Sporting the white, cotton, “Old Hawley Common” T-shirt with red letters that I bought Sunday at the common’s unveiling—hint of bear scent wafting through cool, clear mountain air—inspired inquiries from some folks I bumped into this week in my travels.

“Oh, you went to that?” was a question by some who had seen the event publicized; then, “What, pray tell, is your interest in Hawley?” that seldom-visited hilltown nestled into Franklin County’s southwestern corner, population 337. Well, as is often true in my case, it all comes down to history, place and blood, often intertwined in a geographical setting where one’s roots run deep.

Although I am the direct descendant of no original Hawley settler I know of, a Sanderson great-grandfather of mine was among the original proprietors; not only that, but peripheral genealogical lines run through that landscape like its shaded brooks and streams. Throw in a direct link to the historic building I call home, and my interest heightens. So, I guess you could say that my fascination with Hawley is all about personal connections.

Hawley, it seems, was one of many “frontier” destinations for those defeated rabble-rousers who publicly supported Capt. Daniel Shays of Shays’ Rebellion fame (1786-87). After Shays fled Massachusetts in February 1787, he and his soldiers dispersed to the hinterlands, many touching down in Vermont and New York State, some settling much closer, in places like Hawley, which seemed to hold preferred status for Whately/Conway rebels, possibly because they knew or were related to speculative landowners who did not intend to live there.

Adonijah Taylor and son John were two such men, the elder an early Deerfield miller who established the first Roaring Brook grist and sawmills on a rise overlooking the Mill River section of Deerfield. Today, that site is located in Whately, below the lower Whately Glen dam. Fifth great-grandfather Deacon Thomas Sanderson, the aforementioned Hawley landowner, purchased the home and mill sites from the Taylors in 1803, and they were likely longtime friends. Taylor’s wife, Rachel Sawtelle, and my Sanderson branch grew up in Groton, arrived here at about the same time and were connected by marriage to the Parker family of that town. That Middlesex County Parker family produced Lt. Isaac Parker, second in command at Fort No. 4 in Charlestown, N.H., New England’s northernmost French and Indian War outpost and the probable reason why the Parkers, then my Sandersons chose Deerfield and the Canterbury section of Hatfield (now River Road, Whately) for homes sites. Which brings us to another Hawley connection.

Abraham Parker (1726-1757), son of Lt. Isaac, was probably introduced to the peaceful intervale below Sugarloaf while patrolling on military detail out of Fort No. 4. What was there not to love about that idyllic, fertile plain? By 1748, Parker had built a dwelling there, and four years later, brother-in-law Joseph Sanderson, progenitor of my Franklin County line, was squatting next door. Tragedy struck the Parker family five years later when, on Saturday, March 12, 1757, Parker drowned crossing the Connecticut River ice on his way to or from Sunderland (tavern hopping perhaps?), leaving behind five children, one unborn. I have never found Parker’s grave, but it is probably in Sunderland if his body was recovered, because that’s where he attended church.

Parker’s first son and second child, Abraham Jr. (1752-1837), was one of Hawley’s first settlers; his cellar hole is the outermost of nine identified sites along the Hawley-Common route unveiled Sunday. I met three or four Parker descendants, distant cousins of mine, at Sunday’s dedication. Their family had lived in the original Parker homestead for nearly 120 years, until 1891, when the dwelling and outbuildings were abandoned, soon to be cratered memories. And yes, all that remains today are dark, damp, stone-clad holes. I feel a certain attachment to those Parker ruins because more than likely Abraham Jr., fatherless before his fifth birthday, viewed Uncle Joseph Sanderson (my sixth ggf) as a surrogate father, spending many a day roaming the woods and fields and swamps below Sugarloaf with Joseph’s eight sons, some older, others younger than him. Uncle Joseph, his gravestone the oldest in East Whately Cemetery, died in 1772. Four years later, when Parker Jr. was 24, he set out for Hawley, where his cousins — brothers Nathaniel, Abel and David Parker — were also staking claims, plus, first-cousin and boyhood neighbor Thomas Sanderson, six years older, owned a couple parcels there.

