Wednesday morning, about 9. I’m out by the road retrieving mail at the foot of my horseshoe driveway — Old Glory furled against its tall, knobby, wooden pole, salvaged many years ago from its resting place behind ladders along the three-foot-high, barn-runway wall overlooking the hay pit.
I had heard the mail Jeep coming, risen from my squeaky parlor La-Z-Boy, and had gone to the mailbox to exchange pleasantries with postal carrier Rose, who hands me a fistful of envelopes. As she accelerates off to resume her daily route, a maroon pickup noses into the driveway. It’s neighbor Bernie Mann, 83. He wants to chat.
I walk a few steps toward his open window. He speaks.
“What are those guys up to,” he says, pointing across the street to four men working on a neighbor’s slate roof.
“Not sure,” I respond, “but take a good look while it lasts. Slate men are getting hard to find. I don’t know what people who own houses like mine are going to do in 20 years. Roofers don’t want to maintain slate anymore. It’s a big problem. Honest old-timers are dying off fast.”
Bernie nods in humble agreement and abruptly changes topics. “Hey, you ever been to the old cemetery out by Camp Kee-wanee?”
“No, but I’ve heard a lot about it,” I answer. “In fact, Peter Miller mentioned it to me just the other day. I’ve meant to explore it. Just haven’t gotten around to it.”
“Well, if you ever want to go, stop by. I’ll take you there,” he says.
A few hours later, first draft of my outdoor column in the rearview mirror on a splendid noontime autumn day, I have an opening and think, “Gee, I still have to feed and run the dogs. I think I’ll give Bernie a call.”
I follow through on the thought. He answers. I ask if he’s ready for a ride. He says “yes.” “Give me 20 minutes and I’ll pick you up,” I answer. “There should be plenty of room for the dogs to run there.”
Dogs boxed, I back into his driveway, passenger side facing his front door. Bernie soon exits his house, descends three or four stairs, and climbs up into my truck. We head up Green River Road, over the Pumping Station covered bridge and past the Eunice Williams Monument to Leyden Road. There, we bang a left, take a quick right to Glen Brook Road. We pass the old Poor Farm, the Town of Greenfield’s gravel pits and Camp Kee-wanee before winding down a wide S-turn past Just Roots, a nonprofit, community-supported farm, heading west toward the little cemetery hidden in the woods.
Camp Kee-wanee had over the weekend hosted another Wormtown Music Festival, which I can always hear from home at night. A Woodstock child, I never object or give such things a second thought. Apparently, neither does Bernie, a generation older, who quips, “Let ’em have their fun. They don’t hurt nobody.”
What a refreshing attitude from a twice-married old-timer with deep Vermont roots and a work history as a land surveyor, Greenfield fireman and electrician. A hunter, fisherman and longtime four-wheeler enthusiast, Bernie has in his day chased deer, bears, coons and rabbits, pheasants, grouse and ducks, trout and bass and you name it — and a proud NRA man, to boot. All that yet, still, somewhat tolerant of “others.” A rare breed.
We pass what Bernie calls the old Allen Farm — from the looks of it, unoccupied, its weathered barns and silo still standing at the east end of a 10-acre hayfield bordered on the south by a power line heading west across the Green River to East Colrain and beyond. Suddenly, Bernie, scanning the woods out his window, points and says, “There it is. Pull over.”
Yes, there it was: a quaint little graveyard I’ve always heard referred to as the Country Farms Cemetery. According to a Town of Greenfield internet directory, it’s also known in some circles as the Old Sage Place or Larrabee Cemetery. The latter makes perfect sense for a little 18th- and 19th-century burial ground, the likes of which often carry the dominant surname among the slate and marble gravestones. Problem at this particular site is that among 50 or 60 stones, I didn’t find a single Larrabee. Oh well, maybe the Larrabees lived nearby or previously owned and/or donated the plot.
The majority of stones seem to be from the Graves, Arms and Corss families, with others like Allen, Bush, Billings, Grennell, Pratt, Sage and Wheelock sprinkled in. The burial ground was established in 1794. The oldest stone seems to be that of Amanda Bush, who died on Nov. 4, 1794, at the age of 1 year, 8 months. Her inauspicious slate stone stands in the right, front corner, a likely spot for a cemetery’s first burial.
Far behind the tiny Bush stone, in the right, rear corner, stands a prominent slate stone with the small flag of a war veteran. The name on the stone — Abel Wheelock — is not from Connecticut Valley stock associated with the original proprietors of Hartford/Wethersfield/Windsor, then Hadley/Hatfield/Deerfield. Nonetheless, Wheelock was a respected name in the early annals of Massachusetts Bay Colony. The progenitor is Rev. Ralph Wheelock, a Puritan minister who arrived in Watertown in 1637, then became a founder of Dedham (1638) and Medfield (1651). How War of 1812 vet Abel Wheelock (born 1768 in Lancaster) wound up in Greenfield is anyone’s guess. But that he did, residing at Country Farms, where he was buried in 1831.
These days, Wheelock’s blithe spirit gets to boogie twice a year to loud, outdoor music with the “Wormies,” who, by the way, left enough doughnuts, bread and bones to keep my dogs busy, thankfully, with no ill effects.
“I hope they don’t find any chocolate or hallucinogens,” I said to my spry, octogenarian, fellow traveler.
He just grunted out a guttural, little, oh-to-be-young-again chuckle.
I heard him loud and freakin’ clear.
Recorder sports editor Gary Sanderson is a senior-active member of the outdoor-writers associations of America and New England. Blog: www.tavernfare.com. Email: gsand53@outlook.com.