The day before we left Hanover, New Hampshire we drove to Plymouth, Vermont to visit the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site. We were quite surprised to find not only a small museum but grounds that included among other things his birthplace, his boyhood home, a church, a general store, an active post office, a one room schoolhouse, a cheese factory and a large barn.
First we watched a video in the museum on his life from his birth in 1872, to his presidency.  It was a nice video but I wish it had continued through his presidency so we could learn more about his accomplishments and challenges while President.  The small museum also told us very little about his presidency.
Calvin Coolidge is the only president born on the 4th of July and he also was the 30th president of the United States.  Vice President Coolidge was actually at his home in Plymouth, Vermont when he received word that President Harding had unexpectedly passed away.  Coolidge’s father was a notary public and swore his son in as president of the United States in the family home on August 3, 1923.  We don’t usually take tours of homes but the tour of his birthplace and boyhood home was included in the admission to the grounds so we took the tour so we could see things like the room where he was sworn in as president.
The church was built in 1840 and was the church the Coolidge family attended.  It was beautiful inside with pine wood cut at a local mill.  The 1900 Estey pump organ is still used today.
Coolidge was president from 1923 to 1929.  He was known as a man of few words and as a small government conservative.  Coolidge’s presidency was during the “Roaring Twenties”, a time of rapid economic growth.  Some historians argue that Coolidge’s laissez-faire ideology and disdain of regulation led the country into the Great Depression.
Coolidge chose not to run for a second term, saying that would mean he would spend ten years as President and that is too long because the office of President takes a heavy toll on the President and his family.
He retired to Northampton, Massachusetts.  He died in 1933 at the age of 60.  He is buried in Plymouth, Vermont down the road from his birthplace.  We stopped by to visit the gravesite.
On the way home we stopped by Quechee Gorge, advertised as Vermont’s Little Grand Canyon.  What a disappointment.  Calling this a little Grand Canyon is quite a stretch.  Thankfully it was on the way home and we didn’t make a special trip to see it.
Saturday we drove to Essex Junction, Vermont for the Escapade RV Rally, held by our camping group: Escapees. Along the way we stopped at the Vermont state capitol building in Montpellier.  Now that is a beautiful gold-plated state capitol building and one of the most picturesque we have seen.  Nestled in the hills, it is one of the oldest preserved state capitols in the country.  The House and Senate Chambers are the oldest legislative chambers in their original condition in the United States.  The building was constructed in 1859 and the Greek Revival Architecture is similar to the US Capitol. The dome was gilded in the early twentieth century  and on top of the building is a statue of the ancient Roman goddess of agriculture.  Montpelier is the smallest capital city in the United States.
On Sunday we took some time before the rally began to drive 45 minutes to the Chester A. Arthur Historic Site in Fairfield, Vermont.   There is some mystery about where Arthur was really born and the granite marker is located where their best guess is for his birthplace.  The house is a replica of what they think his boyhood home looked like and inside is a very small museum with some display boards about Arthur’s life and presidency.  The museum is only open July through mid October.   Arthur, born in 1829 in Fairfield, was the 21st President of the United States and succeeded President James A. Garfield when Garfield was assassinated.  Strangely enough, the only other president from Vermont, Calvin Coolidge, also became president when the incumbent president died in office.  Arthur served from 1881-1885 and did not have a Vice President the entire time he was president.  Our museum volunteer guide and the museum displays were open about Arthur’s early career when he was seen as a corrupt man who used his position as Collector of Customs to collect bribes and was the political puppet of New York Senator Roscoe Conkling. This political control by Conkling continued into Arthur’s vice presidency.  Less than four months after Garfield’s inauguration, he was shot.  President Garfield lingered near death for 80 days.  During that time Arthur was often accused of having something to do with Garfield’s death, reportedly causing him much anguish.  When he assumed the presidency many expected him to continue to be a political puppet of corrupt politicians.  But according to the guide, the museum displays and what I have read, the presidency seemed to bring out the best in Arthur.  As president he is known for signing the Pendleton Civil Service Act:

• mandating that certain federal government jobs be distributed based on merit rather than political connections
• The act also forbade workers from being fired for political reasons and prohibited compulsory political employee donations
• The Civil Service Commission was established to enforce the law

