Surprise, Surprise!  Yes, I was pleasantly surprised today.  Barbara had found a place to visit but she was sworn to secrecy.  Not a word would she mention as to where we were going.  Suffice to say when we got there I was absolutely thrilled.  Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait till tomorrow to find out what it was. Today we’re going to finish our journey to Lowell by looking at what we discovered regarding the typical mill factory and the mill girls who often worked the looms in the weave room.

Before we get to that, though, a bit about today.  We needed to get a legal document notarized, so our first stop was the Hermon Town Hall.  One, two, three and that task was taken care of.

Next, we needed to go to the post office to mail what we had just had notarized.  Take a look, but you say this is a market, ok, but this is also the post office in the town of Hermon, Maine.  Just a bit different from what I’m used to finding.

Suffice to say things are a bit different in this part of the country.  For instance, they don’t have round a bout up here, no, they have a rotary 

And as we shared with you the other day there are no signs that say watch for deer but there are plenty of signs that warn one to watch for moose.   

Enough of that, let’s get back to Lowell.  To discover what a typical mill was like and what life was like for the mill girls who worked on the weave room floor, we first visited a second national historical site, The Boott Cotton Mill Museum.

 

Down the walkway, through the arch and we were at the front door to the museum.

The Boott Cotton Mill was by no means the only mill in Lowell at that town, so why was it chosen by the Park Service as a National Historical Sight?

 

Today the museum has a floor dedicated to the looms that were commonly found on the floor of the weave room in a typical mill.

When they say, “hear the noise and feel the vibration” of the machinery, they aren’t kidding.  With just 100 looms in the room and only a fraction of them operating to produce cloth, we can vouch for the fact, personally, that it is very loud, it is hot, it is humid and the floor shakes beneath your feet.  Below is a recreation of the mill room floor filled with working looms.

This is an actual loom in operation, too fast to see, but trust me it is working.

This is a picture of a sample of the cloth the loom produces which is for sale in the gift shop.

I can only imagine what it was like when all the looms were in operation.

It took a crew of many, each with a specified role to make the weave room run.

The conditions in the mill, in particular, the weave room was not a pleasant experience.

Following are some recovered letters from those who actually worked in the mill weave room

We later watched a video of an interview with an actual early mill girl now in her later years.  She shared the horrific story of one young girl who refused to put her long hair up when she came to work.  One day her hair got caught in the belts that drove the looms and she was literally yanked off her feet in to the air.  Though they were able to get her down and quickly got her to the hospital she later died from her injuries that day.

From the Boott Cotton Mill Museum, we moved on to a re-creation of a typical boarding house for the mill girls who early on worked in the mills.

This was the entrance way to the boarding house exhibit

Each boarding house was in many ways home away from home for the girls.

Regarding the girls themselves.

This is the typical room that they occupied, yes, two girls to a bed!

Each house also had a keeper

This is a re-creation of the typical dining room where they all gathered for their meals.

As I left both the Boott Cotton Mill Museum and the boarding house that day, I came away with a new-found appreciation of the toll it took on people’s lives to bring this country into the industrial age.  I will never be able to again look on a manufactured good of any kind without a new and deeper appreciation for the lives of those that make those goods.  Granted, conditions, today, are nowhere near as appalling as they were back in the 19^th century but so many things I buy today are brought to me courtesy of the labor of someone, somewhere I will never meet. Hey, if not for laborers in general I would not be driving a motor home and enjoying this great country of ours.  Thanks to them Barbara and I can do what we are doing today.

Ok, as for today, just a hint as to where we went today, think transportation.  So once again we’ve had a great day spent together.  We did some sight-seeing, some shopping – we needed a new coffee pot, I mean perish the thought that we might have no coffee in the morning!  The day is now done, TV is on, we’re just relaxing and enjoying life.  We hope you had an enjoyable day as well.  Perhaps you had a chance to do something you’ve wanted to for a long time.  If not there is always tomorrow.  In closing, I will leave you with this thought:

So that’s it for now.  As always,  if you are coming to the end of your day with concerns and worries let me suggest that you turn them over to God.  After all, He is going to be up all night so why not let him handle them for you.

Time now for our evening prayers and some shut-eye.  Till tomorrow.  Thanks again for sharing our day with us.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s occupants, four paws and two humans.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before

 

 

 

The Situation is the Boss.  Of course, those words aren’t mine.  So whose are they?  Google is your friend here.  Anyway, those words definitely applied to today.  We were up early because we had an appointment at the local Chevy dealer because little Graybeard decided to throw another hissy fit.  While we were in Boston a few days back the check engine light came on.  Since we have a free OnStar subscription we gave them a call.  They dialed in and back came the response, you have an emissions related issue.  Oh yea, just what the doctor ordered.

