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 had been trying to locate for weeks and would rather not share with grave-robbers. I guess how it came to me is most interesting, an example of how a persistent sleuth finds things once he puts his mind to it, reading, writing, ”asking around.” I call it discovery, a process that’s fascinated me since a boy, although, for some reason, I never found it in the classroom. Maybe that was my fault. But when you think of it, once you have the basics — the innate curiosity, the perseverance — who needs advanced classroom instruction and professorial scrutiny? Like the wise old man of a Dartmouth/Harvard pedigree once told me to conclude a short discussion about the philosophies of education: ”If all you learn in school is how to find information, that’s all you need.” That comment from an accomplished gent of a classical education hit me like a 10-pound sledgehammer to the kisser, a bull’s-eye. So, take heed class clowns: there is hope for all, with or without fancy academic degrees that are all too often earned by bootlicking and a, b, c, d, or all-of-the-above testing. I have met many with impressive credentials who couldn’t find their way home without a compass, eggheads who can dazzle you with facts, figures and Shakespearean verse but have no clue, no peripheral vision, no needle to meld their knowledge into something meaningful.

My latest local-history discovery occurred in Conway, along the so-called Seven-Mile Line, in woods I first explored before puberty, fishing, then in my teens, hunting partridge and deer, then horsing around in my friend’s 1972 Toyota Landcruiser, dubbed the ”Toyotski,” then shortened to ”Yotski,” a vehicle that produced incredible off-road adventure. Give us that Yotski, a come-along, 40 feet of heavy chain, and a chain saw, and we were unstoppable … believe me. But let’s not digress. I feel like I’m looking out the window on a bright spring day during expository-writing class.

The fact is that I had often danced around the periphery of the historical landmark I discovered this week. I probably even passed right through it but had no clue the cellar hole of Conway’s first settler was there. Cyrus Rice, a Barre man, built his home there in 1762 or ’63, on a western elevation looking back toward Old Deerfield, in the so-called South East District of Deerfield, overlooking Sawmill Plain and Mill River, both part of the Long Hill Division West, if any of that makes sense. It does to me, and I suppose that’s all that matters. But it can be confusing, especially to an outsider reading Sheldon or other local 19th century historians for the first time. Even I — a native who’s explored the local woods for nearly two generations — had difficulty deciphering the location of this site from written description. In fact, had it not been for an impromptu stop at Hatfield’s Bradstreet Cemetery, Memorial Day, on an asparagus run, looking for the grave of a relative, I’d probably still be trying to figure it out. My sense from what I had read was that the Rice site was situated on the south side of Hoosac Road, overlooking Stillwater. I was wrong. It’s south of there, that’s all I’m saying. Sorry, fellas.

But back to Bradstreet, the cemetery, my wife relaxing in the car, me searching for the grave of Martha (Almira Sanderson) Field, sister of my great-grandfather, Willis Chapman Sanderson. I vaguely remember Ant Mattie as old, Hatfield’s oldest citizen, holder of its golden cane, still taking care of herself after passing the century mark on May 27, 1976, a rare bird. I probably would have found her grave had I not bumped into three cyclists stopped for a break at the graveyard, but I got gabbing and didn’t want to leave my wife in the car too long.

I recognized the pretty blonde lady in the group. She was from Conway and we had met somewhere. I couldn’t remember where. We spoke. She refreshed my memory. At a friend of mine’s memorial service. Of course. How nice to see her again, happenstance on a gorgeous spring afternoon. A man and woman, presumably spouses, accompanied her, they too from Conway. They happened to live along a road I’d been traveling recently while researching its earliest residents. I knew who they were once they introduced themselves, both behind me at Frontier Regional School, but I knew their older siblings. The three friends knew each other from their days as neighbors along my road of interest. They were familiar with the old trails from hiking and biking, horseback, snowmobile and dirt-bike riding. No, I couldn’t have found three better resources had I been searching. So I picked their brains about the discontinued roads I’d been studying on old maps when the man chimed in about the site of the early Rice farmstead. Bingo! I had what I’d been searching for without even asking. Not where I expected it, either. A wooden sign on a tree, to boot. I would find it. Sooner the better

The next day on the phone I delivered the good news to a friend who’s recently been exploring Conway with me. He also had some new information to chase down in my 4-wheel-drive truck, and the day was ideal for him. Me, too. So off I went, three dogs porta-kenneled on the truck’s bed, all of us eager for a little safari.

