Storyteller, announcer, supporter of family based agriculture and youth. I write from my inspirations and fill my blogs with my other love - photography.
Today is the first of a series What's the Story Here? This series will highlight interesting people, places and things I run across. Stop back for another installment every few days. Thanks
Mansfield General Store - good old fashioned country charm!
They sure got it right on the business card, because this is the capitol of country charm!
I stop often for a cold drink, a wonderful cranberry chicken salad wrap or a hot cup of coffee. Today I visited with intent to see all the happenings, this summer Saturday found a tag sale of antiques and collectibles, fresh picked flowers and artisan bread baking in the neatest copper covered oven out front. ( see an upcoming post for more on the bread).
As you can see the store has served the community at Mansfield Center, CT. and the many who pass through for a long, long time. The store is set just a stones throw from the cemetery of colonial stones and the field where the militia drilled for the march to Bunker Hill. It is right at the intersection of our towns historical past and busy present. On this particular morning the Saturday traffic was whooshing by only to slow at the glint of sun on the copper bread oven and the white tents harboring classic New England collectibles.
When was the last time a pocketful of change meant reaching into the tin covered candy jars for just the right blend of favorites?
My children learned how to count money buying a few selected pieces of candy from a previous owner. This a a tradition as old as candy itself! What a great lesson for kids to learn, how to be a savvy shopper with a budget of 50 cents.
Have a cup of coffee and enjoy the photos of the Mansfield General Store then come down some Sunday for brunch and live music! Find them at the Intersection of Rtes 195 & 89
Our family came to Mansfield, Ct. in 1772 from Killingly Ct ( near RI line) they have farmed the same fields ever since. The farm has grown, especially through the 1950's as other area farms went out of business and were bought up. Now the fields are united as you will see in the video clip from haying this summer. We produce high quality dairy products the old fashioned way with continual care for our cows to see that they are healthy and happy. Mountain Dairy a Connecticut Century Farm.
The vault released so many vital data bits our heads were swimming with names and dates. For me at least there was the understanding of the sections of town the boundaries and the places mentioned. Laura was baffled by the geography of the search and relied on my clarifications for what was nearby etc. From a deed in 1820's I was able to tell where the farm was simply by the description. Not that many to choose from so we were able to add it to the list of places to go see. In the end of the day with minutes ticking to closing and with a ream of copies of materials she still did not have hard evidence that Daniel was the son of Ebenezer.
The Town Hall closes at 12 on Friday's and we packed up and left. Only hours left of Laura's stay in Ct. and so much to see. We met up with the family and I climbed in their car for an auto tour of their family heritage. We went around our farm and the University. We drove down to the village of Atwoodville and I pointed out the trail that leads to the ruins of early Silk Mills and industry whose birth was in the town of Mansfield. On this day with the 3 children in the car it wasn't the mills that were the intrigue it was the swimming hole in the Mount Hope River. Here for 200 years family members have escaped the dog days of summer with a cooling dip. Great Grammy used to tell of her brothers hoeing corn and shedding layers as they ran toward the river and the giant rocks, the leap and the refreshing water. Scampering over the rocks the children were soon in and taking turns sitting where the small water fall poured over their heads making a umbrella shaped splash about them. The giggles echo off the rocks and the time goes to fast.
Back on the road we have one last stop, the Atwoodville Cemetery. The children cool from a swim are happy to stay in the car with a movie the eldest , Laura's son comes to join the search for the missing link. We walk up and down the rows of markers. Laura's voice calls out with a catch, I found him. We all gather in front of a stone, it is the father Ebenezer Baldwin next to his a stone for his wife and the dates coincide. Daniel is buried in Wisconsin but it was said he and his wife lost 4 children in one week before they moved west. The children should be here. But there was no place with four small markers.I had sent a picture of one stone but it was not clear enough to read in the on line image. If we found the children and they said they were Daniel's it would indeed be proof. The stones next to Ebenezer and his wife are small and crusted thick with lichen and moss. From 1824 the plant life has had a fair chance to take hold. In the car I have a bucket, water and scrub brush for just this moment. Soon we are washing away the years of growth and there is the missing link. Four little children who perished in a plague buried in three graves with markers with their names and saying they were indeed the children of Daniel and his wife Serviah. Here they are buried right beside the grandparents and there is proof Ebenezer, Daniel and the children raised here and in Wisconsin are one family, ours! 186 years later. they are remembered and for us show the way, a link to the Mayflower and a history lesson these children will never forget.
