Jul
11
2025

Unsigned Hudson River School Treasure?

by Gary Sanderson

Another auction purchase. Another wild ride aimed at discovery. Isn’t that the joy of collecting?

How better to keep a retired old man active, alert and engaged.

One of my latest acquisitions is a large, likely unsigned oil-on-canvas riverscape painting I believe to have great potential. I snagged it at auction a couple months ago. It was described in the catalog as “American School,” and my first impression narrowed it down further. I saw it as an early Hudson River or White Mountain School work, though at the time site was not my primary interest.

What immediately captivated me was the activity it pictured. Two men on opposite sides of a raging mountain stream were retrieving fishing nets from the water. The time of year is early autumn, the place our Northeast.

Because there is no evidence of fish or a fish-processing station, in my mind, they were likely picking up for winter storage and mending. Just a guess. But one would think such nets were most likely used during the spring for shad and salmon, or, I suppose, fall Eastern brook trout spawning runs, though I have never heard of those.

My main focus was on the seines or gillnets shown. I had only read about such nets in sources like The Diary of Matthew Patten of Bedford, N.H. from 1754 to 1788, which I featured here in recent months, along with town histories from the Connecticut and Merrimack valleys. All you get is words in those accounts. No illustrations. One has no choice but to rely on imagination. Now, finally, an artist’s depiction. Akin to a photograph. A step in the right direction.

The only previous illustrations I had seen of weirs, traps, nets, hooks, sinkers, and spears came from clear across the land, displayed in Hillary Stewart’s 1977 book Indian Fishing: Early Methods on the Northwest Coast. Then, more recently, similar online images. I was forced to assume, and still believe, that the fishing practices of indigenous fishers from faraway North American places differed little from those employed here, first by indigenous people, then by European copycats.

Illustrations of such fishing activity here in the Northeast are still rare, especially early representations, which are virtually nonexistent. So, when I spotted this circa 1840 canvas depicting a fishing scene at a roaring whitewater bottleneck on an unnamed upland stream, my curiosity blossomed.

Ah! At long last, an image to work with. Let the auction bidding begin.

I knew it might represent the only chance of my lifetime to obtain such a treasure to pick at and probe. I was thus compelled to take an honest run at it, welcoming the exhilarating research I knew it would trigger. That said, there was a limit to what I could spend, and I expected the hammer price would race out of range.

Not so. I lucked out.

Shockingly, as I put in a phone bid, only one bidder seated at the auction went against me, and he didn’t hang in there long. A stroke of luck, I guess.

The date of my purchase was April 30, which coincidentally would have been my late father’s 97th birthday. Who knows? Though he was never a fisherman or historian, he may have been watching over my shoulder for that adventure. Just a fleeting thought.

Two days later – delayed a day by a late, greasy, spring snowfall I decided not to challenge – I drove to the auction house, wedged the large painting into my double-cab Tacoma’s back seats, and left it with a conservator for minor inpainting and repair. Less than a week later, the 47- by 43-inch framed painting was hanging proudly in my west parlor. Not only had I finally found the illustration for which I had furiously searched for decades. I owned it. Could study it.

The chase was on, and is ongoing.

The journey thus far has meandered up and down the Merrimack and Hudson valleys, the White, Green, Adirondack, and Catskill mountains, the upper Lake George and lower Lake Champlain country, and even rivers in western Connecticut. Who knows? The artist’s impetus way have been born elsewhere, like, say, a lower Merrimack tributary where fish runs persisted long into the mid-19th century.

The biggest problem confronting such research is the weakness of documentary evidence detailing fishing activity before and after the Revolution.

I started my research by studying topo maps and online images of suspected rivers. I found many possibilities, but nothing conclusive. I then queried river guides, book dealers, town clerks, historical societies, and even museum curators who I thought might recognize the site. I sent them images that I hoped would stimulate interest or, better still, ring a bell. Uh-uh. No one could place it.

Though I was familiar with 19th-century artists like Hudson River School founder Thomas Cole and White Mountain School master Benjamin Champney, I knew little in depth about their “schools,” which overlap. I bought books, read them, and found nothing to discourage me from digging deeper.

I then took the YouTube route, watching several scholarly presentations. Similar to the reading, I found it validating. My painting does indeed display several Hudson School characteristics, including repetitive themes and symbolism, atmospheric effects, and contemplative allure.

Attribution to a specific artist is seldom easy, however – and this is no exception. Complicating matters, I soon learned that pinpointing sites of Hudson River School paintings is not easy due to the liberal employment of “artistic license” to romanticize compositions. These artists routinely enlarged and reshaped background mountain ranges, or even moved picturesque distant peaks to backdrop a river scene where it didn’t exist.

The early Hudson River School painters were not plein air artists who set up their easels onsite and painted precisely what they saw. The best of them were academic studio painters, who routinely embarked on weeks- and months-long sketching trips to scenic places and returned to their studios to add color, atmosphere and an imaginative touch.

I had recently seen this with my own eyes, in a Charles Louis Heyde landscape a friend of mine chased at a Labor Day auction. The 1850s painting – which I believe Historic Deerfield purchased – showed a sun-splashed view from the west of the old Deerfield Toll Bridge that once stood at the present site of the General Pierce Bridge connecting Greenfield to Montague City.

Framing an upper background of light blue sky and cumulus clouds on the right side of the canvas was the distinctive profile of Mount Toby. I immediately realized that Heyde had moved it a few miles north to improve the background of his composition.

So where does this leave me in my attempt to attribute this new painting to a known early Hudson River artist? Well, I know the work came to auction from a Washington County, New York estate in the shadows of Lake George and Fort Ticonderoga. The consigner inherited it many years ago from her father, described by the auctioneer as “a well-known collector from the Albany area,” who was an active buyer between 1940 and 1980. It was he who likely paid for a professional cleaning and fitted it with an expensive, 20th-century gilt frame that cost him more than twice my auction price.

That’s the beauty of auctions. It can happen.

The consigner came up empty in a search through her father’s stored files for information. Nonetheless, given where he was from, he, too, likely believed it was of the Hudson School. Getting an attribution to one of the masters – say Cole or Durand or Kensett – is a more difficult matter, one that could invite disagreement among experts unless there’s a signature or initials hidden on the canvas.

So, consider my search a work in progress – one I intend to continue pursuing. I believe I may have found an important artwork that got lost in the shuffle. Thus far, one “off-the-record” expert agrees with me.

All I can do is keep searching, turning over every stone of inquiry.

To me, it’s not drudgery. I love the hunt.

posted in Antiques, Columns, Salmon, Shad | No Comments

Jun
11
2025

Elusive Deerfield River Browns Worth Chasing

by Gary Sanderson

Sunday morning, Memorial Day Weekend, approaching 5:30. Day has broken – half-sun peeking over the eastern horizon, squeezing warm yellow rays through the tulip magnolia shielding my upstairs bedroom windows on each side of my headboard.