I picked up my friend and took a ride, circling a couple of hills, stopping to examine the outflow of a few abandoned roads, their paths back into the woods, and even found the gate to a road we’ve wanted to explore open, inviting us in. We drove all the way to a dead-end snowmobile bridge crossing a bog. We got out, both of us, three dogs, crossed the bridge, followed the road a short distance to a fork, got acclimated and turned back. Then off to a driveway the cyclists told me about, one that will bring you to the Rice homestead. We drove in but weren’t certain it was cool, so I decided to turn around and travel farther down the road to see if the male cyclist was home. He wasn’t. His son was. Said his dad was having lunch, would be right back. Soon Dad appeared, told us the easiest route to the marker, through private property. Said the landowner wouldn’t mind historical-research trespassers. Off we went to give it a shot.

We arrived at the driveway to the landowner’s home and drove in, perhaps a quarter-mile to a dwelling I had no clue was there, on that road I traveled many years ago. I got out and knocked, yellow labs barking, no answer from inside. We continued up the narrow road and came upon a bearded man wearing head gear and earphones, mowing grass down the side of the road toward us. I got out of the truck, explained our reason for being there, and he was friendly, accommodating, leading us right to the site a short distance up the gradual hill. The small wooden sign was there, head-high, behind it a small L-shaped cellar hole. According to Conway historian Rev. Charles B. Rice, the marked site was a later Rice home, the original stood 25 rods southeast. When my friend broke the news to our guide, he said there was another ancient cellar hole down the hill a bit. We went to it and, after a brief hunt, found a small, stone-clad depression, about 30 feet long, maybe 12 feet wide, sitting on a gentle elevation, sheltered in a hollow, spring brook nearby, loam black and fertile; a peaceful upland alcove in which to build an early home.

And to think it all began on a whim, a spontaneous graveyard visit.

Spooky, huh?

Next time, I’ll find Ant Mattie.

Promise.

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 the solid, crunchy corn snow, confident the come-along and chain in my pickup’s bed would rescue us if needed, always a comforting thought. But we got through our little journey fine, no issues, then poked around briefly in a quiet hardwood forest, once the farmstead of 18th century rebel Perez Bardwell, a Whately man of hardscrabble Yankee temperament. Unusual name for the time, too.

I had traveled this intentionally unnamed, unimproved road many times in worse conditions, deeper snow, muddier, with chains fastened around my back tires. So I was confident my all-terrain treads would take us the short distance required without calamity, which, at midday, work in the foreground, I wanted no part of. An experienced four-wheeler never lets his guard down at this time of year, the absolute worst if the mud is right. I know. Seems I learn most lessons the hard way, including mud-caked misadventures. Guess it’s just who I am. But it’s gotten me this far and I’m too old to change.

My passenger was a Pennsylvania native who touched down in Conway some four years ago and, having a history background, is enthralled with the town and its 18th century pioneers. Of particular interest to the man, working on a book, is a fiery Bardwell soul brother named Samuel Ely, a disrobed Congregational minister who came to Conway from Somers, Conn., in 1772 and called our western hilltown home for 10 turbulent years. It was during his final year there, in 1782, that he whipped a frenzied mob into open revolt against the Massachusetts government and Hampshire County Court. Coined Ely’s Insurrection, the clamor proved to be a precursor to Shays’ Rebellion (1786-87), which brought western Massachusetts notoriety before the Constitution was written or George Washington was elected our first president.

Back in the day, Ely knew well the country we traversed, the roads, too, connecting Conway, Whately, Burgy and beyond. In fact, a road we sampled would have been his route from Conway to the Hampshire County Courthouse he and his insurgents assaulted. That’s why I showed my newfound historian friend the layout, for perspective, not to mention invigorating chatter. Our interests intersect in many local-history spheres and, come to find out, politics as well … a subject to approach on tip-toes with someone new.