Ah-ha, all about family ties, it is.

Now, as for the link between my Greenfield home and Hawley, well, that was a more recent discovery. The journey began following a brief telephone conversation with Colrain artist Hale Johnson, whose mother, Louise Hale Johnson, published “The History of the Town of Hawley” in 1953, the year I was born. When Mr. Johnson asked about the history of my tavern, I told him the last major “improvements” were made by Ebenezer Thayer, who sold the Charlemont Inn before buying my place in 1836. When I informed him that Thayer had lived in Hawley, it piqued his interest, said he knew all the Hawley cemeteries after visiting them as a boy with his mother. Then, after later finding Louise Hale Johnson’s book in Google Books and reading her Thayer genealogy, I discovered what I believed to be an error. Her profile of Thayer as a good businessman who owned a hotel in Charlemont before purchasing “the expensive Arms Farm in Greenfield Meadows in 1835” differed from what I knew. Because I had done the deed research to document Thayer’s purchase of my Upper Meadows tavern in 1836, I thought Ms. Johnson was mistaken. A trip to the Registry of Deeds proved me wrong.

Thayer did indeed purchase what was known as the Ebenezer Arms Farm in 1835, a little more than a year before buying my place. Then, three years later, in 1839, he purchased the Moses Arms Farm, contiguous with the first Arms farm he had purchased four years earlier. The cost of the three Meadows properties that consumed nearly 1,000 acres was the enormous sum of $30,000, which would compute to millions today. All three homesteads are extant, with the two Arms farms situated in the Lower Meadows. The so-called Ebenezer Arms place stands on Thayer Road, overlooking the long Greenfield Community College driveway and, across it, the so-called Moses Arms Farm, later Myers Farm, today Four Rivers Charter School. My property is named Old Tavern Farm; Thayer bought it from Samuel Hinsdale III and soon added a porch and upstairs ballroom for tavern-keeping son Hollister Baker Thayer, whose name came straight from Hawley; it was there after 1810 that his uncle, Hollister Baker, built a stately, brick, Federal mansion-house that still stands proudly in Pudding Meadow and was recently sold to an “outsider” for a tidy fee.

So, there you have it: a few of the subjects that lured me to the Hawley woods on Sunday and will surely draw me back. A new discovery in the Doane Cemetery caught my interest during a brief stop with a friend and neighbor on the way home. Isolated under a hardwood shade tree just inside the eastern stonewall border of the burial ground stood the lonely, flagged gravestone of Capt. Oliver Shattuck, who died in 1797, age 46. His Shattuck family has an interesting history, one that also weaves through Groton and Fort No. 4 to our slice of paradise known as the upper Pioneer Valley. I think I’ll see what I can find about the man. Who knows? He may even have been a displaced Shaysite, rarely easy to document these days. But even if it can’t be proven, you can usually make connections, ones that provide a pretty good idea of where he stood on the conflict.

Mystery fuels discovery, uncertainty revs the motor, spins the wheels, mine already awhirl and shrill. Before a man can truly understand the little world around him, he must first discover who he is. It’s complex. I’m getting there.

New genealogical discoveries pull things into focus from time to time, helping to explain who you are and why you live where you do. I made such a discovery two weeks ago, gaining from it new appreciation for a classic upland landscape I’ve frequented for more than a decade, be it walking my dogs, my gun or both.