From the tree comes the joyous song of an amorous cardinal, likely celebrating the high blue sky, small white clouds, and inspiring sun after days of wet, gray, unseasonably cold May weather. I could relate to the bird’s cheerful disposition. Thank you, my blissful, scarlet friend, for sharing your sunrise joy.

As I walked toward the fan staircase descending to the new day – looking south over the lush green yard below – my thoughts traipsed back to Deerfield River fishing days past. “This,” I thought, “would have been too late for me back then,” when my rule of thumb was to execute my first cast before the birds sang.

To get rare opportunities at large, gluttonous, Deerfield River brown trout lingering a bit too long in their nocturnal feeding stations, that’s when you must arrive: before the birds sing; and even if you know the game, your chances of landing such a fish are slim indeed. Deerfield River browns do not grow large on stupidity.

Over the years, while catching many big, acrobatic, stocked rainbows, I was fortunate enough to land a few of those spectacular browns in the three- to five-pound range. All of them were caught on nightcrawlers dead-drifted just right. Never did I land one fly-fishing, although I suspect a few took a sparkling cream caddis emerger or Montana nymph and got away.

Being a South Deerfield lad, I know the section of the Deerfield I most often fished as Hoosac. It’s located on a small slice of paradise along the west bank between Johnson’s Hole, in Deerfield about a mile upstream from Stillwater Bridge, and the South River. Occasionally I’d wander a tad north to fish the stretch between the mouth of the South River and Bardwells Ferry, concentrating primarily on three productive sites offering the types of pools and runs I preferred.

Less often, I ventured farther upstream to the mouths of Dragon Brook and Bear River, on opposite sides of the river above Bardwells. Those were the days when you could drive the railroad service road following the tracks from West Deerfield to Buckland without fear of a fine.

Sometimes, I’d fish from my 14-foot, fiberglass, Old Town canoe, paddling upstream – black Lab gundog Sara seated astern – to Johnson’s Hole from the now-gated riverside launching spot and parking place below Stillwater Bridge. Other times I’d drive to my destination on the old trolley trestle following the west bank from Hoosac to Conway Station, parking on the power line and hiking steep game trails to my two favorite spots. That access, too, is now closed to vehicles and open only to hiking and biking, with a relatively new footbridge crossing the South River gorge to Conway Station. It’s irrelevant to me in my senior years. Those steep, slippery game trails to the river below are for young legs, not battered old warhorses.

To be honest, I’ve seen the footbridge from afar but never closely examined or crossed it. It doesn’t interest me. Frankly, I preferred it when 1.) the old trolley bed was open to the few locals who used it, 2.) the gorge had to be crossed to hard way, on foot, and 3) the Deerfield River was virtually unknown to whitewater enthusiasts, who’ve ruined it for anglers seeking solitude, tranquility and the soothing rattle of free-flowing waters.

Sadly, that peaceful place disappeared years ago on the lower Deerfield, beginning the day noisy whitewater yahoos arrived from all points of the compass with their canoes, kayaks, inner tubes, rafts, and, yes, coolers and litter – scraping, banging and yee-hawing their merry way downriver.

Yeah, yeah, I know adventurers of all stripes should have the freedom to enjoy the public resource. Which doesn’t mean I want to join them, or profess interactive compatibility between whitewater enthusiasts and trout fishermen. While it’s true that solitary trout anglers create no inconvenience for whitewater enthusiasts, the same cannot be said for the reverse.

Just one humble old man’s opinion – one that hasn’t changed a hoot dating back to the heated dam-relicensing battle between Trout Unlimited (TU) and the Charlemont whitewater companies some 35 years ago.

For a quick refresher, Zoar Outdoor, Crab Apple Whitewater, Appalachian Mountain Club and others fought for increased water discharges from Fife Brook Dam above the Hoosac Tunnel to accommodate whitewater adventurers on the upper Deerfield. TU favored lesser flows more favorable to trout, anglers and the freshwater ecosystem.

Go figure. The whitewater companies won.

posted in Columns, Local history | No Comments

May
25
2025

Rain Impacting Turkey Season, Shad Run

by Gary Sanderson

Mid-May. Rhubarb knee-high. Rotting tulip-magnolia petals carpeting the lawn below their large ornamental tree. Kwanzan cherry blossoms pink. Japanese maples ascending to their spring burgundy splendor.

Such are the springtime inspirations in my yard. Yet, still, to me, nothing triggers spring reminiscence like those faint whiffs of sweet lilac tickling my nostrils and tweaking my consciousness. It’s invigorating. Optimistic. A signal of renewal and rebirth.

Last time we met in this space, my topic was the native Eastern brook trout I once pursued with youthful passion. That discussion was ignited by news of a record eight-pound brookie pulled through the ice on Maine’s Moosehead Lake in January.

This week we’ll switch gears to a couple of other spring pursuits that kept me busy for many years as a sportsman – not to mention as an outdoor writer pumping out a weekly column for a small daily newspaper. I’ll touch upon wild turkeys and shad, both of which significantly grew in population and popularity among regional sportsmen in the 1980s. By then I was married with two kids and keeping a home, yet still stubbornly clinging to my youth, tattered and torn, on the local men’s softball circuit.

First, turkeys. The wild variety did not exist in my world as a kid growing up in South Deerfield, chasing trout up and down rattling mountain streams in hip boots. Times have changed. Aggressive trapping and relocation efforts brought quick success to aggressive restoration efforts by New England state wildlife agencies. Now, not only have they gained lofty status as our state game bird. It’s not unusual to catch the big birds strutting down city streets.

I remember hearing my first gobbles in the early ’80s. Approaching 50, I was guided by a friend trying to spark my interest. This daybreak introduction occurred, quite coincidentally, less than two miles up the hill west of my current home. That East Colrain neighborhood surrounding a vast, working Yankee dairy farm was then viewed by many Bay State hunters as their state’s turkey-hunting capital.

The 2025 spring turkey season opened on April 28 and consumes four weeks. I finally saw my first turkeys of the season two weeks in, on my way to Pine Hill Orchards in Colrain for a Mother’s Day pie. Two skittish hens crossed the road in front of my truck, not a half-mile as crows fly from the spot where I heard those first gobbles many moos ago.

I stopped turkey-hunting many years ago, satisfied that I was a competent caller. After that I called in a few for a friend who loves to hunt, then drifted away when he preferred gentlemen’s 9 or 10 a.m. starts. Far too late for me. Similar to trout fishing, I wanna be there before the birds sing to experience first-light magic. There’s nothing quite like blending into the habitat and waking with the woods.

If ever I get the urge to return to the field, I have plenty of calls, camo clothing, and equipment squirreled away in safe places. Some of the box and slate calls are collectible. In fact, some of the box calls are works of art. A comeback becomes less likely as I age. I have lost my stomach for killing.

As for the ongoing season, it’s hard to imagine anything but a lackluster first two weeks of hunting. The rainy weather has not helped, keeping fair-weather hunters home and reducing daybreak gobbles from the roost to a bare minimum. Gobblers prefer announcing their presence in clear, high skies in which sound travels far, and hunters prefer aggressive gobbling on the way to the gun.

