A Visit with Alice Kay and the Scuba Dude

After walking on the Genessee Greenway Trail with my older brother, I headed home the next morning.

On the way home, I stopped in to visit with Alice Kay and her husband Terri. We had a pleasant lunch with super-good homemade egg salad! I had been discussing the history of the area with, and wondering out loud to Alice Kay what might be left of a couple places - notably, the Greenwood Tannery and the Barclay Railroad.

In 1891, the Greenwood Tannery was owned by Thomas Procter and Jonathan Hill. There were 75 acres connected to the plant and 15,000 acres of timberland were owned in Sullivan and Bradford Counties. Contracts were also held for bark on 11,000 acres of land at Foot of Plane.

They had 10,000 cords of bark on hand. The tannery consisted of 458 tanning vats, 13 coolers, each 8 feet deep and 8 foot diameter, 16 leaches that held 16 tons of ground bark each, 100 men worked in the tannery - 50 men worked full time in the woods and 3 (railroad) cars of leather were shipped each week.

Their supply of hides was the African Buffalo hide from Calcutta - they made only sole leather (as in the bottom of shoes) - 12,000 tons of bark used each year - 25,000 hides tanned each year.

Of the tannery, there is very little left - Alice Kay thinks one or two buildings that remain standing in Powell might have been part of the tannery.  Perhaps the most lasting legacy is the name of the town which was changed to Powell in honor of Joseph Powell, a past president of the tannery.


Of the railroad, which served the tannery, nothing remains to be seen in Powell except perhaps the barest of traces.

"Foot of Plane" was a place that the Barclay Railroad loaded cars with coal. The railroad than transported the coal to waiting canal boats in the nearby town of Towanda. The small town of Barclay was located near the top of the hill above "Foot of Plane." Terri offered to take me there to see what we might see. A visit to the Barclay Cemetery was also planned. The map below (click to enbiggen) shows the remote location of the cemetery high above the Schrader Creek at Foot of Plane.

  Foot of Plane was a place where coal was trundled down the steep hillside in small carts from the mines located near the top of the hill.  The town of Barclay was located near the top of the plane. Of Foot of Plane, there exists only one or two building today. There is no sign of the coal tipples (bins) nor the Barclay Railroad.

An old drawing showing the Foot of Plane - Scanned from original copy of Beers 1869 Atlas of Bradford County showing us what it looked like "back in the day."

 

A small creek named Coal Run parallels the gravel "road" (I use that term loosely!) up the hill to Barclay Cemetery.  Where the town of Barclay, founded in May of 1869, stood, nothing appears to remain.  The Great Depression, the plague, and the collapse of the coal market led to the towns demise.

After parking the truck and a short walk into the woods, Terri and I arrived at the gate of Barclay Cemetery - now at last, there were some "remains" to be seen (bad pun, I know).  In the woods at the top of Barclay Mountain, are gravestones intermingled with "new growth trees" and sinkholes from collapsed mine shafts (known as "drifts".)

I found the place spooky - but there was an ethereal air to the place - the shaft of sunlight through the trees on one of the nearly forgotten plots was awe-inspiring to me.

Time and neglect (and perhaps vandalism) has taken its toll on the edifices raised in memory of those that had passed on..

In this case, the heartbreak of William Huggan (1841 in Nova Scotia - 1883) and Elizabeth nee' Rogers Huggan (1847 in French Canada – 1923) whose family had so many that died at very, very tender ages. James - 2 months, George Henry - 7 months, William - 8 months, and Henry 1 year and a month.

A site that list all the graves that remain readable is (here)

I want to thank my gracious host for the wonderful lunch and the trip up the mountain.  As always, it was very nice to see and visit with you!

Barn Charm

Outside of Piffard, New York, near the Genesee Valley Greenway Trail.

On Saturday, my older brother and I hiked on the Genesee Valley Greenway Trail - the trail was an abandoned Pennsylvania Railroad bed that runs from Cuba to Rochester, NY.  We planned to walk 26.2 miles (one standard Marathon) and go from Sonyea to Scottsville, NY.  But, we had to detour an airshow being held in Geneseo and that added three miles to our walk and took us past this charming barn.

Wordless Wednesday

Photo from BEFORE Superstorm Sandy and an old Postcard

Mandy's Glade

With the family out of town this past weekend, I needed to keep busy in order not to feel alone.  My younger brother is at a trade show in Boston this week - so I continue to be alone.  In order to keep busy and my mind off the "not good" thoughts of just why I was alone, I went to the houseboat resolved to do a laundry list of activities.

