The Legend of Wheaton Woods LbNA #24806
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Add Location| Owner: | N/A |
|---|---|
| Plant date: | Aug 22, 2006 |
| Location: | |
| City: | ??? |
| County: | Bristol |
| State: | Massachusetts |
| Boxes: | 1 |
| Planted by: | Mahatma Dondi
  |
|---|---|
| Found by: | ??? |
| Last found: | Aug 17, 2014 |
| Status: | FFOFFFF |
| Last edited: | Aug 22, 2006 |
When European settlers first came to North America, bears thrived along the coastline and interior wetlands of southeastern Massachusetts. The American Black Bear can be a fearsome sight because of its great size and sharp claws, but it is in fact a normally shy animal. Few black bears are seen in the wild, because they’ll usually see you first and go off and hide. Nonetheless, human fear of bears has a long history. Writing in the 1670s of his travels in the New England, visiting English naturalist John Josselyn portrayed the black bear as the most ferocious among the creatures of the Massachusetts woods. He also marveled at the daring of the Pokanoket tribesmen near Plymouth colony, who hunted the bear for food, furs and medicine:
“The Bear when he goes to mate is a terrible creature, they bring forth their Cubs in March, hunted with dogs they take a Tree where they shoot them, when he is fat he is excellent Venison, which is in Acorn time, and in winter, but then there is none dares to attempt to kill him but the Indian. He makes his Denn amongst thick Bushes…The Indian as soon as he finds them, creeps in upon all four, seizes with his left hand upon the neck of the sleeping Bear, drags him to the mouth of the Denn, where with a club or small hatchet in his right hand he knocks out his brains before he can open his eyes to see his enemy.” – from Josselyn’s Account of Two Voyages to New-England Made during the Years 1638, 1663 (emphasis in the original).
A violent awakening from winter hibernation, no doubt, but the Pokanoket and other tribes of the Wampanoag nation actually revered the bear, killing only out of necessity. Before a hunt, Pokanoket men offered a prayer for the spirit of the animals they were going to kill, wanting them to know they have respect for the life they are about to give up for the tribe. Unfortunately, the European settlers, especially as they moved inland from the coast, did not often enough respect the delicate balance of the forest ecosystem and the black bear’s place within it. From an estimated high of over 2 million in North America, the black bear population fell to only 200,000 in the years after European expansion on the continent. Due to conservation protections, the population has rebounded to around 600,000 in recent decades. According to the Commonwealth’s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, black bears are now “common in Western Massachusetts, moderately common in the central region,” but even with the recent renewal still “rarely found in eastern counties.”
The most storied black bear sighting in the eastern part of the state dates to the early part of the last century, in the small town that envelops the Wheaton Woods. The town came into existence on March 17, 1710, when the colonial governor separated it from the county seat. The settlement would develop as an industrial hub -- at one time home to the Messinger match factory, the Chartely Iron Works, and the eponymous Copper Works and Furnace Company – although ringed by small chicken and dairy farms, catering to the Boston market. In 1834, one of the town’s leading figures founded a women’s seminary, in memory of his daughter. Over the years, the school would grow to some prominence, and thereby influence the development of the town.
Much of the heavy industry would eventually migrate to Worcester or Boston, although the town retained the A. H. Sweet box-board factory and saw mill, two successful jewelry factories, the Talbert family woolen mills, and the nearby the J. T. Moss Wool Treating Company, a processing plant that extracted grease from wool.
Indeed, it was at the Moss plant that the trouble began, and from which the legend of the Wheaton Woods was born. As the story goes, it started on an unusually warm morning for a March, a Thursday, when Moss Wool workers, and townsfolk passing by the Moss plant, encountered the spectacle of two new-born cubs frolicking noisily near the three giant grease bins in the rear of the factory. It was strange enough to see bears in these parts – no one could recall another bear sighting in living memory – but one of the black bear cubs was ivory from head to toe. Together they appeared a pair of roly-poly salt and pepper shakers.
As a crowd gathered, two men from the plant, Charles Mirrione and Walter Haas, began jousting and jostling the cubs, cornering the now frightened animals in a fenced in portion of the back lot. No one quite knew what the two men were trying to do, and no one had an opportunity to ask; because what no one had seen, until it was too late, was the hulking sow bearing in on Mirrione and Haas. The great she-bear first set upon Mirrione, and with a single blow from her right front paw broke his back, sending him to the ground, and the crowd a scatter. Haas wheeled around and desperately tried to fight the mother bear off with a limb fallen from the large Rock Elm in the lot, but he fared no better. In the excitement, mother and cubs retreated hurriedly from the scene, escaping into the woods to the southeast of the town center, along the Rumford River.
