Author Archives: mdw

CIA Festivities

I arrived at the Airbnb in Highland at 6:00, and everyone else had an ETA of 7:30, so I walked to Poughkeepsie across a former railroad trestle that’s been repurposed as the Walkway Over the Hudson.

The Airbnb is a newly renovated house right on the river. Deer roam around outside. It’s quiet and peaceful, except for the trains that pass by every two to three hours, 24 hours a day.

The first night was Anna’s final night working at the restaurant on campus. We had dinner there and sat where we could make faces at her through the glass (aka the fishbowl). There were many desserts.

Graduation was the next morning. Anna’s boyfriend Will was there ahead of us to save seats and procure the extra ticket we needed. “Where there’s a Will, there’s a way,” I said, wittily. Everyone silently appreciated my joke.

Afterward, there was a reception with a seemingly endless supply of free food catered by the students. Twelve tables of high-quality comestibles. In an all-you-can-eat situation, you have an obligation to eat all you can, and I believe I met that obligation.

But the day took a dark turn that evening when we took Anna back to her dorm. CIA Security had blocked off one of the entrances, but we couldn’t see that until we had turned off of the highway. Not wanting to back out onto the highway, Rick moved the barricade and we went through.

We were spotted by CIA Security, who followed us to the dorm in a car and one of those golf cart things. It was a little touchy at first, but the security guys were somewhat placated when they found out that Rick had replaced the barricade after we went through.

Really, it was just the guy in the car who seemed concerned. The guy in the cart was pretty mellow. (Eric: “I’m sorry we caused you all this trouble.” Security guy in cart: “Oh, I don’t care.”)

Fun fact: The security people have brass lapel pins that say C.I.A. SECURITY.

Life in a Jar

Danbury, Connecticut

Sadly, Danbury’s wondrous military museum is long gone. However, I did see a 38-foot-tall Uncle Sam. It would be the world’s tallest, but there’s an identical one in Ottawa Lake, Michigan.

The World’s Tallest Uncle Sam Outside of Michigan

Mark Twain House

As I was mapping my route to New York I noticed a Mark Twain House in Hartford. That seemed worthwhile, so I went. This is the house Twain had built once he was a successful writer. He and his family lived there from 1874 to 1891, when Twain went broke investing in a typesetting machine called the Paige Compositor. The adjacent museum has the only remaining Compositor in existence.

The house is very grand, with art and architectural elements from around the world. Oddly, Twain did most of his writing in the billiard room.

Harriet Beecher Stowe lived next door, and her house also has tours, but was closed.

Doesn’t Really Seem That Young

Ancestors at Large

Ezekiel Wells and Mary Foster Wells died in Simsbury eight days apart in 1762. Their children Israel and Abiah were then raised by Mary’s parents Israel Foster and Ruth Bridges Foster. Ruth died in Simsbury in 1778. Israel Foster died in Simsbury in 1779. Abiah died in Simsbury in 1785.

None of them are in the Simsbury Cemetery.

They really should be in there somewhere

It’s not a small cemetery, but I checked every row back to where most headstones were from the 20th century. Along the way, I noticed that all of the headstones from before about 1820 were of darker stone, so I went back to the first row and rechecked every headstone of that type.

There were some that were so worn or damaged that they were unreadable, but those were either individual graves or in a group associated with a different family (not Wells, Foster, or Bridges). I would expect all five to be buried near each other, so the unreadable headstones don’t seem to fit.

There were some Welles graves from the late 19th century, but no Wells, Foster, or Bridges graves in the whole place. (I did, however, find a Philologus Webster.)

There are some smaller cemeteries in the area, but none of them seem to go back that far.

Some possibilities:

I somehow just missed them after two passes through the cemetery.
They’re all in some other cemetery for some reason.
Their graves are unmarked.
Grave robbers from outer space!

Well, at least the cemetery wasn’t closed.

Israel Wells’ Powder Horn

The Simsbury Historical Society is closed until after I leave. The Simsbury Free Library, with its genealogical collection, is also closed until after I leave. The aforementioned Newport Tower Museum was closed until after I left. The nice-looking restaurant here in the Simsbury 1820 House is closed until after I leave.

I’m sure this is just bad luck and I have no reason to be worried about it.

When I wrote to the Simsbury Historical Society last week, they said that they didn’t have any information on Ezekiel and Mary Wells, but they do have Israel Wells’ powder horn from 1776. There’s a summary of their research on their website (PDF).

I couldn’t go in to see it, but I could peer in the window and get this picture.

Left to Right: Powder Horns Belonging to Dudley Ely, Israel Wells, and Nathaniel Humphrey

Simsbury, Connecticut

I’m staying at the Simsbury 1820 House, which, coincidentally, was built in 1820. As you can clearly see from the photo, it reflects Georgian and Adamesque influences with its Palladian windows and Doric columned porch. It’s also the birthplace of Gifford Pinchot, and yes, that is the very same Gifford Pinchot who founded the US Forest Service in 1905.

A place as ritzy as this really requires its own custom toilet paper label, and indeed it has one.

Simsbury is where my 4G-grandfather Israel Wells lived prior to the Ohio migration of 1804-1805, when he was in his mid-40s. His parents also lived here until their untimely deaths around age 30, in 1762. Israel and his sister were then raised by their maternal grandparents.

There isn’t much to Simsbury. I expected more of a town, with a town square and streets laid out in a grid around it, but there’s none of that. It’s just a collection of buildings along one side of the Farmington River, built at various times over the last 350 years.

The Starbucks was built in 1762. As you may have guessed, it was not a Starbucks at the time.

It was originally built as a house and used as a tavern during the Revolution. Given the central nature of taverns during that period, I like to think that Israel was in there at least once, when he wasn’t out shooting redcoats.

Manus et Brachium

In a small chapel on Enders Island, just south of the town of Mystic, CT, the incorrupt arm of St. Edmund of Canterbury moulders peacefully in a glass tube.

Edmund of Abingdon died in 1240 and was canonized in 1246. Most of him reposes in France, except for one leg that’s in a town north of London, and this arm, which found its way to the US in 1954 and eventually to this particular chapel in 2002.

Seeing any severed arm is unusual, but seeing a consecrated one from the 13th century is a real treat. Roadside America rates this “Major Fun”.

The Elizabethan Horologium of Newport, Rhode Island

This week I’m attending my cousin’s graduation from the CIA*, and I decided to take a few days on either side to drive around New England. Sort of a CIA ramble.

I flew into Boston, rented a car, and drove to Newport, RI, where I spent the night in a motor-court-style motel that was probably built in the ’40s or ’50s.

The following morning I wandered around downtown Newport, which is a charming town full of maritime coloniality. And perhaps even pre-coloniality, due to this tower which was built by the Vikings. Or maybe the Chinese. Or possibly the Knights Templar.

Or maybe—just maybe—it’s the base of an old windmill from the 1700s.

Okay, no, that last one is just crazy.

Roadside America has the full story, including the theory of the proprietor of the Newport Tower Museum across the street, who thinks it’s a horologium—an astronomical clock—built by the British in 1583. The museum was closed, so I wasn’t able to talk to him, and as a result I’m not able to find any flaws in his theory. Can you prove it didn’t happen? No you cannot.

But I couldn’t hang around and wonder at horologia. Not when there was a severed arm waiting for me in Connecticut.

* No, not that one. The other one.