Before leaving Hingham I finally was able to get a picture of this sign. Massachusetts has one for each of their towns and it's such a kick to drive from one town to another and see this sign with date of settlement started. Hard to get pictures because you don't know where the town line begins and there is no place to pull over for a quick stop and picture. It's a bummer. On this one I was lucky enough after a month to be driving towards sign and 1st at stoplight with camera next to me. ha! All these towns are so historic and have some wonderful history. Too bad so many have been neglected. Roads are terrible in most places and some are really run down while others thrive.. just like anywhere. Just interesting observations. I was taken so much with Hingham because we lived there for 5 weeks and it was so CLEAN! Loved the manicured yards and over 1800 historic homes and some still in residence of 13 generations! That is something in this young country with so littl
Years ago I read about the terrible Johnstown flood of 1889 and we finally made it to the memorial built by the National Parks system. My goodness was this ever a worthwhile stop; or at least we thought so. Back in the early 1800's when the country's transporation was run by the canal system (before railroads even) they built this dam; years too late really and only finished it one year before calling it quits and building the railroad for transportation purposes. This was a period in our country's history where things were run very differently (or we like to think so); anyway, the dam had problems and was no longer used EXCEPT by the very wealthy and their little club for fishing and boating and other recreation. Although it did start to leak and have problems, they (The club) never really took any of it seriously and just did superficial patch jobs on the dam until one terrible week in May 1889 when the rain started and wouldn't let up! That is when the dam finally broke apart and the town of Johnstown along with anything else in it's path was completely lost in this flood! Terrible, terrible accident that could have been prevented; but they didn't have those laws in place then. Of course there is no dam now and the town has rebuilt and is a fairly large community. This memorial left us both with heavy hearts. They did an excellent job with their film and displays here at the memorial. History lessons such as this are one of the things we enjoy most about this lifestyle! We keep learning...
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