Racked by fear and anxiety, the town was abuzz with stories and rumors. The authorities counseled people to go back to their homes and stay indoors until further notice. A number of the men, however, began to gather on the stoop of the town hall, anxious and angry, still incredulous that this demon bear had descended upon them. A ferocious, bloodthirsty beast in their midst! A proven man-killer! The bear was a mortal threat to the town’s women and children, not to mention the livestock. There was no telling how many of these creatures were lurking within those woods!
Until then stone silent amid the clamor, Evird Fillmore, Walter Haas’ cousin and best friend since childhood, stood up to address the gathering. “I’m going in there after it. You can join me, or not, but I’m leaving within the hour, soon as I can get some provisions together. The trail is growing dead cold, and I’m not wasting any more time, sitting around here talking about it. Walt and Charlie were good men, family and friends, and I aim to do right by them. I promise this: I’ll have that bear’s head and hide by week’s end. If it’s the last thing I do.”
Evird managed to gather a dozen volunteers for the hunting party. Meeting in front of the Moss plant, they loaded up a truck, two cars and Jeb Beard’s tractor with enough rifles, ammunition and provisions to service a small regiment. Sent off by family and other well-wishers, the caravan headed down Pine Street and into seminary grounds, to reach the path into the woods south of the Pond. About a quarter-mile into the woods the men cut some timbers to rig makeshift bridges across the shallow Rumford, here so close to the river’s source that the water runs little more than brook. The men set up a camp just beyond the second of these spans.
Evird Fillmore and the other twelve men were never seen or heard from again.
Three days passed in town without any word. Then came a fourth. Folks had been anxious even in the first days since the men left, but Evird had asked for the weekend, after all. When the days grew to a week, the sheriff gathered some men to go in after the hunting party, although it was harder to find volunteers this time around.
The posse made its way to the hunting camp, and found it dead quiet, unnaturally still. The men’s cars, the tractor and the truck ringed the edges of the camp. There was a large fire pit dug, and evidence of cooking, but the cold, dry ash and charcoal remnants advised of the men’s long absence. There was no indication of struggle. No sign of violence or bloodshed. There was no sign of the men whatsoever. For that matter, they saw neither hide nor hair of the she-bear or her cubs.
Searching the trails until darkness set in, the sheriff and other men had no choice but to head back into town. They searched again all day the next day, and the next after that, but Evird and his men were simply gone. Vanished. For weeks after, a number of the townsfolk defiantly anticipated Evird Fillmore’s triumphant re-emergence from the woods, bear carcass strapped to the hood of his truck. As time wore on, however, fewer and fewer folks could cling to that increasingly vain hope.
People began to stay away from the woods. They were understandably afraid, but over time, the raw fear of the moment would settle into a quieter, and unspoken, dread. Family members didn’t even go back to the campsite to retrieve the men’s vehicles or other belongings. At first it was out of the same immediacy of fear, but after a time the motivation changed. The site was left intact, and remains intact to this day, as something of a memorial to the lost men. No one suggested the memorial as a conscious plan, and yet people instinctively recognized it as a fitting remembrance.
More controversial is the anonymous homage to the she-bear.* What brought someone to mark this spot so? Was it -- is it -- a warning? Or is it, rather, sign of an abiding, if grudging, respect for maternal instinct?
It was decades later that Evird Fillmore and the two men from the Moss plant were memorialized more formally in and around the former seminary grounds, and the point of connection between these memorials will help you discover the correct path into the woods.
Some old timers swear they’ve seen the bear, or something like a bear, near the abandoned campsite. Others dismiss the whole thing as a tall tale. The truth of the matter is something for you to discover for yourself.
We know that black bears use dense cover for hiding and thermal protection, as well as for bedding. To hibernate in the winter, they build dens in tree cavities, under logs, rocks, in banks, caves, or culverts, and in shallow depressions. If you keep on the path past the campsite, you’ll soon come to a sharp bend in the trail with a twin pine on your left and another tall pine to your right, on the trail. Stay straight at the fork ahead, ignoring the minor trail to your right. Counting from the fork, go 68 steps as the trail narrows and cover becomes more dense. To your left you’ll notice a huge twin pine atop a mound of earth and stones. The mound slopes down in the back, forming a natural depression. Will you muster the courage of the Pokanoket hunter and pull the she-bear out of her den?
