Author Archives: Gary Sanderson

A South Deerfield, Mass., native, Gary was the longtime sports editor at the Greenfield Recorder, a daily newspaper in Greenfield, Mass., where he retired in June 2018, having worked parts of five decades over 39 years. A senior-active, nearly 40-year member of the New England Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America, his Thursday column "On The Trail" ran for nearly 40 years, ostensibly focusing on fish and wildlife, conservation and issues pertaining to them in the Connecticut Valley, where his roots reach deep into its oldest burial grounds. He and wife Joanne live in a historic Greenfield Meadows tavern today known as Old Tavern Farm, which has a rich history dating back to the mid-18th century. The home, which became a National-Register-of-Historic-Places building on his watch, served as a small, seasonal bed and breakfast from 1999-2015. Gary's other interests include history, anthropology, archaeology, literature, genealogy, Americana, country auctions, and early-American architecture and landscapes, as well as hunting, fishing and especially reading. His primary focus is the Pioneer Valley, its people, places and critters.

Sunderland Heirloom Blanket Mystery

A midnight glance at February’s cold Snow Moon high in the sky unleashed thoughts of an old family treasure, held by five generations of female heirs from my Sunderland/South Deerfield ancestry before vanishing in the Wild West. Thoughts of the relic entered my consciousness due to recent email correspondence about it and related topics with […]

Fall Hill’s in Gill, But Where’s Fort No. 10?

An email that arrived in my inbox last week pulled me back to Gill before it was so named, and nudged me into a stream-of-consciousness realm. I guess I was ripe for it, given the elusive subjects I’ve been exploring in recent weeks and months. The email query came from transplanted Vermonter Andrea Varney, who […]

Readin’, Writin’ and ‘Rithmetic

With the new year upon us, our deer can breathe a sigh of relief after surviving the hunting season, my previously bloated woodshed is rapidly hollowing out, and right here within reach of my favorite recliner stands a slim stack of three recently purchased books to read. The books represent the last of the itemized […]

Trophy 10-Pointer

Some stories just fall into your lap and write themselves – like this bowhunting tale from an old Powertown pal. The object, squeezed into a large, rectangular, coffin-like wooden box on the bed of Rick Kostanski’s pickup truck, rolled up my upper Greenfield Meadows driveway on the morning after Thanksgiving. It was a beautiful, 10-point, […]

Wing-Shooting Reflections

Sunday morning. Gray, soggy and still. A bit foggy. Somber daybreak ramble in the rearview. I’m seated in the everyday parlor. Reclining. Feet up. Laptop on my thighs. Autumnal thoughts spinning, swirling, gusting – drifting off to my old pheasant-, grouse- and woodcock-hunting coverts. What unleashed this train of thought? Probably the damp, raw, overcast […]

Mission Accomplished: Cupola Restored

Hallelujah. Job complete. Finally. Just the sight of it, as I approach the driveway leading to my carriage-shed stall, has lowered my anxiety-elevated blood pressure 10 points. I’m talking about our 19th-century Old Tavern Farm cupola, long a vexing concern for me. For more than 10 years I had tried unsuccessfully to get it roofed. […]

Mary Graham Arms Photo Restored for Posterity

I found a great spot for the restored, circa-1855 ambrotype photo of my third great-grandmother, Mary Graham Arms, who was born in Sunderland on June 28, 1794 and died in South Deerfield on Christmas Day 1887. As I sit here writing about her, her framed portrait is looking out at me from a bottom pigeonhole […]

New Lower Blue Licks Treasure

My archaeologist / anthropologist friend Mike Gramly placed the call a week into his latest dig at Lower Blue Licks in northeastern Kentucky – a 13,000-year-old mastodon boneyard located along an ancient saline spring bed on a Licking River floodplain. I could feel the man’s enthusiasm. It was infectious, and told him so. “I’m always […]

Gramly Has Intellectual Energy to Spare

Late July. Eight-thirty. Bright morning sun. Neighbors’ tall sycamore across the road casting a long, broad, cool, front-yard shadow. Two-mile walk a couple hours in the rearview. The phone on the table to the left of my chair rings. Caller ID reveals an unnamed “wireless caller,” with a 978 area code number I don’t immediately […]

Nove Salute; Correction; Bears

On the walls surrounding a small bookcase in the southeast corner of my study hang a trio of framed images – one a small oil painting of a spaniel retrieving a cock pheasant; another a sepia-toned, circa 1882, Lewis Kingsley photo of my great-grandfather Willis Chapman Sanderson’s East Whately family, restored by Chris Clawson; the […]

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