Food in America--In Cod We Trust

Cooking dinner at Plimoth Plantation

History of Food in America

Rockport History Book Club

Rockport History Book Club

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Wed. Aug. 26, 2015: The History of Food in America. [Proposed by Janos Posfai] Let’s explore what Americans have considered a square meal, starting with Native Americans (Indians), and including Pilgrims, then people arriving from other parts and classes of England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Italy, Russia, African slaves, China; look at regional foods from the South, New England, the West, Midwest.

Heather Atwood, In Cod We Trust: From Sea to Shore, the Celebrated Cuisine of Coastal Massachusetts, 2015, Photography by Allan Penn, 2015. Globe Pequot.

            Heather Atwood, Cape Ann Food Writer, has written a marvelous, delicious book about cooking and food of the Massachusetts coast.

            In Cod We Trust is a colorful, mouth-watering trip along the Massachusetts coastline, from Buzzard’s Bay to Newburyport, pointing out spots and people all along the coast who have a part in the rich mélange of Portuguese, Sicilian, Finnish and old Yankee cooking that one may find here.

            Heather has researched her subject well.  She’s obviously spent time with Finns in Lanesville and Cape Cod, Portuguese and Azoreans in New Bedford and Gloucester, Italians and Sicilians in Gloucester, and plain old Yankees up and down the coast.  She’s pulled out old recipes, and talked to people who prepare, sell or just eat food, and learned the back stories to some dishes.

            The title of the book is about Cod, and cod, or bacalhau, baccal, bacalao, torsk, turska or morue, is a fish that everyone along this coast can relate to, and can connect to their home country.  Right here in Rockport we had a brisk fish processing business—one just a few yards from our house, on the dam at Mill Pond, where there were always racks for drying fish.

Fish cutters preparing to dry fish on Mill Lane, ca. 1920.

            Heather’s intensive investigation has brought up the last remaining dairy in Westport, Shy Brothers’ Farms, turning to a cheese product they now make, as huge dairy companies gobble up small producers.  She points out Russell Orchards in Ipswich, the last of a dozen apple orchards along Argilla Road, and then offers a recipe from an old Ipswich cook book for Argilla Road Apple Pie.

            This is first a cookbook, but it’s also a fascinating food history.

            Of course, there’s a segment on clams, from the clambakes that Agawam and Wampanoag tribes have been throwing for celebrations for many centuries, to the discovery of how good fried clams are, starting with Chubby and Bessie of Woodman’s in Essex.

            There are many recipes, and many tales that relate how the Portuguese brought their food here. Those Portuguese are mostly those from the Azores, now an autonomous part of Portugal two thirds of the way from New Bedford to Lisbon, and there are also Cape Verdeans, from a former Portuguese colony off the coast of northwestern Africa.  Heather includes mouth-watering recipes like Clams Bulhão Pato, Hake Molho de Vilão, Sopa do Espirito Santo, a soup with beef, a shin bone, and chourico; and Cacoila, a spicy pork stew.

            On Martha’s Vineyard Heather drew a recipe for Cranberry Crumble from Gladys Widdis, an elder with the Wampanoag Tribe. Also included is a Spring Garlic Soup from Martha’s Vineyard. I remember having garlic soup in Lisbon—it’s a meal that stays with you, and everyone around you.

            From Nantucket Heather offers Fresh Corn and Coconut Soup, and from an 1874 cook book, Nantucket Corn Pudding, which she calls “the Cinderella of corn puddings.”

            Heather's time with Finns who live near her home in Folly Cove, Rockport, and more Finns on Cape Cod, produced several recipes like Kropsua, Baked Pancakes, from Lanesville, Rice Pudding, from Rockport’s Spiran Lodge, and Lanttulaatikko, a rutabaga casserole.

            Heather draws upon a rich acquaintance with Gloucester as she tells about Lobsterman Geno Mondello and his quiet hospitality on Gloucester harbor. She offers his recipe for Cod Cakes with a homemade béchamel sauce. Of course there have to be lobster recipes, and she offers Mortillaro’s Baked Stuffed Lobster, which, with a photo by Allan Penn, looks fantastic.

            Heather returns home to Rockport to tell about lobster rolls, chicken salad in a jar, a Rockport version of Vietnamese pickles, and Anadama, a Rockport original bread, made with molasses.  Perhaps in the next edition she could tell more about the Anadama lady, Melissa Smith, and her fabled pies that she always sold at events in Millbrook Meadow.  She might even include the story of the time the pigs at Nugent’s piggery got loose and invaded the Anadama bakery.