To be honest, the sequence of events started decades ago when my late grandmother, Marion (Snow) Sanderson, spoke of being raised with her two brothers by their grandmother, Annie (Coburn) Snow of Colrain. That unfortunate development occurred when their mother, Clara (Hayes) Snow, needed occasional respite due to health issues. Although memories of that often abusive grandmother were not fond, Nan Sanderson did speak favorably of the old Snow farm, where father Ralph was born and she as a young girl spent time. She identified the site as Colrain Mountain — which I mistakenly believed to be Catamount — and spoke of her family’s orchards there. Often over the years I asked longtime Colrainites if they knew of a Snow farm on Catamount and the standard response was no, but there were a lot of old cellar holes up there. So I never really pursued it until recently, following a brief discussion with my father.

It doesn’t matter how Dad and I arrived on the subject, and to be honest I don’t recall the precise path, but when I mentioned Colrain as the site of his grandfather’s farm, he corrected me, saying he thought it was in Leyden. That’s what sent my wheels spinning to a shrill hum, having in recent years discovered the beauty of Leyden. It got me wondering whether my pulse ran through the hills I sometimes hunt. So off I went on a discovery mission, one that accelerated like a runaway truck down a steep hill.

The chase started with a phone call to Leyden historian Edith Fisher, moved to a quick scan of Arms’ History of Leyden, phone calls to Robert Snow of Leyden and Edward Snow of Greenfield, then to Charlotte (Snow) Howes of Northfield and Shirley Beaudoin of Bernardston, all related. The probe flowered, bore fruit and explained, at least in my mind, another reason why my seed is planted where it is, at the base of the hills where my Snow ancestors took root.

Little did I know that the serene hillock cemetery behind the brick, one-room, East Colrain schoolhouse my wife so adores is an ancestral resting place. The kin buried there would have clearly passed our old tavern often on their way to and from Greenfield. In fact, they probably stopped frequently during the first half of the 19th century to wet their whistles before climbing the rugged hill home.

No sources I contacted remember the two Snow farms nestled off the north end of Fort Lucas Road. Some recall the lower farm when it belonged to Zak, but no one seems to remember the one less than a quarter-mile uphill from there. Neighboring Shelburne farmer Edwin Graves figures that upper structure must have burned before his day, because he can still picture the lonely chimney standing sentry over the Fort Lucas marker when he went up there many years ago with his father to inspect a potential mowing they declined. Across West Leyden Road a short distance north, Susan (Purington) Smith knew nothing of any Snow farms, but my query did bring new meaning to ”Snow pasture” on her deed. Her octogenarian father, Colrain Assessor Ed Purington, knew Snows had lived there before his time but they had vanished before he arrived in ‘41, an abandonment likely precipitated by a haunting 1891 incident that could easily lead to family relocation.

It was Robert Snow who put me on the right track after I shared my grandmother’s description of the Snow orchards. He said that although there were some apple trees on the adjoining Leyden farms once run by his Snow family, they never owned a commercial orchard. ”That would have been the farm on the other side of the (Green) river, in Colrain,” he told me. ”That’s where the Snow orchards were,” and that’s where the suicide occurred on May 24, 1891.

I could find no newspaper confirmation of the tragedy, only a two-line obituary, but family tradition states that a distraught 45-year-old Charles Reed Snow, Annie’s husband, hanged himself in the orchard. Apparently the man had made a bad investment in Zoar copper mines, lost his shirt, and took his life, leaving a wife and five kids, the second eldest my 12-year-old great grandfather. Although difficult to ascertain the absolute accuracy of the story, C.R. Snow’s Colrain death record does list suicide as the cause, he did own an orchard, and there was indeed late 19th-century West County copper speculation that didn’t pan out; so family tradition isn’t too far off.

The large 1858 H.F. Walling wall map of Franklin County shows two dwellings and outbuildings off Forth Lucas Road belonging to A.W. Snow, C.R.’s father. Then, by the time Beers Atlas of Franklin County was published in 1871, the uphill farm had changed hands to D. Snow, presumably David W., son of Asaph Willis Snow and grandson of Col. David Snow, he the builder of the Heath Congregational Church and several other large West County buildings during the first half of the 19^th century. In fact, the Colonel himself could have had a hand in building at least one of those Colrain farms, presumably with his sons’ assistance. Sons of building contractors back then would almost certainly have know at least a little of the carpentry trade.

