Walking the Berkshires

Adaptation

This is one of my favorite photographs from my years in Namibia.  I especially like the way the coppiced mopane tree in the foreground mirrors the braided track with its reflecting pools of water.  This is a picture taken in late afternoon during the rainy season in northern Namibia at a place called Iilyateko and a little Roman Catholic Mission station where I lived and taught during 1992.

You will note the heavy browse line in the foliage and the grass reduced to stubble by goats and herds of cattle.  Colophospermum mopane has the virtue of resprouting from stumps, and this tree with its twisting leaders has been harvested at least twice: the first it lost its main trunk, and then two of its four respouts were later hacked off.  Mopane trees can withstand this kind of use but the forest that remains is greatly altered from what it might have been had the trees been allowed to grow.  There are many people here, and mopane wood is in great demand for fencing and household construction.  Overuse leads to desertification, and if there is one thing Namibia has plenty of it is desert.  But the northern area where the seasonal rains fill the shallow pans called iishana even support fish during these times, and a major flood or efundja even brings down a few crocodiles from better watered Angola to the north.  Roads in oshana country customarily wend their way around wet areas, widening and braiding with use.  This track was too wet for passage a week or so before I took this picture. 

It was late afternoon when I walked outside the kraal, listening to the cattle and children singing and the sounds of the birds gathering before nightfall to dip and drink in the iishana. I was 24 years old and finding my way in a new nation that was finding its own.  I learned to travel that braided track, and those I have found myself upon in my life since then.  Sometimes you have to stay on the path and apply steady pressure rather than striking out on your own.  At others it is best to dodge the traps and avoid the pitfalls and keep moving forward.  There are costs to each approach, and knowing when to apply one or the other can make all the difference.

Cooking with Your Car: A New Take on "I Could Have Had a V-8!"

Here's something I have to try:  reusing some waste heat in from your engine bay to cook a meal on your way home.  There would seem to be several advantages to this type of cuisine.  For one thing, it clearly saves the energy I would otherwise expend in the oven to let my gas guzzling truck roast up some tenderloin and root veggies during the evening commute.  True, I might offset some of those car-bon credits driving further to cook something really big, but think of all those Thanksgiving birds that could be basted to perfection all snuggled up to engine blocks on the way to Grandma's.  Now I know from experience that the striker plate on the inside of the car door can double as a bottle opener, and I've used the handle of a Land Cruiser car jack to spit roast a road killed Guinea fowl, but this takes take out food to a whole new level.

Recipes, driving times, and suggestions for food placement under the hood can be found via Amazon here.

ElmWatch: Restoring the American Elm

There are still a few giants of the lost elm tribe among us, though most of us pass them by without taking notice.  There are a few folks around who remember the days when a squirrel could cross our busy main streets in the canopies of elms, but while there are more streets in the Northeast named "Elm" than "Main", the broad allees are long gone, their fluted vaults and columns fallen to a killer blight that still ravages wild elms and street trees but has yet not driven the American Elm to complete oblivion.  The Elms are still with us, but few indeed of the most stately specimens.  Still, some of these majestic trees remain along our village streets and country roads, and every year a few more succumb to the introduced pathogen Dutch Elm Disease (DED).

This beauty above isn't sick, but just leafing out.  To get a sense of what we have lost, the USDA offers  this striking comparison of an elm-lined street in Detroit and the same view after DED destroyed the elms.  Look at those cars.  There are only a few years , barely more than a decade, between these two images.  There is an elm or two left in the bottom image, but chances are it too succumbed.  Their roots were likely grafted together and transmitted the fungus from tree to tree, while both native and introduced elm bark beetles were vectors for its spread above.

Nine years ago, my friend Tom Zetterstrom and I started Elm Watch because contrary to popular opinion, not all the elms were dead and there were things that could be done to give those still with us a fighting chance and replant disease resistant cultivars to succeed them.  Tom is a gifted artist whose silver gelatin Portraits of Trees are in many important collections.  Tom lives in a small house in my town that used to belong to his father, an arborist who once bought a two-man chainsaw to take down infected elms in the 1960s. One of the most extraordinary scenes I have ever witnessed - and readers of Walking the Berkshires know I have seen some some rare sights in my time - was the al fresco performance of an Ode to the Massachusetts Champion Elm on a Berkshire side street in Lanesborough, played in full Scottish regalia (of largely periwinkle blue) by a female piper who has performed at Tanglewood, and featuring instead of Tchaikovsky's cannon a chainsaw crescendo with Tom firing up his father's behemoth.  Truly indescribable, especially if you are the one holding the handle at the front end of the bar - and I doubt a recording of this once in a lifetime performance exists.  It does illustrate two truths, however; Tom has a touch of the madman (or saint) about him, and people are passionate about elm trees.