There is, however, plenty of time to harvest a nice gobbler searching for last-chance hens who’ve lost their first nests to predators or pneumonia brought by the extended raw, rainy weather. Still, the highest percentage of spring kills occur during the first two weeks, so I would expect this year’s numbers to be down a bit.

A hunter told me he was puzzled by what he had seen during week one. Perplexed by a lack of sightings and gobbles, he said he’d heard coffeehouse chatter about bird flu infecting our statewide flock. Though I suppose that’s not impossible, I find it hard to believe I wouldn’t have been alerted to such a development by MassWildlife, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the New England Outdoor Writers Association, or other wildlife-management organizations I’m cyber-connected to.

Which brings us to the annual Connecticut River anadromous fish runs, and particularly American shad – the best and most plentiful sportfish of the lot. Shad spawning runs always peak in May after river temps rise into the-60s Fahrenheit. Having tracked, compared and contrasted these runs for nearly half a century, I was surprised to receive my first notice that the runs were underway on April 18. The Holyoke fish lift had opened four days earlier.

I sensed an early start but had no time to investigate. Too busy. So, I printed the report and left it handy on my desk before hitting the road for an Easter Weekend getaway at Smuggler’s Notch, Vermont. Shad could wait.

Since then I have received three additional weekly reports, released each Friday until the fish runs come to a halt and spawning begins. I was right about the early start. Connecticut River coordinator Ken Sprankle attributed it to drought and abnormally low mid-April water levels. That all changed overnight, when five inches or rain fell during the week of May 4. Valley runoff flooded the river, necessitating closure of the fish lift, which, at press time, was expected to open no sooner than late this week.

What that means for this year’s fish runs is at this point anyone’s guess. What we know for certain, however, is that flooding lowers the water temperature and raises turbulence, both of which temporarily slow spawning runs. That said, migrating fish are prepared for such setbacks. By the time all is said and done, we know it’ll all come out in the wash and they’ll make their way to spawning grounds.

As of May 9, with the fish lift down, a total of 26,508 shad had passed Holyoke and 287 of them had passed Turners Falls. Once the river settles down and water temps ascend into the 60s, the sportfishing peak will arrive and last a couple of weeks. So, it won’t be long before the Rock Dam boys are reeling ’em in hand over fist.

A simple matter of when, not if.

posted in Cougars, Salmon, Shad | No Comments

May
15
2025

Squaretail Chronicles

by Gary Sanderson

A record Maine Eastern brook trout weighing nearly eight pounds darted through my Facebook feed last week.

The photo and story posted by a fellow New England Outdoor Writers Association member told the story. Both were pulled from a recent issue of the Bangor Daily News, which had lifted them from the smaller biweekly Moosehead Lakeshore Journal, which seems to have broken the story.

So why not drag it through the five fingers of Montague and bordering communities?

Caught on January 22 by well-known Greenville, Maine ice fisherman Eric Ward, the record fish was a brook trout for the ages, measuring 25 1/16 inches in length and weighing seven pounds, 10 ounces. The weight topped John Dixon’s July 4, 1959 Moosehead record by two ounces. At 25 ¼ inches, Dixon’s seven-pound, eight-ounce fish was a hair longer, with a girth of 17 ½ inches. The girth of Ward’s fish was not reported.

The largest brook trout recorded in Maine was caught in 2010 at Mousam Lake. That one tipped the scale at nine pounds, two ounces. Maine squaretails grow so large due to high populations of rainbow smelt in the food chain. These forage fish are preferred bait for ice fishermen, and keep big trout and salmon fat during their winter dormancy period.

Known to northern New England anglers as squaretails or brookies, Eastern brook trout (Latin name Salvelinus fontinalis) belong to the char family. They are historically the only native trout in our familiar slice of the Connecticut Valley. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, brookies populate eastern North American waters from the Great Lakes east to the Atlantic Ocean and south to Georgia along the Appalachian Range.

Squaretails are the first trout I learned to catch as a boy, bait-fishing a small, unnamed, mile-long spring brook that feeds the Connecticut River three or four hundred yards north of the intersection of Hillside and River roads in South Deerfield. The spunky, colorful, voracious fingerlings ranged in length from five to seven inches, and kept me and childhood buddy Mike Manson busy whenever our parents dropped us off there.

We’d return home with a creelful of the speckled beauties, which without exception went from creel to sink to batter bowl to a cast-iron skillet flavored with sizzling, splattering bacon fat. Thus the name “panfish,” brookies sweetest of them all, served with sides of thick-cut slab bacon and crispy home fries.

In later years at forbidden sites, we discovered much larger squaretails in the one- to three-pound range. We called them “bakers,” meaning oven fish. But why go there?

No. Check that. I must tiptoe back. I can’t sidestep my youthful indiscretions for this discussion. Why? The statute of limitations long ago passed.

The big brookies we routinely caught a half-century ago from posted, spring-fed impoundments are directly related to my first impression of the record brookie photographed in Ward’s hands. I wasn’t awestruck because I have seen many large local brook trout and heard of many others over the years.

The big brookies we caught were taken on lures in forbidden waters where they grew large. Golden Thomas buoyant spoons were most productive, but Daredevils and small Mepps spinners worked in a pinch, especially when cast at dusk into an 60-foot outflow neck that collided with a cold, shaded feeder stream once known as Sanderson, then Harvey Brook. The action was fast and furious, and the one- to two-pound brookies ranged from 12 to 18 inches long.

Though I myself never caught a fish that compared to Ward’s there, I did indeed hear of one taken by a neighborhood kid who was probably five or six years younger than me. This notable catch occurred in the late ’60s. I would have been about 15, and heard the tale repeated by several witnesses fortunate enough to see the elementary school-aged boy lugging the fish up the hill home on a stringer.

Word was that the fish had to be nearly two feet long because the kid couldn’t keep its tail from dragging on the road.

I know fish stories tend to be exaggerated, but one of the tellers was a state policeman who had given much testimony in his day, not to mention fished the same, productive spot. In passing, he’d pretend he didn’t see me and my friends fishing there. I guess he liked us because we were ballplayers, and he figured we could be doing much worse than fishing.

We referred to that tidy arrangement as “the hot setup,” and had a blast fishing there. In later years, I took big squaretails from that same bucolic spot on White Wulff and Hendrickson dry flies. That was even more enjoyable than open-faced spin-casting and lures, especially on my friend’s father’s Tonkin cane rod.

In advancing years, when old enough to carry a shotgun, I hunted partridge and woodcock in adjacent woods traversed by a major feeder stream. There I discovered a settling pool at the base of step falls, where large, upstream-swimming brookies congregated on their fall spawning run. It was quite a sight to behold, and one that I shared only with the best of friends.

While I doubt I ever saw a seven- to eight-pound brookie in the mix, the visuals imprinted in memory suggests that some of them may have gone four or five pounds; and that was likely the case for that aforementioned kid’s catch that had the neighborhood buzzing.