He did not seek reelection due to poor health.  He died in 1886 at the age of 57 and was buried in Menands, New York.  His wife, Nell Arthur died the year before he became President.  Arthur’s sister served as the unofficial First Lady during his Presidency.
We enjoyed the Escapade RV rally. It was a time of fun and fellowship as well as learning new things at daily seminars. Vermont is a beautiful state. We enjoyed being in Essex Junction in the Champlain Valley of Vermont. Nearby Lake Champlain stretches 125 miles to the Canadian border. To the east are the Green Mountains and to the west are the Adirondacks. Vermont:

• ranks 43rd in population with approximately 626,000 residents
• was the first state to abolish slavery in its constitution
• has the highest number of sugar maple trees in the United States
• the largest producer of sugar maple sugar, producing about 1.3 million gallons per year, which is one third of the country’s supply.

Vermont is a very popular state to view the fall foliage.
Next stop is Glen, New Hampshire for a week.

We heard lots of stories about how narrow the streets are in Boston and how bad the traffic is in the city. Parking for the day runs around $35 in the parking garages. So with all that in mind, we knew we decided to take the subway into the city. We drove to Alewife, the closest station to our campground, which in good traffic is an hour away from Boston. But with traffic it could take 90+ minutes each way just to get to the subway station. Nothing in big cities is ever easy.
On Wednesday we drove to Alewife which with backups took a little less than two hours to get to the subway station. We rode the subway from Alewife to the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Columbia Point just outside of Boston. We were pleasantly surprised to see the Boston subway system is clean and easy to navigate. When we arrived at our stop we rode a free shuttle bus to the Library. The Library is in a beautiful location over-looking the water which Kennedy loved so much. His favorite boat, Victura, was on display outside. The Library was dedicated in 1979 and is the only Presidential Library in New England. President Kennedy was our 35th President of the United States of America.
Much like other Presidential Libraries, this one focused on Kennedy’s early years, his schooling and rise in politics, the 1960 election, and his accomplishments and challenges during his presidency. During his presidency he would give dignitaries a replica of George Washington’s sword. Kennedy’s PT 109 boat during WWII was destroyed and he inscribed a note on a coconut that summoned help for the eleven survivors.  Later the preserved coconut was returned to him and he kept it on his desk in the Oval Office throughout his presidency.
Downstairs was a special Ernest Hemingway exhibit. When Hemingway died in Idaho in 1961, a large portion of his literary and personal estate was in Cuba. Despite a ban on U. S. citizens’ travel to Cuba during the Cold War, President Kennedy facilitated the travel of Hemingway’s widow to Cuba to retrieve his belongings. She shipped crates of Hemingway’s papers and artwork on a shrimp boat back to the U.S. Hemingway’s widow decided to offer the collections to the Kennedy Presidential Library since President Kennedy was instrumental in recovering the possessions. This made the Kennedy Library the world’s principal center for research on the life and work of Ernest Hemingway.
We grabbed a quick and expensive lunch at the café inside the Library and then hopped back on the bus back to the subway for the ride to the town of Quincy, “the City of Presidents”. Here we would discover the town where John Adams (2nd President) and John Quincy Adams (6th President) grew up and lived.
We arrived in Quincy and first went to the small National Park Service Visitors Center conveniently located across the street from the subway station. We watched a movie about the lives of four generations of Adams. We could have taken a two hour guided tour of the inside of several homes but it was very hot and we decided to spend our time exploring the town rather than looking at furnishings in homes.
Everything we wanted to see was within walking distance of the subway system. We walked down to “Peace Field”, The Summer White House, home to four generations of the Adams family from 1788 to 1927, including John and John Quincy. Along the way to the house we passed a bust of John Hancock.

The Old House at Peace field, built in 1731, became the residence of the Adams family for four generations