            It’s a wonderful sweep of delightful eating over the centuries, and a book that tells you how much people from all over the world have brought to the table here.

Libby H. O’Connell. The American Plate: A Culinary History in 100 Bites, 2015, Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc.

            Libby O’Connell, Ph.D., is the Chief Historian of the History Channel in New York City. This fascinating book, divided into 100 “bites” takes the reader into the tents, hogans and lodges of American Indians, and follows their food history from the “Three Sisters”, the trio of corn, beans and squash, grown together, and eaten together, because they provided basic nourishment in snowy days when the Indians could not find meat or fish.

            Hunting was much harder until the Spanish brought horses to the New World in the 16^th century.  For centuries Indians hunted bison in herds of thousands, caught huge salmon, and killed deer. They never had dairy products until the European settlers brought cattle here. Cooking was instantly easier for Indians when the Europeans gave or traded them kettles and cook pots.

            In this book Libby carefully builds “the American plate”, starting with the food Indians ate, then showing how Spanish conquistadores moved vegetables from Asia to Europe and then to the New World, or from South America to North America. Christopher Columbus, she writes, was not only an explorer, but also a smart marketer. He knew Spanish investors, eager for the expensive black dried pepper that he originally set out to find, would be interested in hot peppers from America. He brought the seeds for Capsicum peppers back to Europe.  Completely different from piper nigrum from India’s Malagasy coast, but they became popular in the hot, sunny climates of Europe and North Africa. 

      

            The Spanish started exporting the foods of America to the rest of the world a century before the Mayflower unloaded her seasick passengers in 1620, O’Connell writes.  The Spaniards exported the first maize, turkeys, potatoes, chocolate, various beans, squash and tomatoes.  Somehow, Europeans thought that turkeys had come from the East, hence the English name of “turkey” for these birds. The French call them dinde, or “from India”. The Dutch say turkije.

            Columbus introduced pigs to the New World on his second voyage west, and English settlers brought more of them, and the hogs found paradise here.  They happily gorged on wild acorns in 17^th century Virginia, and America became “hog heaven”. O’Connell brings pork back over and over in pulled pork, barbecue, all sorts of sausage, bacon, scrapple, chitterlings (chitlins), and even the salt pork in fish chowder. Inexpensive cuts of pork became a favorite food for slaves, and later for freed blacks as well as whites. 

            Roast beaver tail once was a favorite for hungry trappers, but it’s one of many American favorites which have come and gone. Eels, still popular food in other parts of the world, were British Americans’ gourmet food. What did they use for bait to catch eels? Lobster. Perry, or pear cider, became popular with settlers who had been accustomed to beer back home in Europe. Roast turtles are another once-popular dish.

            During the first generations of English colonists in the new world, “sallet” was the name for a vegetable dish, hot or cold. Our word “salad” comes from this, simply meaning “salted”.

            Sarah Josepha Hale, the Martha Stewart of the 19^th century, published recipes in Godey’s Lady’s Book for roast turkey with stuffing and pumpkin pie as she lobbied to create a new national holiday.  After many years, President Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, designated the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day. 

            Doughnuts, created by the Dutch, were popular in 17^th century America, but they were round balls of dough, about the size of a large walnut. An American seaman cook is credited with putting a hole in his doughnuts in 1847, so they would cook more evenly.

            Columbus also brought sugar cane to the New World.  Originating in New Guinea, this became a crop in the West Indies, Brazil and Louisiana that depended upon backbreaking labor to plant, grow, cut and refine into molasses, sugar and rum. This involved shipping millions of African slaves to the New World.  From then up until the end of slavery, there developed a trade route triangle that brought fresh slaves west, and took molasses north, where it was refined as sugar or turned into rum, and east with the sugar and rum. Rum and bourbon are New World originals.

            O’Connell takes us through American history, with an Election Cake during the time of President Andrew Jackson, and includes a recipe that calls for 30 quarts of flour, 10 pounds of butter, one quart of brandy, three dozen eggs, and more.

            Union troops ate far better than Confederates during the Civil War, because most of the food production was located in the North. Southerners had concentrated on building up the cotton and sugar industries, and had not really planned an economy that could operate independent of the north. Union soldiers ate good bread and beef often, even near the front lines, while Johnny Reb had to subsist on cracked corn.