Up early, we headed into Bangor, first to McDonald’s for a nice steak, egg and cheese bagel and a specialty coffee. Much easier to let them cook when we have to be out early in the morning and the coffee pot has died.  Breakfast over we headed down the street to the Chevy dealer.

All I can say is what a wonderful bunch of people.  They took the car right in, about an hour later they came out with the news nothing to worry about we have service bulletin that addresses your issue, we’ll have you out in no time.  True to their word they fixed the problem, cleared the code, and we had them do an oil change  and rotate the tires as well and away we went.  Super service from a super nice bunch of people at Quirk Chevy.

Before we begin todays topic of discussion, I want to go back for a minute to the American Revolution and in particular to that fateful day of April 19, 1775. Someone commented that as bad as it was for those men that day that stood and faced the British Regulars it had to be just as bad for their wives and families.  That brought to mind one tragic story that highlights just that sentiment.

Hannah Davis, nursing a sick child watched her husband Isaac march away from their home around 7 am on April 19, 1775.  Three hours later he came home dead delivered in a cart.  He and Abner Hosmer were shot dead by British Regulars at North Bridge.  Yes, everyone suffered during the American Revolution.

OK, today we’re going to talk about another type of Revolution.  This time we’re going to spend some time learning a bit about the Industrial Revolution that began in the 19^th century and how it impacted the city of Lowell Massachusetts.

We began our journey of discovery at the Lowell National Historical Park.

Lowell is considered the Cradle of the American Industrial Revolution as it was the first large-scale factory town in the country.

The history of Lowell is closely tied to its location along the Pawtucket Falls of the Merrimack River.  Once an important fishing ground for the Pennacook  Indian tribe the river later provided water power for the factories that formed the basis of the city’s economy for a century. The city of Lowell was started in the 1820s as a money-making venture and social project referred to as “The Lowell Experiment”, and quickly became the United States largest textile center.

The industrial revolution was brought to America by a British-born merchant, Samuel Slater, who built the first successful cotton spinning mill in America in Rhode Island, and also by an American merchant, Francis Cabot Lowell, who built the first integrated cotton spinning and weaving facility in America in Massachusetts.

Lowell, who was born in Newburyport, Mass, in 1775, was a successful merchant who visited England in 1810, at the age of 36, and was so impressed by the British textile mills that it inspired him to start his own mills.

In 1813, Lowell and several partners formed the Boston Manufacturing Company and introduced a power-loom, based on the British model, that had been tweaked with many technological improvements.

The company built a large brick mill next to the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts that incorporated various technologies to convert raw cotton into cloth. The mill integrated the chain of tasks under one roof, known as the Lowell System. This system was later adopted across the country and became the basis of the American manufacturing system.

By 1840, the factories in Lowell employed at some estimates more than 8,000 textile workers, commonly known as mill girls or factory girls. … The Lowell mills were the first hint of the industrial revolution to come in the United States.

A model of what Lowell with its miles of mills looked like in the 19th century.

The town of Lowell went through many different stages, from boom to bust, and then a rebirth of sorts which it is going through today.

The sign of the end, an empty weave room floor, machinery gone for good.

Consequences of the downturn.

Lowell in the process of rebirth today.

So that is a brief history of the city of Lowell.  As for what a day in the mills was really like and what a typical boarding house for mill girls was like we’ll cover that tomorrow.

Time now to call it a wrap.  Day is gone and oh yea, stars are in the sky, stars, millions of them, stars like I can never remember seeing them before.  Sure they have been there all the time, but oh what I’ve missed in years pass.  Such simple but profound beauty in the night sky.  May I ever be more tuned in to the world around me from this time forth.

We’ve had another great day.  The day started out with the situation dictating what we had to do, it was for a moment the boss and all we could do was go with the flow.  Yet, as always we did it together, traveling along hand in hand, singing our song.  We hope you had a great day as well.  Hey, in closing I have something a bit humorous for us tonight in the form of a road sign, take a look:

So that’s it for now.  As always,  if you are coming to the end of your day with concerns and worries let me suggest that you turn them over to God.  After all, He is going to be up all night so why not let him handle them for you.

Time now for our evening prayers and some shut-eye.  Till tomorrow.  Thanks again for sharing our day with us.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s occupants, four paws and two humans.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before

 

 

Back to the American Revolution.  So today dawned early, like the sun comes up here at 5 am!  And, of course, our bedroom window faces due east.  Even with the night shade down it was bright.  At least for an hour or two.  Then it came, the wind and the rain.  It got so bad at one point I had to go out and bring the awning in.  Eventually the wind died down but the rain continued.  Until around 7 pm and then the sun came out again.  What a weird weather day for sure.