My point is that back in the day, before acid-rain endangered native brook trout, there was no need to chase off to the blackfly-infested Northwoods for big ones. They were available right here in our own backyards.

I can’t help but wonder how many of the only trout available to the indigenous people who lived here before us are left?

 

posted in Columns, Local history, South Deerfield | No Comments

Apr
26
2025

Riverbank Bobcat

by Gary Sanderson

April 7. Raw and rainy. Eleven-ish.

Out in the woodshed on a morning whim, I’m rearranging what’s left of my winter cordwood supply, heaped against the north and east walls. I can see there’ll be a little left for fall.

I chuck a big, heavy, all-nighter wedge of hard seasoned red oak closer to the entryway when I hear the phone ring in the kitchen. No rush. I’ll check the caller-ID when finished with my chores. The woodburning routine is less demanding come springtime.

Before going inside, I load up an armful of smaller, irregular, knotty pieces – tangled, twisted, and messy with debris. They burn hot and revive a fire when needed. During my daily woodshed chores, I routinely build a little side pile of these oddball pieces to make them easily available from time to time as needed. Kinda like medicine for the daily fire, especially morning’s first on embers from the night before.

Anyway, with my wood-gathering duties completed, I go to the phone expecting to find a familiar name on the caller-ID screen. Nope. Someone new. Last name Richardson, first initial D. Phone number beginning with South Deerfield’s familiar 665 exchange.

Hmmmmm? Facebook friend Peter Richardson, perhaps?

I promptly return the call, and a man answers the third ring.

“Peter?”

“Nope, Doug.”

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t get the first name, and figured it must be Peter.”

“I’m his big brother,” he said – and his River Road neighbor as well, the two residing in adjacent dwellings within sight of Sunderland Bridge.

He went on.

“You’re the guy who wrote an outdoor column in the Recorder, right, and used to report cat sightings?”

“Yep, that’s me. I’ve been retired seven years. What’s on your mind?”

He had a tale to tell. One he believed – correctly – would interest me.

It unfolded on the west bank of the Connecticut River, across the road from his house, where he and three neighbors had been monitoring a bald eagle nest on an island across the way. Following a familiar path to an unobstructed vantagepoint, tripod telescope in tow, they were pleased to discover an eaglet, and were sharing the telescope for close-ups.

As they chatted, Richardson noticed something that drew his attention, nestled into the steep upstream riverbank to his left. There, about 40 feet away, motionless and blending into the backdrop, was the face of what looked to him like a wildcat. Or was it an optical illusion?

When he pointed it out to the man next to him for an opinion, he was assured it wasn’t a log. Sure looked like a cat to his friend as well. When it finally moved, they knew they were viewing a brownish bobcat that didn’t seem unnerved by their presence.

Though I’ve never associated bobcats with the Connecticut River, it makes perfect sense that they’d be attracted to such riverbank environments, which provide tangled shelter and a tasty smorgasbord of prey.

The cat, wearing a blue tag on each ear, just calmly laid there, cleaning itself as the four eagle-watchers quickly switched their focus. All four studied it with their naked eyes, and discussed it as they alternated closer looks through the scope. One even took cell-phone photographs that showed up on Facebook soon after my phone conversation with Richardson ended.

Curious to the four observers was the fact that the animal, though well aware of their presence, seemed relaxed. Why didn’t it flee? Injured, perhaps? Then it calmly rose to its feet and sauntered away at an angle from the intruders. No sign of a limp or unsteady gait. It appeared to be perfectly healthy.

Richardson returned home perplexed. He was certain what he had witnessed was not typical bobcat behavior. Given that the animal was tagged and the number was discernable through the scope, he called MassWildlife’s Connecticut Valley District office in Belchertown to see what he could learn. Possibly state wildlife biologists were conducting a bobcat study, and would be interested in his observations.

To his good fortune, the call came into the district office at a hectic time and was answered by none other than district manager Joseph E. Rogers. What better source than the boss?

Apprised of what Richardson and friends had seen, Rogers wasn’t surprised. Though MassWildlife is not currently tagging bobcats for a study, state wildlife biologists in Connecticut are, and a similar sighting had recently been reported in Hampshire or Hampden County. In Rogers’ opinion, it was likely the same cat. He thanked Richardson for reaching out.

Richardson’s wife Kathleen emailed Rogers the four-digit number on the cat’s ear tags, in case he wanted to dig deeper and confirm his initial presumption that it was the wayward Connecticut cat on an upstream journey.

A few days after the sighting, late afternoon-early evening, my phone rang and Richardson’s name again appeared on the caller-ID. I answered. He wanted to report new information he thought would interest me. Rogers chased down the cat’s identity. The tags were not from Connecticut.

Let Rogers’ April 9 email to Kathleen Richardson explain: “It took me a couple of days to track down, but I was able to ID the tag numbers for the bobcat you reported. It appears this was a bobcat treated at Tufts Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic and released in Belchertown this past winter. It’s good to know the animal is healthy. Thanks for reporting the sighting.”

So, there you have it. Mystery solved.

Apparently, the bobcat remains semi-comfortable around humans after being fed and nursed back to health by Tufts veterinary personnel. That’ll likely change if the animal stays out of harm’s way and continues reacclimating to the wild.

That said, one can never confidently predict such outcomes. Some rehabilitated wild creatures make it. Some don’t.

posted in Columns, South Deerfield | No Comments

Apr
26
2025

Opening Day Stirs Fenway Memories

by Gary Sanderson

Four o’clock. Opening Day. Settled into my power recliner, my wife lounging eight feet to my right in its twin leather companion, computer tablet propped up on her lap. The Red Sox and their new flame-throwing phenom, lefty Garrett Crochet, are facing the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas.

Half taking in the pre-game festivities over the top of her device, my wife entertains a thought and asks, “Have you ever been to Opening Day at Fenway Park?”

“Nope, can’t say I have,” I responded, immediately drifting off into a raging stream of memories from America’s baseball cathedral that endured till the final pitch.

Funny how an innocent question like that can trigger a vivid journey down memory lane. So, I figure, why not share some of the recollections I judge appropriate, if even barely so, for a family newspaper? And while we’re at it, if space constraints don’t obstruct our path, maybe even random memories from other New England sports venues – such as the moldy old Boston Garden, Harvard Stadium, and the low-budget Schaefer Stadium in Foxboro, where I spent many a sun-baked Sunday afternoon on the east side, shifting in discomfort on Section 218’s aluminum bleacher  seats.

Yes, those were the days at Foxboro, and I was there – often struggling outside the south entrance before the game to get face-value $18 apiece for two extra tickets. When barterers tested my patience with offers of half-price or less, I sometimes just gave the tickets to a couple of kids who looked like they’d appreciate the generous offer, and ended up joining us for the game.

The problem with a narrative like this is that the best stories can never be told in print, even if the statute of limitations has passed. Far too scurrilous. After all, one has an adult reputation to protect. Trust me, many unprintable reputation-busters arose from the permissive Seventies – when stadiums were stuffed with cussing, cigar-chompin’ men akin to racetrack “railbirds,” and, if you can imagine, coolers stuffed with food and beverage were allowed through the Foxboro turnstiles.