You come looking for a stamp, however, not food, clothing for medicine. [On average, the adult female black bear grows to about 5 feet tall and weighs 350 lbs. The stamp is 4” tall and 3.5” wide. What color ink would best capture a black bear?] Noticing that she worked hard to cover herself for a long nap, be sure to gently return her to her lair, re-covering her as you found her.
Re-trace your steps to find your way home. If you take a wrong turn, you could wander these woods for an eternity.
* Alas, the last time I checked in on the she bear's den, someone has asconded with the sculpture; although you can still glimpse its stylized rendering in the image on the front page of this box's AQ clues.
“The Bear when he goes to mate is a terrible creature, they bring forth their Cubs in March, hunted with dogs they take a Tree where they shoot them, when he is fat he is excellent Venison, which is in Acorn time, and in winter, but then there is none dares to attempt to kill him but the Indian. He makes his Denn amongst thick Bushes…The Indian as soon as he finds them, creeps in upon all four, seizes with his left hand upon the neck of the sleeping Bear, drags him to the mouth of the Denn, where with a club or small hatchet in his right hand he knocks out his brains before he can open his eyes to see his enemy.” – from Josselyn’s Account of Two Voyages to New-England Made during the Years 1638, 1663 (emphasis in the original).
A violent awakening from winter hibernation, no doubt, but the Pokanoket and other tribes of the Wampanoag nation actually revered the bear, killing only out of necessity. Before a hunt, Pokanoket men offered a prayer for the spirit of the animals they were going to kill, wanting them to know they have respect for the life they are about to give up for the tribe. Unfortunately, the European settlers, especially as they moved inland from the coast, did not often enough respect the delicate balance of the forest ecosystem and the black bear’s place within it. From an estimated high of over 2 million in North America, the black bear population fell to only 200,000 in the years after European expansion on the continent. Due to conservation protections, the population has rebounded to around 600,000 in recent decades. According to the Commonwealth’s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, black bears are now “common in Western Massachusetts, moderately common in the central region,” but even with the recent renewal still “rarely found in eastern counties.”
The most storied black bear sighting in the eastern part of the state dates to the early part of the last century, in the small town that envelops the Wheaton Woods. The town came into existence on March 17, 1710, when the colonial governor separated it from the county seat. The settlement would develop as an industrial hub -- at one time home to the Messinger match factory, the Chartely Iron Works, and the eponymous Copper Works and Furnace Company – although ringed by small chicken and dairy farms, catering to the Boston market. In 1834, one of the town’s leading figures founded a women’s seminary, in memory of his daughter. Over the years, the school would grow to some prominence, and thereby influence the development of the town.
Much of the heavy industry would eventually migrate to Worcester or Boston, although the town retained the A. H. Sweet box-board factory and saw mill, two successful jewelry factories, the Talbert family woolen mills, and the nearby the J. T. Moss Wool Treating Company, a processing plant that extracted grease from wool.
Indeed, it was at the Moss plant that the trouble began, and from which the legend of the Wheaton Woods was born. As the story goes, it started on an unusually warm morning for a March, a Thursday, when Moss Wool workers, and townsfolk passing by the Moss plant, encountered the spectacle of two new-born cubs frolicking noisily near the three giant grease bins in the rear of the factory. It was strange enough to see bears in these parts – no one could recall another bear sighting in living memory – but one of the black bear cubs was ivory from head to toe. Together they appeared a pair of roly-poly salt and pepper shakers.
As a crowd gathered, two men from the plant, Charles Mirrione and Walter Haas, began jousting and jostling the cubs, cornering the now frightened animals in a fenced in portion of the back lot. No one quite knew what the two men were trying to do, and no one had an opportunity to ask; because what no one had seen, until it was too late, was the hulking sow bearing in on Mirrione and Haas. The great she-bear first set upon Mirrione, and with a single blow from her right front paw broke his back, sending him to the ground, and the crowd a scatter. Haas wheeled around and desperately tried to fight the mother bear off with a limb fallen from the large Rock Elm in the lot, but he fared no better. In the excitement, mother and cubs retreated hurriedly from the scene, escaping into the woods to the southeast of the town center, along the Rumford River.
Racked by fear and anxiety, the town was abuzz with stories and rumors. The authorities counseled people to go back to their homes and stay indoors until further notice. A number of the men, however, began to gather on the stoop of the town hall, anxious and angry, still incredulous that this demon bear had descended upon them. A ferocious, bloodthirsty beast in their midst! A proven man-killer! The bear was a mortal threat to the town’s women and children, not to mention the livestock. There was no telling how many of these creatures were lurking within those woods!