Americans, particularly those with New England roots, have a long and very emotional relationship with the American elm (Ulmus americana).  Boston's famous Liberty Treewas an elm, and they were planted in their thousands as the ultimate street tree because of their form, hardiness, and patriotic association.  The cross grained branches are very resistant to splitting, which made the tree more useful for shade and as a thing of beauty than as lumber.

Elm Watch inspired people to "Adopt an Elm", which at $14 per inch diameter at breast height (dbh) paid for a fungicide injection of elms in the public viewshed.  It might cost $500 to property treat a tree of 3' dbh but it lasted three years, and we got enough sponsors for more than 100 trees in the Berkshires, northern Litchfield Hills, and across the Taconics in Columbia and Dutchess Counties.  Elm Watch had a small and long suffering volunteer board that Tom swept up and left spinning in his wake and played a major part in raising "Elm Awareness" and inspiring community forestry efforts in portions of three adjoining states. 

It also saw its mission as Elm restoration, spreading the word about the most disease resistant native elm  cultivars and making them available to the public.  For a while we had an informal slogan; "Give Me Liberties, and Give Me Death", a reference to the first and not particularly resistant cultivar, the Liberty Elm, which many had planted but found still quite vulnerable to Dutch Elm Disease, as this slide by Dr. Alden Townsend of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service illustrates. 

Tom and I were pleased to hear NPR's story last week about the widespread use of the highly resistant "Princeton" elm cultivar in restoration and Home Depot now stocking more than 12,000 of these trees in its retail stores.  USA Today also had the story.  We know that there is certainly a market for them.  There is a Princeton elm growing on my street that I purchased and donated to the Town.  Tom and I pruned it this year, as it has put on vigorous growth.  The next planting was not an elm, however, but an American basswood, for diversity is desirable in street plantings as we have learned and relearned to our cost with other trees with other vulnerabilities.  We now regret our zeal to replace the old elms in the 1970s with Bradford pear, for it has a nasty habit of dropping its weakly joined branches on cars and sidewalks, and the gargantuan silver maples on our street are now too large and rotten to the core.  But a few elms, and some other hardy non-invasive trees, will shade our streets most admirably in the years to come.  And thanks to the wider availability of disease resistant cultivars like the "Princeton" elm, now they can.

Big 'ol Houses, Ticky Tacky

"Little Houses, Ticky Tacky, and they all look just the same. "

Actually, for this former farm now a ridgeline subdivision, the lyrics should go: "Big 'ol Houses, All Together, Crass McMansions, No One Home."  Maybe they will sell better once the housing market picks up again. Or maybe - as some uncharitably hint - there will be a fire.  But one thing they will never be again is farmland.  I bet the wind really blows the dust around up there with nothing but other houses to break it.  Folks gotta live somewhere, I suppose, but if I had $750,000 for a house you can bet I wouldn't want one of these.  There are alternatives to this kind of development that meet landowner needs and make economic sense while retaining what is most significant about the landscape and the surrounding community, but they happen by design not default. 

And just over the ridge, a 350 acre farm owned by two 70-year-old brothers with no children who want to farm after them.  What do you think will be its fate?

Unless...

"A Guide to Invasive Plants In Massachusetts": Get 'Em While They're Hot

This is the booklet no Massachusetts landowner should be without.  Nor should anyone involved in landscaping, horticulture, or the movement of plant material be unfamiliar with the information it contains.  It is very useful to those outside of the Commonwealth concerned about invasive plants in the Northeastern United States but it has particular relevance to the Bay State, for the species described within its pages are subject to importation restriction and are either banned for sale in Massachusetts already or will be phased out by January 1, 2009.  The full list of 140 species on the Massachusetts Prohibited Plants List can be found here.