That was really the highlight of the day.  We both agreed we just needed a day to decompress and take it easy and so we did.  Breakfast was super, steak and cheese omelette with a glass of juice and a couple of cups of coffee.  Once we finished breakfast we just sat around and cruised the internet.

Since we are behind, so to speak, on our visits while in Massachusetts, let’s do some catching up.  This time we’re going to another National Historical Park.  Remember we started with Lexington and Concord but that was just the beginning.  The battle had begun but it was far from over.  In June of 1775, there was another major battle and that became known as the battle of Bunker Hill.

On June 16, 1775, having learned that the British were planning to send troops from Boston to occupy the hills surrounding the city, some 1,000 colonial militiamen under Colonel William Prescott (1726-95) built earthen fortifications on top of Breed’s Hill,

overlooking Boston and located on the Charlestown Peninsula.  The men originally had been ordered to construct their fortifications atop Bunker Hill but instead chose the smaller Breed’s Hill, closer to Boston.

On June 17, some 2,200 British forces under the command of Major General William Howe (1729-1814) and Brigadier General Robert Pigot (1720-96) landed on the Charlestown Peninsula then marched to Breed’s Hill. This is a picture of the battle that raged there that day.

Here is what is called a cyclorama of the battle.  It is an 18 by 240 foot painting, created by a team of artists and is considered to be the best representation of the battle.  The scene represents the moment in the third assault when British troops enter the redoubt.

 

This is a picture of the one of the British assaults on the earthen fortifications on top of Breed’s Hill.

As the British advanced in columns against the Americans, Prescott, in an effort to conserve the Americans’ limited supply of ammunition, reportedly told his men, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!”

When the Redcoats were within several dozen yards, the Americans let loose with a lethal barrage of musket fire, throwing the British into retreat.

After re-forming their lines, the British attacked again, with much the same result. Prescott’s men were now low on ammunition, though, and when the Redcoats went up the hill for a third time, they reached the redoubts and engaged the Americans in hand-to-hand combat.

The battle lasted for no more than two hours. Yet, the results were horrifying. Over 1,000 British soldiers, officers, and Marines were killed or wounded. Many of the wounded would die over the next days, weeks, and months from their wounds. Of the roughly 1,400 to 1,800 provincial soldiers directly engaged at Charlestown, some 300-500 were killed, wounded, or captured. Among the dead at Bunker Hill was the Patriot leader Joseph Warren. Warren, a physician turned political activist, had become the preeminent

leadership figure in the revolutionary Massachusetts government. A commission as a Major General had just been approved for Warren, however he fought and died as a foot soldier inside the redoubt during the battle.

The British had won the so-called Battle of Bunker Hill, and Breed’s Hill and the Charlestown Peninsula fell firmly under British control. Despite losing their strategic positions, the battle was a significant morale-builder for the inexperienced Americans, convincing them that patriotic dedication could overcome superior British military might. Additionally, the high price of victory at the Battle of Bunker Hill made the British realize that the war with the colonies would be long, tough and costly.

The first monument on the site was an 18-foot wooden pillar with a gilt urn erected in 1794 by King Solomon’s Lodge of Masons to honor fallen Patriot and Freemason, Dr. Joseph Warren. In 1823, a group of prominent citizens formed the Bunker Hill Monument Association to construct a more permanent and significant monument to

commemorate the famous battle. The project was a major undertaking. So much so, that the Monument Association ran out of funds and was forced to halt construction twice. Much of the land surrounding the square where the Monument stands today had to be sold off as housing lots to help fund the monument. Fairs, performing arts events, and fundraising drives were also organized to help complete the monument. Many of these events were organized by women in the Boston area.

The monument was finally completed in 1842. It was dedicated on June 17, 1843 in a major national ceremony.

Here is the Bunker Hill Monument today as it stands on Breeds Hill.

Here are some facts about the monument.

Some other facts regarding the monument are:

•  years of construction 1825 to 1842
• monument height 221 feet
• monument base 30 feet per side
• number of steps to the observation deck at the top 294
• total cost $134,000 in 19th century dollars; $3,000,000 in today’s dollars
• typical granite block:  eight feet nine inches long, four feet two inches thick, 98 cubic feet, with a weight of about eight tons

We come now to the end of our trip to the Bunker Hill Monument.  If you ever have a chance to visit it, you will not regret it.  As I left the monument once again, I was impressed by the courage and patriotism of those that stood and fought for their native rights that day.  I cannot and will never forget that the freedoms I enjoy today are the direct result of all that served that day and continue to serve in our Armed Forces today.

