It kept snowing all day today. The town’s plows haven’t been able to keep up, so the town has extended the on-street parking ban through Wednesday at 8 a.m.
Because it’s been so windy, it’s hard to say how much snow we got here in Cohasset. The National Weather Service reports that a trained spotter measured 13.5 inches of snow in Rockland, just south of here, at 5:13 this morning. We’ve had another 2 to 4 inches since then, and it’s still snowing. I’d guess the total snowfall will be at least 18 inches here in Cohasset.
I took a break from work in the middle of the day, and went snowshoeing in Great Brewster Woods, a 25 acre tract of conservation land close to our house. It felt like I was out in the middle of nowhere — a pretty amazing feeling for crowded suburbia. I didn’t see another soul, and the falling snow deadened all the sounds except for a Great Horned Owl hooting mournfully in a tree overhead.
Snow is coming down, maybe an inch an hour. The wind is drifting the snow around our building, and I couldn’t really tell how much snow we have gotten so far. So I put on my snowshoes, walked over to Cohasset Common, and saw there was at least eight inches of snow in the middle of the common.
The Common was quite beautiful. A few kids were sliding down the hill that St. Stephen’s church is on, and the occasional snow plow rumbled past. Aside from that, no one else was out. Lights were on in nearly all the houses around the common, making it look cheerful in spite of the gusty winds.
Cohasset Common in a night time snowstorm. The First Parish meetinghouse is in the center, with my snowshoe tracks leading towards it.
This morning, Nativity Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the Greek Orthodox church in Cohasset informally known as Panagia church, held a memorial prayer service for Ana Ljubicic Walshe. If you live in eastern Massachusetts, you’ll remember that Ana Walshe is the Cohasset woman who disappeared on January 1, 2023. Last month, her husband, Brian Walshe, was found guilty of first degree murder; he also pleaded guilty to misleading the police and improperly disposing of a body. When sentencing Brian Walshe to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, the judge called his acts “barbaric and incomprehensible.” With the sentencing, a truly grisly murder case had finally come to an end.
Yet even with Brian Walshe’s sentencing, Ana Ljubcic Walshe’s family still didn’t have complete closure. There is an oddity in Massachusetts state law that a death certificate cannot be issued when there is no body. Brian Walshe pleaded guilty to disposing of her body in various dumpsters around eastern Massachusetts, and none of her remains was ever found. That means no death certificate can be issued.
Ana’s mother is Serbian Orthodox. In that faith, a full funeral can’t take place without a death certificate (that is, without a body). Various Massachusetts officials are now trying to get the law changed so that in certain circumstances, a death certificate can be issued when there is no body. In the mean time, the Serbian Orthodox bishop based in Cambridge arranged to come down to the Greek Orthodox church in Cohasset to celebrate a memorial prayer service for Ana Walshe. A memorial service, in the Orthodox tradition, doesn’t require a body. The memorial service was livestreamed so that Ana’s mother in Belgrade, and her sister in Canada, could participate from a distance.
Panagia church opened the service to the entire Cohasset community; they know how this murder has impacted everyone in the community. They also issued a special invitation to the other congregations in Cohasset, so of course I had to attend. I would have gone anyway, because domestic violence prevention is one of the issues that I care most about. I’m also grateful that the Cohasset community has not tried to forget, or to cover up, this horrendous incident of domestic violence — something that happens all too frequently.
The interior of the Greek Orthodox church is beautiful, filled with icons. Even though I’m part of an iconoclastic religious tradition, personally I love icons, and I found it peaceful and calming to look at them before the service began. The service was led by the local Greek Orthodox bishop (who used to be the pastor of Panagia church, the Serbian Orthodox bishop, the current pastor of Panagia, and his immediate predecessor. It was a beautiful service, filled with (as they put it) the hope of eternal life.
We can only Ana’s family got at least some measure of comfort from this service.
Screen grab from the livestream of the memorial service for Ana Ljubicic Walshe, at Panagia church in Cohasset
I went for a walk at Black Rock Beach late this afternoon. A large quantity of seaweed had been left behind by the ebbing tide, mostly Sugar Kelp (Saccharina latissima), but also some wrack (Fucus spp.), some Sea Lettuce (Ulva lattuca), and a few other odds and ends.
There were also hundreds of small (2-3 cm long), almost transparent jelly-like objects washed up above the line of seaweed. At first glance I thought they were Sea Gooseberries (Pleurobrachia pileus), a species of comb jellies. But when I put my photos on iNaturalist, user ja-fields corrected me — they were salps.
What is a salp, you ask? It’s an organism in Family Salpidae. The Salpidae are in Subphylum Tunicata, which is a part of Phylum Chordata — animals with spinal cords. Human beings are also in Phylum Chordata, so this odd little animal is more closely related to us than are crabs, sea urchins, or starfish.
This made me curious — how does one identify Salpidae, if not to species level, then at least to genus? James L. Yount, “The Taxonomy of the Salpidae (Tunicata) of the Central Pacific Ocean,” Pacific Science, July, 1954, has a “Key to world species and reproductive forms of Salpidae,” pp. 280 ff. Identification requires looking at the internal structures, and Yount provides a “Schematic median section of a solitary salp (after Ihle, 1935).” I digitally enhanced his sketch, and identified the body parts in easy-to-read type:
After Yount (1954).Click the image above for a PDF version.
