Some History and An Unusual Visitor

I've had some interesting emails today! This morning I received a very nice note from David Sprague (Route 2) who, with his wife, April, owns the historic "Maplewood Lodge" by the bridge as you leave West Danville village heading west. We have all watched as workmen labored there and many of us have wondered just what was going on. David explained in some detail the work they have done.

The building was originally the "new" one-room school, built in the early 1800s to replace a log structure that had served during the first years of settlement in West Danville. In 1903 that one-room school had become so crowded that the town voted to build a new, state-of-the-art two-story school in which the primary grade children would occupy the first floor and the older grades would be upstairs. The new building would be considerably larger than the school it replaced, so the old school house was sold to Charles Hunt, who moved it some distance west of its original location and made it into a home. This is explained in detail in the recently published West Danville history book.

Holt sold the property to the Maplewood Lodge, N.E.O.P. (New England Order of Protection), and it was remodeled again to accommodate a large meeting room, banquet hall, reception area, and kitchen on the ground floor, and on the level below there was a pantry and dining room. There were many meetings, dances, banquets, and community gatherings there, including popular gramophone music presentations and later, weekly silent movies. I'm not certain when the building was sold by the N.E.O.P. or to whom, but I remember when it was an antiques shop in perhaps the 1950s, and sometime later it became a year-around home for Richard and Janet Fortin. I was in the building only once when they owned it, and I remember being impressed by the old-time wainscoting on the walls and ceiling, typical of school buildings and public halls at the time it was built.

David wrote about what they have done to reclaim and restore the place:  

Over the past two years we have had the house lifted from it’s foundation. The old foundation was removed and a new poured concrete foundation was then installed. The lower level of the house was completely rebuilt - there was very little that could be salvaged. The main floor of the house retains many of the original features - wainscoting on ceiling and walls - maple flooring - exterior covered porches were rebuilt; the great room was maintained; a new chimney and fireplace have also been installed, along with updated kitchen and bathrooms.

All of the work in restoring Maplewood Hall has been done by local contractors - a great group of people and an incredible representation of the greater Joe’s Pond community. We are so thankful for - Andy, our foundation expert - Trent and Nate, our incredible contractors - Tim, our electrician - Dana, our chimney / stonework mason - and Lloyd, our plumber/heating/propane/mechanical and whatever-else-needed-to-be-done expert. These are the guys that make the Joe’s pond area so great.

We are planning to get all of our furniture and other belongings returned to Maplewood Hall over the summer and hope to enjoy spending time on the pond this fall.

 

I totally agree that he found a great group of professionals to do the work on the house, and I was very pleased to have this update. I've watched with interest as things changed and began to look so much better. Although David didn't mention changing the windows on the road side of the house, that change makes perfect sense because of the unusually close proximity to busy Route 2. I wish the Spragues all the very best and I'm sure they will enjoy wonderful moments in their "new old house." It is an unusual spot, filled with history. 

 

Then, this afternoon I received this photo from Ray and Cyndi Rouleau saying they spotted this large bird in the middle pond. They said it has been possibly identified it as a gannet, an ocean bird commonly found along the coast from Quebec, Canada, south. 

 

It would seem unusual for it to be this far inland, but perhaps it got confused with all the smoke from Canada. This region has so far escaped the worst of the smoky conditions, so this could be a really smart bird waiting for better flying conditions; or it could be a really confused creature with faulty GPS.

I easily found a picture of a gannet on the internet so we could see an up-close view. I then cropped the photo the Rouleaus sent to me and here it is on the right. The quality of the enlarged photo is poor, but it does give us a little better view of the bird. I can't tell if the beak is actually long or if it is a water reflection, but it definitely has a shorter neck than a gannet and doesn't sit in the water quite the same, so it could be a common gull. Gulls are not unusual visitors here, and I've seen them quite often during the summer. From what I read, gannets prefer being well out at sea, while gulls are scavenger shore birds. Anyway, thanks for the photos, Ray and Cyndi.

I hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather, but we do need rain badly. It seems we are in a particularly dry area - there has been more rain east and south of us - so we're approaching drought conditions, and farmers are hoping it rains soon, and of course rain would be most welcome in Canada. The prediction is for some rail later this week, but whether it will be a good, soaking rain that will help replenish the very dry conditions remains to be seen. We should be careful what we wish for; we could get more rain than we can handle when it finally comes. Be safe, and enjoy.