This has been a better looking day than it actually was. It never warmed up enough to get out of the teens, as far as I can tell, and now the sun is going down and so is the thermometer - again. We got just a trace of new snow last night - nothing like the mid-Atlantic states got. Lots of folks up here are wishing we could trade weather, and I bet those of you in New York, Washington and Philadelphia area would be on board with that, too.

Diane Rossi took this picture this morning. She wrote: "Lots going on out there this morning. It had just reached 0 when I took this...."

I've been sticking close to my office all week, today included. I finished putting together all the material from the Jennie Donaldson papers donated this fall about the Bayley-Hazen Military Road and on Indian Joe. Jennie was a teacher and used this material in her elementary school classes. The papers on the military road and Indian Joe are now combined into an album. Some needed to be photocopied, and all had to be dated and arranged chronologically.

There are still more papers to go through, but I'm nearly finished with what I received from Jennie's family. She saved lots of newspaper clippings, and those will be associated with the masses of other clippings we already have.

I found among Jennie's Bayley-Hazen Road papers a picture postcard of The Tavern that served travelers on the old military road. If they didn't stop at Elkin's Tavern in Peacham, travelers on that road would come next to the Yellow House on Cabot Plain, about six miles away. Then there was the inn at Walden four corners, and The Tavern in East Hardwick would have been about another few miles along the Bayley-Hazen Road. I imagine the Yellow House on the Plain looked something like this sketch, but as far as I know, there are no pictures of it, although we do have some of the hardware - some hinges and some iron tools that were dug up at the foundation.

We have the iron mess kettle that was used by Gen. Hazen's soldiers at their camp on the Plain. It was found under a tree top by John Damon, Sr., one of Cabot's early settlers. A man by the name of Ames Walbridge worked for Damon, and when he married, Damon presented the kettle to his as a wedding gift. Years later, Walbridge gave the kettle to his brother Lyman Walbridge who had moved to Cabot. Lyman used it to boil sap in. In 1906, Lyman's son, Lysander, gave the old kettle to the Town of Cabot with the condition that it be kept safe. It was displayed in the 1906 Old Home Week Celebration, and now has a permanent home with the Historical Society. I took this picture when we were doing inventory last year. I think we need to clean off the writing in chalk - someone felt compelled to identify it at some earlier time, I guess. There is a marker in the woods beyond Richard Spaulding's home on the Plain where General Hazen's camp was located, and where this kettle was found.

I'm taking a break from history tonight. We've been invited to Bill and Diane Rossi's for dinner, and we're both looking forward to that. Fred has been working on computer stuff and taxes - so he needs a break, too. Sometimes we have walked down to the Rossi's, but it's going to be too darned cold tonight - although, when it's moonlit, we've been out there when it was very cold and it's absolutely beautiful. I think it will be clear tonight, but I don't feel like bundling up for a walk in the dark.