Leaf Peeking

Ber was visiting for the weekend, and as the weather turned out to be not nearly as gloomy as forecast, we decided to go on a leaf-peeking trek. The plan was to go to a certain cemetery in Marlboro and get a fresh rubbing from a stone there, bearing a carving of a splendid soul-effigy. I have a rubbing of it that I made more than 20 years ago; it has hung on the kitchen wall for nearly as long. It is looking tired, though, and the newsprint it is on has become brittle and yellowed, and tattered on the edges.

We didn't want to go straight down Rt. 30 to Brattleboro, and up Rt 9, because those are heavily-traveled roads, and on Columbus Day weekend, are packed with tourists. We prefer back roads, anyway, so looked at a map to plan our route. We thought we would go to Wardsboro, then through South Wardsboro to Newfane, then through Williamsville, South Newfane, and down the Auger Hole Road to Marlboro.

The plan went well at first. We went to Jamaica, then over South Hill, always a beautiful drive, to Wardsboro, where they are preparing for the world-famous Gilfeather Turnip Festival.

There we stopped at a roadside bake sale, held to benefit the village school, and bought some goodies, then out toward South Wardsboro.

The road climbs thorough a steep, narrow gulf, and it was apparent that Tropical Storm Irene had wrought significant havoc here. The road was newly paved - probably because most of it had been destroyed. It was shocking to see the banks that had fallen, stripping away rocks and trees, leaving raw gashes in the land.

We emerged from the wounded gulf into the tiny crossroads village of South Wardsboro. The austere old church looks over its village of a few houses sprinkled along a narrow dirt road, and a graveyard that overlooks an old mill pond. We were going to look at the graveyard, but could not find an access road; it seemed to be blocked off by private homes, which seemed very odd. We continued up the road we had started on, up a hill to the west out of the village, when we spotted a small, cascading waterfall in a gully beside the road. 

We climbed down the bank of new rip-rap stones and looked at the broken foundation of a long-gone building - presumably a mill. The water leaped down over the leaf-strewn ledges, and I could only wonder how it had roared the day Irene dropped 10" of rain.

After climbing back up the bank, Ber said, "well, so you want to go back? Or keep going?" We looked up the road, where the wind was shaking a shower of golden leaves from the trees, and we decided to follow this new, unplanned route, and see what was around the corner.

The road was narrow, and neither of us had ever been this way before, which made it all the better. We knew it wasn't getting us any closer to Marlboro, but we had all day, so we didn't care. we determined that the road did lead us toward Dover, and we wanted to avoid that place, sure to be crawling with tourists, but then I saw that this road would eventually lead us to a place labeled "Podunk."

"Podunk?" Ber asked. "You're kidding. Really? Podunk? I wanna go to Podunk!" And so we decided to follow the road to its end.

The road meandered uphill, past some glorious butterscotch-gold beech trees...


 

...until the woods opened up on the right, and revealed a broad marsh, full of cattails and winterberry.

Winterberry

 Here we stopped for a while and enjoyed the quiet, and watched clouds creeping in from the west. It was serene.




The road continued west through the woods, where stone walls between the trees testified to the farming past of this place. There was a time, a hundred years ago, when there was hardly a tree here - hard to believe now.

Finally the road crested a hill, and we found an old, severe-looking farmhouse overlooking broad, steep meadows. Ancient sugar maples lined the road here, their crowns clouds of gold. 

Nearing the top

Austere, and a little scary-looking. Probably haunted.

We paused here for a few minutes, soaking up the beauty of the place. It was SO quiet! There was wind, and the whistle of a chickadee, but no other sound. It must be so beautiful in the summertime, with the fields full of bobolinks, and the trees full of songbirds.


 The road turned downhill now, over the crest, away from Wardsboro and toward Dover. We went slowly, pausing to revel in the scents and sights around us - the narrow road-less-traveled, and the places where the view opened up around us.

