Archive for August, 2017

Liberty Mills and North Manchester, Indiana

Posted by graywacke on August 14, 2017

First timer? In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a once-every-four-or-five days blog), I use an app that provides a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48). I call this “landing.”

I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town or towns I land near. I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.

To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is) please see “About Landing” above. To check out some recent changes in how I do things, check out “About Landing (Revisited).”

Landing number 2361; A Landing A Day blog post number 793.

Dan: Today’s lat/long (41^o47.879’N, 85^o 48.626’W) puts me in N Cen Indiana:

Here’s my local landing map:

My local streams-only map shows that I landed in the watershed of Swank Creek; on to the Eel River (1^st hit ever!):

Zooming way back, you can get the whole picture:

The Eel discharges to the Wabash (27^th hit); on to the Ohio (144^th hit); on to the MM (917^th hit).

Let’s move right along to Google Earth (GE), hop on a yellow pushpin, and head on in to today’s random landing location. Click HERE to do so.

I have halfway decent GE Street View coverage:

And here’s what the Orange Dude sees:

BTW, this Breaking News just in: yesterday, I saw my first Googlemobile! It was in Pennington NJ on Broemel Place, and I was driving in the opposite direction. I’ll be checking Broemel Place Street View coverage to see if my 2012 black Camry made the big time . . .

I didn’t have to go too far downstream (south) to get a look at my watershed stream – Swank Creek:

It ain’t much, but here ‘tis:

I spent an inordinate amount of time investigating the towns you can see on my local landing map, plus about a dozen others that would be visible on a slightly expanded local map. And guess what? This entire area is pretty much:

I’ll do what I can with pretty slim material, starting with Liberty Mills (pop 136). For such a small town, Wiki has a substantial and quirky history write-up. Here are some excerpts:

The land that is now Liberty Mills was purchased by New York state resident John Comstock, who moved to the area in 1836. He first built a saw mill, and later a grist mill, a distillery, store, carding mill, and flouring mill.

[Quoted from an 1884 history of Wabash County by Thomas Helm:]

John Comstock in his day was easily the biggest and most influential business man and farmer in Northern Wabash county. He was a member of the State Legislature and a probate judge and was progressive in many ways and as stubborn as an ox in others.

When the canal was built through Lagro [13 miles south of Liberty Mills] he maintained a warehouse there and was able to attract business men to Liberty Mills faster than to North Manchester. In fact, it was not uncommon in telling the history of an early North Manchester business man to mention that he first located in Liberty Mills.

However, he could not stand competition, and because of his buying power, could undersell those who dared compete with him. Many of the early business men then moved to North Manchester.”

[Back to straight-ahead Wiki:]

His distillery, built in 1839, would send wagon loads of whiskey to areas as far as Mishawaka and Warsaw, Indiana. It brought distress to his sons, who for religious convictions left the business. Comstock himself had a change of heart and declared “I will let that distillery rot!” even after offers to purchase it.

Due to Comstock’s monopolizing business practices, most local business men left to establish themselves in neighboring North Manchester. In time North Manchester flourished [current population something over 6,000] while Liberty Mills remained unchanged in size [current population something over 100].

My guess is that plenty of nasty things were said behind Mr. Comstock’s back, especially if one were at the local tavern after he pulled one of his more egregious deals . . .

A Liberty Mills “Notable Person” is Cliff Kindy, “organic farmer and member of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT).” CPT was clickable, so I did, and I found the group interesting. From Wiki:

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) is an international organization set up to support teams of peace workers in conflict areas around the world. These teams believe that they can lower the levels of violence through nonviolent direct action, human rights documentation, and nonviolence training. CPT sums their work up as “…committed to reducing violence by getting in the way.”

[Interesting mission statement.]

CPT has a full-time corps of over 30 activists who currently work in international trouble spots including Colombia, Iraq and the West Bank. These teams are supported by over 150 reservists who spend two weeks to two months a year on a location.

