.  And fruit orchards.  Oh yeah, and field after field of grape vines.  There are more than 20 wineries on Long Island.  From our trip last year, we were familiar with the high number of wineries in the Finger Lakes area of New York, but we didn't have a clue that Long Island also was a wine region.

Long Island is edged by nice beaches -- duh.  It was disappointing to see that so many of them are private.  I am not familiar with private beaches, and I don't like the idea at all.  ("The sign said you got to have a membership car to get inside."  Five Man Electrical Band)  And those shores provide a smorgasbord of delicious seafood, some of which we sampled at the Southold Fish Market -- clam chowder with a fried cod sandwich and a fried oyster po-boy.

Barnabus Horton and his legacy at Southold, Long Island

Barnabas Horton is Charlie's 11x great-grandfather who arrived from England in 1638 and was one of the founders of Southold, Long Island.  Testaments to his influence as a founder of Southold are local landmarks such as Horton Lane, and Horton Point Lighthouse, and various historical markers.





The Horton Point Lighthouse was commissioned by George Washington in 1790 and was built in 1857.  Commemorating the contribution of Barnabas Horton, it now serves as the Southold Historical Society Nautical 
Museum.












Interestingly, Barnabas Horton brought his own tomb slab from England with him, anticipating that he would die in the colony without the services of a stone engraver.  It is beautifully engraved with a poem and has survived in large part because it was restored in the 1800's by one of his descendants.

The house of Barnabas Horton no longer stands, but the historical marker indicates its significance in Suffolk County history.

Irish citizens and miners

We drove to Pottsville to see what records we might find about my Irish ancestors' time in Pennsylvania.  I was excited to see the actual record of my great-great grandfather John Coates becoming a citizen of the United States.  It's odd to see him referred to as a subject of the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.

I was surprised to find out that this area of Pennsylvania was the place where the infamous union-busting brutality that the miners suffered at the hands of the coal mine owners and their hired thugs from Pinkerton.  Directly across the street from the county court house stand the jail where miners were hung.  This jail is an imposing site set on a slight hill and is still in use today.

Irish Immigrants in Tremont, Pennsylvania

From the Carroll Daily Herald (Iowa)
 Married at Tremont  Pennsylvania July 16 1883 by the Rev. Father McDevitt, William Coates of Carroll, to Miss Mary A Craddock of Tremont.  Tremont is the old town of the parties.  They arrived in Carroll July 21 and Wednesday, the twenty-fifth a large number of Mr. Coates friends in Carroll repaired to their farm near town and spent a most enjoyable evening.

So, how could I resist visiting Tremont?  Located along the railroad in Pennsylvania's coal country, Tremont was the home of many Irish and German immigrants who worked in the mines.  It is still a small town today where the churches outnumber the bars.  The houses share the architectural elements of those built in the 1800's and reflect the modest means of their inhabitants. 

We visited the Catholic cemetery in search of any Coates or Craddock headstones.  We only found one of Bridgette Coates.  She died in 1860 and her headstone was erected by her son John Coates.  That one grave site provided the only tangible evidence of my ancestors' past in the area, since a search of the public records showed that neither family owned land in the county.

I was struck by the abundance of Halloween decorations in light of the holiday being a full six weeks away.  The festivity of the decorations seemed to me to reflect an optimism that you may not expect in the depressed working neighborhoods.  During a stop at a nearby convenience store, the young man working the cash register greeted us and commented on the jam we were buying.  He then shared his recipe for making fruit topping for pies and the like.  He just coats fresh berries with sugar and mixes them together, poking the berries a little bit with his fork to release the juice.  Then he adds a little bit of cornstarch.  For strawberries, he uses brown sugar to give it a kick.  He said it is very easy and delicious.  I was left with a kind feeling toward the people of Tremont, but also with a thankfulness that my own ancestors left the coal field for the open fields of Iowa!

The Battle at Gettysburg: Where ancestors fought

September 19, 2014

Finally it’s departure day!  Estimated time of departure is noon.  And we almost made it too.  The problem?  The truck won’t start!  Dead battery.  Why?  Well, we packed the camper the night before and in the process of going in and out of the camper, we left lights on with the camper plugged into the truck overnight.  Some jumper cables and we were out of town with no more headaches.

Our first stop on this trip is Gettysburg National Battlefield.  The Gettysburg battle field is the focus of military historians due to its military importance in the Civil War and the human carnage that happened there over the course of those hot July days.  One of Charlie's ancestors was among those brave soldiers who fought there.  He was wounded in the battle fought at the apple orchard and what is now known as Sickles Lane.  One of the few soldiers from his unit who survived the battles at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, Elijah Horton was a Union soldier and is buried in McKune Cemetery in Oakland Township, Pennsylvania.

My ancestors who were in the United States at the time of the Civil War lived in South Carolina and fought for the Confederate States of America.  There is a road through the battle field that is called Confederate Lane because it was there that many southern soldiers assembled.  Although I am not aware that any of my ancestors fought in the Battle of Gettysburg, it was still unnerving to think of the number of these brave southern men who fought and died on those fields.  And for what cause?

Returning to our campsite, we were joined by old friends who shared dinner in Gettysburg and good conversation around the camp fire.  It was a really nice start to our trip!

Ireland blog entries -- What happened??

We had a GREAT time in Ireland and I was able to track down a bunch of genealogy leads.  But life (and procrastination) has gotten in the way of inputting my observations from the trip.  I will get back to documenting that adventure soon.  But for now, it's on to our fall 2014 camper trip!

Our travels go East -- across the pond to Ireland!

February 2014

Wow!  I'm finally going!  For years I've wanted to visit Ireland, the place of my paternal grandmother's people.  But why go if I don't know where in Ireland my ancestors lived?  Of course, it didn't have to be so hard to find out.  After all, my Aunt Kathleen traveled to Ireland in the 1970's.  I visited her in Montana a few years later and she showed me her photos with her first cousins there.  Now if only I had known that one day I would have an interest in all things genealogical.  But no; didn't think to ask any of the many questions I now have!  So I have no idea where she visited in Ireland and who those strangers were in the pictures.  But all was not lost!  I came across doodled notes from a phone call with my Dad from probably 20 years ago.  (By then, I must have had a inkling that my ancestors could be interesting.)  So with hints from my Dad and with the research I've done, the time is right.  And with a gift of tickets, let's go!