Those were wild times, indeed. Maybe we can circle back if space permits.

I have vivid memories of my first trip to Fenway – purely kids’ stuff. I was 10, in the company of my father, younger brother Bobby, and South Deerfield pals Frannie Redmond and David Zima. Reserved-grandstand seats were $2.25 a pop back then, souvenir programs a prohibitive 15 cents. My father knew the ticket manager and, with our seats on the first-base side, arranged a pregame meeting with budding star left-fielder Carl Yastrzemski near the Red Sox dugout. The Minnesota Twins and slugger Harmon Killebrew manned the visiting dugout.

I brought Yaz’s Topps baseball card to the game to try and get it autographed. Unsuccessful, when we returned home, I stapled it to the program cover and tucked it away in a scrap book. Decades later, when my brother was the golf pro at the International in Bolton and got to know Yaz as a member, he got it signed for me with a “HOF ’89” tag signifying his Hall of Fame induction year.

By then I had been to Fenway several times with my dad and brother, but can’t say any of those visits were particularly memorable. However, that cannot be said of the times I attended games in my teens and 20s with friends and without adult supervision. Many of those adventures were memorable but not for print.

I can tell about the 1972 twi-night doubleheader I attended with older St. Joe’s of Thorndike Tri-County League baseball teammates, on the way home from an independent Saturday road game against the Amesbury semi-pro baseball club. Back then, with attendance sparse by today’s standards, you could still get good seats at the ticket windows leading into the ballpark.

On this day, with a few beers under our belts before we passed through the gate near the Green Monster, our second baseman, a garrulous, fun-loving, black Vietnam veteran from Amherst, got into an argument with a police officer that quickly escalated. Uniformed officials had a way of sparking spirited reactions from some Vietnam vets, and my teammate was one of them. To make a long story short, he never made it into the ballpark, and was instead cuffed, stuffed, and loaded into a paddy wagon to – if memory serves me – Boston’s Fourth Precinct jail, where he spent the night as a drunk-and-disorderly.

When we called the station in an effort to bail him out, we didn’t take the bait to come and get him. Sounded like entrapment to us. Not something you soon forget.

The very next year, on a free catered bus trip for St. Joe’s players to another Saturday game, I arranged to meet my college buddy and teammate at the game, got carried away, and missed the bus home. Undeterred, we hit the Commonwealth Avenue bars after the game and spent the night in Boston. Early the next morning I hitchhiked home to South Deerfield, threw on my uniform, and drove to Thorndike in time for batting practice before our weekly Sunday doubleheader, the park equipped with a full bar and concession stand behind the backstop.

Prior to my arrival, the hilltop park was buzzing about my whereabouts. The loyal, colorful, alcoholic grounds crew was concerned: Would I or would I not show up for the game? Was I alright? As I pulled into a parking place along the right-field line, the fellas gave a smiling standing ovation.

I don’t recall how I performed on the field that day. Probably not well. Out late and up early, I was not in high-performance mode, but ready to give it a go nonetheless. Story of my young baseball life.

I also had some memorable Fenway visits with my sons. Among them was the famous October 16, 1999, ALCS Game 3 “pitchers’ duel” between Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez, won by Pedro and the Sox, 13-1. Clemens lasted two innings and was serenaded with chants from opposite sides of the field of “Where is Roger?” “In the shower,” long after he had settled in the clubhouse.

Also, four years earlier, the post-1994-’95 Major League Baseball strike fan-appreciation doubleheader against the Seattle Mariners, offering $1 general-admission tickets to all on a first-come, first-served basis. I took my family and a group of Frontier Youth League players to the games and, at their request, arrived early to secure primo box seats behind the Mariners dugout. The kids wanted to get a good look at Ken Griffey, Jr., and possibly even his autograph.

Unexpected was the nearby presence of a loud Griffey-hater mercilessly haranguing the young Mariners superstar with vicious banter, including the nickname “Whiffey” as he returned to the dugout between innings, knelt in the on-deck circle, or returned to the dugout after strikeouts.

The man was there for one reason: to get under Griffey Jr.’s skin. It worked. Though big leaguers are expected to ignore such catcalls and insults, Griffey violated the etiquette by engaging in continuous exchanges with the obnoxious fan, who was finally ejected by security guards during the early stages of Game 2. I was surprised, having seen much worse fan abuse aimed at visiting players over the years.

Whew! Enough already. No time for the “Foxboro chronicles.” Just as well – such narrative would require a deep dive into full Hunter S. Thompson-style gonzo mode. I’m not certain a small community weekly is the place for that.

 

Questions and comments are welcome at gary@oldtavernfarm.com.

posted in Columns, South Deerfield | No Comments

Mar
26
2025

Montague Reader Offers Plain Truth

by Gary Sanderson

Spring is in the air and I’m a bit on overload. Thinking. Always thinking. Reading. Absorbing a 24/7 news feed that can be frightening these days. Exhausting, too.

I tried to ignore cable news after the election, which is next to impossible without a change of address to some secluded ramshackle shack along a cold, clear, drinkable spring creek. You know the drill. Living off the grid. No modern devices or distractions. Quiet introspection. But what good does that do? And where, exactly, does it lead?

I’ll begin this week with brief mention of two books I’ve read since I last appeared in this space. Then I’ll circle back to a topic introduced a couple of weeks ago, when I trolled for reader insight about a gruesome scene I happened upon many decades ago in Turners Falls.

For those who missed it, I told of a mass dog grave uncovered by a Montague DPW bucket-loader operator cutting into a steep, sandy escarpment along the eastern edge of the old Montague landfill dump near Judd Wire. I was sitting in my dump truck, awaiting a load of sandy fill as I watched the scene unfolded. Although I did ask around for information at the time, no one seemed to have a clue why it was there.

Keep that image in mind as we switch gears to a brief discussion of the two recently-published books I read. Most recently, Adam Plunkett’s biography, Love and Need: The Life of Robert Frost’s Poetry. Before that, Brian VanDeMark’s Kent State: An American Tragedy. Both got good reviews in The New Yorker magazine.

I’m not a Frost fanatic or poetry reader; just knew there was an Amherst connection and figured why not take a closer look? I now know a lot more about the celebrated New England poet, who, according to Plunkett and biographers before him, had his warts. To be expected of artists, no?

I struggled with Plunkett’s analyses of poetry style, rhythm, and form, focusing instead on the autodidactic poet’s idiosyncrasies, his family life and path to literary immortality. Worth the read.

Before that, I breezed through Brian VanDeMark’s Kent State, examining the unfortunate May 4, 1970 crowd-control fiasco I remember well. On that dreadful day, I was a rebellious 16-year-old nearing the end of my junior year at South Deerfield’s Frontier Regional School. The previous summer I had wandered about sopping wet in the fabled Woodstock music festival’s rain and red-tinted mud.