A circa-1930s color snapshot in the Colrain assessors’ files shows the Snow farmhouse as a stately, two-story Federal home in a pastoral setting. Later photos depict what appears to be an aluminum-sided structure falling toward disrepair. Today, all that’s left is a small, plain piece of a building that evokes no hint of the once-tidy farmstead with a one-story ell extending from the rear.

I now know much more about the hilltop behind me than I did before the leaves dropped; and there’s still much to learn about those farms, the people who built them and the soil they tilled; always new stones to turn. So when the weather warms and the snow drains into the Green River, fully exposing the Brick School Cemetery gravestones, I’ll be up there fitting one tiny piece into another, constructing the big picture. I’ll take a walk with my dogs to explore the ancient Fort Lucas site, something I’ve meant to do anyway. And when deciding in the future where to hunt on a given day, this new spot will be among my favorites, right up there with my Whately ancestral haunts.

It’s about karma, a profound sense a place. Those who never experience it suffer a void, a murky existential abyss, because walking your ancestors’ footsteps makes everything infinitely more interesting.

And in this case, with the light and wind just right, maybe even a tad spooky.

Colrain historian Muriel Russell put a bug in my ear this week about a subject she knows I’m fond of, that being my third great-grandfather, Asaph Willis Snow, a carriage-maker who farmed some 350 acres surrounding the old Fort Lucas site of French & Indian War fame.

Russell, a phone pal with whom I share many local interests, knows of my fascination with Snow/Miller ancestors who lived and worked the acreage between the East Colrain burial grounds at the Brick School and Chandler Hill. So she shared her latest discovery of old A.W.’s connection to the Willis Bridge, spanning the North River in a location aptly named Willis Place.

So what, you ask, does this have to do with fish or wildlife? Well, let’s just say there are trout in the rapid stream below, and wildlife is never far in Colrain. Case closed.

Back to Russell, though, she’s now researching, among other things, enterprising Daniel Willis, who emigrated from Sudbury to Colrain in 1794 to establish a woolen mill. A generation later, the man built a charming Federal mansion house of brick, one that came to be known in townie lingo as ”Willis’ Folly,” suggesting he overspent. The stately building, a circa 1820 statement to Willis’ prosperity, still stands on the North’s southern bank, just downstream from the millpond and dam that once powered his primitive machinery. Right beside the Asher Benjamin dwelling is a river-crossing that’s existed for centuries in different forms, the pinnacle of which was a covered bridge likely built during the third quarter of the 19th century. All that remains today of that West County landmark are sepia-toned photos, reminders of the Willis Covered Bridge built by skilled local hands.

According to 1859-60 Colrain documents Russell recently uncovered, titled ”Rebuilding the Willis Bridge,” A.W. Snow was the chief laborer, earning $58.55 of the total $182.11 expenditure. That 32 percent share of the outlay was paid for labor ($55.50) and materials ($3.05 for paint, oil and nails). Iron worker Luther Graves earned the next largest portion, receiving $35.88 for his services, while Snow’s brother-in-law neighbor Hugh Bolton Miller was paid $12.10 for timbers. Two years later, 1861-62 town records reveal that Snow was paid $20 for additional bridge work. Because the records do not itemize specific chores, Russell is unsure whether the site’s first covered bridge was being built or if it was an open plank-bridge that was later covered. Historically, it could have been either.

It is unclear what covered bridge was America’s first, but it is known the first one appeared around 1805. Timothy Palmer (1751-1821), a New Englander from Newburyport, had a hand in most of the early covered bridges in the Northeast. I have seen him described as a millwright, master carpenter, architect and engineer, so call him what you choose but he was definitely our top bridge-builder of the day and is generally credited with designing the template for America’s first covered bridges. Palmer’s open-timber truss bridge in Amesbury was built in 1792 and “weather-boarded” in 1810 to become Massachusetts’ first covered bridge.

