Curious Graves - Persecuted For Wearing The Beard

My friend Barry would not have had a good time living in the Massachusetts in the early 1800's. He's one of those guys who likes to go for stretches at a time without shaving, such as an entire season or two, and it's not uncommon for him to show up at our house sporting the kind of shag you half-expect something to jump out of. In the prim and proper 1830's this lack of grooming was just the kind of thing that could get you ostracized from a community.

That was the dilemma for Joseph Palmer, a man perhaps born in the wrong generation. Like my friend Barry, Palmer enjoyed a thick but not quite so lustrous beard. But when Palmer moved to the town of Fitchburg Massachusetts at the age of 42 he was singled out by everyone from young kids who would ridicule him in the streets, to clergy who would shame and criticize him for what they claimed was Palmer's resemblance to the devil.

Never mind Palmer's argument that when you put pictures of the devil and Jesus side by side Jesus tended to be the scruffier of the two, the townsfolk didn't want to hear that, they just wanted him to clean up and conform to society. When he continually refused, things came to a breaking point, and one day four of the more reasonable men in town set out to beat Palmer up and forcibly shave him themselves. Palmer was a stubborn man in more ways than one however, and with a small knife was able to fight the men off and injure two of them in the scuffle.

With zero sympathy in the community, Palmer was quickly deemed the instigator in the fight and sentenced to jail. There he took his stubbornness up a notch, writing letters and smuggling them out through his son which were published in the local Worcester Spy newspaper, where he told of his story and persecution. And a funny thing started to happen. As word of Palmer's plight became widespread, sympathy throughout neighboring communities began to grow until a call went out for him to be released. Realizing the court of public opinion had swayed, the sheriff told Palmer that he was dropping all charges, and no hard feelings you're free to go. But not satisfied with the sheriff's simple admission of my bad, Palmer refused to leave his cell until many days later when police had to physically remove him and dump him in the street.

Palmer's story has a happy enough ending, at least. Due to the popularity his letters from jail brought, he was able to live the rest of his days free from harassment until his death in the 1870's. But he never forgot how he was treated, and as a message to the world - and perhaps as a big middle-finger to many of his tormentors - he adorned his gravestone with this bearded likeness of himself, and on it had carved this reminder; "Persecuted For Wearing The Beard"

Joseph Palmer's grave is located in the front row of the Evergreen Cemetery in Leominster,
(Lemin-stir, not Leo-minstir ... Tina) Massachusetts.

Bear Hill Tower

It's fitting to me that a town by the name of Stoneham would be home to a stone tower that looks straight out of medieval Europe. Welcome to the Bear Hill Tower of Stoneham, Massachusetts.

Located within Middlesex Fells, a 2,500 acre reservation criss-crossed with hiking and mountain bike trails, Bear Hill Tower was constructed in 1910 on a 319 foot elevation as an observational tower. It's actually the second tower built on this site as a replacement for an original one built by the Appalachian Mountain Club, and is perhaps one of the lesser known locations on the Massachusetts list of historical places.

Driving to the reservation was a bit confusing as we had to enter a small industrial park to find the trailhead. We were almost convinced our directions had led us to the wrong area, but after a couple testy exchanges with Siri we found our spot, a small parking area to the left of the first building in the park. From there we started our half-mile hike to the tower.

I've read that the the Bear Hill Tower is sometimes locked, but I don't know this for a fact since this gate was wide open the day we visited. Or, maybe Tina picked the lock with one of her bobby pins while I wasn't looking.

My suspicion is that the tower used to be locked but is no longer maintained, a suspicion I base on the large tree that's been allowed to grow and obscure the front of the tower. That feels to me like a place nobody is looking after. But provided you're lucky enough to enter it like we were, you'll find yourself climbing a tight, circular stairway that starts with cement steps before changing to these more narrow wooden planks. Also, Dramamine makes a person brave, notice the 2 missing rails where Tina stood to take this picture.

Make your way up its 4 winding levels and you'll be rewarded with a view that stretches all the way from New Hampshire to Boston. Squint past the glare of my forehead and you'll see the Boston skyline in the background of our picture.

This was our last stop for the day on a whirlwind visit to several sites in Boston, so luckily it was a very easy hike. Next time you're looking for something not too challenging that has a very cool payoff at the end, take an afternoon and make the one-mile loop up Bear Hill in Stoneham.


Links:
Coordinates of Bear Hill Tower

On The Hunt For Abandoned Vehicles

What's better than spending a day hiking in the woods? Spending a day hiking in the woods where there's a payoff at the end, which for us lately has been some pretty cool abandoned vehicles.

I'll start with our adventure last fall to the Mill Pond Conservation in Burlington Massachusetts, where the biggest challenge of the day was figuring out where to park. We didn't know much about the place other than two things - it was a conservation area, and there was an abandoned truck somewhere in those woods. We weren't even sure if the area had walking trails though, and after circling the surrounding neighborhoods a few times - to the point we were getting longer than casual looks from some residents - we weren't even sure there was an entrance. Houses seemed to border the conservation's entire 140 acres.

But fortunately I make a habit out of "yupping" my wife, because long after she'd told me to give up searching I found a small parking area at the end of Makechnie Road, where we entered the woods. And after an enjoyable and not too long hike we found the prize, this rusted heap that barely had the words "Burlington" something or other written on the door.

Next we'll bring you to College Woods here in Durham New Hampshire, another easy and enjoyable hike we made this winter. That is, enjoyable until I took us a half mile off-trail and into snow and slush and across a small stream that our hiking shoes were totally unprepared for. After several white lies where I told Tina to keep moving because our destination was "just over the next hill", we finally did come over the next hill and find what I was looking for, this beast that some company dumped long enough ago for trees to have grown around it.

While driving through Berwick Maine one afternoon we pulled over to check directions and noticed a dead-end dirt road disappearing into the woods. Abiding by our family rule of never letting a dead-end dirt road go unexplored (a family rule I created at that very moment), down it we went. Although in itself the road was unremarkable I spotted something through the trees, and to the synchronized eye-rolling of my two youngest children had Tina pull over. There I crept through the woods and snapped pictures of this stripped down old relic.

This next spot brings us back to Massachusetts, and on a hunt through a former farm turned conservation area. The cars we found in these woods were a real windfall - three old Saabs the likes of which I've never seen on the roads of New England.

One being this mini station wagon. I've never seen Tina look large next to any vehicle other than her Big Wheel.

Our final abandoned vehicle I'm adding for two reasons. First, it's a model I'd never heard of before and thought it had a cool name, a Plymouth Scamp. Second, this car is a piece of a much bigger puzzle, the disappearance of Sorensen Transportation and 39 of their tractor trailers that were abandoned in the woods of New England many years ago. This caused quite an Internet buzz when pieces of the story came out last year. Their location was kept secret, but Barry and I found clues to their whereabouts and took this picture while on the hunt to find these trucks for ourselves.

Stay tuned!