Following Some Old Footsteps

Hardly discernible at first were the stone stairs leading up from near the water's edge of the Assabet River in Stow, MA.  The hand-laid stone stairway made ascending the hill fairly easy even though it was covered in moss and pine needles...

The stairway's width would easily accommodate two adults walking side by side.  The view back down to the river and my waiting boat from the top of the stairs...

 On the hilltop were the remains of a stone foundation...

An old cast-iron sink lay on the ground nearby...

...and with only one faucet I'm thinking it provided cold water only.  Perhaps this concrete structure at the base of the hill was the water source...

...and this riveted tank a little further up the hillside might have been used for storage...

I wondered how long ago this well-positioned site had served as someone's home.  Searching a 1943 topo map showed a cluster of buildings existed at this spot, but on a subsequent topo map 7 years later the cluster of buildings did not appear.  Some additional research turned up mention of a seasonal resort, Assabet Lodge, having operated in this vicinity back in the early 1900's.  Perhaps the concrete structure, riveted tank, and stairway are related to that resort.  I tried imagining a lodger on the site descending the stone stairway to a boat dock at its base.  Across the river steam-powered trains frequently ran past carrying passengers to and from Boston with many stopping at Whitman's Crossing near Lake Boon.  Additionally, I learned from David Mark's blog Maynard Life Outdoors that back in the early 1900's, a passenger steamboat transported people from the Ben Smith Dam area to Lake Boon and back.  According to a 1911 timetable found on the Maynard Historical Society's website, this boat, possibly named "Gertrude", plied the river at 5 mph and would've passed by every half hour.  All of this provided food for thought while paddling the Assabet on a cloudy, calm, and peaceful Sunday morning...

Went as far as the mill at Gleasondale and within sight of where the river spilled over the dam and raced towards me from under the old footbridge...

Many of the structures I saw this day probably existed a century ago when the so-called "Spanish Flu" pandemic ravaged Boston during the fall of 1918.   Because that pandemic hit during September and continued into October I wondered if by the following spring the 1919 Boston Marathon was held.  A Quincy Patriot newspaper article on Monday April 21, 1919 mentioned the Marathon was held and the same edition also noted that churches were full for Easter Sunday as well.  Next I wondered if the baseball season started in April 1919...and found that it did for both the Boston Red Sox and Boston Braves.  In backtracking to see what was happening with the flu for Thanksgiving 2018 I came across an Influenza Encyclopedia developed by the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine which details the experiences of 50 American cities during the pandemic.  Public health professionals in Boston and other cities dealt with many of the same issues we're facing today...whether or not to limit public gatherings and when to consider relaxing those limitations.  I was struck by how similar our situation is to theirs.  The encyclopedia's essay on Boston shows the epidemic took about 6 or 7 months to run its course.  Hopefully our present epidemic will follow a similar timeline.

These mute swans are planning for a future...

...with or without us being around.