Tag Archives: history

Pine Creek Anticipation

Posted on March 4, 2021 by rivertoprambles

Suddenly the sky was clear, and the temperature rose well above the freezing mark. Although the ice on local streams and rivers was only now beginning to crack and drift away, I drove to Pennsylvania eager to prepare for a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged angling, anticipation, hiking, history, Izaac Walton, literature, nature, Pine Creek, reading, Sketch Book, Spring, Thomas Jefferson, Washington Irving, writing | 21 Comments

Thoreau’s Cape Cod

Posted on October 16, 2020 by rivertoprambles

The kids arranged a pleasant cottage rental for us on Cape Cod. The large pitch pines and pin oaks standing by the roadside in the Town of Dennis caught the pre-dawn hooting of a great horned owl and staged the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Atlantic, Cape Cod, desert, freedom, hiking, history, minke whales, national seashore, nature, Nauset, Pilgrims, Provincetown, sea, shipwreck, Thoreau, travel, Wellfleet, writing | 22 Comments

Strange Fruit and Other Start-Ups

Posted on July 24, 2020 by rivertoprambles

1. I had a couple of non-related flashbacks to the late 1980s. In the first one I recalled a winter night, trundling off to a movie at Alfred U., in which our four-month-old son experienced his first theater production. Woody … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bananas, family, flashbacks, hiking, history, humor, literature, Lyman Run, nature, Slate Run, trout, Woody Allen, writing | 16 Comments

Between the River and the Rail

Posted on May 13, 2020 by rivertoprambles

Railroad fever gripped the nation during the latter decades of the nineteenth-century. As the New York and Pennsylvania timber and tanning industries burgeoned from dreams of endless forest and mineral wealth, many towns in the region clamored for a train … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Baltimore & Ohio, economy, fishing, Greenwood, history, local history, nature, New York & Pennsylvania, railbeds, small trains, The NYP, travel, writing | 21 Comments

An Early Canisteo Cabin

Posted on May 7, 2020 by rivertoprambles

[On the first white settlement in this watershed– a place that became my permanent home two centuries later… Understandably, no photo of original cabin is available.] The American Revolution had ended. General Sullivan, acting on the orders of George Washington, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cabin, Canisteo, Canisteo River, history, migration, nature, pioneers, sense of place, settlement, travel, wilderness, writing | 14 Comments

Winter Woods

Posted on January 29, 2020 by rivertoprambles

Mild temperatures following a fresh deposit of snow provided all the inspiration needed for a hill walk. Grabbing my walking stick, I left the house and climbed slowly through the woods. I paused at an old abandoned car and noted … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged forestry, hiking, history, invasives, landscape, nature, poetry, rambling, science, trees, winter woods, writing | 19 Comments

Pilgrimage

Posted on December 18, 2019 by rivertoprambles

Walden, written by Henry David Thoreau, has been a favorite book of mine for nearly 45 years. I’ve long appreciated this record of a life well-spent and, thus, have long resisted the temptation of visiting the book’s post-glacial centerpiece near … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged American Revolution, Authors' Ridge, Concord, Emerson, freedom, history, Massachusetts, pilgrimage, Thoreau, Transcendentalists, Walden Pond, walking, writing | 15 Comments

The Wild Boy Campfire, 1891

Posted on November 29, 2019 by rivertoprambles

1/ So, Mr. Goodyear and his men believed they owned the place– the forests of northern Pennsylvania, the mountains good for building railroads over, the sawmills great for gobbling up the white pine first and then the giant hemlocks… Hold … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged forest fires, Goodyear, Hawthorn, Hide-Behind, history, House of Seven Gables, lumbering, narration, nature, Pennsylvania, poetry, Salem, Wild Boy Campfire, wilderness, wildlife, witches, writing | 9 Comments

The Wild Boy Cycle, 1870

Posted on November 19, 2019 by rivertoprambles

Winter: Klukey died in a bear trap he had set near Kettle Creek. Klukey died three miles from his cabin, wandering in the deep snow till his feet accidently struck the pan. Those jaws sprang up– held him through the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged fishing, history, Independence, jumping the back fence, literature, nature, personal narratives, poetry, seasons, Sinnemahoning, Walt Franklin, Wild Boy Cycle, writing | 16 Comments

Jumping the Back Fence

Posted on October 30, 2019 by rivertoprambles

Wild Boy Run was named for Lewis “Wild Boy” Stevens who settled on the Pennsylvania mountain stream in 1842. Born to alcoholic and abusive parents, Stevens “jumped the back fence” of his home (in New Jersey) at age eleven and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged brook trout, fishing, hiking, history, jumping the fence, Lake Ontario tribs, Lewis Stevens, narrative, peace, Pennsylvania, poetry, Salmon River, small streams, war, Wild Boy Run | 18 Comments