My kind of road

Meadows kept open

The road kept on downhill, to a gathering of houses near a crossroads; I guess you could call it a village, though there was no sign of buildings that anchor villages - no meeting house or school. The road we were on - it turned out to have been Potter Road - met three others, and we turned onto Lower Podunk Road. It went uphill out of the hollow and over a low ridge, and here the influence of the Mount Snow ski area became more evident. There were more houses here, and obviously richer houses, and before long we emerged onto Route 100, a mile or so south of West Wardsboro. Since we really didn't want to go into Dover (that section of Rt 100 is desolate, and the area around the ski resort built-up, commercialized and very unattractive), we went back through West Wardsboro, the terminus of the Kelly Stand Rd, and along the flood-ripped road back to Wardsboro. Once again past the bake sale, over the bridge and around the corner onto the road to South Wardsboro. Once again up the gully road, to the village with the austere little church, and this time we took a left.

This road - Newfane Road - is more heavily traveled, and is wider and not as mysterious as Potter Rd - but is still beautiful. We stopped to look at a big gray wasp nest on the middle of a beaver pond, and to take a photo of a wonderful little stone hut in the middle of a field.

A couple of miles further on, Ber spotted an old graveyard, and pulled over. We hopped out, carrying cameras and a notebook, expecting interesting carvings and epitaphs, but not expecting the fellow who came up with the beginnings of modern physics!

Sir Isaac Newton, and his wife Patty

Of course, it isn't THE Sir Isaac Newton, but a man who happened to be names "Sir Isaac", presumably by parents who admired the scientific pioneer.

It's a quiet little cemetery, and it must be quite pretty in the spring and summer. The original Sir Isaac Newton could rest as easily here as he does in England.

A quiet place to sleep

There were a few interesting stones - lots of willow-and-urn designs, very trendy in the early 19th century, and several of the usual, "as you are now so once was I" epitaphs. One unusual carving was this one, of two clasped hands. I have seen this very few times in all my perusal of headstone art. The words over the carving: "Fare well."

Edwin A. Mellen, d. 8/31/1868, ae. 37 years

After leaving this little graveyard, the road swooped downhill towards Newfane. As we neared that village, we came upon a small field roped off for parking, and cars lining both sides of the road, and lots of people walking. We wondered that was going on, then realized it was the Newfane Heritage festivals, a major major tourist trap. We turned around and hightailed it out of there, back up the hill. After consulting the map, we found what looked like a good route to bypass the village, and turned onto Grout Road, which led off to the south. This road soon narrowed to one lane, and meandered off into the woods. It passed a lovely small lake - Kenney Pond, with lots of No Trespassing/Fishing/Boating/Swimming signs tacked to trees. At the end of the pond the road split, and we continued down one called Hobby House road, which had us gasping at the steep dropoff into a deep gulch on the east. Over a hill, around a switchback and to a corner with baker Brook Road. I knew this road would lead into South Newfane, and so we started down it, but found that the road was closed. Though it would have been a great walk on a warmer day, we turned back and once again consulted the map. The side road at the end of Kenney Pond seemed to lead up over Newfane Hill, and from there we could easily reach Williamsville and, eventually, Marlboro.

The road over the back of Newfane Hill was glorious. Old sugar maples lined the road, and fallen leaves carpeted the road, and the air itself seemed to glow with golden light. Ber and I both felt our hearts fill with the love we have for the beauty of this place.

At the top of Newfane Hill, a couple of houses sit perched atop meadows with amazing views to the south and east. We stopped and looked for a few minutes, talking about how great it would be to live up here - until we decided that the wind must scream over this hilltop. We moved on.

A mile or so down the hill we came upon another graveyard. We stopped, of course, and had to take a look.

Newfane Hill Cemetery

A little gabled notice-board inside the stone wall held a map of the graveyard, telling who was buried there, and where. We perused the list of names, then started down through the sloping rows of stones.

There was a stone with an interesting stylized willow-and-urn pattern, similar to one we'd seen in the other graveyard. The willow looks kind of Art Nouveau.

The inscription on the stone is sad and sobering, but not out of the ordinary. It reads: "Mrs. Polly Orsgood - died Aug.30, 1802 In the 26th year of her age. At the left hand her infant child."

Rest easily, Mrs. Polly and child.

Ber found a big old pine tree to hug...

...and if there was any question that we were in a graveyard, we found a marker that removed all doubt: 

I never before saw a stone that said "The Grave Of..."

This super-stylized willow-and-urn on this one is interesting. Ber thought it looked like the pudding in Alice in Wonderland:

We decided that, since it was after 3pm, and it was getting windy, and cold, and spitting rain, we'd  postpone our trip to Marlboro until a warmer day, and go home to hot tea, and a fire in the woodstove.