Welcome back!
My birthday has come and gone, and it seems hard to believe that I am now 20… even more so, it is hard to believe that I am even on this trip!
Really, this trip is more of a gift that i’d prefer than anything else, so I’m right at home with you all!
So, for my birthday yesterday, we will go through our last major day of traveling through a great distance, from the heights of Vermont to the outskirts of Boston itself!
Let’s begin, shall we?
Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site
People are always products of where they came from, so it’s no suprise that our 30th President, Calvin Coolidge, inherited many of the same values that were equally shared by his hometown in Plymouth Notch, Vermont!
Plymouth, a very small village (only about 20-30 people in Coolidge’s day), served as not only the birthplace and boyhood home of Mr. Coolidge, but also as his inaugural site and final resting place. It was to these hills of Vermont that Mr. Coolidge always remembered fondly of.
And I think that I will remember them fondly too… I love it.
Perhaps the most remote historic site you could imagine, the entire town is situated in between the large hills.
First, we stopped by the Visitor Cemter to get our bearings of the place, and to see the museum!
The latter picture has some very rare artifacts: belongings of President Chester A. Arthur! Arthur destroyed most of his papers shortly before he died, so objects of him are very hard to come by.
First Lady Grace Coolidge, who was a terrific supporter of the deaf and the Red Cross. She was a very well-respected woman.
Don’t ask me why, but Grace also owned a pet raccoon, which was named “Rebecca.” She didn’t get along too well with people, hence her expression.
His old governor chair, hand-carved by prison inmates of Massachusetts. The painting on the left depicts his inauguration, which I will touch on later.
Mr. Coolidge’s derby hat and cane. He was a very sharp dresser.
Though you can hardly see it because of the reflection, in the screen in front of us is a holographic image of Calvin Coolidge (or an actor of him)! What’s even more cool, is the fact that you can ask a question in the nearby microphone, and he would answer it! That seems like very advanced tech, especially for a place like this.
Coolidge’s cabinet chair during his presidential years. While most items of his are kept at his library in Northampton, there are still a good number of effects here as well.
Now then, onto the village itself!
Ah, so little to do and so much time.
Wait a minute! Strike that, reverse it.
It’s a very pristine setting, no matter how you put it. It was cold and clammy with all the rain pouring down, but of course, we could care less.
This corner building is the general store that his father, Colonel John Coolidge ran. Let’s take respite from the wetness.
Tons of assorted goodies and merchandise! You could find anything here, cookbooks, candies, sodas, postcards, and even bottles of classic Vermont Maple Syrup (or as Roger Miller likes to call it, “Maple Surple”).
These well-built counters were actually built by the president and his father! They feature alternating planks of Bird’s Eye Maple and Cherry woods.
Upstairs, one could find the small dance hall, which was also used as a Summer White House for the president! When he was here, hundreds of cars would show up to the town filled with reporters who would monitor the outside of the building. It brought a lot of attention to the tiny town of Plymouth Notch.
This barn at the end of the road featured tons of old farming equippment! And most of it’s original too!
An assortment of Maple Syrup troughs and harvesting materials. these were actually used by Coolidge himself, who was terrific at extracting sugar from the syrup.
The larger part of the barn was filled with all sorts of carridges and other vehicles, including this Model T Ford!
This teahouse, “Top of the Notch” served as a gift shop in the town for the longest time, and now serves as the administrator’s office.
And this tiny building connected to the general store is the birthplace of President Coolidge!
The kitchen, with low ceilings in order to keep heat down in the room.
Calvin’s parents, John and Victoria Coolidge. Victoria died when young Calvin was just 12, so it was his father who would do much to shape his early life.
Colonel John Coolidge (the colonel was an honorary title,) was a jack of-all trades, and was at various times a state legislator, farmer, craftsman, storeowner, postmaster, sherriff, and notary public, to name just a few (there are many others that he did as well).
The birthroom… Calvin was born in this very bed in 1872… on the Fourth of July. He is the only president to be born on such a date, and he took pride in it heavily.
I’ve lost count of how many birthplaces we’ve seen so far… it would seem however that almost all of them came from humble beginnings, and got their worthy traits early on in life.
The pantry stuffed with original Coolidge artifacts.
Next up was the Coolidge homestead!
It’s raining VERY. HEAVILY.
Coolidge lived here for most of his childhood, and it played host to his unpredicted inauguration…
The stable, filled with wagons, blacksmith tools, and other objects of John Coolidges.
The entire family line was a whole menagerie of John’s and Calvin’s, many of which spanned 5 or 6 generations… Calvin was originally named “John Calvin Coolidge”, but eventually the John was dropped.
Calvin’s old room, which was curiously small.
A workbench of Calvin’s father, with god knows how many special tools and devices around.
The dining table. Almost every building on the site was lighted by kerosene lamps, just as they were back then. This is one prime example.
…. A collector’s true dream…
The parlor, which was sometimes used for church services. All of these items are also original.
John Coolidge’s room. It was here that he died during his son’s time in the White House.
He looks a bit comical in that large hat and that long coat. Still, to each his own.
Picture yourself in 1923… then Vice-President Coolidge was staying in the room upstairs, when he was suddenly wakened up by his father in the middle night, who was warned by a telegraph message handed from a messenger…
President Warren G. Harding had died of a heart-attack in San Francisco, leaving a vacant hole in the government… there was no time to lose.
In the family living-room, by the single light of the kerosene lamp, Calvin Coolidge was sworn on the family bible as President of the United States… by his own father.
And with that, Calvin Coolidge became the 30th President of the United States, and hurried back to Washington to establish his administration. But it all happened here, in the roots of his youth, which he dearly loved.
And so, we hurried down the road to explore the rest of the site.