Although covered bridges appeared in western Massachusetts a generation before 1860, Russell has found that most of Colrain’s bridges were covered between 1870-1890, lending credence to a later date at Willis Place. But when you consider that a skilled laborer brought home less than $10 a week in 1860, the expenditure for the Willis Bridge suggests it could have been covered at that time. Subsequent research may soon prove a later date, but it’s not out of the question that A.W. Snow built Colrain’s first covered bridge around 1860 at Willis Place.

It is written that Snow followed his father, Colonel David Snow of Heath, into the carpentry trade, and there is no reason to doubt it. His father was a prolific builder in Heath and Charlemont during the first three decades of the 19th century, with the Heath Congregational Church (1833) and Community Hall (1834) among his major accomplishments. He apprenticed under John Ames, builder of the Ashfield Congregational Church, and probably introduced son Asaph to his trade at a young age. Russell’s recent discovery makes it clear that, despite specializing as a carriage-maker/wheelwright beginning in the late 1820s in Colrain Center, A.W. Snow never forgot his father’s tutelage in structural design. This revelation begs the question of how many dwellings, barns and sheds he helped construct during 50-plus years residing on three contiguous East Colrain farms he at one time or another owned, not to mention abutting properties owned by in-laws. And you have to wonder how often his dad assisted? Better still, how many chests of drawers, tables and stands scattered about this county were made by the two Snow joiners? It’s anyone’s guess, but there must be some. Didn’t all rural carpenters of that period dabble in ”country” furniture?

There are, of course, several peripheral mysteries borne of Russell’s recent findings: questions about the woolen industry, the relationship between fullers and carders and clothiers, the woolen-industry genesis in New England and Colrain. And how about Daniel Willis? What pulled him to our western hills, North River and the woolen industry? How did he meet wife Martha Snow, Asaph’s aunt, David’s sister? Was it through brother-in-law clothier Jacob Snow of Heath, Col. David’s older brother? Had the two clothiers crossed paths before moving here? If so, how, considering one came from Sudbury, the other Wilton, N.H.? Fascinating stuff, fertile ground for succulent historical fruit.

Enough! … But, please, before I go, a little tease.

Suppose I were to suggest that David Snow, a virtual stranger to me upon moving to Greenfield in 1997, built the second-story, spring-floor ballroom that spans the wing of my historic Greenfield tavern. Being one of less than a handful of local joiners capable of building such a hall in the 1830s, it’s eminently possible. But there’s more. The man who paid for this ”grand improvement” to an existing structure was from Charlemont and clearly would have, at the very least, known of Snow’s expertise as a builder. Not only that but he purchased from the Charlemont quarry enough flagstone flooring for simultaneous porch construction. If willing to transport cumbersome stone by oxcart from the place he was leaving, isn’t it likely he’d also employ familiar builders? It makes sense.

So, the deeper I dig, the more probable it becomes that the spirit of my fourth-great-grandfather permeates the place I call home. Tell me, please: if true, could it be coincidence? Happenstance? A fluke? Personally, I find that hard to believe.

I sense it’s more profound, which is as spiritual as I get. But that’s enough for now; perhaps even a step too far. Chalk it up as playful pondering — tavern fare, a little out of the ordinary.

I too build bridges.

I spent a nice evening last week with about 25 members of the Whately Historical Society, people who share my interest in old homes, old barns, old taverns and old relics from a kinder day.

Among my guests was the new owner of a home where my displaced ancestors once lived briefly after a July 1882 fire leveled the original East Whately Sanderson farmstead, and another who owned a colonial where I spent many special days and nights smitten with puppy love in an edifice infected with kindred spirits. Back then, I had no idea Asa Sanderson had called the place home after serving in the Revolution, and knew nothing of his big brother, my fifth great-grandfather Deacon Thomas, who likely taught Asa his tanner/cordwainer trade. But those were the years of my wayward teens, when I knew not who I was or why I lived here. I guess you’d call it oblivious, maybe oblivion itself, but all that has changed now, and so has my perspective.