            Chinese workers building the great Union Pacific railway introduced Chop Suey and Chow Mein to America.  The fact that no restaurant in China served either dish bothered no one, O’Connell writes.

            As food distribution got better, America started to see national products, like Borden’s Canned Condensed Milk, and canned vegetables by Libby, McNeill & Libby, Campbell Soups, Jell-O, Heinz 57. Coca-Cola, and Cracker Jack. There’s a “bite” of a story for each one of these, and many more.

            The Gilded Age, the 1890s, brought Delmonico’s in New York, the Palmer House in Chicago, and Antoine’s in New Orleans.  This is when Baked Alaska, Oysters Rockefeller, and Beef Tenderloin appeared.

            Food in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s White House was notoriously bad, O’Connell writes, but FDR made good Martinis and Old Fashioneds, and Eleanor even cooked up some tasty Scrambled Eggs.

            On and on the “bites” come in this book—103 of them, right up to Salsa, Sushi and Chili Con Carne.

NEXT FOR ROCKPORT HISTORY BOOK CLUB:

Wed. Sep. 30, 2015:  Charismatic leaders in History. [Proposed by Janos Posfai] What were the keys to Hitler’s, Churchill's, Mussolini's, FDR's successes? Keen perception of public moods? Oratory abilities? Character, firm ideology? Connecting to the people? How did they deploy their charisma? How could Napoleon manipulate the masses without TV ads? Why were people so perceptive to a madman in Germany? Intriguing and recurring questions.  

Wed. Oct. 28, 2015: Show Trials in History. [Proposed by Janos Posfai]   Read how nations and leaders have used a well-publicized court trial to serve another need, like demonstrating power, making peace, deflecting responsibility, etc.

Examples: Trial of Socrates; Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms; Sacco Vanzetti; Nuremburg War Crimes Trials; Julius and Ethel Rosenburg; Trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu;  Saddam Hussein in Iraq;   Stalin’s NKVD show trials; Trials in Stalinist Hungary like Cardinal József Mindszenty, oil executives, L. Rajk. 

 Wed. Dec. 2, 2015:   Elections in American History. Donald Trump may think he is something unique in the long history of campaigns and elections in the United States of America, but our history is chock-a-block with strange, weird and fantastic characters and events. For this November meeting, one week late to account for Thanksgiving, read any book about presidential campaigns and elections, There was 1800 when Adams ran against an "Un-Christian Deist", Thomas Jefferson.  There was 1828, when things got dirty-- the Adams men said Jackson was the son of a prostitute and a Mulatto, and a bigamist and an adulterer. We had Know-nothings, Mugwumps, Half-breeds and Progressives. One man, Eugene V. Debs, ran from prison and still received 900,000 votes. And then there was Watergate... and the Swiftboaters.

 Contact:  scoulbourn1@verizon.net

The American Family from Plimoth to Today

American family during the Depression

History of the American Family

Rockport History Book Club

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life, 1988. New York: The Free Press, Simon & Schuster. 316 pages.

            I feel whiplashed by this book, and by the history of American families.

            The idea of the family in the time of the first European settlers was so strong, and you don’t have to be a social scientist or historian to know that today, more families are run by a single mother, more marriages will end in divorce, more teenage girls will have children outside of wedlock, and more children will grow up in a continuous cycle of poverty, drugs, abuse, lack of parental guidance, poor schooling, and the prospect of repeating it all over again for another generation.

            This book was published in 1988, so it would be interesting to read the 2015 version of this history.  But nothing I have learned or read suggests that we have found the path toward improvement.  The authors do propose remedies, though, and we’ll look at those later.

            Steven Mintz, a historian, joined forces with Susan Kellogg, an anthropologist, to conduct this fascinating story of the American family.

            They use letters, diaries and documents generated at the time to look at what is an American family, and all the “Domestic Revolutions” that have taken place since white men and women arrived on this continent and set up housekeeping.

            The authors examine Native Americans as well, and give us an interesting look at life in the families of African slaves.

            When the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts the family was the most important institution to helping them adapt to life on this wild continent. 

            The family was a lot more than we think of today.  It was the work place for its members, the school, and the place of worship. It was the hospital, the bank, and more.

            Love was not necessarily involved in marriage.  Husbands and wives were often matched by the older generation, and there was always a financial consideration, which became more elaborate as more Americans obtained land and generated wealth. 