Always searching for an excuse to visit my favorite haunts before turkey season and after a tough winter on deer, I was more than willing to show my companion the lay of the land, and the place Bardwell called home before moving around 1790 to Phelps, Wayne County, N.Y., where he died in 1815. A proud veteran of French and Indian War expeditions to Crown Point and Canada, then a Revolutionary lieutenant, Bardwell was a member of the mob that freed Ely from jail in Springfield, then briefly was held hostage by Northampton authorities trying to recover Ely. I knew Bardwell’s cellar hole from research following many deer hunts there, and thought it would be of interest to my passenger.

We pulled up to the intersection of two wooded trails and parked, releasing two of my Springers, Lily and Bessie, from their porta-kennels before taking a short trek, maybe 100 yards, to the flat wooded site at the base of a ridge. The first visible remains were stones from a barn’s foundation, then 100 feet east, a stone-clad cellar hole some 40 by 25 feet, no indication of where the chimney had stood, probably centered. A short distance east of the homesite was a small, clear, free-flowing spring brook, then, some 75 feet upstream, a stone foundation that crossed it, likely a barn judging from the high western foundation butted up against a shallow hill; no small barn, either.

During hunts and hikes covering bits of five decades and two centuries, I have identified many similar sites in those woods, reconstructing a lost world in my memory’s bedrock. It’s a fascination that lures me to such places, often alone, gun in hand, so it’s always a bonus to meet someone to share them with, especially folks who’ll respect and leave them undisturbed, no metal detectors, please. My companion on that day fit the bill.

Our first field trip was brief; too short, in fact; but I was able to point out future exploration routes along the way, ones we’ll revisit when the snow’s gone and the turkeys are gobbling. Once the mud dries, we’ll return for further inspection along roads that appeared iffy this week. Why push it? The day will soon come when I’ll be able to show him Morton’s mill, Elihu Waite’s farm, and the small home of Isaac ”Cider Marsh,” known before the turn of the 19th century for the spirituous liquors he distilled and, apparently, liberally consumed. Legend has it that people in the neighborhood back then referred to 30-barrel tanks as ”Marsh’s tumblers,” obviously a tribute to a man who could ”hold his liquor.” Yes, sir, they say old Cider Marsh was quite the boy, a throwback from way back, a local legend whose spirit still lurks in the damp watershed air. My newfound Conway friend and I will return to pull this damp, wooded, Marshy spirit deep into our lungs. From it will come lively conversation, a brisk walk, an energetic romp for my pets. It’ll be mutually beneficial. Stimulating on many levels. Physical, mental, spiritual. Especially the latter.

I guess it’s all about knowing the woods in a way not generally associated with hunting.

Like chasing ghosts, kindred spirits.

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 Poland, then a return to the Rice site for a guided tour by the owners, pleasant academics with warm affection for their land. And what is there not to love about it: cellar holes; a classic well; a spring hole nestled into a depression between two hemlock spines; discontinued 18th-century roads, likely former indigenous trails; even a stately, stone Seven-Mile-Line bound buried deep in the woods behind the old Otto Farm, which started its decline around 1960? That’s when owners Bill and Helena, and son Bill, started to fade. By 1965, both Bills were gone; Helena eight years later. Soon the big dairy barn and silos were gone and the farmhouse had melted into the background, along a well-traveled road, like so many before and after it. Some call it progress. I call it sad. Slow death by industrial revolution; the final days of family farming aimed at subsistence. Once prevalent in the valley and its rolling hills, family farms kept the countryside fresh and fertile, the meats and produce salubrious; organic, no preservatives or poisons. No wonder our ancestors worked so hard and lived so long before we discovered a ”better way,” one that polluted the earth, air and water in a greedy race to riches. But let’s not digress; back to my recent tips and trips, 87-year-old Harry Stafursky in tow, soaking it all in.

