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Hartford, VT → Lincoln, NH → Rochester, NY 575.0 mi (925.4 km) |
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Let’s shake off the slumber, everyone!
After sticking to Vermont all day yesterday, today I’m keeping my adventure on the other side of state lines, because I’ve got some exploring to do in New Hampshire! After saying “So long” to the lovely AirBNB I enjoyed for three nights, I headed east with little time to cover lots of ground! As usual!
My first stop was Concord, capital of New Hampshire, to see my 33rd capitol building! New Hampshire may be the 7th smallest US state, but it’s got the largest legislature with 400 members! In the English-speaking world, only the US House and British Parliament are larger! That means more representatives and more voices heard! This is partly because New Hampshire was the only of the 13 colonies to be forced to self-govern when Charles II split it off of Massachusetts! Today, apart from having a huge legislature, New Hampshire’s the only state whose executive branch is shared by a Governor and Executive Council, partly because of deep-seated distrust of autocracy!
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If that didn’t shake things up, my next stop was sure to to the trick. Further north in Merrimack County is the Canterbury Shaker Village, a National Historic Landmark! It’s one of the oldest and best preserved villages left in the US belonging to the United Society of Believers, the “Shaking Quakers” or Shakers!
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So how exactly did the Shakers shake things up? Well, for starters, they broke with most other Protestants by making communal song and dance a core part of their services! Dancing together at church while preaching the equality of genders and the importance of pacifism, simplicity, and celibacy, they weren’t super popular with other Christians. So, after emigrating to the US in 1774, the Shakers formed their own communities from Maine to Kentucky!
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This 1793 Dwelling House hearkens back to the height of this village when it spanned 3,000 acres and counted 300 residents! This 56-room building at various points housed the village butcher shop, library, school, and kitchen! It was an active residence as recently as September 1992 when the last Canterbury Shaker, Ethel Hudson, passed on. In short, this village was an active, working village for 200 years!
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The village was entirely self reliant, both cultivating its own food and generating income through agriculture and crafts! This building was a syrup shop and might actually be the oldest building here, built by Benjamin Whitcher, whose farm first accepted the Shaker community in 1783! Not for making sweets, this shop specialized in medicinal sarsaparilla syrup, which was useful as an anti-inflammatory!
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As I passed by the gardens, still cultivated by the Concord Food Co-Op, I looked back at the majestic, orange Sisters’ Shop! In this multi-use building, the ladies of the village could learn music, do weekly confessions, and meet the tailoring for the entire village!
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But from there, it was a simple path ahead. As the Shakers would sing, “‘Tis a gift to be simple,” so the Turning Mill Pond Trail seemed like a fine way to experience the natural beauty that drew the Shakers to this corner of New Hampshire now 230 years ago!
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The area around this human-made pond was super lush with cinnamon ferns! The ground was soft, and the path was kind of hard to locate at times, which made me worry a little about ticks. I didn’t encounter any though!
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What I did encounter was this teepee-shaped structure, probably not historical, but worth noting as a beaver! It was very strategically placed next to the pond for easy ins and outs and maximum access to tasty trees!
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But then the trees cleared for a lovely view across the pond, constructed in 1817! While today, it makes for a picturesque vantage point to take in the beautiful reflections of the village, the pond and its dams helped run mills and generate power for machines! They really made the most of their space!
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And then I was over the wall connecting to the dam, mighty fine building work, if I do say so myself. Then, it was a pleasant stroll through the wildflowers back up to the village, the simple gift of a calm morning indeed! This whole area seemed so idyllic, I wondered what became of the Shakers. Since theirs was a celibate community, they have relied on converts to keep the movement going, which means their once widespread network of 19 communities has dwindled to one single village at Sabbathday Lake in Maine. Nonetheless, this last stronghold is still hopping, and maybe my travels will take me there one day!
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But first, I had a historical landmark to visit up north, the kind that shook things up in a different way. About an hour north of the Canterbury Shaker Village is the site of the Betty and Barney Hill incident, America’s first widely reported UFO abduction report! It wasn’t originally widely reported, though. The Hills only told the Air Force about the lights that followed them down Route 3 on the night of September 19, 1961 and the two hours that disappeared from their watches. It was just one of 12,618 sightings the Air Force had collected through its Project Blue Book program between 1947 and 1969, until the Boston Traveler leaked their story in 1965, giving birth to UFO culture: gray aliens stealing folks for experimentation and wiping their memories!
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And then I felt like time had been stolen from me! I was 4 hours from the Amtrak station with my train to Rochester scheduled to depart in… 4 and a half hours! Hoo boy, I could have used some extraterrestrial transport. Where was the Alien from Po-Pohl when I needed it?! I careened across the White Mountains, pausing just long enough to get a breath of fresh, mountain air at Beaver Pond, for obvious reasons, then zooming across three states, pulling up to the airport, hailing a ride share, and sliding onto my Amtrak train with but ten minutes to spare! Whew, my whole body was shaking!
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It was a shame I didn’t budget more time in New Hampshire, because I had to blaze past a lot of cool stuff. Maybe I’ll find a way back if I can get in touch with the Alien, or the regular method, but for now, I’m heading back to Rochester where I plan to celebrate my birthday tomorrow!
We’ll see how that shakes out!
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Total Ground Covered: 1,240.5 mi (1,996.4 km) |
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