Pilgrim Women Cooking

            In Puritan days, the idea of death was everywhere.  Many women died in childbirth, and it was the rare child who reached the age of 20. Add to that the Puritan concept of original sin, whereby even newborn children were considered sinful.  Children were taught to be ready for death. Early schooling combined with religious teaching, to develop another God-fearing generation. 

            Puritans never thought of the family as a private unit. It was an integral part of the larger political and social world. It was a world of one man, one woman and many children.  Orphan children, children of the poor, convicts and single men and women were compelled by selectmen to live within “well-governed families” so that “disorders may be prevented.”

            In spite of Puritan ethics and morality, life went on in the colonies, and not all of it was pretty. The authors write of men tried for abusing their wives, a man in Maine beat his wife with a club when she refused to feed a pig. An Ipswich man poured poison in his wife’s broth in an attempt to kill her.

            Mintz frequently quoted the diaries of Samuel Sewell, a businessman in the late 17^th century in Massachusetts.  Writing about the time when his daughter gave birth in 1701, 16 women were in attendance in the lying-in room to offer encouragement and give advice.

            If a Puritan father were to be transported into a modern American family, he would be apoplectic at the independence and ignorance of children today.

            Children, both boy and girls, wore a sort of dress until age seven, when boys put on trousers and girls dresses.  Boys went to work, as apprentices in the father’s trade, or nearby in another home.  Girls began to learn of the role of women in spinning, cooking, finding wood, growing a garden, sewing, and cleaning.

            Gradually, things loosened up in the family.  Fathers began to lose or give up some absolute authority.  The idea of “original sin” of newborns changed so that the concept of death was matched with a more pleasant afterlife, when earthly burdens would be shed.

            And children were no longer required to remain standing while their parents ate their meals.

            Fewer couples addressed each other as “Madam” and “Sir”, as emotion began to creep in to the family.

            In the 17^th century there were from 850,000 to two million Native Americans in what we now call the United States, and they were in 240 different tribal and ethnic groups.  Families were small, infant mortality was high, mothers nursed their children for two years. As time went on, many Indians died of diseases of white men, and many Indian women married white men and African slaves, as families began to get more diverse.

            Mintz’ 1988 book provides an interesting discussion of life in African-American slave homes.  With all the terrible treatment of slaves, and with families torn apart by slave owners, children sold off, wives sold to another owner, sexual abuse by white owners—the most horrible of treatment and miserable living conditions--- despite all this, the man, the father, was a stronger part of the family unit.  Where they could, men and women stayed married (or committed to each other where marriage was not permitted) in far more cases than today. 

            Chesapeake planters learned early on that they needed to grow the next generation of slaves, so more African women were brought over, and stable family life was encouraged.  Most unions of men and women lasted over 20 years, except when one mate was sold to another plantation, and according to the authors, slaves valued marital stability. Slaves in most cases discouraged casual sex in their communities.

            By the start of the 18^th century, more white families began to pull into a higher income category.

            The Industrial Revolution brought a lot of changes to the American family.  As factories opened, many people, left the farms and came to work in factories.  Women, especially, left home to work in the mills.  Soon, there was a need for more workers than could be provided by natives, and immigration began to increase.  Poor Europeans, seeking the promise of wealth in the New World, flocked here, and of course that brought changes to the American family.

Fifties Family

            The Fifties, 1950-59, usually comes in for recognition as the time of the ideal family.  There was far more stability than today, more discipline.  Parents, who grew up in the Depression, had lower income expectations. They had lived through World War II and experienced sacrifice.  And few people were involved with drugs.

            Then came the Sixties, and all hell broke loose.  Intellectual leaders pointed out the plight of American women, mostly dedicated to a life as mother and homemaker, supporting partner in the family, and began the drive for feminism and women’s liberation.

            Abortion, once considered taboo, became increasingly mainstream.  At about the same time, birth control pills for women became widely used.

Women’s Liberation March, 1960s

            Young people were stirring, restless, ready to shake loose the conformity of the Fifties, and an age of revolution began. War began slowly in a far-off country called Viet Nam, but in this decade it grew, and gathered up young American men to go off to fight.  Unlike World War II, this brought on a fierce public opposition, and many young people openly resisted the draft.

            At the same time Black leaders were gaining increasing traction in striving for racial equality, and this brought on demonstrations and riots and murders, racial unrest that continues even today.  But changes took place.

            Against this backdrop the American family changed profoundly in this decade.  More women left home to work, leaving children in the care of child-care facilities, relatives or babysitters.  There were more divorces.  More and more people got introduced to drugs.