At some point, perhaps I’ll type up Yount’s key. In the mean time, you can find it yourself here.
I climbed up to the bell level of the tower of the Cohasset Meetinghouse, because someone wanted to know if our bell was cast by Paul Revere (it was not). While I was up there, I took a panoramic photo. Not much of a view, to be honest — the tower isn’t all that tall, and it doesn’t have the dramatic view the you get from First Parish in Lexington (from which you can see the skyscrapers of Boston), or from First Unitarian in New Bedford (from which you can see New Bedford Harbor). But it’s still a charming view.
Click on the image above for a higher resolution version.
It’s a crazy world out there, and sometimes you just need to forget about the human world and get in touch with the beauty and subliminty of the non-human world. And on a walk today, I saw more than a dozen species of wildflowers in bloom….
Chelone glabra, White TurtleheadLobelia cardinalis, Cardinal FlowerImpatiens capensis, Common JewelweedCuscuta gronovii, Common DodderEutrochium dubium, Coastal Plain Joe-Pye WedMikania scandens, Climbing Hempvine
We’re past Lughnasa now, and the days are noticeably shorter. At this time of year, I always look for a few plants with spectacular colors.
Lobelia cardinalis
The Cardinal Flower grows in wet ground — in swamps, or along streams, rivers and ponds. I don’t often find a cardinal flower blooming where I can get close enough to see the details of the flowers, but this one was growing in a wet place along one of the paths around Aaron River Reservoir. The vivid red color, and the dramatic structure of the flower, makes it especially memorable.
Danaus plexippus on Asclepias tuberosa
Butterfly Milkweed grows in open fields and meadows. The bright orange is pretty enough by itself, but when an orange and black Monarch Butterfly lands on it, it’s truly spectacular.
Cuscuta gronovii
At this time of year along one of the inlets of Cohasset Harbor, I always see marsh plants covered in strange-looking orange filaments. Common Dodder is a parasitic plant that has no chlorophyll; it gets all its nutrients by sucking the sap out of a host plant. Parasites always creep me out a little — though I suppose letting your food source live is better than killing it, the way we humans kill carrots and potatoes, or cows and chickens. Nevertheless, the showy orange stems of Common Dodder twined in among green leaves is quite a beautiful sight.
I started out this series by saying that sometimes the stories of Revolutionary War heroes and heroines have been partially forgotten, or details have been obscured. In this follow-up post, I’ll tell a little about how I researched the stories of Persis and Allen Lincoln, and the story of Briton Nichols. Maybe this will inspire other people to do some research into ordinary Revolutionary War veterans — a worthwhile thing to do as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution.
One place to start researching an individual is by looking through the local history of a given town or city. During the middle part of the 19th century, many municipalities from the 13 original colonies had local histories written. And in most cases, whoever wrote that local history would be sure to record any local traditions about those who served in the Revolution. So, for example, for the town of Cohasset where I live, Victor Bigelow wrote a history of the town in 1898, and he provided lists of those who served and told many stories of the town’s participation in the Revolution.
That being said, local histories may contain local traditions that have gotten muddled over time, and most local histories contain lots of small errors of fact. So the next step is to see if you can find corroborating evidence from other sources. Which can be a huge job. Cohasset is a small town, but there were more than 125 men from the town who did military service during the Revolution. Volunteer local historians like me don’t have time to research all 125+ individuals who served in the Revolution. You have to narrow your focus to research a few individuals in depth.
But how do you narrow your focus? Here are some strategies:
(1) Research a college graduate, who would be far more likely to appear in the written record than non-college graduates. For example, you can find brief biographies of Harvard graduates in the series Sibley’s Harvard Graduates.
(2) Research famous or semi-famous persons, or persons who are part of prominent families. For example, if you were researching persons from Braintree or Quincy, you could start with anyone related to John Adams; there are lots of published genealogies and published histories of the Adamses.
(3) To research ordinary people, start with unusual person names (such as Briton Nichols) and unusual place names (such as Cohasset). Those will be easiest to find information on.
(4) As you’re researching one person, you might run into a lead from someone else altogether (e.g., when researching Briton Nichols, I discovered Ambrose Bates kept a war diary). Keep note of those other leads so you can follow up later.
Next, here are some research strategies:
(A) Use the power of internet search. More and more 18th century documents are being digitized, making information easily available online. This works best with Search using several different search tools — I start with DuckDuckGo, first with the person’s name and place name along, then adding the following to the search string: site:.archive.org (which searches through the many books digitized by the Internet Archive) and site:.loc.gov (which searches the Library of Congress website). Next, I’ll search Google Books. Finally, I’ll try regular Google search (Google seems to turn up a lot of crap these days, which is why I leave it till last).