Well, day is again gone and night has descended upon us.  We had another great day, an easy day, but in many ways a productive day of doing nothing.  We all need days like this from time to time.  We hope your day was a great one as well in as many ways possible.  For all of us now a closing thought to ponder:

So that’s it for now.  As always,  if you are coming to the end of your day with concerns and worries let me suggest that you turn them over to God.  After all, He is going to be up all night so why not let him handle them for you.

Time now for our evening prayers and some shut-eye.  Till tomorrow.  Thanks again for sharing our day with us.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s occupants, four paws and two humans.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before

Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas – aka New Jersey – anymore.   It was a year ago when this remarkable journey began with those immortal words “Bill you’ve done a great job, just don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”  Just like that I was unemployed.  We were in the process of purchasing an RV, the one we own today and know as Graybeard.  Months of turmoil followed as we struggled to empty and sell the house.  The highs and lows came like the shots from a machine gun in rapid fire succession.  Add to the mix my knee replacement and the complications that arose from that which almost derailed everything.

Then came that day in December, Christmas Eve to be exact, when this wonderful, fantastic journey began in earnest.  All too well do I remember the next day when we sat, trapped by high winds, in the parking lot of the visitor center at the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.  No heat, no food, no water.  Family was waiting for us in North Carolina for Christmas Dinner but we were not going anywhere.   At last the ban was lifted and away we went.  New to driving a Class A, my hands were clenched on the steering wheel as I battled the gusts on the bridges and made my way through tunnels that seemed oh, so narrow.  Welcome to full-time RV living.

Since that time we have lived up to our motto to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before.  The states have rolled by under our wheels:  North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Delaware, New Hampshire and today here we are in Maine.  The campgrounds have been as varied as the states:  from those that have been absolutely breathtaking to we’ll never go back there again.  We’ve been privileged to make so many new friends from all walks of life.  Each and every one has added to and enriched our lives in ways untold.  The journey on the road of retirement has been exciting and rewarding to date and it is far from over.

Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas – aka New Jersey – anymore.  And so we’re not.  Today we bid goodbye to Massachusetts and headed north to the great state of Maine.  We followed our normal routine for moving out and so by the time we were packed, fueled, and had the car hooked up we were on the road by 10 am.

The traffic was light, the roads smooth, winds on occasion but nothing that caused any concern.  Mile by mile rolled by and then there it was, the sign we wanted to see.

Another sure sign that we were in Maine was the ever present road signs that warned us

to watch our for the possibility of a moose on the road.  Oh yea, this is not New Jersey!

Speaking of a moose, today was also great in another way as well, Barbara was able to finally fulfill a wish of hers that she has had since we began this journey.  Today on our way to our new home we stopped to see Lenny the Chocolate Moose.  Lenny resides at Len Libby Candies and Gifts in Scarborough, Maine.

 

Here is Barbara with her idol, yes, it’s Lenny the Chocolate Moose!

Here’s Lenny himself in all his glory.

And the facts about Lenny are

We were also told that Lenny gets a fresh coating of chocolate each year to keep him looking spiffy.

Along with Lenny there is now a mama bear and her two cubs.

And the bear facts about the mama and cub bears are

So there you have it, the bear truth and nothing but the truth about Lenny and the bears.

It was back on the road again and time to go home.  Home being where we would be for the next two weeks.  In due time we were there and here it is Pumpkin Patch RV Resort.

As always Home Is Where We Park It and so here is our new home for the next 2 weeks.

So it is, we are definitely not in New Jersey anymore.  Probably never will be again either.  We continue to travel along, hand in hand, singing our song, enjoying every minute of every new day that God blesses us with.  A year, yes, it’s been a year since this journey began.  Pinch me please sometimes it just doesn’t seem real.  Yet it is as real as real can be and it is still wonderful, exciting, challenging, and fulfilling.

So day is done, we’re settled in, and night has embraced us with its darkness.  We had a great day, a day of fulfilled wishes, a day to be together and enjoy each others company.  We hope you had a great day as well.  Did you?  If not, why not?  Each day is yours, never forget to craft and mold and make as you wish.  PS in the coming days we’ll be going back to two historic parks we visited while yet in Massachusetts, that being Bunker Hill and Lowell.  Now a closing thought for each of us to think upon:

So that’s it for now.  As always,  if you are coming to the end of your day with concerns and worries let me suggest that you turn them over to God.  After all, He is going to be up all night so why not let him handle them for you.

Time now for our evening prayers and some shut-eye.  Till tomorrow.  Thanks again for sharing our day with us.

These are the voyages of  Graybeard and it’s occupants, four paws and two humans.  Our continuing mission: to explore as many new states as possible, to seek out new acquaintances and make new friends, to boldly go where we have not been before