66 plants evaluated by the Massachusetts Invasive Plant Advisory Group (MIPAG) and found to be invasive or likely to become so in the Commonwealth are given full page treatments in this booklet.  It was produced by a partnership that included the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, The Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, The Nature Conservancy and the New England Wildflower Society.  You might think that with state-wide regulation there would be strong resistance from the nursery and landscaping industry, but instead both the process that produced the list and the phase-out of prohibited species have been supported by the key leadership from this sector.   The Massachusetts Nursery & Landscape Association; the New England Nursery Association and national leaders from the American Nursery & Landscape Association, all endorse the process which produced the list and were active participants in the effort to find meaningful responses to the problem of invasive species in Massachusetts and the development of science-based evaluation criteria.  What began as a shotgun wedding is now an effective partnership, and the result is a much better opportunity to deal with the problem as allies rather than squandering time and resources assigning blame or fighting regulation.

The word has not reached everyone who grows or imports plants for sale in Massachusetts.  Jennifer Forman Orth at the Invasive Species Weblog had to contact a favorite plant catalog and inform them that they were selling species in Massachusetts that are banned for import (but I note they still ship to New Hampshire, Jenn, which also has a ban, I believe).  The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources recently dealt with a national box store that was selling prohibited invasive horticultural plants imported from nearby Connecticut, which most regrettably has opted not to ban plants deemed important to the nursery industry.

Lead author Paul Somers will be retiring from the Natural Heritage Program in July after many years of exemplary service as the State Botanist, and this book and the years of effort and partnership building that preceded its publication are an important part of his legacy to the Commonwealth.  To get your own copy of this information packed guide, contact the Massachusetts Natural Heritage Program at 508/389-6360 (the booklet is free while supplies last but there is a shipping charge), or other providers referenced here. 

And Was Jerusalem Builded Here": The Industrial Past of the Litchfield Hills

"And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?"

        - William Blake: Jerusalem

The green and pleasant Litchfield Hills are actually nothing like they were just a few generations ago.  The regeneration of the eastern forest and the return of long absent wildlife is certainly an extraordinary change, but this has happened all over the Northeast where agriculture is in decline and second homes are in ascendancy.  What is most remarkable is that this lush and verdant region with its seemingly timeless rural charm was in fact for more than 150 years an industrial landscape with open pit mines, blast furnaces and whole mountainsides denuded for charcoal. 

The very heart of colonial and early 19th century iron industry in America lay in the Highlands of New York and Connecticut, and especially here along the marble valleys of the Housatonic River.  There was an iron mine in Salisbury Connecticut at Ore Hill operating five years before the Town was incorporated, and the first blast furnace here had none other than Ethan Allen as one of its principle owners.  During the latter half of the 19th century, the three main iron mines in Salisbury together produced nearly 45,000 tons of ore every year, or 21,176 tons of refined iron. The Lime Kiln Roads and Furnace Brooks of the Litchfield Hills speak of a past that was anything but pastoral, a time when smoke hung over these valleys and great rents were cleaved in the earth that made the mountains low.  This is not mere hyperbole; Ore Hill, shown in the image above, is now a water-filled quarry.

In addition to high quality brown hematite iron ore, this region had all of the key ingredients needed for iron works.  The forests provided fuel for charcoal, and today many of our revegetated hillsides have telltale circles of old charcoal pits scattered throughout the forest.  There was abundant water in high gradient streams to power waterwheels, and limestone to use in the smelting process.  Clumps of blueish slag can be found in all the old iron towns - sometimes deep in swamps or lining flower beds.  Although it proved unfeasible to dig canals to service the mines and transport ore to Long Island Sound, a regional network of rails filled that need for much of the 19th century.

The demographics of this region also changed with the labor demands of the growing iron industry.  Irish and Cornish immigrants worked the mines and furnaces in the 1800s, with Italian and Polish workers succeeding them in the early 20th century.

The shift of the iron industry to the upper Midwest, powered by the coalfields of Appalachia, brought an end to the industrial era in the Litchfield Hills, at the same time that dairy farming replaced sheep and saved the region's agricultural sector from virtual extinction.  The trees started to regrow, the pits filled with water, and the landscape took on the rural character that is so treasured by residents today.  Newcomers think it has always been this way, but in a twist on Blake's Jerusalem, "those feet in ancient time" walked hills that were far from green.