I got a late start on Friday (messing with my Dad's computer was slow going!) but Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny and not too unpleasantly warm, so I headed over to Chestertown's "City Dock" and looked at the Schooner Sultana, the first I have seen her this year.  She's been busy, out of port, on "road trips" ("river trips?) to places like Saint Micheal's and Baltimore.  From there, I went to the local Farmers Market and looked but didn't buy.

I went to the supermarket. My shopping list was simple:

Kitty Litter - Check! Wet Cat Food - Check!  Laundry Detergent - Check! The sign on the reverse had a different list: Paper Towels - Check! Dog Food - Check! Dog Biscuits - Check!  Leaving the supermarket, I went to the Humane Society of Kent County with a trunk full of goodies where they were received with happy smiles.  Perhaps too, Ruby was smiling also.

From there, I took a quick swim and then headed to the Atkins Arboretum where I spent several hours walking through the meadows, lost in thought:

..and into the woods.

...amd before I knew it, I had walked nearly 7 miles and my lingering thought was that of the goat herd I had seen - and how cute the goat was that stood on top of the picnic table, overlooking her domain.

I returned to the houseboat and took a most refreshing swim, before settling down to read for the evening, a history book I got from the Chestertown Library about the "resettlement" of the Native Americans from Georgia to Oklahoma back in the 1830s.  A most terrible and sad moment in American History.

Sunday morning found me restless and anxious - so I hit the road and headed home.  Once there, I decided I needed to do some tree-hugging.  So I headed to Valley Forge National Historic Park and feeling like I was nearly my old-self as far as walking form, selected a combination old-new trek.  I combined the "Pawling's Farm" shown below with the "Deer hunt Walk," followed by the Schuylkill River Trail, and returning to my car on the "River Trail."

Pawling's Farm

I've not been "up" to walking on the Schuylkill River Trail of late, I think it was a combination of couple factors, my being sub-par with the health issues, and well... the walk takes me past a place with special memories.  Memories, I have been avoiding.

The Schuylkill River Trail is a walk/bike path created from the Pennsylvania Railroad's Schuylkill Branch.  It ran from Philadelphia to the coal counties beyond Pottstown, Reading, Hamburg, and Pottsville.  For a short distance, the abandoned right of way carries the walker (or biker) over the small streams and through the meadows of Valley Forge.

There is a place, where the trail goes over a small stream on an old stone arch culvert/bridge that has some powerful and lingering memories for me.

View from the trail

A while ago, I lost a dear and special friend.  Her name was Mandy, and she lived in far away Australia.  We "met" on-line and talked about everything under the sun.  Her beliefs were odd to me (she was Wiccan) and her speech and mannerisms were intriguing and different (should I say, "unique"?)  I found myself learning from her and enjoying her "company."  One of the things we talked about was, where we would go if we were to ever meet - and at this quiet little spot, I envisioned us having a picnic, while seeing the many deer wandering about.

...and so I have, perhaps unconsciously, avoided the place since she passed away at a far too young age - apparently mostly from giving up the battle against the many injuries life inflicted on her.

As a strong-minded, determined, independent, woman, she had her opinions and wasn't afraid to voice them.  Among those opinions, were her religious beliefs.

Wiccan teachings say nothing of "the afterlife."  Many of them believe that when someone dies, if they mourn at all, it is for their loss, for the loss of the person to the world, for themselves, their family, and for what the person could've done had they lived. Few Wiccans mourn the fact that a person has died.

So to honor that - I mourned what she might have done - had she lived on.  Mandy's ashes were scattered by her children at a very pretty seaside village called Port Fairy, located on Giffiths Island, Victoria, Australia.  There is a lighthouse there - near the waves and sea creatures that Mandy adored - and this is where her children celebrated her life.

I held my own celebration of her life ... here, in this quiet little glade.  As I pondered what she might have done had she lived, I came to appreciate the Wiccan ideas of "do no harm to others" and Mandy's thoughts on "pantheism" (the belief that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God, or that the universe (or nature) is identical with divinity. Pantheists do not believe in a personal or anthropomorphic god.)  Here I was - "held in the cusp of nature" - and alone with my thoughts - but not alone... I was connected to everyone and everything - through some deeper, unseen but powerful links.

So, having spent some quiet moments of reflection - with bitter and regretful thoughts turning to far more positive ones - I left the glade - and although I think Mandy was "not there,"  she was in some way, "connected to there."  As are each of us - interconnected - and a part of each other.

I headed back to my car along the river, past the turtles,

..and over the stream that created the glade,

 ... and past the tree that reminds me of two other dear friends (that I've neglected of late)

The walk went steadily.  I soon put seven miles on the trusty pedometer - and was happy enough to see my car waiting for me in the parking lot where I had left it.

As for the deer... I saw none of them - but I'm sure they were there... somewhere.