Bitter Harvest (22 page)

“Nothing that can’t wait. Besides, it’s a good idea to get out now and then. I’ll even drive—I’ve got four-wheel drive, and I’m more used to snow than you are. And I can guarantee you there will be snow in Vermont.”

Meg wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you! I hate leaving things like this unresolved, and maybe getting out of town for a day will discourage my stalker person.”

“Let’s hope so.”

They set off early the next morning. It was a blindingly beautiful New England day, the snow still pristine, save for a few animal tracks, the sky an intense and unmarred blue. Meg felt like she’d fallen into a holiday card.

She had dutifully called and left Bree a message on her cell phone, telling her where she’d be and indicating that she planned to be back the same day, but to please feed the goats and Lolly if she was late. She wasn’t used to being accountable to people. Seth had called her on it, the day before, and he was right—she should have let him know, given what had been going on lately. It felt odd having someone looking out for her. But nice.

“So, where do we go?” Meg asked, once they were on the road.

“Almost due north. We follow I-91 for a while—that road runs all the way to the Canadian border. Then we veer west a bit to get to Pittsford. We should be there in under three hours. You impatient?”

“A bit. As a kid, my folks and I used to go to the shore, and even though I think it’s about half the distance of this trip, it seemed like it took forever.”

“We never got into the whole beach thing. Or family vacations, for that matter. You want music?”

“Depends on what you call music.”

“So that’s the way it is? Take a look at my CDs. Or we can talk. What is it that you’re hoping to find up there in Pittsford, anyway?”

“Well, original documents that prove that Violet’s mother was a Warren, for a start. And then there’s something about the sampler that troubles me—all those babies dying, and then the parents, and then Violet is sent to live with someone she probably hadn’t even met, when there was family nearby. Something just seems off. I’d like to know something more about the Coxes and the Lampsons. I guess I’m saying, even if there was some awful event, I’d rather know than not know. If there’s any way to find out.”

“Fair enough. So, we have limited time at this library, and there’s no guarantee that whoever is there is knowledgeable about what you’re looking for. Let’s focus. What specifically do you want to know?”

“Well, I’d like to know more about the settlement of the town of Pittsford, and why the Warrens left what seemed like a decent existence in Granford to try out somewhere new. From what I can tell, the town of Pittsford hadn’t existed all that long when they arrived.”

“You find people in New England did that a lot back then. Hard to say whether they felt cramped, or bored, or they thought the next big thing was right over the horizon. Bunch of optimists, don’t you think?”

“The men, maybe. Of course, they left all the packing and hauling stuff—not to mention taking care of the kids—to the women, who had little choice but to follow. Hubby goes haring off with his pals, looking for adventure, and Wifey trails along trying to keep the family fed and clean and healthy. To go back to your question, I’d guess that at the very least the library will have copies of whatever town histories exist. If I’m lucky they may have a genealogy section with the vital records. Or they can tell me what the historical society has and if it’s worth it for me to make a second trip in the spring. And if the snow isn’t six feet deep, we can go check out the local cemetery.”

“I love your idea of a good time. At least you’re a cheap date.”

“Hey, you offered to drive.”

They bantered happily for the rest of the trip, pulling into Pittsford around eleven. Meg had read the bare description of the town online, but seeing it brought home to her how much it resembled Granford, and probably hundreds of other old New England towns. Several roads converged in the center around a small green, with—no surprise—a large white church at one end. She wasn’t surprised to find the library close to the green as well, along with the post office and a small town hall.

“Not much to see, is there? I hope this isn’t a total waste of time,” Meg said.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You want to eat lunch first?”

“Sounds good to me. And I’m not picky—not that there’s much to choose from.”

They were lucky to find a shabby diner not far from the center of town and ate something forgettable. Meg kept one eye on the clock, conscious of the passage of minutes. Would the library actually be open? Should she have called ahead? But she couldn’t have—they’d hatched this plan late yesterday, and left before the library opened today. But even if it was open, would there be anyone there who knew anything?

After lunch they drove back to the library and parked in the small lot. There were a few cars there already, and Meg felt a spurt of relief. She shoved the folder with her genealogy notes into her bag, then climbed out of Seth’s car and beat him to the front door. “Twelve-o-three. Here we go!” Meg pulled open the door, and Seth followed.

She approached the central—and only—desk, heartened to see that there was a competent-looking adult woman rather than a high-school fill-in behind the desk. The woman looked up, as if surprised to see a patron. The only other people in the building appeared to be a couple of teenagers working on homework.
That would have been me in high school
, Meg reflected wryly,
hard at work in the library on a weekend
. “Can I help you?” the woman asked.

“I hope so,” Meg said. “I’m looking for information about some of the families that lived in Pittsford just before 1800, and I was hoping that you’d have some town records here. I know there’s a historical society, but I understand they’re not open at the moment. I only got started on this search recently, so I haven’t had time to contact anyone there. Do you have a local history section in the library here?”

The woman smiled. “We do, and I guess you’d have to say we share the records with the historical society. We have better storage facilities than they do, but they retain title—it’s a legal thing. So you want history of the founding and the early landowners?”

“Yes, that sounds good. Are there church and municipal records?”

“Some. Record keeping was a bit spotty, early on, and like almost anywhere else there was at least one fire, so some records are gone. We have them on microfiche, if you know how to use that. I’ll be happy to show you what we’ve got. What names are you looking for?”