I guess I was biased and had long ago passed personal judgment on Kent State. In my mind, I could find no justification for Ohio National Guardsmen who killed four and wounded nine unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War. It viewed it as an unjustifiable overreaction, but was curious what this new biographer had to say about it a half-century later.

I almost didn’t follow through on my purchase when I looked into VanDeMark and found his Texas pedigree and current faculty status at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Did I really need Kent State analysis by a Texas scholar teaching at a military college? I hesitated and swiped.

In retrospect, I’d say VanDeMark tried to play it fair but, in setting the stage, overstated the dangers presented by radical Sixties activists. Plus, I found him a little too supportive of the weary, inadequately trained, weekend-warrior Guardsmen who pulled the trigger, not to mention the commanding officers. Some of the soldiers faced criminal charges and were acquitted.

As I read, I couldn’t help but wonder if we’re not headed toward another similar occurrence in these hair-trigger times of deep political divides and animosity. In my day, there were plenty of right-leaning, love-it-or-leave-it citizens who unequivocally defended the Kent State Guardsmen. Reactionary supporters of Pres. Richard Nixon and Alabama segregationist Gov. George Wallace were congratulatory, willing to proclaim deadly force against hippie malingerers as long overdue.

Do you think today’s neo-Nazis, KKK, Christian nationalists, Proud Boys, and other hard-right-wing activists think any differently? I’d honestly say these gun-toting, 21-century vigilantes are even more hateful and violent, answering calls for action armed, dangerous, and with bad intentions.

But let’s not get carried away with that. Back to that mass doggie grave on the sandy plain south of Turnpike Road. I knew the furry body parts cascading down the steep sandbank and dangling from the bucket loading my truck were primarily dogs. Roadkill? Veterinary burial place? Something else? Mum was the word when I made inquiries.

Now, nearly 50 years later, thanks to my media query, I’m confident we have the answer. It came via email from a professional Montague woman and longtime resident. There is no need to name her. She’s lived in Montague for at least 50 years.

Rather than paraphrase what she had to say, I’ll present it as it arrived last week in my inbox:

“I’m wondering if this is the same place I went to with my two children seeking our beloved missing dog about 1977. Pretty sure it is. Met the dog officer there and gave him a full description of our unusual buff-colored blue-eyed husky. A beautiful, gentle dog. The officer denied seeing him and pointed to outside kennels holding a few dogs before going back inside. Ours was not there.

“As we were leaving, we heard a familiar howl coming from another outbuilding on the property. Entering, we found our dog tied up in this empty barn, hastily freed him and left the property. Looking back, I wish I had confronted the situation more, but the energy was not comfortable. I still get chills wondering what fate was in store for our pet in that strange place!”

So, there you have it. I do believe we have our answer. That pathetic mass grave we accidentally exposed was on the old Montague dog pound site. Some such places marched to a different drummer back then, when stray dogs were captured, held briefly, and likely shot. Someone I asked that day at the town yard had to know, but decided to play dumb. Why open a smelly can of rotting worms?

Had my source not recognized the plaintive howl emanating from that out-of-the-way barn, I may have seen decomposed body parts of her family’s “unusual buff-colored husky” dangling from the bucket or tumbling down the steep, unstable, sandy escarpment supplying me with fill.

Now it’s history – the dog officer likely dead and gone. Who knows? He may have hated dogs – and loved his job.

posted in Columns, Local history | No Comments

Mar
14
2025

The Beat Goes On

by Gary Sanderson

When you’ve worked a beat for nearly a half-century as I have, and enjoy deep roots therein, upturned stones of investigation can trigger vivid memories.

This is such a circumstance.

It started with word of a supposed archaeological site in South Deerfield, about to be disturbed by the construction of a new dog shelter. When I caught wind of it, I immediately dug deeper because I didn’t recognize the address in my original hometown founded by ancestors. When I finally located East Plain Road, I initially decided to back off from it as a column topic – the site was a little out of range, in my opinion, for a small weekly newspaper serving greater Montague.

That changed, however, when I discovered a solid Montague link. The proposed facility is intended to replace the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office regional dog shelter located on Sandy Lane in Turners Falls, just a hop, skip, and a jump across Turnpike Road from the old Park Villa outdoor movie theater.

Though I was learning of the shelter for the first time, I was familiar with the sandy plain on which it lies. I got to know it from my brief days of employment (1978-79) as a laborer and truck driver for the Montague DPW.

I would not have known the sheriff’s shelter site had I not often visited the adjacent old town landfill during my dump-truck-driving days for road boss Charlie Richotte, back when Joe Janikus and Denny Choleva ran the office. A matter of convenience, my address was then just down the road. I was living in a two-bedroom apartment in the sprawling residence of widowed Irene Martineau on the end of South High Street in Montague City.

I took the temporary job while approaching marriage after a swashbuckling, here-today, gone-tomorrow life on the road. I had closed my last fundraising deal and moved in with my working wife-to-be. During this brief period of unemployed freedom, I was wearing out a path to Powertown barroom poolhalls.

When this malingering lifestyle lingered, my fiancée tired of the destructive routine and, as only a social worker could do, suggested I “find an effing job.” Soon I was a member of the Montague road crew.

My first job was extracting heavy, broken cement guardrail posts on Turners Falls Road and replacing them with heavier new posts. I enjoyed the strenuous labor, and it quickly whipped me into shape after four years of unhealthy living and sedentary office work. Let’s just stay that those smoky offices, motel lounges, and restaurants are no formula for staying fit and trim.

But we won’t go there… back to the proposed South Deerfield shelter site and, especially, to the old Montague landfill.

First, the reason for my interest in the supposed archaeological site – overgrown tillage and peasant cover I often hunted before the construction of the South Deerfield Emergency Veterinary Clinic. I wondered if maybe, just maybe, the supposed Native artifacts surface-collected there during a fairly recent walkover may have been gathered from the place called “Indian Plain” on a few 19th-century deeds I had read from the general neighborhood. Ever since stumbling across that forgotten place-name in a town I know well, I have tried unsuccessfully to pinpoint it, and this clue seemed like good evidence to chase.

I searched out the man holding the artifact assemblage. His home lot abuts the proposed shelter site on the opposite side of the dead-end East Plain Road. I remembered his home being built by town pharmacist Billy Rotkiewicz in the 1980s.

My source happened to be a vocal opponent – not unusual among neighbors of such development projects. We spoke on the phone and, with deadline looming and time running thin, I was unable to connect enough dots for that week’s column. Instead, I teased it as an outtake before ultimately deciding the story wasn’t for me.

Enter Reporter editor Mike Jackson, with whom I discussed the tease and from whom I learned that the shelter being replaced has a Turners Falls address. Its location immediately brought me back nearly a half-century to the adjacent, old Montague landfill, and to a fair-weather day I spent trucking sandy fill from its eastern perimeter to a construction site.

If memory serves me, to get there I’d travel a dirt road within view of Judd Wire, following a slim border of tall pines a few hundred yards before dropping down into a sandpit. There a bucket-loader awaited me. I’d swing the truck’s nose right and back into a spot against a steep 15- or 20-foot escarpment to accept bucket loads of fill.