Although it is a Christian-based organization, CPT does not engage in any type of missionary activity. Corp members are Christians, but there is no faith requirement for members of CPT’s short-term delegations.

Moving right along to North Manchester. Under “Notable People,” Wiki mentioned “Daniel Garber, impressionist artist.” Garber was clickable, so I did, and I was immediately intrigued:

Daniel Garber (1880 – 1958) was an American Impressionist landscape painter and member of the art colony at New Hope, Pennsylvania. He is best known today for his large impressionist scenes of the New Hope area, in which he often depicted the Delaware River.

Garber was born in North Manchester, Indiana. He studied art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. In the tradition of many American artists, Garber and his wife traveled to Europe to complete his art education. Returning to America in 1907, he settled at Cuttalossa, a small settlement on the Delaware River six miles up the Delaware River from New Hope.

Why am I intrigued? Well, I live just 8 miles east of New Hope, and I love the history, culture and beauty of the Delaware River near me. I also enjoy impressionistic landscapes, and quickly realized how much I enjoyed Garber’s art.

Before we look at some art, I’ll journey up to Cuttalossa, which doesn’t appear on any maps, although I was able to figure out that it’s where Cuttalossa Road intersects River Road, and where Cuttalossa Creek flows into the Delaware Canal:

Here’s a GE Street View shot of the intersection of Cuttalossa Road and River Road:

And a little further south:

Here’s a look at the creek just upstream from River Road:

It certainly looks like some old mill structures, eh?

And now we’re looking north past the creek, with the Delaware Canal (albeit dry) on the right:

The Delaware Canal was completed in 1832 . . .

As mentioned above, Cuttalossa Creek actually flows into the canal. Evidently, the Cuttalossa is small enough that even flood flows couldn’t overwhelm the canal. For larger streams, the canal crosses over the stream on a bridge!

Time for some Garber art. First this, “In the Sringtime” (painted in the year of his death, 1958):

Here’s a 1940 painting of Mechanic Street in New Hope:

A lovely 1918 painting entitled “Mending:”

“School Days in New Hope” (1938, looking across the river to Lambertville NJ):

By the way, the bridge is still there, the church & steeple are still there, but the old buildings on the right aren’t. And, the New Hope side of the river is totally built up . . .

Here’s “October Frenchtown” (1939). Frenchtown is a NJ river town 15 miles upriver from New Hope.

And here’s “Early Spring – New Hope” (undated):

And finally, “Carversville in Springtime” (1935):

I would love to have an original Garber on my living room wall. Trouble is, the Garber originals I saw for sale were typically at auction, with expected prices around $500,000. Oh, well . . .

Let me head back to Indiana and close out this post with a couple of GE Panoramio shots by DW Buller, taken two miles south of my landing:

That’ll do it . . .

Greg

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Christian Peacemaker Teams, Cliff Kindy, Cuttalossa, Daniel Garber, Liberty Mills IN, LIberty Mills Indiana, North Manchester IN, North Manchester Indiana | Leave a Comment »

Glacier National Park, Montana

Posted by graywacke on August 9, 2017

I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town or towns I land near. I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.

To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is) please see “About Landing” above. To check out some recent changes in how I do things, check out “About Landing (Revisited).”

Landing number 2360; A Landing A Day blog post number 792.

Dan: Today’s lat/long (48^o 7.002’N, 113^o 11.849’W) puts me in NW Montana:

Here’s my local landing map:

OK, there are some local towns, but I thought that this landing was close enough to Glacier National Park to forgo the towns and feature the park. [Random musing: one might think that the opposite of “forgo” should be “forstop”, or is it, as Jody just suggested – “fivego?”]

And no, Glacier National Park has not been featured previously on ALAD.

