A Hike Back in Time: Memorial Day 2019

Our tiny town has one of the more charming Memorial Day services. Picture small children singing “My Country 'Tis of Thee,” a member of the historical society reading The Gettysburg Address, and the whole assembly joining in a walking parade between the three town Veterans’ memorials where a former marine plays Taps on his harmonica.

Last year we missed the service, so we decided to go on a Memorial Day adventure instead. Jim, a member of the local historical society, invited folks to join him on a hike to lay flags on the graves of two Revolutionary War veterans. The hike started right at the top of our hill, a half-mile from our house, so it seemed like an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.

We met Jim and Clare, another member of the historical society, and headed down the trail. As we walked, we noticed that the trail was often bordered by old stone walls. This had been a great mystery to me when we first moved here and discovered a stone wall in the woods at the back of our property. Why would someone build a stone wall in the forest? Then it dawned on me that this had not been forest when they built the wall. This whole area had been cleared and used to graze animals. In a couple of hundred years, the forest had reclaimed the fields.

As we followed Jim off the trail, he pointed out cellar holes and the foundations of old barns. A little farther in and we stumbled upon the small graveyard, surrounded by its own little wall. The gravestones were hunks of granite hand-carved with the names of Enoch Kilton and his wife Ethear. Jim had carried in clippers and a rake and we set to work clearing the space of old leaves and placed a small flag in a special holder labeled Revolutionary War Veteran.

 

Claire told us that at the time of the revolution this whole area had been cleared. The farmer/ militiamen here in western Massachusetts had felt the vibrations of the battles in Lexington, picked up their muskets and started marching toward it. She also told us the story of Enoch’s wife who came into this country with her husband and 10 children. She was severely disabled, so they had to build a special basket for her to ride in on a horse. Once here, she was bedridden for nearly 50 years. Yet she lived well into her eighties.

In 1936, Charles Morse, author of several histories of our town, hiked back into this area to talk to the last occupant of Kelton Hill, a hermit named Amos Alexander. Alexander told him what he knew about the Keltons: “During the revolution, both Enoch and his son James served with their neighbors in campaigns against the British. One night the first Kelton home burned to the ground. Mrs. Kelton was hastily carried out from her bed and given temporary shelter. The neighbors went to work immediately gathering materials, and before the ashes cooled, a new house began to rise on the same site.” The area grew into a thriving community for a brief time, dying out when the last Kelton died in 1910. Alexander had, himself, found the cemetery, replaced the stones which had been broken by falling trees and cut in the names with a hammer and a chisel.

We had originally planned to stop our walk at the first cemetery, which would had made for a 2-mile hike, but we decided to stick with Jim and try to find the second cemetery, a few miles farther into the woods. We had only packed a single water bottle, but Jim didn’t have a water bottle at all. He was wearing crocs and carrying clippers and a rake. Surely, we could keep up with him. 

So we walked back to the rocky trail which headed steeply downhill, then just as steeply uphill. We forded some streams, swatted some bugs, and encouraged young walkers not to give up. As we trudged uphill, deep into the forest now, the air was suddenly filled with the loveliest scent. Lily of the valley grew along the path. As we stopped to smell the flowers, we realized these were not wildflowers. Someone had planted this lily of the valley many years before. Right behind the flowers, there was a cellar hole, the outline of a homeplace that someone had built.

We had to leave the trail completely to find the second cemetery, and after a few wrong turns, we finally found the larger cemetery with slate stones for several pioneer families.  We planted the flags and Jim cut back some of the saplings trying to invade the cemetery. 

On the way back, Jim asked if we wanted to go off the beaten path a bit and see a mysterious stone chamber. Apparently, a British man had come to town asking about this particular chamber, which was built into a hillside. It was invisible from one angle, ferns growing over the top, but as we came around, we saw an opening to a narrow stone room that cut deeply into the hillside, high enough for a person to stand, but only a few feet wide. It could have been a root cellar, but it was not situated anywhere near the foundation of the homestead.

 

After some research when I got home, I found that quite a few people are interested in these old stone structures in New England. They theorize that they were built by a group of Druids who came to America from Spain before Columbus and that the chambers were built at a certain angle with the sun to line up perfectly with the summer solstice. Mysterious, indeed.  In Charles Morse’s history of the town, he visited the same spot and was told that it was one of the oldest underground vegetable storage shelters in New England. Not our own personal Stonehenge, but still pretty cool.

After many hours, we stumbled out of the forest, exhausted, bug-bitten, and thirsty, but in awe of the history and mysteries hidden half-buried beneath the trees, right in our own backyard. Perhaps we have lived up in some small way to historian Charles Morse's hopes in exploring this same deserted village. 

"Perhaps once more the voices of children will ring out as they explore the fields and the woods. Surely they will find the stone walls and think of the people who built them.”