(B) Search genealogy sites. I use FamilySearch.org, which is free, although it does require you to set up a free account. Paid genealogy sites may give you more information, but FamilySearch.org is a good place to look for Revolutionary War military service records. Additionally, amateur genealogists may have done additional research on some individuals — but be cautious about trusting the work of amateur genealogists. Always click through to look at the sources they cite, and then click through and look at the actual digitized images for those sources (which is how I found out that Persis Lincoln and Allen Lincoln were married by Rev. John Browne of Cohasset).
(C) Don’t forget your local library. Many local libraries have local history sections. If there’s a librarian who has responsibility for the local history section, get to know that person, and ask for help when you need it.
EXCEEDINGLY IMPORTANT: For each little tidbit of information you find, make sure you record where you found it, including full bibliographic information. Footnote everything! You want other people to be able to review your research. You want citations for every single fact. If you don’t have citations for everything, others will assume you’re a sloppy researcher, and discount your work accordingly.
That’s a very brief overview of how you might begin to research individual people to find out their stories. Good luck — and don’t forget to share your research, so others can appreciate it, and correct any errors you might make, and generally help further our knowledge of Revolutionary War veterans.
It’s a stressful time in the world right now — what with brutal wars in Ukraine, Israel/Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar, and elsewhere — and with economic uncertainty and political instability in the U.S. — and a host of other problems, like looming ecological collapse.
As a result of all these stress-filled events, there are lots of pundits telling us how we can reduce our stress. Recently, I’ve heard a number of pundits tell me that if I want to reduce my stress I should take a walk in the woods. (Before you get all snarky, yes I know this advice makes unwarranted assumptions: that I live in a bioregion where there are woods to walk in; that I live in a human place where enough woodlands remain to walk in; that if there are woods to walk in, they’re safe enough that you can walk in them; that I don’t have physical limitations that preclude walking in the woods. As it happens, I do live in a bioregion which does have woodlands, I’m fortunate enough to live near a 3,000 acre state park which is mostly wooded and mostly safe, and I am physically able to walk in the woods.)
I hate to tell those pundits, but taking a walk in the woods is not going to reduce my stress.
Yesterday, I took a walk in our nearby state park. In many places in that park, American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) are the predominant tree species. But our American Beeches are under attack, and most of the beech trees I saw appeared to be in poor health. To be blunt, beech trees are being killed off by invasive organisms.
First, there’s Beech Bark Disease (BBD):
“BBD is an insect-fungus complex that involves the beech scale insect (Cryptococcus fagisuga Lind.) and the fungi Neonectria faginata and Neonectria coccinea…. It is predicted that BBD will spread across the entire range of American beech in the United States in the next 40–50?years.” (Catalina Salgado-Salazar et al., G3 (Bethesda) [Genes, Genomes, Genetics]. 2021 Mar 9;11(4). https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkab071 )
The scale insect, which arrived in North America in the early twentieth century, spreads the fungus. The fungus infects the tree causing unsightly canker sores on the bark:
Beech Bark Disease on an American Beech tree in Wompatuck State Park
There is no known cure for Beech Bark Diseases. It often proves fatal.
Second, beech trees are also under attack from Beech Leaf Disease:
“Symptoms of beech leaf disease (BLD), first reported in Ohio in 2012, include interveinal greening, thickening and often chlorosis in leaves, canopy thinning and mortality. Nematodes from diseased leaves of American beech (Fagus grandifolia) sent by the Ohio Department of Agriculture to the USDA, Beltsville, MD in autumn 2017 were identified as the first recorded North American population of Litylenchus crenatae (Nematology, 21, 2019, 5), originally described from Japan.” (Lynn Kay Carta et al., “Beech leaf disease symptoms caused by newly recognized nematode subspecies,” Forest Pathology, 27 Feb. 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/efp.12580 )
Here’s what the leaves look like after the nematodes have attacked them (I took this photo last May):
Curled leaves of American Beech, showing damage by Beech Leaf Disease
As I understand it, foresters and dendrologists are still learning about Beech Leaf Disease. But it’s very clear that Beech Leaf Disease causes trees to lose most of their leaves, and it’s equally clear that Beech Leaf Disease eventually leads to the death of the tree.
As with Beech Bark Diseases, there is no known cure.
The upshot is that we’re going to lose all, or nearly all, of our American Beech trees in the next decade or so — just as we lost nearly all of our American Chestnut trees in the early twentieth century (due to Chestnut Blight, an invasive fungus), and just as we lost nearly all of our American Elm trees in the mid-twentieth century (due to Dutch Elm Disease, an invasive fungus), and just as we lost nearly all of our ash trees in the early twenty-first century (due to Emerald Ash Borer, an invasive insect).
Invasive organisms are predicted to be one of the major causes of the calamitous decrease in biodiversity that we’re now facing. I suppose you could go for a walk in the woods and willfully ignore these evidences of global environmental disaster. If you’re going to do that, you might as well engage in one of those chic mindfulness practices that helps you forget that anything bad is happening. And what the hell, if you need to be in denial — if that’s what it takes to reduce your stress and keep your sanity — then I say, go for it. But please don’t tell me that I should take a walk in the woods to reduce my stress — what works for you doesn’t necessarily work for me.