Stone Library, built in 1873

We really wanted to see the grave sites of John and John Quincy because it is the only place where two presidents are buried together. They are buried, along with their wives, in a basement crypt at the United First Parish Church (completed in 1828), known as The Church of the Presidents. Outside of the church we passed statues of First Lady Abigail Adams and a young John Quincy. Across the street was a statue of John Adams which was hard to photograph because of construction in the area.
In order to view the crypt we were required to first listen to a tour guide talk about the history of the church and make a small donation to the church. It was dreadfully hot inside the church and we didn’t really want to listen to the guide, but we followed the elderly guide inside where we were seated in the Adams pew, where a bronze marker said it was the pew the Adams family owned and sat in. The guide did a nice job, explaining how in early times your pew position showed your wealth and importance. At that time you bought your pew in the church and even had to pay taxes on it.  John Adams and John Hancock were both baptized in the original church by Reverend Hancock, father of John Hancock.
The tour guide then took us down a steep flight of stairs to the cool basement where we entered a small crypt with four tombs, John Adams, Abigail Adams, John Quincy Adams and Louisa Catherine Adams. A wreath lay on the tomb of John Quincy, recently placed in honor of his birthday. The guide told us the federal government pays to have wreaths put on the graves of every President on their birthday. He also told us that John and Abigail had originally been buried in graves at the Hancock Cemetery nearby and it was John Quincy who requested they all be buried in a crypt, possibly thinking the graves would be safer from vandalism or theft. Between the small room and the heat, the flowers gave off a heavy scent reminding me of a funeral home. I think I was expecting something a little more presidential in appearance and instead it all seemed a little creepy in the small room of the church basement. During John Adam’s presidency, there were fifteen states so there were fifteen stripes and fifteen stars on the U.S. flag.  You can see this on the flag on his tomb.  At some point it was decided to change to thirteen stripes because it wouldn’t work to add a stripe for every additional state. They settled on thirteen stripes for the original thirteen colonies.  The flag on the tomb of John Quincy Adams has thirteen stripes.

As you probably already know, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were bitter enemies for many years, in part because Adams lost his presidential reelection to Thomas Jefferson.  After many years, and at the suggestion of a friend, Adams wrote Jefferson and a friendship began again between the two men.  Amazingly, both men died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Adams last words were, “Jefferson lives”, not knowing that Jefferson had died hours earlier.

By this time the heat was really getting to us and we were anxious to catch the subway back to the Alewife station and hopefully beat the traffic home. No such luck as we were caught in stop and go traffic and the drive home took over 90 minutes.
Tomorrow we are really looking forward to visiting downtown Boston!

We left the campground in Accord, New York and drove to Sturbridge, Massachusetts.  The campground was full and crowded and we were thankful to be placed in one of the few satellite TV friendly sites.  We can tell the northeast is going to be a big challenge to find satellite TV friendly sites among all the beautiful trees.
Our stop in Sturbridge was related to Bill’s interest in guns and radios.  On Tuesday we made the drive to nearby Springfield, Massachusetts to tour the Springfield Armory.  For almost two centuries this place overlooking the Colorado River was an important place for the development and manufacture of arms for American soldiers.  It started as a place where skilled craftsmen built piece by piece one flintlock musket at a time into a center pioneering mass production techniques into finally an institute famous for weapon research and development.
In 1777 a major arsenal was established here after early Revolutionary War battles in the northern states showed the need for a place to store weapons and ammunition that was within reach of the American troops but out of British hands.  A smaller armory for the south was built at Harper’s Ferry but destroyed during the Civil War.   In 1795 the Springfield Armory began weapon production.
In 1891 The Experimental Department was established at the Springfield Armory with the job of examining and developing all subsequent U.S. rifle designs.  In 1936 the Armory began mass production of the first successful semi-automatic rifle to be put in military service, the M1 rifle designed by John Garand.  During WWI the Armory produced over 265,000 bolt-action Model 1903 rifles for American troops.  It is still considered one of the most accurate weapons ever made.  The installation of mass production machinery in the early 1930’s allows for the manufacture of 3.5 million M1 rifles through 1945.   It was deemed by General George S. Patton to be “the greatest battle implement ever devised”.  In 1943 the workforce at the Armory totaled 13,500 employees, of which 43% were women.
In 1964 the Defense Department decided that private suppliers could provide necessary weapons and in 1968 the Armory was closed.  In 1960 this “Arsenal of Freedom” was designated a national historic landmark and in 1974 Congress named it the Springfield Armory National Historic Site.
On Thursday we drove into Windsor, Connecticut so Bill could tour the Vintage Radio and Communication Museum of Connecticut.  The museum showed the history of electric communication and how it has changed our lives over the years, including radios, records and television.
We were quite surprised to find a lobster roll on the McDonalds menu in Connecticut so Bill couldn’t resist having one for lunch.  He said it was quite good.
We then made the short drive to Hartford, passing the state capitol building, so Bill could tour the ARRL (American Radio Relay League) headquarters.  He enjoyed visiting with some fellow amateur radio enthusiasts.