Harry grew up on Stafursky Farm, once a square, dual-chimney, hipped-roofed, colonial tavern that served North Shirkshire residents and passersby alike. The building is long gone, burned to the ground in the Sixties or early Seventies. The image in the minds of those who remember it is two massive chimneys standing sentry over the site. The few who remember the whole spread are getting fewer, soon to vanish like the buildings. But Harry remembers it well, lived it, cherishes the memories. So it was interesting to bring him along to view the remains of a large, early farm and mill site on the property of a neighboring landowner, a reader of this space, by chance a distant cousin of mine through the 1749 union of Jonathan Edson and Mehetable Lillie. Yes, a small world indeed, this Pioneer Valley; kinfolk up the ying-yang if you pay attention to such things. I do. Can’t get enough of it. If you don’t know who you are, what’s the sense of living? That’s the outlook that fills my sails.

But, back to the Shirkshire dwelling’s cellar hole, massive hearthstone capping a pile of rubble that once served as the footing for a large, walk-in colonial fireplace; nearby, the stone-clad remains of a significant barn; still farther down the discontinued road, remains of a major dam and millpond, presumably a sawmill and impoundment that provided lumber for construction, ice and sawdust for the milk house. The brook feeds Bear River. Know it well. Often fished the outflow by the bridge as a young man; productive. Who knows who lived there and built this dam? I’d like to piece it all together. The information is at the Registry of Deeds. Another day. No time now.

The next day, Sunday afternoon, we traveled to another part of town, unannounced, me and Harry, in search of the e-mailer whose husband had turned up a derringer in an uprooted tree near his North Poland home; entertainment for both of us, Harry and me. Uplifting.

We arrived at the intersection of Bullitt Road and North Poland and I looked around, trying to figure out which house it was. Then I remembered my dogs, three of them, cooped-up in their porta-kennels since Greenfield, anxious for a hilltown romp, maybe a swim. So we headed up Bullitt Road, toward a reservation, and followed a farm road into a mature hayfield, where we parked and released the animals, eager to scope out the area, figure out what critters had passed through. The dogs sprang through the field, noses on full alert, frolicking, as Harry and I remarked on the beautiful landscape and pleasant change in the air following a deluge.

As we spoke, I noticed chartreuse on the dirt road, then a capped horseback rider trotting up the road. She passed and I whistled the dogs into their crates before heading down the trail toward the road, where we bumped into the rider, doubling back. I stopped and asked if she knew anything about a derringer. She asked if I was Gary. We chatted briefly. She described where she lived, said she’d be along shortly. Harry was amused, tickled by the developments, the method to my madness, how it all seemed to come together on a wing and a prayer. I too was amused in a playful manner. I love hunting, finding things.

We pulled into the woman’s yard, got out of the car and waited. Soon the chartreuse was headed up the long U-shaped driveway. She pulled into the stable at the bend and put her Arabian horse up for the night before walking our way. She invited us in and showed us photos of the derringer, said she was expecting her husband, in the upper meadow, only he could open the safe. We went out on the deck to chat, then heard a tractor approaching. It was him, returning home. We exchanged pleasantries as he approached and he went inside to retrieve the rusty derringer, wooden handles rotted off, circa 1865, Springfield Armory, interesting relic. Who knows? Maybe the corpse was nearby.

When he returned with the pistol, we engaged in lively chat, dancing from one subject to another, Harry right in the middle of it, visibly pleased with the chatter. Then, when he started praising me and my interests, I stopped him, told him it was time to go, didn’t want to wear out our welcome or stir up my wife waiting at home, always a convenient excuse.

We hit the road and I drove Harry back to his place in Greenfield, a meandering route through Conway and Deerfield. In his parking lot, I declined a friendly invitation upstairs. He wanted to show me something. There would be another day. Maybe another Shirkshire jaunt, perhaps Cricket Hill, home of Conway historian Deane Lee, Harry’s late schoolmate, maybe even a visit to Cy’s cellar, South Part, Henhawk Trail. Who knows where our whims will take us? Who cares? It’s never boring, can be invigorating, often providing impetus for new journeys that keep life interesting, the mind active.

It’s all about discovery, equally satisfying for young and old. First, though, you must embrace it, and it you.

Harry knows.

Me too.