            Discussing families gets very quickly into which politics people use.  The African-American family today seems to many observers to be a structure in crisis.  Too few children are born and grow up in homes with no father, and perhaps a mother who has experienced very negative relations with males and tends to take her feelings out on her sons. 

Black Poverty, 1994

            Education in poor, black neighborhoods is not as good as in middle class neighborhoods, and even if it were spectacular, the child’s education should take place 24 hours a day, at school and in the home.

            Children who receive a poor education, or are poorly motivated, and eventually drop out, become more of the huge swirling pool of unemployed, uneducated, unmotivated people who are easily captured by gangs, crime, and drugs. And what does society do?  It locks them up, where they can continue to polish destructive behaviors in prison. 

            Conservatives conclude that the black family is really kept down by massive welfare programs that encourage poor work habits, and discourage cohabitation and parental support.

            Liberals contend that there is too much incarceration, and many imprisoned blacks should be released to work programs.  They cry for improving schools in black neighborhoods, but good schools without parental support is like one hand clapping. 

What’s the solution? 

The authors offer some. 

Enact legislation that encourages husbands to stay in the family. Provide support for families, instead of withdrawing welfare when the husband comes home.

Work out flexible hours and maternity/paternity leave policy to allow workers to be more effective parents.

Improve custody laws and other aspects of divorce law to provide best possible contacts between parents and children.

Steps are now being taken to decriminalize non-violent drug users, with addicts placed into recovery where before they were jailed. Will this work?

Wed. Aug. 26, 2015: The History of Food in America. [Proposed by Janos Posfai] Let’s explore what Americans have considered a square meal, starting with Native Americans (Indians), and including Pilgrims, then people arriving from other parts and classes of England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Italy, Russia, African slaves, China; look at regional foods from the South, New England, the West, Midwest.

Hitler ©Life Magazine

Wed. Sep. 30, 2015:  Charismatic leaders in History. [Proposed by Janos Posfai] What were the keys to Hitler’s, Churchill's, Mussolini's, FDR's successes? Keen perception of public moods? Oratory abilities? Character, firm ideology? Connecting to the people? How did they deploy their charisma? How could Napoleon manipulate the masses without TV ads? Why were people so perceptive to a madman in Germany? Intriguing and recurring questions.  

Wed. Oct. 28, 2015: Show Trials in History. [Proposed by Janos Posfai]   Read how nations and leaders have used a well-publicized court trial to serve another need, like demonstrating power, making peace, deflecting responsibility, etc.

Examples: Trial of Socrates; Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms; Sacco Vanzetti; Nuremburg War Crimes Trials; Julius and Ethel Rosenburg; Trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu;  Saddam Hussein in Iraq;   Stalin’s NKVD show trials; Trials in Stalinist Hungary like Cardinal József Mindszenty, oil executives, L. Rajk. 

 Wed. Dec. 2, 2015:  No meeting

 For questions contact Sam Coulbourn at scoulbourn1@verizon.net

Rockport's Green Treasure heads toward Restoration

Times, they are a-changin’….

        Millbrook Meadow sits squarely in the middle of downtown Rockport, right behind Front Beach.

            It’s been there, in various forms ever since Richard Tarr climbed out of his little pinnace and walked ashore to become the first settler of what would someday become Rockport.

            A few years later, the second settler, John Pool, moved over here from near Beverly, and decided he’d get into the business of grinding grain to make flour. There was a nice little stream, that they named Davison’s Run that they’d use to provide the water power.

            He got himself a license from the town fathers of Gloucester in 1702.  This was part of Gloucester in those days.   He had a bunch of men start work digging out a pond.  It took them a while, because they dug down eight feet, and the pond, when they were finished, was about an acre in area.

            John was an enterprising guy, and he could see that this water power could also power a sawmill, so he set up to start dressing the beautiful big pieces of hemlock and hickory that the men brought in.  They trimmed them into lumber and shipped them down to the new town of Boston, to build Long Wharf.   

            Davison’s Run brought the water down from the hills above Sandy Bay, as it was called in those days. Later that same little stream would bring the water to power one mill after another, as Sandy Bay became Rockport, and workers built organs, pianos, buggies, made glue, and ground up fish bladders to make isinglass, the material used to clarify beer and wine.

            That little Meadow behind Front Beach was a busy place.  It was grungy, dirty and stunk to high heaven, especially with those dried fish bladders.  That was Rockport in 1840, and on to 1900.

