Post by Grubb. On this road trip through the northeast it seems almost every town has a barn full of antiques and a white shingled house selling used books. One could promote a regional tour of used book stores modeling it after a scavenger hunt. Every old person getting on the Yankee Tour bus would…
Author: Grubb
Sugar bum
Post by Grubb. It’s hard to stop at any town Vermont without getting a sugar fix. Ella’s already given you a picture of the maple syrup farm we visited. Thursday when we drove through Woodstock we decided to take a break and stretch our legs. We didn’t get but a couple of blocks before we…
Contemporary time stamp
Post by Grubb There was no question about what world I was walking around today. The mangled machinery sculptures on the Southern Vermont Arts Center lawn were a vivid contrast to the sylvan background. Then there was the man walking his dog who I overheard talking into the wireless air. “Don’t worry about it. I…
Back to the 21st century
Post by Grubb. It happened late Friday morning at the Southern Vermont Arts Center. There was the leaf-shuffling hike up in the foothills behind the center to give a nineteenth century stir to the blood. Then we took in the Ashley Bryan collection of puppets at the Arts Center. Artifacts of puppetry were kept in…
Backwoods revolutionary
Post by Grubb. Dateline: Burlington, Vermont, late 18th century. Ethan Allen was a hometown hero before there was even a town. People settling in the area from New Hampshire claimed it was New Hampshire, people settling from New York claimed it was New York. Ethan joined with a bunch of investors and bought a whole…
The dark side of Albert
Post by Grubb. Collecting weathervanes is one thing, but amassing whirligigs as well, who else but Electra Havemeyer Webb would have the resources, much less know the difference? But before I could immerse myself in objets d’weather, I had to check out the Bierstadt that I heard was on exhibit in another building at the…
Electra leaves an Impressionist
Post by Grubb. Electra Havemeyer Webb inherited a sugar fortune. Then she married a polo player whose mother was a Vanderbilt. With her wealth, Electra preserved thirty- eight 19th century buildings and then had them installed as a village on her 1,000 acre estate just off of Route 7 in Shelburne, Vermont. Electra had a…
Transpo kings
Post by Grubb. The side-paddle-wheel passenger steamer moored on the grounds of the Shelburne Museum is one of two remaining in this country. For a boat that only ferried people across Lake Champlain it is quite impressive in an excessive Gilded Age sort of way. An ornate dining room and cushioned observation chairs for a…
After sixty years, it comes together
Post by Grubb. One of the exhibits of 19th century life at the Shelburne was a demonstration of how an old printing press worked. This was fascinating to me because the press that was being used was exactly like the cast iron monstrosity that I grew up with in Chicago…except the one I remember taking…
Speaking of fear…
Post by Grubb. How about this bird’s eye view of a turkey buzzard ready to dive-bomb a farm? It’s an Andrew Wyeth painting from the early 1950s. I can imagine Miss Nancy Lawson looking at it while she puzzles over the mention of Wyeth’s anxiety over Cold War mutual destruction.
You don’t see many of these anymore
Post by Grubb. On this day of the unmentionable Italian explorer it’s only fitting that, in my Shelburne Museum ramble, I would find myself pausing to look at a collection of wooden figures that used to stand out front of 19th century cigar stores. The best, I thought, was the lighted action figure, a blatant…
1843
Post by Grubb. That’s the year it was all over for Miss Nancy Lawson. She was a follower of William Miller, an early 19th-century religious leader who believed the world would end at that time. There is a portrait of Miss Lawson painted by William Matthew Prior that hangs in the Webb Gallery at the…
Dog is great
Post by Grubb. Leaving the White Mountains behind us in the morning mist, we came across a curious form of worship up in the hills outside of St. Johnsbury. (St. Johnsbury is in Vermont, but remember, this is a parallel universe so state borders as we know them may not exist.) Another aspect of experiencing…
Portal with no peepers
Post by Grubb. Even in the rain the White Mountains have been an explosion of warm colors. When we arrived on Friday I expected the forests to be swarming with people, more commonly known as peepers, mesmerized by the autumn foliage. Where did they all go? Did we leave (no pun intended) them in Maine?…
Halloween hike
Post by Grubb. When does a hike become a fright? You start off by only reading the first sentence describing the trail in the guidebook. The one that says the 3-4 mile Dome Mountain Trail is “one of the most rewarding walks in the Randolph area.” Then you say to yourself, “That sounds great to…