On my second or third refill, I watched the loader blade tap into a vein of what appeared to be the morbid, dried-up remains of many buried dog carcasses. Boney body parts and chunks of furry pelts dangled out of the bucket as others tumbled down from the fresh cuts in the sandbank.

Not a pretty or expected sight – nor one that would be soon forgotten by anyone who, like me, had grown up with pets.

I never really made much of it, or put an honest effort into determining exactly what we had tapped into, but I never forgot it, either. So, now that nearly 50 years have passed, why not troll a bit? The statute of limitations passed long ago, and anyone directly involved has likely expired.

The problem is I that don’t know the whole story, only what I saw. The bucket-loader operator shared my cluelessness as to the reason why the carcasses were there, and so did everyone else I queried. Then I just let it slip away, until this recent reminder.

Remember, that scene unfolded before I was a reporter. I was young, untamed, and hadn’t yet figured out who I was. My job priority was facilitating the fastest track back to the office for 4 p.m. punch-out time.

Who knows? Perhaps our mass-grave discovery that day was an old veterinary burial pit for euthanized pets; maybe a hidden roadkill dump on an out-of-the-way, town-owned, sandy outwash plain. I don’t believe the sheriff’s dog shelter was there yet, but isn’t it interesting that it ended up there?

Now that I’ve finally shed light on the incident, maybe a reader or two has insight. If so, don’t hesitate to contact me at the email address below. Maybe community memory will finally provide answers.

I guess by now it’s now old enough to qualify as history, no?

posted in Columns, Indians, Local history, South Deerfield | No Comments

Mar
01
2025

Memory Valley

by Gary Sanderson

Monday morning. Eagles’ Super Bowl LIX rout in the rearview. Cold and calm. Skies icy gray. Intermittent flurries flying. Fresh snowbanks framing roads.

Splendid day for a road trip.

No sun. Classic bluegrass spinning. Loud. Stimulating. Stringed instruments trading the lead, helping to ricochet spontaneous thoughts through the rocky, vegetated canyons of my mind.

What random thoughts entertain a solo, septuagenarian traveling man on such a ride? Bear with me. That’s precisely why I’m here. I’ll try recapture snippets from that heavy-footed journey up the slice of our Connecticut Valley I call home.

Call the mission pickup and delivery. Destination: Plainfield, New Hampshire. Awaiting me there at an auction house less than 90 minutes’ north was an Oriental rug I bought from the comforts of home during the second half of the runaway Super Bowl. I had found it in an online 600-plus-lot listing, registered for the sale, and suggested to my wife that a distracted Super Bowl marketplace could be the perfect place to buy it as a replacement for a threadbare Oriental that didn’t us a dime.

We both liked the rug, particularly its large, solid, light-blue central field surrounding a small medallion. The design was remarkably different from any of our Persian rugs, and the first of its style I remember laying eyes on. Why not go for it?

I can’t say we stole it. There were 26 bids – two of them mine. Still, when the hammer fell, I felt confident we had done well. Had we purchased it at one of those pricey retail shops advertised on TV, it would have cost at least five times what we paid. That’s what I love about auctions; that and the action, the banter. Social entertainment.

Soon after my 9:45 a.m. departure from our upper Greenfield Meadows home, my thoughts began to swirl. Across the Pumping Station’s covered bridge on the back road to Interstate 91 in Bernardston, the sight of the Eunice Williams Monument was the impetus. All it took was a quick glance at the steep hill behind it, climbing north from the riverside flat where an Indian tomahawk had abruptly mercy-killed Deerfield Reverend John Williams’ struggling wife.

Weakened by recent childbirth, the unfortunate 1704 captive displayed obvious signs that she wasn’t capable of walking to Canada with her French and Indian captors. Shivering, swooning, and ready to fall after a frigid Green River crossing, she was struck down.

I figured the weather for that tragic event some 321 years ago would not have been much different than what greeted me to the site. The northward trail looked cold and daunting indeed – likely about how it must have felt that fateful March 1 morning.

As I drove past the monument to the top of a gentle slope heading to Leyden Road, my thoughts traipsed to a place called Larabee’s Grove. Definitely a well-known Greenfield placename back in the day, it appears in accounts of the 1884 monument-dedication ceremony as the place where participants gathered before walking a short distance to the engraved stone marker. I have often wondered where exactly that small patch of open woods or orchard stood.

Then I ponder whether those Larabees were from the same bolt of cloth as Sixties slugger Len Larabee, of Greenfield baseball lore. I can’t imagine he isn’t connected to that “Country Farms” neighborhood. Had I been raised where I currently reside, community memory would have answered that question long ago. But I’m a Meadows transplant – South Deerfield was my playground.

Not long after filling my tank in Bernardston, at a rare gas station where self-service is prohibited, I was heading north on the Interstate. Soon, heading down the hill to the first Brattleboro exit, I passed the “Fort Dummer” sign, which always stirs my historic juices. The French and Indian War fort was built in 1724 and survived about 50 years.

My first thoughts went to Major John Arms, a distant Deerfield relative and one of Fort Dummer and Brattleboro’s first settlers. His tavern was “Bratt’s” first, located a bit upriver from the fort on the river terrace that today holds Brattleboro Retreat. Arms Tavern was known as a favorite watering hole of Ethan Allen his Green Mountain Boys.

From there my thoughts jumped like an ovipositing mayfly to Ebenezer Hinsdale (1707-1763), the intemperate, Harvard-trained Deerfield chaplain and Indian missionary born in captivity at sea – his parents had been 1704 captives – and stationed by 1731 at Fort Dummer. He eventually built an estate that still stands as a museum across the river in his namesake Hinsdale, New Hampshire.

Though I have no direct genealogical links to the Hinsdale family, it sure seems like I do. For nearly 30 years I have called a historic Hinsdale dwelling my home, resting on the 1770 homesite of Ebenezer’s slightly younger brother Samuel. So, I guess I have blood in the game.

The ride from Bratt to Bellows Falls, Vermont and Charlestown, New Hampshire was unusually uninspiring under low, gray skies. That customary first glimpse of Mount Ascutney’s peak from a Route 91 highpoint outside of Putney was invisible, totally hidden behind cloud cover that day. Its absence was disorienting.

With that temporary issue in the rearview I was on my way to 91’s Black River crossing, just west and in view of Charlestown’s reconstructed French and Indian War Fort at No. 4. It’s a place where my roots lie deep through sixth-great-grandfather Lieutenant Isaac Parker, a Massachusetts soldier from Groton. I have regularly visited the museum for reenactments and other activities, especially when my grandsons were young, but also to catch up on new scholarship.

Unfortunately, historic Charlestown is a black hole of New England genealogy due to a mid-19th-century fire that destroyed the earliest vital records. Many a professional genealogist has met his or her match there. Though the aggravating void doesn’t affect my Parker family much, the same cannot be said for the many families they married into. These vexing gaps reach into my Whately Sanderson family – not to mention those of Deerfield miller Adonijah Taylor and his brother-in-law, brief East Whately resident Nathaniel Sartwell, both of whom share Fort No. 4 legacies.

