Today I start by seeing butterflies and end by seeing parakeets.  Standing on the bridge of the Indian River in Clinton, Connecticut on a balmy fall morning, I watch migrating Monarchs fly by as they reach Long Island Sound. I wonder what  they do when they reach this point: cross the sound and travel the length of Long Island, or travel along the coast of Connecticut? Long Island Sound is one of a host of obstacles these butterflies must negotiate on their annual journey to their overwintering site high in the mountains of Michoacán in central Mexico. The tiny size of these butterflies, the tremendous distance they travel, and the fact that the butterflies I see making their way south are not the same ones that return in the spring, makes this migration one of the most amazing of any organism. I suppose I am like these butterflies, traveling to places I have never seen, negotiating obstacles, making decisions about the direction to take. But I am not traveling to Mexico, and I plan on returning home.  And yet there does seem to be some sort of biological imperative that impels people like me to head out on the road.

        October is a time of transition symbolized by the migrating Monarchs. The leaves are changing, and soon the cold weather will be here to stay for six months in New England. Summer has ended and the resort towns of the Connecticut coast are entering a period of dormancy, cafes start to look more appealing, and my pace quickens as the air becomes crisper and more invigorating.  The languid walks of summer are gone--no longer can I start late, linger in the woods or by the shore, and arrive at my destination at eight or nine in the evening as the sun sets. No, these autumnal perambulations require more planning, for it will be quite an unpleasant experience to find myself five miles from the nearest town in the dark, walking along the shoulder of a busy road. Sadly, I have done that.

        The walk from Clinton to Madison marks a transition as well. Clinton is the last town in lightly populated Middlesex County. The Hammonasset River marks not only the historic boundary of the Saybrook Colony and the New Haven Colony, it is also the border between the towns of Clinton and Madison, and the beginning of New Haven County.  New Haven County is part of the New York Combined Statistical Area, a term used by the US Census Bureau to describe an aggregation of Metropolitan Areas that have a large central focal point, in this case New York City. Another more common term for this region is the Tristate Area. Whatever you want to call it, technically the Hammonasset River marks the beginning of New York and its hinterlands.

       

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        Clinton was once known as Killingsworth, in case you are reading the travel diaries of Sarah Kemble Knight or Alexander Hamilton and wonder why they did not pass through this town. Killingsworth today is the northern section of the original town, which split in 1838, while the coastal section was renamed Clinton after President Bill Clinton (just seeing if you are paying attention- it was actually renamed for Governor of New York and Presidential Candidate Dewitt Clinton).  Prior to being known as Killingsworth it was known as Kenilworth, and before that was settled originally in 1665 as the Hammonasset Plantation.  The meeting house was established in 1667 on the hill behind me near the river, where the current building from 1818 still stands, and the second minister, Abraham Pierson, taught students in his house until his death in 1707. These were the first students of what became Yale College, and thus Clinton too lays claim, as does Old Saybrook, to being the place where Yale started.(1)  Incidentally, Pierson’s successor was John Eliot, grandson of the John Eliot for whom Eliot Square in Roxbury, Massachusetts is named (see entry #5); he served from 1707-1763. Three ministers in 98 years--who says people died young in the old days?

*****

        Despite the fact that I am in the New York Metropolitan Area, Clinton maintains the peaceful and unhurried manner of a typical New England Town. The white church on the hill, the small stores along Main Street and of course the local diner, here called The Coffee Break. I have a great breakfast there in preparation for my walk. The diner is crowded, and I cannot help overhearing two older gentlemen discussing the dire state of the economy. One man wonders how kids today will be able to find a good job. The other man agrees and is upset about the loss of local jobs in manufacturing.  They do not have the vitriolic bitterness of a Sean Hannity or a Glenn Beck. In fact they are actually quite sweet, and their concern for the welfare of the next generation seems sincere.  An observation I have made in many towns is worth restating here-- Almost all the towns through which I pass once had a major manufacturing plant of some sort which has closed within the last half century.  Red-brick buildings that once housed a place where people made something and that have been adapted for office space or condominiums pepper the landscape along the Post Road. I am not a conservative crank, but even I wonder where the jobs will come from if we continue to transform into a country which makes nothing but consumes everything.  The math does not add up.  The current divisiveness in governments both national and local seems to be about anything but solving these problems.  Gay marriage, wars in obscure Asian countries, the terrorist bogeyman, charter schools versus public schools, whether there should be a tax on alcohol or not: these are the topics that are tearing the country apart while the obvious problem, the fact that most people are too poorly educated to perform highly skilled jobs but the unskilled jobs are leaving the country like rats off a sinking ship, stays under the radar of most political discourse.  Only so many people can work in Walmart or McDonald’s, and they will certainly not be raising a family on that kind of money.  The gentlemen in the diner have seen a lot, and what they see now does not make them optimistic about the future. America seems like a country in transition but to what is unclear. What is clear is that the days of America dominating world trade are gone, and the sooner we figure out how to live as part of the world instead of trying to run the world the better off we will be.

