I’ve had a letter sitting here on my desk for a couple of years, one I’ve “been meaning to get to,” if you know what I mean. But here I sit, finally getting back to it, prodded by the man who sent it, dignified octogenarian Edward M. Wells of Leyden, Franklin County roots nearly as […]

The first Indian trails I ever walked are carved into the Sugarloafs, north and south, one snaking its way up the south face of Wequamps to King Philip’s Seat, the other meandering through the cliffs on the west face of North Sugarloaf to another shelf-cave we were told had Native significance. How I found them […]

I’ve had a letter sitting here on my desk for a couple of years, one I’ve “been meaning to get to,” if you know what I mean. But here I sit, finally getting back to it, prodded by the man who sent it, dignified octogenarian Edward M. Wells of Leyden, Franklin County roots nearly as […]

I was poking around East Colrain last week, something I’ve done quite a bit lately, there and in Heath, another upland jewel in our western hills. Along the way, I bumped into a man I first met when we were both Frontier Regional schoolboys. He happened to abut the parcel I was exploring and was […]

You never know where an ancient road through reclaimed hilltown forest will lead you, which is one of many reasons I enjoy traipsing through the Franklin hills of my ancestors, be it hunting or just poking around. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of the latter, chewing into acorns and beechnuts along the way to […]

People often ask why I write about locations I’m unwilling to pinpoint. The answer is simple: Maps draw crowds that compromise special places, which soon lose their sacred status, be they fishing holes, deer stands, strut zones or historic sites buried under a forest canopy. I found such a site just this week, one I […]

An undisturbed snowplow ridge told the story: It had been months since a four-wheeled vehicle had driven the aboriginal trail that became a Colonial path, then a well-used thoroughfare from Williamsburg to Conway until discontinued around 1950. Because the mud season hadn’t yet arrived, I decided to give it a shot, convinced I’d stay atop […]

On the road again, me and an old codger, he a spry octogenarian. We were following e-mail leads from Conway readers commenting on last week’s column about my visit to Conway’s first cellar hole, that of Cyrus Rice, circa 1763, now hidden in a manicured 350-acre wood lot. The tips led me to Shirkshire, to […]

What I remember most about the late Ellsworth Barnard was the day I met him and wife Mary at their forested cabin in Shelburne’s Patten District, five miles up the hill from my Greenfield Meadows home. It was back in the late 1990s, probably 1998, which would have made him 90 or 91. I had […]