HIDDEN TREASURES

​Late August- the water in Cape Cod Bay is at its warmest, garden tomatoes are in abundance- there might come a perfect summer day- hot but not too hot, clear, dry air- and memories seep in so I go looking to remember. There’s a place I haven’t been to in decades, mostly because I wasn’t sure how to get there and concerned that it was now private property, but after looking at a Natural Resources Trust easement map kindly provided by EHS member Paul Berry, I set out believing I was permitted to be there. Basically, I was along the Queset as it runs west of Main Street, between Main Street and the Town Pool. I remember being a kid riding my bike to the library and heading into the meadow behind Queset House, back where Hobart Ames’s house once was, and exploring along the banks of the brook with siblings and cousins looking for crayfish and turtles. One time bringing home a small snapping turtle. I remember just sitting in the grass with the silence- but for the buzzing of the bees. This place- a hidden treasure.

​There are still hidden treasures, and sometimes you can still get to them. Off Elm Street in North Easton new homes are currently being built. Not too far beyond the construction tape at the very rear of the site is Wayside’s old root cellar. Still there. A year and a half ago there was a sign on a tree near the wooden bridge over the brook, that read “Louis Frothingham’s Goldfish Pond.” The sign is now gone. Change is inevitable but I’m glad the root cellar still stands.

​Curious stonework still hides away off South Street near where it meets Highland. Many industries thrived at least temporarily at this location, beginning as early as 1742 when members of the Keith and Williams families built a sawmill on the Mulberry Brook. Later the site hosted a gristmill, linseed oil mill, shingle mill, and several other industries, all relatively modest enterprises. Prior to his death in 1927 Eleazer Keith used the building as a duck house. Thereafter it was abandoned. The area is overgrown and difficult to access but interesting. The little Mulberry Brook was quite useful in its day.

Easton, like all places will continue to transform and change. Although this sometimes feels unfortunate it is the way life is. Once Indigenous people traveled the Old Bay Road and farmed near Easton green. We must look hard to find evidence of them. The same will be true of us someday.
 
Anne Wooster Drury

 
Easton Historical Society and Museum
Easton’s Neighborhoods, by Ed Hands