        On a positive note, when I inquire about the abundance of Red Sox paraphernalia in the diner I am told that this is still Red Sox Nation, although again, most everyone I speak to seems to be a Yankee fan. Anecdotally I would say that the transition to Yankee land is underway, even if the outward signs indicate Red Sox fans are in the majority.  This conversation animates more people than the one about the economy, but it is probably because it is less depressing to contemplate and everyone can have an opinion. Plus, as a Sox fan, since the Red Sox have won two World Series this decade the conversation no longer leaves a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.

*****

       

       

        The town hall contains a historical museum room with objects from Clinton’s three-century history including, I believe, a milestone indicating 25 miles to New Haven. But the museum is only open for two hours on Thursday from June to September, so I will have to believe the documents I read in the Clinton Library. If you have wondered why I do not seem to spend much time in the local historical societies, it is because they are often open for only two to three hours one day a week, and I never seem to be in the towns the day the Historical Society is open.  I could call ahead and make an appointment, but then I would be forced to arrive at a certain destination at a preordained time which, to me, violates the spirit of this enterprise. I prefer to glean what I can from the library, from walking around, from talking to people, and if the local historical society is open, so much the better.

        Birket spent the night in what was then Killingsworth, then headed to West Guilford, which he claimed was 20 miles distant. Since he breakfasted there and I know East Guilford, which is today called Madison, is only five miles away and Guilford is about ten miles away, I am pretty confident that Birket might be mistaken.  It is true that the original fording place was two miles upriver, but a bridge was built at that site in 1696, in an area that the tides did not reach.(2) So, even accounting for the detour, it is hard to get twenty miles out of a trip from Clinton to West Guilford, today’s Guilford.  The tavern list in the 1775 Almanac gives the distance between Merril’s in Killingsworth and Ware’s or Stone’s in Guilford as ten miles. Grissit’s in Killingsworth is ten miles from Hudson’s in Guilford in a 1697 tavern list, and both Prince in 1732 and Tulley in 1698 give ten miles as the distance from Killingsworth to Guilford. East Guilford, today’s Madison, is about halfway between the two town centers.

        The same situation I described in the last entry pertains here: at the western edge of Clinton center US-1 heads in a fairly direct westward direction. This road, again called Boston Post Road, crosses the Hammonasset River near its mouth and traverses what was once salt marsh. This road was a product of later development and is listed on a map from 1925 as “proposed” while the original road, in Clinton called Nod Road, meandered northwestward to the fording place described above, some two miles upriver. So I take the route that covers about 5.5 miles to get to the center of Madison while, if I followed Boston Post Road, the distance between the same two points is only 4 miles.

        Boston Post Road in Clinton and Madison does pass a couple of nice seafood restaurants and the fantastic Hammonasset State Park, but I save those pleasures for a different trip. Instead I pass an abandoned, rusting, electrical supply building and turn right onto High Street which leads me to Nod Road.

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        J.B. Beers in his History of Middlesex County (1884) describes the journey I am taking from Old Saybrook to Guilford as it might have been in precolonial times: “The passage from Saybrook to Guilford was, at that time, almost an impossibility, even for a daring hunter... on the west was no ford on the Hammonasset River, except about two miles north of Main Street, Clinton...” (3) I feel a little like Pig-Pen in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” when he says “sort of makes you want to treat me with more respect, doesn’t it?” The “daring hunter” follows High Street over the train tracks to Nod Road, a narrow, somewhat busy road through a quiet residential area. Eventually I cross over I-95,  before I reach the bridge over the river. It is often hard to tell what a road will be like from a map. This road seemed to promise a quiet rural walk, but as it eventually leads to I-95 there is more traffic along this road than I had guessed. Still, it is not a bad walk, and I reach the bridge in about half an hour. Crossing the bridge I turn sharply left onto River Road, pass under I-95 again and back across the train tracks, climb uphill and turn right sharply onto Scotland Road, which goes steeply up the hill away from the river, until I reach the top, where the road runs parallel to the train tracks for a short while.