I have written before about my spiritual attachment to the Whately woods. The aristocratic hardwoods, dark hemlock bogs, cellar holes, stonewalls, and streamside mill sites reach back to a different day in our landscape’s evolution. Such elements are not unique to Whately. You can find them throughout the Franklin hills. I’m just more familiar with Whately’s hills and dales than those in neighboring towns. That’s all.

I suppose if I chose to take the shallow exploratory route, I’d attribute my Whately enchantment to simple coincidence — the fact that Babe Manson had taught me to trout-fish there as a young boy, then meeting classmates and teammates whose yards bordered the swift, clean mountain stream. But I know my attachment goes much deeper; right to the core of my soul, the pulse in my wrist, to my pedigree. It’s no revelation. I understood it long ago. No churchgoer, it’s as spiritual as I get, but it’s real; more genuine than anything you can find below the austere white steeple; more powerful; impossible to articulate in a brief sitting.

My latest discovery came the day after our historical gathering, when, on the phone, Fred Bardwell pulled me deeper into my Whately genealogical morass; with each step forward, the blacker the mud, the stronger the suction. It can consume you like whirlpool, this family muck; no, not the Great Swamp, but no less unforgiving.

It was in the process of thanking Fred for the tote bag his club had given me that I digressed, started talking about the Whately woods, its abandoned roads, Chibby’s Pasture, the old mill site by the brook, the hidden well below the broad, forgotten hilltop orchard.

Did he remember Sanderson’s pasture before the woods consumed it?

Of course, he used to milk cows up there as a boy; it was where they pastured them in the summer.

How about Turkey Hill? Did he know it?

No, only Turkey Hill in Williamsburg.

So I described my perception of where Turkey Hill was, based on what little information I have uncovered, and he knew the area but no hill by that name, which doesn’t mean I’m wrong. In describing the location, I mentioned a road and a couple of cellar holes, which he knew as the old Sanderson farm, right there before the top of the hill.

Sanderson farm? What Sanderson farm?

It would have been Neal and Alan’s grandfather’s.

How about them, would they remember it?

No, burned down before that. But that’s where their grandfather lived. The woods opened up as you reached the top of that first rise. The pasture started there.

Did he remember the sugar shack, the one with the potbelly stove, where we used to party before Vietnam draft-dodgers took residence, overheated the stove and burned the shack to the ground?

He didn’t. Neal would.

When I called Neal Sanderson, wife Julie, family historian, answered and we got to talking. Did she know about the Sanderson farm up by Turkey Hill?

Turkey Hill?

She didn’t know it by that name, either. Apparently few do anymore. But she knew the road and cellar holes because her son used to hunt there. She confirmed it had been Neal’s grandfather’s farm, adding that a close relative lived nearby, a milkman. His house also burned to the ground, him in it. Julie said that sometimes when she rides the Whately roads with Neal he points to a woodlot and marvels how difficult it is for even him to imagine he once harvested hay there.

After hanging up, I had to talk to somebody. I called my hunting buddy, the one who had been to Turkey Hill this past spring during, you guessed it, turkey season. I told him what I had just learned, that the cellar holes and the party shack I’d pointed out so many times had gained new personal significance. No wonder those woods are special to me. Kindred spirits. I knew they were there, could feel them.

His reaction was nearly as powerful as mine. He said if he was me he’d put the old-timers in his truck and take them for a ride. Get a feel for the way it used to be before the forest returned. Write it down. Record it.

Sounds like a marvelous idea; essential, in fact, because when memories evaporate they leave no stone-clad craters for posterity, just blithe spirits in a cold, blustery wind.

I know. They whisper in my ear.