Our Trip to Boston

It being school vacation week, Cara [my beloved daughter] and I spent a day in Boston walking the Freedom Trail. We had a great time and I came back amazed that, even though I didn’t expect to find it- Scotch- Irish and Scottish History peeked itself into the tour. Back in 1775, the British Occupying Forces in Boston exhibited a special contempt for Presbyterians by turning their churches into horse stables and storing manure within-probably an insult of the byre house form that was traditionally prevalent in Scotland [and continues here in Maine and in New Hampshire as the unique connected Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn buildings that dot the landscape in rural areas that were settled by the Scotch-Irish.] We were surprised when we found early graves marked ‘Irish’ that displayed the RED HAND-one was of a Jackson family. We were also really impressed by the Irish Famine or Great Hunger Monument. The statues and markers were quite moving and there was an Irish tenor singing-it was a truly beautiful experience. It left me feeling all the more dedicated to erecting a similar statue of a Scotch-Irish family somewhere near the site where the first Scotch-Irish settlers in Maine spent that first cold winter!