I never pass No. 4 without thinking about its first blacksmith, Mayflower descendant Micah Fuller. I am certain his daughter Lois Fuller married a great-uncle of mine named Joseph Sanderson but, much to the chagrin of Joseph’s descendants trying to establish Mayflower roots, it has not been proven and may never be. Birth records for Micah Fuller’s children vanished in Charlestown flames.

Which brings us to the last part of my journey thought train I’ll share. It involves a peculiar house painter named John MacAulay, who dropped into my life for five years at the starts of our current millennium. He lived in his GMC van that was often parked in my backyard overnight when the weather was right for painting. He dropped dead from heart failure about 20 years ago at a Greenfield laundry mat. He was 66.

John’s spirit always visits when I climb Springfield Mountain, just up the Interstate from Charlestown exit. He grew up in Springfield, Vermont and is buried there. Someday I intend to find his grave.

I paid John by the day, cash, and often fed him as a gratuity. When my wife and kids were away I’d grill something over which to chat in the carriage-shed seating area. A HAM radio operator, John introduced me to the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones before he became well-known, and also spoke often about the Rothschilds, diabolical bankers, and the Illuminati. Alive today, John would be a card-carrying Trump-cult member.

One day our carriage-shed discussion turned to hunting, and he told me a hair-raising tale about his late father’s Vermont bear-trapping exploits on Springfield Mountain. When a scouting mission revealed evidence of a monster bruin feeding regularly through an upland nut grove, he set a trap anchored with a towing chain to a heavy log he believed only a bulldozer could move.

When he returned the next day, the trap and anchor were gone, leaving a trail John claimed “could have been followed by Helen Keller.” Supremely cautious and alone, John’s dad followed the trail much farther than he would have imagined in his wildest dreams and killed the beast with his 30.06 rifle.

John was a boy at the time. He didn’t remember the bear’s weight. Just the massive carcass. A crowd pleaser, he said.

A good place to end. With a classic North Country hunting yarn that just keeps on giving every time I climb the central Vermont mountain on which it unfolded, likely before I was born.

Meanwhile, our new rug lies on the dining-room floor. A perfect fit.

Chalk it up as another worthwhile trip up a valley stained deeply with my DNA. That said, I don’t ignore the humble people who were here to greet us. They left indelible reminders of their ancient presence with petroglyphs pecked into Bellows Falls bedrock.

posted in Columns, Genealogy, Grandkids, Indians, Local history | No Comments

Feb
11
2025

Vacant Archaeological Salmon Evidence Explained

by Gary Sanderson

Venerable, retired, Connecticut Valley archaeologist Peter Thomas has chimed in on a perplexing regional Atlantic salmon puzzle that keeps on giving and won’t go away.

The question is: Given that we know spring salmon-spawning runs once populated New England rivers, and that salmon was a valued food resource for indigenous and colonial inhabitants alike, why is there virtually no archaeological evidence?

Thomas, responding by email to my last Montague Reporter column (January 23), doesn’t think it’s rocket science. But first, a little refresher on previous discussion in this space.

Even though salmon evidence is rare in New England’s archaeological record, we can recite a long list of regional salmon falls and rivers – including some right here in the Connecticut Valley – which strongly suggest salmon presence. Yet still, no archaeological remains, according to UMass anthropologist Catherine Carroll Carlson, who reviewed reports of 75 known fishing sites for her 1992 UMass doctoral dissertation, The Atlantic Salmon in New England History and Prehistory: Social and Environmental Implications.

Carlson’s findings were not welcomed by altruistic fisheries biologists working furiously at the time to restore Connecticut River salmon. Instead, her conclusions were greeted by catcalls, boos, and hisses, and publicly dismissed as invalid by critics with jobs and blind crusades to protect.

Loud and clear, these critics could hear the death knell sounding on their struggling federal and state Connecticut River Atlantic Salmon Restoration Program, which was finally abandoned in 2013 following a failed 46-year effort.

My most recent foray into this issue wondered aloud why a certain ubiquitous Connecticut River conservation gadfly was so threatened by new research aimed at tweaking Carlson’s conclusion that, because New England salmon remains are almost non-existent in the archaeological record, so, too, were salmon.

She even went so far as to opine that New England salmon populations were intentionally overstated by colonial promoters attempting to entice restless European emigrants to a new and faraway land of unimaginable abundance. So deceptive were these promoters that they named the previously unknown American shad “white salmon” as a disingenuous drawing card. Those smaller, plebian shad, she said, were the staple of New England’s annual anadromous fish runs; not Atlantic salmon – king of North Atlantic gamefish and table fare of royalty.

She was right. Shad runs did indeed dwarf accompanying salmon runs here. But when you toss in peripheral perspective from personal accounts like The Diary of Matthew Patten of Bedford, New Hampshire, 1754-1788, it’s quite apparent that salmon were not, as Carlson claims, “insignificant,” but a valuable food-resource worth targeting for the larder.

So, why are their remains so scarce in New England’s archaeological record?

Thomas – with digs at Riverside/Gill and the Sokoki Fort in Vernon, Vermont to his credit – says there are two good reasons, both relating to “a lack of evidence of specific activities surviving in the ground for archaeologists to excavate and interpret.”

During his two “very limited” Riverside excavations adjacent to the well-know fishing falls on the Connecticut, Thomas encountered three to four feet of black, organically-rich soils containing high levels of mercury and iodine derived from marine fish species.

“Based on the numerous stone tools we found,” he wrote, “Native occupants had fished at the falls for some 9,000 years each spring.”

Yet, while no one has ever challenged the fact that massive runs of shad and alewives (and lesser numbers of salmon) ran the river each year, there’s a lack of identifiable remains. The reason, according to Thomas, is that “no unburned bone of any animal – fish, mammal, reptile or bird – has survived in these acidic soils. Tiny fragments of heavily burned fish bone are present, but species identification is not possible, with one exception. Two small, football-shaped bones, called prootic bulla, are found in the head of each shad, of which 72 were recovered. In short, lack of identifiable salmon bones does not mean they were not caught and eaten along with other species.”

Archaeologists rely on the stone tools they recover to identify or surmise site activities. Thomas says literally thousands of stone points have been recovered over the years around Riverside, confirming that occupants were heavily engaged in hunting.

“However, with the exception of stone net sinkers,” he says, “all fishing gear consisted of bone, antler, wood or plant fibers – none of which survived in the ground. This absence has also led to a gross underestimation of the significance of Native fishing.”

In recent months, Thomas and fellow retired archaeologist Stuart Fiedel have combed through many additional riverside site reports. They have found that these reports are consistent in revealing an abundance of stone hunting tools but few fishing tools, except for the aforementioned net sinkers.

So, chalk up these recent Thomas/Fiedel findings as food for an addendum to Carlson’s dated dissertation – likely with more to come.

Stay tuned.

posted in Columns, Indians, Local history, Salmon, Shad | No Comments

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