Until then stone silent amid the clamor, Evird Fillmore, Walter Haas’ cousin and best friend since childhood, stood up to address the gathering. “I’m going in there after it. You can join me, or not, but I’m leaving within the hour, soon as I can get some provisions together. The trail is growing dead cold, and I’m not wasting any more time, sitting around here talking about it. Walt and Charlie were good men, family and friends, and I aim to do right by them. I promise this: I’ll have that bear’s head and hide by week’s end. If it’s the last thing I do.”
Evird managed to gather a dozen volunteers for the hunting party. Meeting in front of the Moss plant, they loaded up a truck, two cars and Jeb Beard’s tractor with enough rifles, ammunition and provisions to service a small regiment. Sent off by family and other well-wishers, the caravan headed down Pine Street and into seminary grounds, to reach the path into the woods south of the Pond. About a quarter-mile into the woods the men cut some timbers to rig makeshift bridges across the shallow Rumford, here so close to the river’s source that the water runs little more than brook. The men set up a camp just beyond the second of these spans.
Evird Fillmore and the other twelve men were never seen or heard from again.
Three days passed in town without any word. Then came a fourth. Folks had been anxious even in the first days since the men left, but Evird had asked for the weekend, after all. When the days grew to a week, the sheriff gathered some men to go in after the hunting party, although it was harder to find volunteers this time around.
The posse made its way to the hunting camp, and found it dead quiet, unnaturally still. The men’s cars, the tractor and the truck ringed the edges of the camp. There was a large fire pit dug, and evidence of cooking, but the cold, dry ash and charcoal remnants advised of the men’s long absence. There was no indication of struggle. No sign of violence or bloodshed. There was no sign of the men whatsoever. For that matter, they saw neither hide nor hair of the she-bear or her cubs.
Searching the trails until darkness set in, the sheriff and other men had no choice but to head back into town. They searched again all day the next day, and the next after that, but Evird and his men were simply gone. Vanished. For weeks after, a number of the townsfolk defiantly anticipated Evird Fillmore’s triumphant re-emergence from the woods, bear carcass strapped to the hood of his truck. As time wore on, however, fewer and fewer folks could cling to that increasingly vain hope.
People began to stay away from the woods. They were understandably afraid, but over time, the raw fear of the moment would settle into a quieter, and unspoken, dread. Family members didn’t even go back to the campsite to retrieve the men’s vehicles or other belongings. At first it was out of the same immediacy of fear, but after a time the motivation changed. The site was left intact, and remains intact to this day, as something of a memorial to the lost men. No one suggested the memorial as a conscious plan, and yet people instinctively recognized it as a fitting remembrance.
More controversial is the anonymous homage to the she-bear.* What brought someone to mark this spot so? Was it -- is it -- a warning? Or is it, rather, sign of an abiding, if grudging, respect for maternal instinct?
It was decades later that Evird Fillmore and the two men from the Moss plant were memorialized more formally in and around the former seminary grounds, and the point of connection between these memorials will help you discover the correct path into the woods.
Some old timers swear they’ve seen the bear, or something like a bear, near the abandoned campsite. Others dismiss the whole thing as a tall tale. The truth of the matter is something for you to discover for yourself.
We know that black bears use dense cover for hiding and thermal protection, as well as for bedding. To hibernate in the winter, they build dens in tree cavities, under logs, rocks, in banks, caves, or culverts, and in shallow depressions. If you keep on the path past the campsite, you’ll soon come to a sharp bend in the trail with a twin pine on your left and another tall pine to your right, on the trail. Stay straight at the fork ahead, ignoring the minor trail to your right. Counting from the fork, go 68 steps as the trail narrows and cover becomes more dense. To your left you’ll notice a huge twin pine atop a mound of earth and stones. The mound slopes down in the back, forming a natural depression. Will you muster the courage of the Pokanoket hunter and pull the she-bear out of her den?
You come looking for a stamp, however, not food, clothing for medicine. [On average, the adult female black bear grows to about 5 feet tall and weighs 350 lbs. The stamp is 4” tall and 3.5” wide. What color ink would best capture a black bear?] Noticing that she worked hard to cover herself for a long nap, be sure to gently return her to her lair, re-covering her as you found her.
Re-trace your steps to find your way home. If you take a wrong turn, you could wander these woods for an eternity.
* Alas, the last time I checked in on the she bear's den, someone has asconded with the sculpture; although you can still glimpse its stylized rendering in the image on the front page of this box's AQ clues.