        There is very little traffic along this road, and it seems I have wandered into the back of beyond for a while, but eventually I pass a house from 1700, which reassures me I am on an old road.  Shortly thereafter I pass the Jonathan Murray House, an evocative timber-framed red house from 1690. One source claims Scotland Road was named for Mr. Murray.(4)  Shortly after passing the Murray House, Scotland Road runs alongside the train tracks again, becomes very straight and is devoid of houses. All these observations make me suspect that this segment of the road was a later addition. I pass a pond on the left and notice a winding road called Lover’s Lane that follows the western shore of the pond.  This road heads for Old Boston Post Road in a relatively direct fashion, so it seems far more likely to be the original road.  Regardless, it looks more interesting so I take it.  Sarah Knight complained about the confusing roads in this area, commenting that her guide “ vented his Spleen” at somebody who gave them unclear directions. However she eventually got pointed in the right direction, and “without anything further Remarkabell, about two a clock afternoon, we arrived at New Haven.” (Knight Saturday, October 7, 1704)

        Shortly I reach Boston Post Road on the outskirts of Madison Center without incident. I do vent some spleen at the fact that there is no sidewalk and lots of traffic.  Once I reach East Wharf Road, the sidewalk appears and it is soon clear I have reached the historic center of town.  Immediately adjacent to Boston Post Road is another road which is called Old Boston Post Road: the two run parallel to each other about twenty yards apart until I reach the Scranton Library at Wall Street.  Along both sides of the street are majestic residences, including the Scranton Seahorse Inn, a Greek revival mansion from the 1830s. I stop at the library to do a little research and take a break.

*****

        Madison was named for the fourth President of the United States after East Guilford separated from Guilford in 1826.  Today it is primarily known as a summer resort town on the Connecticut, as the lovely Hammonasset State Park is located in the southeastern corner of the town.  It also has the most vibrant center of any small town I have visited along the Post Road. In a short stretch of less than a mile is a movie theater, a number of restaurants, clothing stores, cafes, an Audubon store for birdwatchers (Hammonasset is a very important birding area) and possibly the best bookstore relative to the size of a town I have ever seen. RJ Julia  Booksellers is two floors packed with quality books and a cafe. There are not a lot of face-outs in this store and even the display tables are full of high quality books. Not only that, the store’s walls are lined with an incredibly diverse array of authors who have spoken there. The store hosts over 300 events each year; in the weeks past and the weeks to come Apolo Ohno, Lidia Bastianich, and Wally Lamb are among the people who will speak at the store and sign copies of their new books. I picked up Richard Dawkins latest book on evolution which promises to be as sparkling as his previous books. His books are so clear and the evidence he presents is so overwhelming that I almost feel sorry for the poor suckers who get in front of his evolution train. But then again I enjoyed watching the Dream Team play Angola in the 1992 Olympics.

*****

        A little further down the road is the Deacon John Graves House from 1690, on the edge of the large Historic Madison Green. I head across the Green to take in the lovely Church that anchors the Green. As a birdwatcher I keep my ears open for anything unusual (the irony of birdwatching is that most birders actually hear a bird before they see it) when I walk. As I pass a playground I hear some very distinctive bird noises coming from a crabapple tree.  Could it be? Incredibly, yes, my ears are not deceiving me: there is a flock of about 20 Monk parakeets in the tree, happily munching away on the fruit! Apparently there are feral populations along this portion of the Connecticut coast. I read about this when a nest appeared in East Boston last year but had completely forgotten about it until the cackling parakeets grabbed my attention. Although native to equatorial South America, they apparently can tolerate winter in New England. They live in their nests year round and do not migrate. Thus the parakeets that are not native to the region live here permanently, but the butterflies and hundreds of bird species that are native leave every winter.  They seem to have made the transition just fine.   

*****

        The Scranton name is well known in Madison. The library was built with a generous gift from one member of the family, and a number of the older houses that line Old Boston Post Road were built by members of the Scranton family, including the Scranton Seahorse Inn, where I spend the evening reviewing my notes, after an afternoon of research in the library, and enjoying the prose of Dawkins.  Michael Hafford, the Innkeeper, clearly takes pride in his cooking, and the results show in the high quality of the crepes and omelettes that are brought out of the kitchen at breakfast.

        Hamilton mentions in his diary that he “breakfasted att one Scran’s about half way between Killingsworth and Gilfoord.  This is a jolly old man, very fat and pursy, and very talkative and full of history.” (Hamilton, Tuesday August 28, 1744). I wonder if he meant Scranton’s. There is certainly a symmetry between his breakfast and mine, although Michael is neither fat, nor pursy (asthmatic, short of breath) as far as I can tell, and he is friendly but not talkative. Thank God for that (see entry #35). “Going from this house, I passed thro’ Gilfoord...” continues Hamilton. And so will I, only I will have another cup of coffee first and then go and see if I can find the parakeets one more time.  How many people reading this expected me to say that?