The phone call came a couple months ago from Wisconsin. The caller, Laura found my name on the town website listed as the Cemetery Sexton and she was searching for records. On a long quest to follow her family genealogy she soon discovered the Mayflower Society and how to trace back and show your roots as founders of the Nation. Their acceptance is pending and the strength of the tie dependant on finding some pertinent dates for a few members of the family tree, and the missing link is in my jurisdiction.
So I get a few of these a year and know the town family names well so I ask , "which family are you trying to follow?" Her reply Crane, makes me laugh. "well hello cousin!" We discuss the lineage and sure enough the town isn't and never has been that big, it just has to be, and we find the common ancestor for indeed some sort of cousin we are.( actually my husband's side) She asks what I know of the Crane family, my husbands grandmother was a Crane, and we lived in the big farm house with them for 10 years. She was born on her parents farm and it is still there. Laura is looking for particular people and headstones, info and any dates that might help n the quest to put her missing Daniel here in Mansfield at about 1820. She thinks it should be at a cemetery called Attwoodville. Well that one is closed and I don't have the records but assure her it's not that big, I will go look.
I send photographs of a variety of family stones and what info I can. Finding John and Abigail's stones at Pink Cemetery dating 1765 and sending that along the grim angels from many stones staring out through time in the photos. To support her quest which is so close to completion they planned the family vacation in the east.
Yesterday towing the pop up camper and with three travel weary kids in the van they arrived in town. Laura and I headed to the vault of town hall and the incredible record of our town and its people. Dad and the kids went off in search of a hotel and swimming pool. We emerged from the vault a couple hours later when their closing sent us on our way. We found land and deed transfers, we found births, deaths and marriages. We found many references to Daniel and Ebenezer but no actual proof it is the one and only we are looking for and no record of dates of birth death or marriage surfaced yet.
I was paging through the yellowed text with the fancy script writing and the name Baldwin popped up, here is a tie we are looking for could we find him in the group? We have several sir names to follow depending on which generation and the women's maiden names so I am scanning lists looking for Baldwin's Crane's, Eldredge, Hall, Swift, there are a lot of all of them from 1690 on into the present. Here is a Daniel Baldwin and what is this roll of names for, why does he have a Beaver?!!!! I begin to really read the page and laugh right out loud. "your kids are going to love this....the family dog was named Beaver! Sure enough I stumbled on the record of dogs kept by the ancestors of 1860 and there was the Baldwin family owning a mid size black and white spotted dog named Beaver! How funny and they had to pay a $2.00 tax on that dog! Just for fun I read a bunch of the descriptions and bounding off the pages come long lost hounds, best buddies and herd dogs. So long forgotten and joyfully frisking in heaven but recorded and preserved forever in the town vault a testimony to man's best friend.
Today we will return to the vault seeking that lost link to the family tree, just a date or absolute record of our Daniel, where he was and where he went that somehow led that branch of the family out of town and into the nations heart. They didn't go so far that we can't find pieces of their lives and know that trotting along side the family was a faithful dog named Beaver!
After the vault today an auto tour with stops to see the Crane farm, the family swimming hole the old cemeteries, the general store, the church our farm where the family name continues in a sign over the barn door - CRANE BARN. Beaver is coming with me,there is a story there and I think I will work on that after the pop up camper heads west to Wisconsin and the road dust settles.
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