Calvin’s schoolhouse, filled with exhibits about Vermont wildlife and plantlife, and more information about the community in Plymouth.
One of the best places about this site… was a cheese factory.
…
What? This was here when the Coolidges lived here! And it still produces fresh artisan cheese to this day made only by the finest ingredients!
In fact, the cheese at this place was perhaps the best that I’ve ever tasted in my life… at one point, it was rated the #2 best cheesemaking establishment in the entire country! Think about that! And also, I fell in love with the brie…
Upstairs were original devices concerning cheesemaking back in the 1800’s. I’m ordering this stuff online when I get back…
The Wilder Tavern was home to some of the neighbors of the Coolidge family, but it seems to be closed at the moment.
In case you were wondering why it was clear skies, this is not my photo. There really wasn’t a good way to take a picture in the pouring rain. It got really hard.
Anyways, this is the village church, where Coolidge, his father and stepmother and others worshipped. He remains our only “Congregationalist” President (Congregationalists are related to Puritan faith).
Suffice it to say, this church was beautifuly and masterfully crafted, and was a wonder to behold. The President and his family also worshipped here whenever they were in town, and away from their home in Northampton or the White House.
Reading this stone makes you smile. Even though he claimed his home-state as Massachusetts, he always valued his true-home in Vermont.
Down the road from the site was Plymouth Notch Cemetery. Suffice it to say, it was pretty easy to find the Coolidge gravesite.
Right by the side of the road (that’s our rental car there)!
It’s really unassuming isn’t it? If it weren’t for the Presidential Seal on top, you couldn’t even guess that it was a presidential gravesite.
It is WET. And COLD.
John Coolidge, the President’s son, lived until 2000… he is buried here too, among seven generations of Coolidge.
Grace Coolidge’s headstone,
Calvin Coolidge Jr. sadly died in 1924 of an infectious sore. It broke the President’s heart. He was never the same person since, and died only nine years after that happened.
More of the Coolidge Family. The closest one belongs to John Coolidge, and the two next to it are of Victoria Coolidge and Calvin’s stepmother, Carrie.
Looking down the hill.. who know’s how old these tombstones are?
As one could expect, visiting the early days of notable people always provides deep insight into their personalities and values. Coolidge developed that sense of “no-nonsense”, sensible sort of personality, and it is perhaps the cold frigid region here that developed his tart and formal sort of mannerisms.
Still, learning more about these sort of sites gives you more reason as to what could influence certain decisions, and Coolidge stayed the course of normalcy to the best of his ability. And no matter what consequences might have come (even with a Great Depression shortly after he left office), he still enacted his policies to the best of his ability; the humble farmer’s son from Plymouth Notch Vermont.
So, Keep Cool with Coolidge.
The rest of the trip to Boston consisted of several brief stops, which I will touch on.
Old North Cemetery
Throughout the everlasting rain, we arrived in Concord, the capital city of New Hampshire, to pay tribute to the only president to hail from “The Granite State”.
Our 14th President, Franklin Pierce.
Perhaps our most tragic president, we sought to visit his final resting place in Old North Cemetery, before checking out his home in nearby Hillsborough.
Another very old cemetery, with yet more tilted tombstones. You don’t usually find as many old cemeteries like this in Texas…
Getting close…
Aha, here we are.
Franklin Pierce, a northern democrat, was chosen to be President in 1852, and sought to quell the regional tensions between North and South before the Civil War. His incapability however, only helped to hasten the Civil War, as his bitterness and pro-southern beliefs did not do well to unite both sides, and solve the Slavery Issue in Bleeding Kansas.
STILL. COLD.
His family life was likely the most tragic of any other Commander-in-Chief… Both he and his wife Jane lost two of their three sons to infant sickness, and on their way to the inauguration, their train derailed, and their last son Benny was killed before their own eyes…
Jane, a fiercely religious woman, blamed her husband for this, as his election put them on that train… she would write letters to her dead son from the second floor of the White House, and always wore black…
In 1863 Jane died, and later, Franklin’s good friend, writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, passed away as well. Depressed and alone, Pierce took to drinking, and died in 1869 of a broken heart, and likely liver-poisoning.
… I don’t like to study Pierce that much, mainly for these reasons… it’s just plain depressing.
Still, to give him credit, not everyone could become president, and I can’t imagine anyone having to cope with losing all of their children prematurely. There is nothing else that I can add really, I suppose that all we can give him now is pity, poor guy…
Franklin Pierce Homestead
In Hillsborough, we found out to our dismay that the homestead, where he grew up, was closed for the season!
So, we simply took our losses (and a few pictures).
His father Benjamin Pierce was a military officer and Governor. It would seem for Pierce that he would give much promise, especially with his first careers as a lawyer and a general in the Mexican-American War.
With nothing else to do, we retreated into Massachusetts, and into Newton, only a few miles away from Boston!
Celebrating at a local mexian-restaurant, we tried something new…
Fried Ice Cream!
I’ve always wanted to try this, and suffice it to say… i’d try it again in an instant. It was delicious!
In that restaurant, I also learned that my parents were keeping a birthday secret from me since the start of our trip…
As it turned out, they got me a little something back at Mount Vernon in Virginia… one of the best gifts that I have ever gotten on a birthday…
An original penny from 1803! Words could not express how giddy I was to see this! Nothing that any of us owned was as old as this! 216 years old, and minted in Thomas Jefferson’s Presidency might I add!
I won’t ask them how much it cost…
Well, suffice it to say, it was a pretty good birthday. And we would be ready to finish the remainder of our trip in our last major destination… I hope to see you in my last set of posts, coming very soon!
Boston awaits…
Mark's Historical Roadtrips! 