“Warren and Cox, mainly, specifically a marriage between a Unity Warren and a man with the last name Cox. I’m descended from the Warren family, the branch that stayed in Massachusetts. And anything for a Jacob Lampson, too.”

“Plenty of Warrens and Coxes around here. Lampson, Lampson . . . why does that name ring a bell? Anyway, why don’t you let me show you our local history books, and I’ll dig around in the paper files and the microfiches and see what I can find. It’ll save you time.” She led them to a small room at the back of the building. Its walls were lined with bookcases, and there were a couple of freestanding ones as well, which left little room for a battered oak worktable and a few chairs. “Make yourselves comfortable. I’ll let you orient yourselves, and I’ll be back in a bit.”

After she’d left, Seth turned to Meg. “That’s a good start. What do you want me to do?”

“Let’s divvy up the published histories and see what we can come up with. We’re looking for any mentions of Warrens and Coxes, plus information on the people who settled the town and the ones who came after them, up to 1800.”

“I’m on it.”

They pulled out a series of books, all but emptying a couple of shelves, and sat down to begin reading. Many of the books had been written in the later nineteenth century, and the language was rather effusive, but Meg quickly found that they provided a wealth of detail, often quite personal. She wondered how accurate the information was in those that didn’t cite sources. On the one hand, the writer no doubt had direct anecdotal knowledge of the community; on the other hand, if he was writing the history late in life, his memories might have faded a bit. Still, it was valuable information, and Meg figured if she assembled enough bits and pieces, she might be able to put together a fuller picture.

More than an hour had passed before the librarian reappeared, holding several grimy manila folders and a short stack of printouts. She looked very pleased with herself. “I’ve got at least some of what you’re looking for here.”

“Oh, please, sit down. And I didn’t even ask your name. I’m Meg Corey, and this is Seth Chapin. And you are?”

She sat. “Mercy Cooper. Nice to meet you. Anyway, the bare outline is this, based on what I’ve found in the town records: there were several Warrens who all moved here about the same time, in the 1780s. They weren’t the original founders, but sort of a second wave—the Coxes were already here, part of the first wave. Even then it wasn’t a very big town—maybe three hundred people? And they all married each other.”

Meg laughed. “Wow, that’s funny. Makes you wonder what the weddings would have been like, doesn’t it? So you’re saying there were four Warrens, and they all married Cox siblings, right?”

“Exactly. It was John Cox who married Unity Warren in 1785, and they had one child, Violet Cox, born the next year. Then John died, and Unity married Jacob Lampson in 1787, and they had four children, in short order. And then the kids all died young, and both parents died not long after the last child of theirs, within a couple of weeks of each other in 1795. That’s the skeleton, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

“So daughter Violet was orphaned in 1795?”

“That’s right,” Mercy said.

“That’s where I can pick up the story,” Meg said. “She ended up living with her uncle Eli Warren in Granford, Massachusetts. I own that house now, and I found in a closet a sampler that she made after she arrived—it’s dated 1798. It includes a family register and even images of what I’m guessing are the family tombstones. I wanted to know how it ended up in Granford, in my house. The head of the historical society back in Granford gave me a good deal of information from the Granford side, but it’s great to have it corroborated through local records here. But that still leaves me with one big question. If all this happened in Pittsford, and Violet had plenty of relatives here, why did she end up in Granford?”

“That I can’t tell you, but I’ll see what I can find,” Mercy said. “Could you send me a picture of the sampler? It would make a great addition to our records—maybe we could get a follow-up article in the local paper. Or at least the library newsletter.”

“I’d be delighted, if you’ll return the favor and send me anything else you come across. May I keep these copies?” Meg waved the slender sheaf of printouts that Mercy had given her.

“Sure—let’s call it two bucks, at five cents a page. And I’ll keep digging—I know there’s something odd about the Lampsons, and it’s going to annoy me until I remember what it is.”

Meg looked at her watch, and then out the window. How much light was left in the day? “Are the Lampsons buried near here?”

“You want to see the tombstones? Yes, they should be right down the block.”

Meg glanced at Seth. “Do you mind?” When he shrugged, she turned back to Mercy. “Thank you so much! I’m sorry we can’t spend more time here, but I hope I can come back again. I really appreciate your help, Mercy.”

“Thank you for saying so. It does get a bit boring, dealing with five-page research papers for the high-school kids, and now we don’t even get a lot of them anymore, what with the Internet and that Wikipedia stuff. You’ve made my day—a question with some meat on it, that I could actually answer. I’ll walk you out and show you where the cemetery is.”

Outside the library, Mercy pointed toward the white church, then retreated back inside. Seth asked, “You want to drive or walk?”

“I think I can walk half a block, Seth. I wore my heavy boots. And I want to digest what Mercy told us. What a sad story! Poor Violet—she must have been all of ten when her mother died. And she would have seen all those babies—her half siblings—die first. I hope Mercy can find some more details, although it seems unlikely, unless somebody happened to have saved a lot of family correspondence. It does happen, but I don’t know if I’m that lucky.”

They started walking, their boots crunching on the frozen snow. It took them two minutes to arrive at the cemetery adjacent to the church, surrounded by a low stone wall. A single path had been cleared from the gate through to the rear. “At least we don’t have to climb the wall,” Seth said. “But how do you expect to find anybody? I bet we’re seeing no more than half of the stones right now—the rest are covered with snow.”

Meg scanned the scene, looking at the mostly slate stones, scattered like crooked teeth in the snow. After a minute she pointed. “There.”