"A Bright, Smart and Successful Affair": The Battle of Chelsea Creek and the Taking of the Schooner DIANA

Private James Stevens of Captain Thomas Poor's Company of Andover Minutemen kept a journal of his service in the American Revolution.  Between the Battles of Lexington and Concord (to which the Andover men came late) and Bunker Hill (when he was home on leave) young Stevens and some of his comrades fought in a little known engagement that has the distinction of being the first capture and destruction of an enemy war vessel by the Americans in war.

It happened between Hog and Noddle's Islands along Chelsea Creek in what is now East Boston.  The islands were leased as farm and pasture by Henry Howell Williams, who up until April 19th of 1775 seems to have done well for himself supplying the British in Boston.  After Lexington, his livestock were vulnerable to foraging by besieger and besieged alike and the British stationed a number of marines on the Williams farm to protect it from the Patriots.

On May 27th, Col. John Stark with 300 New Hampshire men and additional units from Chelsea and other Massachusetts towns was ordered to remove all the livestock from Hog and Noddles Islands to deny them to the British.  They waded across the shallow tidal creek to Hog Island and and rounded up over 400 sheep as well as some horses and cows.  30 volunteers moved on across the inlet to Noddles Island.  Home, barns and hay were put to the torch, and what livestock they could not remove were destroyed.

The marines, meanwhile, had been reinforced by 400 regulars, and light skirmishing turned to heavy fire and forced the raiders back into the marsh to rally by a muddy ditch.  According to the website of the Chelsea Historical Society:

"The British advanced slowly in drawn-up lines until they were a few feet from the waiting Americans. The entrenched Patriots opened with a deadly fire, killing and wounding a large number of the British. The British were forced to retreat. The Americans taking advantage of the break in hostilities, withdrew across to Hog Island. The British Regulars on Noddles Island began firing by platoons across the creek at the fleeing Americans."

Other sources put the British losses at only a couple of killed and wounded. The Americans were able to withdraw to the mainland via Chelsea Neck, but now came under fire from the Schooner "Diana", whose light armament of 4 six pounders and 12 swivels nonetheless could make things very hot for troops struggling through the marshes.  The wind died, however, and the schooner was in shallow water with a falling tide.  It was at this moment in the battle when 300 reinforcements from the Patriot camp in Cambridge, including James Stevens and volunteers from Poor's company, arrived in support of Stark's men with two cannon of their own.  Steven's journal entry, with its unique spelling kept intact, was reproduced in Bailey's Historical Sketches of Andover (1880):

"As soon as the reglers saw our men they fired on them, the firing began on both sides & fired very warm, there com a man & ordered us over a nol rite into the mouths of the cannon.  we got onto the top of the nol & the grap shot & cannon bauls come so thick that we retreated back to the rode & then marcht down to the ferry, the regerlers shouted very much.  Our men got the cannon & plast them & gave them two or three good broad sides & the firing sest in a measure & there was a terrabel cry amonst the regelers, they fired onst in a while all night. about 10 o'clock the scooner ran on the ____& stuck fast; there cum a slup for her relief & they left the sconer."  (Bailey 311)

The British tried to row the "Diana" off the mud with marine barges but about midnight she became hopelessly mired near the Winnisimmet Ferry and by 3:00 a.m. she rolled on her side and the British abandoned ship.  In the fading darkness the Americans offloaded her guns and whatever else they found of value.  They set hay in the stern and below decks in preparation to burn the vessel.  Stevens' journal picks  up the story:

"This morning about day they com with thare barges to bord the sconer.  Cornel Putnam com & ordered us down to the wharfe & we fired so that they retreted back to the sloop our men run down & fired the sconer it burst very fast, the slup begun to of in about three quarters of an hour after it was sot fire, the magersene Blod up & blod out some plunder, they fired from Nodles iland on us about an hour...we are retren back to our packs & go at our Brekfast, the slup drad of to Boston.  there was of our men wounded fore non cild." (Bailey 311)

The "Diana" was a bitter loss despite her light armament.  She was locally built and had been purchased by the British just the year before.  Admiral Samuel Graves wrote the British Admiralty on January 8th, 1775:

"I have taken upon me to purchase the DIANA Schooner of 120 tons, about eight Months old, so exceedingly well built that she is allowed to be the best Vessel of the Kind that has been yet in the King's Service, her first cost is 3750 pounds Sterling and as I have thought it best for his Majesty's Service that she should be an established armed Schooner, I have directed the necessary alterations to be made in her hull and for her to be fitted in all respects like other Vessels of her class.  She will have the St. LAWRENCES's Guns.  On this Occasion I have appointed Lieut. Thomas GRAVES of his Majesty's Ship Lively to command the DIANA SChooner, and Mr. William LECHMERE of the Preston to be Lieutenant of the Lively.  The Diana will soon be ready for Sea, and I shall send her to Rhode Island."

Lieutenant Thomas Graves was the nephew of Admiral Samuel Graves and would later himself be made Admiral.  He was severely burned on the face trying to recapture his schooner.  His brother Lieutenant John Graves rescued the 30 men of the "Diana" with the "Britannia", the tender of HMS "Somerset", which accounts for the sloop mentioned in Steven's journal.

The Battle of Chelsea Creek and the taking of the schooner "Diana" was James Steven's first time under fire and the first time Col. John Stark fought the British.  The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (Vol XXI, 1877) sums up the engagement as "a bright, smart and successful affair (that) did much good by inspiring and giving confidence to the rebels, and the property captured was valuable to them." 

Today, Noddles Island accommodates airplanes instead of livestock, and East Boston is dominated not by muddy creeks and salt hay but by Logan Airport.

Hip To Be Square

The frequently brilliant, manic mother who blogs at Breed 'Em And Weep discovered that her 1980's pop culture references were utterly lost on the young and hip in this great post.  As always, Jenn's delivery is excellent and judging by the scores of comments, her loyal readers could definitely relate to her awkward realization that the seminal influences on her 30-something identity were not even ancient history to the undergraduates of today, some of whom were born after the Reagan years; they had absolutely no frame of reference for them.  It's not like Say Anything is in heavy rotation at your local Blockbuster, or that "Who You Gonna Call?" has any more meaning today than "Where's the Beef?"

Doubtless there comes a time for every generation of American parents when they suddenly discover that their children consider them hopelessly square. The very terms I have available to me at 39 to describe parental uncoolness are so That Seventies Show, but adopting the cant of modern youth wears about as well as a Herb Tarlek blazer at a State dinner.  You know, he was that cheesy marketing guy on WKRP?  Doctor Johnny Fever?  Loni Anderson?  How about Barney Miller; he wore ties that were just as loud.  Right, I'll crawl back under my stone, now.  Peace out.

I used to sing a capella in college (how 80's is that?) and went back for a 20th anniversary alumni concert last year.  I was one of the very old guys who remembered the days when if you were planning on having more than 50 people to your kegger you applied to the Large Party Fund and made sure you had at least one tap with birch beer and some attractive high protein snacks in ready view to satisfy the college that we underage drinkers were doing so responsibly.  Ancient history indeed, as was my attempt at levity when some mod young thing - wearing a tee shirt that unabashedly proclaimed that he had done something unprintable with your boyfriend - was trying to get all of us old guys to line up of the steps of Founder's Hall and I raised my hand and said:

“Can I raise a practical question at this point? Are we gonna do “Stonehenge?”

No one born since I was a freshman in college understood what the hell I was talking about (and had there been anyone there over 50, I doubt they would have either, but if so, then rock on). A few paunchy, gray-streaked and balding alums about my age doubled over in fits of inexplicable laughter.  Spinal Tap was a cult classic back in my day, like Harold and Maude or The Graduate was for my parents' generation and for all I know South Pacific was for my grandparents.  I haven't a clue what the equivalent is for today's 18-year-olds.   Something on YouTube, probably. 

But youth is not just about the new.  It is also about renewal, like finding something in your parent's old LPs that no one else is listening to today and making it your own - which is how I discovered CSN and that John Paul Jones had an acoustic solo album as well as playing bass for Led Zeppelin.  "My daddy was the family bassman / My mamma was an engineer."  Amazing what those people listened to and how cool it could be to rediscover.  As long as modern technology is able to play it, that is.  There are lots of 8 tracks out there doing nobody any good at all.

