If you read the "Comments Page" you saw that Susie Swanson, on Island Drive, posted a message that they lost their boarding ladder. If anyone finds it, let the Swansons know. I don't think they have a phone, but they are at 84 Island Drive, right by the rail trail.

Everyone is enjoying the summery weather at Joe's Pond. My family had a great time at camp this weekend - Fred and I were busy so we didn't get down to join the fun. We have almost finished painting the tractor garage, though, and I finished taking inventory at the Cabot Historical Society.

Over the years, Cabot has had a number of doctors in town. One of the most famous, of course, was Dr. Burbank, and we have a lot of his memorabilia in our collection. We also have a pill case that belonged to Dr. Parley Scott, who was one of the first to settle in Cabot. According to information with the pill case, Dr. Scott doctored in Cabot from 1794-1850; however, according to cemetery records, Dr. Scott died on December 25, 1849, at age 85. We'll need to change that. His wife, Lydia, died in 1854 at age 84. There is a large burial lot in the Village Cemetery for the Scott family, and a young son, Parley Cheney Scott, age 3, died in 1803 and is buried at the Center of Town Cemetery.

Another son, Aura Scott, died in October of 1813 and was buried near where Dr. Scott first settled, near Benjamin Webster's on Cabot Plain. There is a marker at the intersection of the old Bayley Hazen Rd. and Rt. 215. The original marker for young Aura's grave site has been lost, but when Velma Smith and I were working on locating old grave sites about 10 years ago, we talked to people who had seen the marker in the field. A gentleman from out of state who had visited here a number of years before, sent a letter with information he had copied from the marker in the 1940's, so that was included on the new marker. Here you see the field stone marker at the edge of the field and a close-up of the plaque.

It is quite amazing how many vials of pills even Dr. Scott carried with him, but Dr. Burbank's pill case (below right) had dozens of small bottles of pills, powders and solutions. We have other odds and ends of medical necessities - there's an ear trumpet, a magneto that was used to send an electric shock through patients with "nervous disorders," a crudely carved tongue depressor we decided probably was kept and used for patient after patient, no doubt ensuring the doctor would be kept very busy, even some of Lydia Pinkham's tonic for women. I think we can be sure the tongue depressor would not have been Dr. Burbank's, for he was very conscious of the importance of sterilization and sanitation.

In the book published in 1999, Cabot Vermont, Memories of the Century Past, available at Hastings Store or through the Cabot Historical Society there is a good deal of information about the doctors in Cabot, personal memories of amusing and often painful medical experiences that happened years ago.

Since I will no longer be working on inventory, and the historical society building will be closing after Sept. 29 for the winter, I'm taking stock of the historical society work I have left to do here. There are many old newspapers yet to go through to pick out Cabot items; there are separate files for the school, the church, creamery, Old Home Week and Judith Lyford Women's Club that need to be dealt with once I'm satisfied all or most of the separate slips of paper, letters, photos, etc., have been collected to them; I also have several family files where I've gathered more than the usual amount of information, including personal letters, diaries, account books and photos that we feel should be kept together, and I'll have to decide how best to preserve those.

For now, though, we're going to enjoy the nice weather, get as much outside work done as needed before snow flies, and when snow comes, I'll have lots of interesting things to work on.