I have good news tonight for folks in and around Cabot - Harry's Hardware will be open again on Friday!  Stephany Searles, who with her husband, Bobby, owns Cabot General Store and Harry's wrote tonight on Front Page Forum that they'll be pumping gas (competitive prices), have new stock on the shelves, and Stan Linkovich will be cooking up a storm at Butters new location in Harry's.  After months of being closed, sold, unsold, and finally sold again, the hardware store is back in business. As Stephany says, "Check it out - we can't do it without you!"


Our weather today has been pretty drippy.  Lots of fog, almost no sun, a little rain and lots of mist.  Everything is sopping wet, but old timers say this is just the kind of weather needed to bring the frost out of the roads gently so we don't get those deep mud holes.  I hope they're right.  What this weather is doing to the ice on Joe's Pond is a whole different question.  There still is very little visual evidence the ice is melting, but we know it has to be with the rain and snow melting off the hillsides swelling the brooks that feed into the pond.  We will be keeping an eye on it, but the forecast is for colder rather than warmer weather, so melting isn't going to accelerate much.

I was going through some old newspaper clippings I'd scanned some time ago for the Cabot Historical Society, and came across an essay written in 1886 by Mrs. C. M. Gillette, apparently from Washington, D.C.  The introduction described the essay as "A charming word picture . . . as seen by an accomplished lady from our nation's capital.  I didn't read the whole thing, but looked for bits that I recognized as being in our locality.  I started reading in earnest when she began describing Cabot.  It seems she and some others were on a trip from Montpelier to Calais and over the hills to Cabot and on to Danville, then apparently reversed direction and headed towards Greensboro. She said she asked in Calais how it got its name and was told it had originally been called "Careless" due to an accident that had happened about the time it was being settled, and "it just drifted" to be Calais.  Of course, some would argue it should be pronounced "Cal-lay," as in France, but we know for sure now the correct pronunciation.  It's like Corinth.  Some people put the accent on the first syllable, CORinth; but locals know it as CorINth.  

Mrs. Gillette wrote that as they descended into Cabot, the town seemed "uneventful."  Then she went on to relate that the first settlers in Cabot built two cabins, which is true, and then indicated those settlers were named Lyford and Blanchard, and their cabins were on West Hill.  Not so, although Lyford and Blanchard did build on West Hill, according to J. M. Fisher who wrote the history for the Hemenway Gazetteer, the first settlers were Benjamin Webster and Lieut. Johathan Heath, who came in 1783 and built their cabins along the Bayley-Hazen Road on Cabot Plain.  She went on to describe Judith Lyford's foolhardy capture of a bear cub - a story I have always found a bit embarrassing, but I was perplexed that she had misplaced our first settlers.  Then she went on to say, "The ten miles from Cabot to Danville we did not find as picturesque as those we had driven through . . . "  That statement made me really wonder about the woman.  Surely, whether she traveled by way of Danville Hill or over Cabot Plain, she would have been impressed - and what other way could she have gone? Perhaps to Walden and taken Market Road along the west shore of Joe's Pond?  That, too, would have been impressive, even though there were no cottages there were well-kept farms and glimpses of sparkling water.  She went on to rave about Danville (justly so because the views of the White Mountains are spectacular), and then after staying overnight, their party returned by way of Greensboro.  She did mention following "sparkling Joe's Brook" on their way from Danville to Greensboro, and how impressed she was when driving through maple orchards.  The trip must have been in early spring as she spoke about cherry blossoms and budding lilacs.  From Greensboro, where she enjoyed catching some trout, they went by way of Wolcott over the hills to Woodbury, she wrote - a rugged route, no doubt;  she said the last steep hill to Woodbury was accomplished by the horses mostly "on their gambrel joints and haunches."  

Yep, I get the picture!  By the time she'd been jostled about in a hard-riding buggy for a few days, she probably didn't remember some things.  Or perhaps she was busily jotting down notes as she went, not paying close attention at certain times, or perhaps had to hold tight to the side of the buggy as the horses struggled over rough roads and up steep inclines so she missed a few things - but her writing style was quite charming.