My kids are too young to be thoroughly brainwashed by pop culture, though 1st grade is doing its best to  acculturate my daughter and one of these days she'll realize that other people have televisions that play more than DVDs and are actually hooked up to cable.  My days as the coolest Dad are severely numbered, but I take solace in recalling that time is on my side (yes it is) and obscure cultural references are what keep associate professors of English off the streets and provide witty titles for blog posts.  So when someone much older than you asks you if we're gonna do Stonehenge, remember;

"It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever."    Words to which bloggers of all ages can certainly relate.

"We Shall Surely Go Away From Madison This Fall If We Live" : Sophronia Judkins Barker and her Son Sammy

My ancestor Samuel Barker Jr. lied to get into the army.  He joined the 37th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry in the final months of the American Civil War, stating his age as 17.  In fact, he was born on Christmas Day, 1848, so on March 25th, 1865 when  he enlisted in Milwaukee he was just 16.  It mattered little to the muster master, who credited him to the City's 4th Ward and packed him off to Washington as a replacement in the Regiment's F Company.  The 37th lost 14% of its total enrollment in combat during just a year of service and had a critical need for replacements.  It also had a high number of Native American recruits.

He gave his place of birth as Bedford Ohio, although he is htought to have been born in Talmadge, Summit County, Ohio.  His occupation is listed as a printer, which foreshadows his subsequent career as a publisher and printer and founder of the family firm S. Barker Sons of Cleveland, which remained in Barker ownership until its sale in the late 1980s.  His eyes were blue and his hair was light and he stood 5' 7", the same height as my own.  He probably enrolled for the bounty, for the family was in deep crisis, but there may have been other reasons as well.

His parents Samuel and Sophronia Barker had both been married previously, and Samuel Jr's son later noted in a brief family history; "The home life of my grandparents on my father's side was far from happy as is evidenced in a few letters written back in the year 1865."

(April 20th, 1865) Dearly beloved Sammy - Oh how glad I am to get a line from you.  William [ a half brother, his father's child by a previous marriage: ed.] did not deed the farm back to your father.  I told your father if he would give me back that $126 that he agreed to give me security on the house and lot I did not care who had the deed but he said he would not give me a cent.  I then told William if he did not deed that place back to your father that I should always think that he was helping your father to rob me, and he knew it, and you and Eva [ his younger sister: ed ] would always think so, and if you see him down there you tell him you will think he will be sorry if he don't.  Tell him you can never look on him as a brother as long as he holds that place to rob your mother.  If you don't see him write to him and tell him so.  He will tell you if he should die he would leave it so you and Eva could have your share.  Tell him you and Eva don't want it that it is your mothers and you want her to have it.  I think he is just as bad as your father.  Oh Sammy, what dreadful news they have murdered Pred. Lincoln.  Oh what will come next?  I must close, from your idolizing mother.  Now Sammy do take care of your money and above all take care of your health don't suffer for anything you need, and don't buy things you can be comfortable without.  Sell that new watch and do as well as you can when you draw your money, and if you need any at any time you shall have it and if you are sick let me know and I will come to you if you are 5000 miles off.  You must look to God to preserve you and bring you home safe and don't forget to pray to him every day and every hour.  I am doing well in the shop (dressmaking).  It is solemn here since that awful news.                 Mother"

There is an awful lot packed into that letter, and even events of national import slip by with hardly a mention given the overwhelming issues at home.  Clearly Sophronia Judkins Barker saw her son Samuel as an ally and doted on him to retain his love.   He must have felt great obligation to her and his sister, but one wonders whether he felt up to challenging his half brother William as suggested, as in later years he visited William's family with his own and had a very pleasant time (but left no record of a visit to his father who was still living in the area.)  The letter makes it sound as if William had also enlisted, and if so then Sophronia Barker must have had her unsatisfying conversation with William by letter rather than face-to-face.  The two William Barkers in the National Park Service Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Database without a middle initial do not at first glance seem right for William L. Barker during this period so here is something new to research.