            After 1840 Rockporters started quarrying granite, and the town became one of the best sources of granite in the U.S.A. They built a new dam in the Meadow, and re-directed Davison’s Run into a narrow, granite-lined ditch on the side of the Meadow.

Isinglass Factory, ca. 1900

            In 1929 the isinglass factory stopped work, and burned to the ground the next year. The Rockport Garden Club decided to buy the property, and got up $1500 to make it a part of the town.  Then, in 1938 they presented it to the Town.  Thirteen years later, in 1951, the city fathers thought that it would make a nice parking lot, and the paving trucks were lined up to go in and do the job.

            Lura Hall Phillips, the president of the Garden Club, got wind of this, and from her home nearby on Main Street, went running over to stop the pavers.  She called on her friend, Aldro Hibbard, a world-class artist, who was also one of three Rockport park commissioners, and the two of them stopped the paving. Then Lura got her friend, a lawyer named Ken Nickerson, and started haranguing the selectmen, and soon, the paving idea was no more.

            Lura went on to become the patron saint of Millbrook Meadow.  For the next 40 years, she ran pets and hobby days, Maypole dances, Arbor Day celebrations, and all manner of fairs and picnics in the Meadow.  She raised money to build a nice stone bridge in honor of Tarr and Pool, and then a beautiful stairway from King Street into the Meadow, in honor of the Rockport Stone workers.

Lura’s Steps into the Meadow

            Lura was a one-woman dynamo.  All the while, she was saving up her own money, and when she died in 1994 (at the age of 94!)  she left a pot of money in trust for the Meadow.

            Life went on.  People kept enjoying the Meadow and the Pond.  Millbrook Meadow Committee, which Lura had formed, gathered to clean up the Meadow twice a year, and DPW mowed the grass.

            Then, at Mother’s Day, 2006 the Mother of all rainstorms came and drenched the Meadow and the Pond for days, and finally the dam blew out.  The same old granite dam that had held back the water since 1840 gave way and flooded the Meadow. 

            Finally, the Town got the people at FEMA to rebuild the dam, and the project started in 2012.    

            As the plans were getting finished to actually rebuild the dam, John and Barbara Sparks took a walk through the Meadow. 

            John saw that the Meadow and the Pond were actually on their last legs.  For years Rockporters had skated on the Pond in winter, fished on it in summer, played and strolled in the Meadow, but had not realized that Rockport’s green treasure was slowly sinking and failing.

            Others thought that it could all be made right with a little work from DPW, and maybe more work from volunteers. 

            But John could see that what was needed was major intervention.  Trees were dying or dead, The Mill Brook ran over its banks and flooded the Meadow regularly, and the Pond was loaded—loaded!  with silt and filling with cattails. Soon it would just be a soggy wetland.

John Sparks, center

            John gathered people together to start what would become the plan for Restoration. Lura’s trust fund, carefully guarded since 1994 by Gunilla Caulfield, could now be used to start the long process to bring our Meadow and Pond back to robust life.

            It is now 2015. Lura’s $182,500 was the seed money. Town Meeting and the Community Preservation fund added $160,000 in 2013.  We hired a contractor—Milone & MacBroom of Cheshire, Connecticut, and now we are on the verge of making some real improvements.  Most since the Meadow became Town Property in 1938. 

            We are taking our request for construction money to Town meeting next spring (2016), and in the meantime soliciting private donations.  With the help of a challenge grant by an anonymous donor we’ve gathered some $70,000 so far.  We figure we’ll need about $1,300,000 to finish the work, which will include completely rebuilding Mill Brook so that it flows through the Meadow instead of in a narrow ditch, and is designed to control flooding much better.

            We’ll also dredge the Pond and the little Frog Pond, and replace all the invasive plants with sturdy native plantings and trees, and we’ll make the Meadow and Pond more accessible to everyone, even handicapped persons. For the first time, we’ll have electrical connections for concerts and events in the Meadow, and water to use in watering gardens—instead of borrowing it from neighbors nearby.

            The Meadow and Pond will be much the same, but better, and won’t flood so much, and there’ll be much more for kids to explore and enjoy. 

            And when you walk through the Meadow, or skate across the Pond, you’ll be able to see the spirits of Richard Tarr and John Pool right alongside you.  Things have changed, but much remains the same.

-end-

 For more information about the Meadow and Pond see http://www.millbrookmeadow.org/