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Once again I made the deadline to get my article to the Cabot Chronicle - but just barely. It was an unusually busy week and although I thought I was well ahead of schedule, I found myself barely making it last Friday. It wasn't all my fault. I usually don't search for photos for articles until I'm finished writing. Since I'm doing a series of historical pieces about Cabot, I was confident about what photos I would use and knew exactly where they were. When I plugged in the stick drive where they were stored, a box came up saying the file was damaged and did I want to fix it - and of course I said yes. I know these things take time, so I left the computer to do it's work. When I came back a little later, there was a message that the file couldn't be used. You guessed it. Everything was gone. I tried everything I could think of, but I couldn't access anything on that auxiliary drive and I no longer had it on my hard drive because I was trying to make room and put lots of files on auxiliary stick drives. I later had the same message come up on another stick drive when I used it, but I ignored it and the files were all there when I opened it.
Long story short, I sent the article with a few photos I was able to find by searching other files on my computer - stuff I'd used in some other way or shared in messages, but the more recent photos I had wanted to include were gone. I had shared some of the historic photos with the library in Cabot, but they are closed on Friday. I explained to Jeannie, editor of the Chronicle, and hit the "send" button.
Saturday morning I scooted to the library and Kathleen was waiting for me with a copy of the lost photos. I'm so glad I had shared them with her! While I was out (on such a lovely day!) I decided to take a quick trip to the Center of Town - the subject of my article. Work has been done to establish a walking trail from the Village to the Center - but most of the historic site has had little attention in recent years. The old cemetery gets mowed regularly, but the bushes around the old pound and the stone marking where Cabot's first Congregational church stood had grown back. I was happy that there were no large trees down in the vicinity. The signs that I believe the Judith Lyford Woman's Club, now disbanded, put there to mark the church and pound have disappeared and the one by cemetery has bullet holes and is bent out of shape. It's sad, but they can be replaced.
The Center of Town is a lovely spot. I was there at about noon and the sun 
twinkled through the massive trees. It was quiet. The foot trail is closed for the season. I went down to the cemetery (left), but I didn't go past the gateway. I got some pictures and returned to the parking area where there's a trail leading to the old pound. I keep a couple of walking sticks in the car, but didn't think to grab one until I was half-way to the pound (below right), and realized if I went over its wall and up the hill, the shortest route to the top where the church marker is, I would probably need a walking stick or I'd risk a tumble. I had no problem locating a sturdy stick among the forest debris, which is what I've done for years and why I have several rough ticks by the door of my garage.
It was only a short distance to the top of the hill, and I was very aware that I wasn't as steady going over rough country as I used to be, but between my makeshift walking stick and grabbing onto tree branches and bushes, I got safely to the top. The marker for the church is shown on the left. The black and white photo below it was taken when the marker was put in place during an Old Home Day celebration in 1901. At that time, the area had been cleared and opened up for farm land. The boulder is high on a ledge and faced north or northwest. Over the years it 
road and a plateau instead of overlooking a very steep stone cliff as you see in the bottom photo.
I arrived back at my car all in one piece, no harm done to me or the environment. The Center is one of my favorite spots. It's a quiet, lonely spot - not many people go there - except I imagine more people will take advantage of the walking trail and visit now. It is notable because it is actually the geographic center of the town. James Morse, Esq. was the first to settle there in 1789, a few years after the first settlers arrived on Cabot Plain. Jesse Levenworth, Maj. Hitchcock, and Asa Douglas donated eight acres of land to be used for town purposes at the center, and a school was built, the pound, the church, and a cemetery established. Soon there was a store, several homes, a tavern, and farms surrounding the public land. But in a few years the population shifted, as it had from the Plain, and by 1846, the town business and much of the community at the Center had, as
one old timer put it, "moved down to the swamp" next to the Winooski
River, where Cabot Village is now. And that's the story of Cabot's Center of Town.
Our nice weather continued yesterday and today and I think we will have one more day of warm, mostly sunny weather before temperatures more in line with late October settle in. This has been a nice opportunity to get outside work done, and I have everything done except one tree needs to be wrapped in burlap, then I'm done. I suppose it wouldn't hurt it to not wrap it, but other years if I didn't cover it there were large patches of dead branches in the spring. Recent winters haven't had the extended periods of below-zero temperatures we used to have, so it might be ok, but I don't want to take a chance. It gets a lot of wind and weather and putting a little burlap around it is no big deal. I'll take care of that tomorrow, I think.
Be well and think pleasant thoughts.
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