Here’s my most local streams-only map:

As you can see, I landed in the watershed of Lodgepole Ck; on to Morrison Ck; on to the Middle Fork of the Flathead River (1^st hit ever!). Zooming back:

The Middle Fork joins up to the plain ol’ Flathead (13^th hit), which makes its way to the Clark Fork (23^rd hit). OK, I’ll zoom back one more time:

And the Clark Fork is almost the only game in town for the Pend Oreille (with 23 of its 25 hits); on to the Mighty Columbia (171^st hit).

It’s time to free fall in to the mountains of NW Montana. Click HERE to hitch your wagon to the Google Earth (GE) yellow pushpin and settle in to our latest random location.

Here’s an oblique GE shot looking north towards Glacier:

And one looking east up the valley of Lodgepole Creek:

I had to head way north to Route 2 near Essex (see local landing map) to get a GE Street View look at my drainage pathway. Here’s the lovely view of the Middle Fork of the Flathead River one can see there:

So, I was a little overwhelmed by the immensity (and the immense beauty) of Glacier National Park. I figured I could feature the retreat of glaciers in the park (which I do) along with some choice GE Panoramio shots (which I do). But what else?

Well, I happened to be checking out the NYTimes webpage and I found an 8/3/17 article by Steph Yin entitled “Mountain Goats on Your Trail? They Like You and Your Urine.” And then, to my amazement and delight, I found that the article features mountain goats in Glacier National Park!

Here are some excerpts:

A few years ago, employees at Glacier National Park in Montana noticed that mountain goats were hanging out — even sleeping — far away from cliffs, and spending much of their time near humans. Researchers who investigated this atypical behavior determined that where there were people, there were fewer predators. Also where there were people, there was pee.

Combined, these phenomena afford mountain goats two prized essentials: safety and salt. “You can’t beat that. It’s like vacation for goats,” said Wesley Sarmento, who led the study, published in the journal Biological Conservation last month, as a master’s student at the University of Montana.

Mountain goats love salt. They are known to travel more than 15 miles to lick natural salt deposits, which provide essential nutrients. But human urine is packed with minerals from our salty diets, and mountain goats will forgo [there’s that word again!] those journeys if there is a lot of urine around. As a result, many a hiker has strayed off-trail to tinkle and found mountain goats lurking, eager to lick a rock or eat a plant drenched in fresh, life-sustaining urine.

They not only seek out urine, but also place where tourists place their sweaty hands (caption below):

Mountain goats licking salt off a fence at Glacier National Park in Montana. Goats in the park tend to follow the paths of humans because of the leftover salt from urine and because where humans are, predators aren’t. Credit Rex Features, via Associated Press

And here’s a picture of hikers surrounded by mountain goats (caption below):

Hikers surrounded by mountain goats on the Hidden Lake Nature Trail in Glacier National Park. Credit Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

I found a May 10, 2017 CNN write-up about the decline of glaciers in the park, by Steve Almasy and Mayra Cuevas, entitled “The big melt: Glacier National Park is losing its glaciers.”

Some excerpts:

The 37 glaciers remaining at Glacier National Park are vanishing.

In the past half century, some of the ice formations in Montana have lost 85% of their size, and the average shrinkage is 39%, a study released by the U.S. Geological Survey and Portland State University says.

One day, they will be gone, the study’s lead scientist said Wednesday.

“The trend right now is that they are inexorably going into their final demise. There is no chance they will go into rebirth,” Dan Fagre said. “In several decades they will be mostly gone. They will certainly be gone before the end of the century.”

And humans are responsible, he said.

“There are variations in the climate but it is humans that have made all those variations warmer,” he said. “The glaciers have been here for 7,000 years and will be gone in decades. This is not part of the natural cycle.”

I’ve never been to Glacier National Park, but I have visited Athabasca Glacier in Jaspar National Park, Alberta Canada. This was back in 1985, but I distinctly remember seeing roadside markers showing where the toe of the glacier was at various times in the past.

Here’s a picture of one of the markers (GE Pano by Idle Moor).