The admonition to be frugal and yet take care of his needs must have been hard for Sammy Barker.  He was to be paid a $200 enlistment bounty in bi-monthly installments of $33.33, but when he mustered out with the regiment on July 27th, 1865 he was docked $50.53 cents for clothing, had his pay stopped for $10 to pay a sulter named W.H. Williamson and owed the United States $15.35 beyond that.  They had figured out his true age by this time and have him on the muster rolls at 16 rather than 17.  He also became quite ill, and his medical record shows that from July 2 to July 9th he was sick with "acute dysentery" and from July 9-26th "convalescent from Typhoid fever" but returned to duty to muster out with the regiment the following day and no record of permanent disability found.  This would prove a challenge for his widow after his death in 1903, for without a permanent disability and with his short term of service she was ineligible for a widow's claim on a veteran's pension until the rules changed in 1908. 

Sophronia Barker wrote another letter on May 21st, 1865:

"My health is much better than when I wrote you last.  If I was well I could make from $15 to $20 a week but as it is I do what I can.  Your father is more steady and kind than he used to be but Sammy, I want you to come home, and then we will go somewhere and get a house.  If it is a small one it is our own.  I shan't care - we can be happy.  What kind of place do you think it would be for us down there.  Look around and inquire and see what we can do.  We shall surely go away from Madison this fall if we live."   Mother"

After Samuel Barker, Jr. came back from the war, he and his mother and sister moved to Cleveland,  leaving his father in Wisconsin.  According to his sister Eva, the sum total of the cash they had on hand when they arrived was 25 cents.  Sophronia filed for divorce in 1863, and her husband counter filed in 1867.  A history written by Barker descendants from his other marriages (there were four spouses in all) states that a cause of marial strife was Sophronia's growing interest in Spiritualism, having taken to holding seances in the home of which her husband strongly disapproved.  There are certainly more than one side in any relationship.

Samuel Barker Jr. became an errand boy at the Cleveland Leader Publishing Co, also managing a paper route that started at 2:30 a.m. and finding $50 for tuition in Bryant Stratton Co.'s Business College that October.  In 1869 when he worked, went to school and paid board for himself and his family, he still cleared $457.82.  One hopes that his mother was able to find some peace as their prospects improved, but life had used her hard and I suspect she carried old resentments to her grave in 1885. 

Samuel Barker Sr. remarried twice more after the divorce and lived near Black Earth, Wisconsin when he died in 1900.  His will divided a $5000 estate among his surviving children and current spouse, leaving legacies of $700 a piece to all his children but those he had with Sophronia.  To my great-great grandfather and his sister Eva, he left the sum of $1 each.  The history written by the step-relatives notes that this appears harsh but speculates that Samuel Barker Sr. may have felt they had been already taken care of.  This, I am sure, is wishful thinking.  The date of his will is of particular interest.  He wrote it up on August 6, 1892.  Just three weeks before, Samuel Barker Jr. and his family had visited Black Earth.  There is no mention in the extensive family record of this trip that they ever went to see the old patriarch.  I think it was spite after all.

Fiddle-Dee-Dee, Morel For Me

All along the riverbank and meadow margins and in moist places in our woodlands, fiddleheads are rising.  They uncurl from their question mark coils, transformed from vernal expectancy to full fronded glory in the space of a few warm days.  Before they shake loose their slumber, still tightly wound at their core and close to the earth, these are some of the best spring greens available to the forager.  Taking two fiddleheads only from the base of an Ostrich Fern  ( Matteuccia struthiopteris ) and moving on to the next provides a bounty otherwise costing $6 to the pound for the few weeks they are available at market and leaves the fern enough foliage to thrive until next year.  I like them steamed as one might prepare asparagus and tossed in a cold pasta salad with tomatoes and shrimp, or if you are really trying to eat seasonally and locally, as a warm side to a feast of spring lamb or pureed and combined with fresh morels in a creamy soup.

And that is an inspired pairing, for the season of morels is also upon us, that most exquisite myconid, so easy even for the novice to identify.  Looks like the crenelations of a cone-headed brain, hollow and without gills, and found in Spring; it can be little else but a morel. 

But I've never seen them dance.

They love apple orchards, the stumps of old elms, recently burned over areas in dappled sun and shade.  Those who collect morels in these parts guard their sources well.  You might be able to share in the bounty, but not in its location.  So I won't fill you in on my whereabouts this week, and next, but given the rains today I have high hopes of at least a handful of these most excellent fungi to saute with my fiddleheads, slice into omelets, and flavor whatever I happen to feel like grilling.  Maybe shad.