Historic Weekend

Angie and I took advantage of a free Saturday to see some things we'd been wanting to see for a while. Our first stop was Gungywamp in Groton, CT. It is a strange area where there are lots of stone chambers and other interesting stone features that may or may not be prehistoric. (more info)

Our next stop was the Newport Tower in beautiful Newport, RI. Again this is a strange stone feature whose origin is hotly debated. Some say the vikings built it, some say it was a lighthouse, some say it aligns with astronomical features, etc. (more info)

Our final stop was at the tomb of Col. Benjamin Church in Little Compton, Rhode Island. Benjamin (b.1639 - d.1718) was the first "Ranger"and commanded the colonist forces to victory during King Philip's War. Much of the war itself took place right there in that area (more info). It is almost certain that Benjamin Church is my grandmother's (Margaret Church) great, great, great, great, great grandfather. He is also the grandson of Richard Warren (my confirmed ancestor) who came to the new world aboard the Mayflower.

Happy Halloween 2013

Aint we cute?

Mayflower

 

I've been reading a bit about the Mayflower and the history of Plymouth Colony lately. It inspired me to try to find a genealogical connection somehow to those early pioneers. It didn't take long to realize that no matter which branch of the family I tried to investigate, I found myself back in New England before too long. I was shocked at how nearly all of my ancestors lived in the Boston area at some point in their settlement and propagation. But I just couldn't make that final connection to the Mayflower. I thought I had made the connection once, but upon further review of my sources, I found an error.  After hitting several snags due to missing or bad information, I eventually hit gold! I've confirmed this connection through multiple sources now and am confident that it's legitimate:

 

b.1580 - Richard Warren - London, UK (Mayflower passenger, 1620)
b.1619 - Abigail Warren - London, UK
b.1651 - Sarah Snow - Marshfield, MA
b.1674 - Sarah Waterman - Marshfield, MA
b.1700 - John Hewett - Marshfield, MA
b.1737 - Ruth Hewett - Norwich, CT
b.1757 - Ruth Griswold - Norwich, CT
b.1785 - Roswell Lyman - Lebanon, NH
b.1813 - Amasa Lyman - Lyman, NH
b.1851 - Caroline Lyman - Salt Lake City, UT
b.1879 - Joseph P. Callister - Burtner, UT
b.1909 - Joseph L. Callister - Oak City, UT
b.1947 - Von Callister - Delta, UT
b.1983 - Daniel Callister - Salt Lake City, UT

 

Interesting to note: Richard Warren was one of only 50 people who survived the first winter at Plymouth. His wife and daughters (Abigail included) were not on the Mayflower, but joined him later. Another of his daughters, Elizabeth, married Richard Church - there are others in our family who claim that OUR Churches can be traced back to him, but I have not been able to find that connection yet. Also noteworthy: Ruth Griswold's father, Maj. John Griswold Jr. was a veteran of the Revolutionary War and is buried in New Hampshire.

 

What Love looks like at 10,500 ft

Albion Basin, UT July 2013

Cannon Mtn

Excuse the poorly-stitched-together panoramic photo, but it's the best I'm capable of. I've been a lonely man this last week since coming home from Utah. Angie stayed out west to spend a little more time with family. It was kind of nice at first to have a little alone time, but it's getting old pretty fast. I've got another week before Angie comes home and I wish it could be sooner. I took a beautiful hike Saturday morning to the summit of Cannon Mountain. It was an amazing vista that greeted me there. This marks my seventh of the 48 four thousand-footers of New Hampshire. The cloud-covered peaks across the valley in the photo were my third and fourth.

Adjacent Religious Histories

Angie and I finally took advantage of a nice, open Saturday to drop by the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial in South Royalton, VT. Only 90 minutes away, it's a really beautiful area and the grounds there are spectacularly well-maintained. There is a visitor's center with some interesting info and friendly senior missionaries on hand to do their best to answer whatever questions you might have. We had a good time wandering the trails and seeing the old foundations of Smith/Mack family homes including the one in which Joseph was born which, according to the nice senior missionary from Mesa, AZ, has only been marked since last year.

Afterwards we took a moment to locate an "ancient Celtic temple" stone chamber that was rumored to be near the JSM. Since our little visit to America's Stonehenge in North Salem, NH I have been doing a lot of research on these kinds of sites with growing interest. I had read a lot about this particular stone chamber, but (as is the case with all these sites) nobody ever publishes their exact locations for fear of vandalism, etc. Well, after easily 8 hours of careful searching beforehand, I did find one 20-30 year-old source that provided written directions for finding the chamber in South Royalton. We followed the directions that afternoon and with a little creative interpretation of the author's somewhat lacking instructions, there it was!

Even Angie thought it was pretty darn cool. It looks like a hobbit hole-in-the-ground. You can only access it by crawling nearly prone through the birth-canal of an entryway, but it opens up into a circular room that you can stand up in with stone walls maybe 10 feet apart. There are some grooved markings in the stones that experts claim to have been able to translate as a dedication of the chamber to the sun god, "Bel". It didn't take long before we realized that the chamber contained copious amounts of enormous black, shiny spiders and we got out of there.

America's Stonehenge

I recently learned about the existence of stone-age ruins right here in New Hampshire. Angie and I took the short drive to Salem, NH near the Mass border to check them out. It was really cool! They've dated some of the ruins at 2,000 BC. There were complete chambers to walk through, which was really awesome.

Some archaeologists think they were built by visitors to the New World. I'm not so sure about that, but some of the chambers were slightly reminiscent of burial chambers we explored in Ireland from the same period:

After further research, I learned there are sites like this all over New England. I can't wait to go out and find my own!

Squam Lake

This is the gorgeous view that Mona and I were treated to Saturday morning on our hike looking over Squam Lake. Things are getting very green and lush here again and I couldn't be happier about it.

Cedar and Sage's New Album

My brother Jacob and I (Cedar and Sage) officially released our new album "Rendezvous" today! It would thrill us if you took a second to check it out. You can download and/or stream all 14 tracks free on our blog (until April 26):
http://cedarandsagemusic.blogspot.com/

Just some background- Jake and I recorded this album together while living 3,000 miles apart! We used Garageband and Dropbox to collaborate and considering the challenges and limitations, we are both pretty darn proud of what we were able to accomplish!

If you like what you hear, spread the word!
We're on facebook, too! click here 

A Decade Together!

(one of the earliest I could find of us; Spring 2003)

 

No, your calculator works fine- We just celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary in December- But it was on this very day, exactly 10 years ago that I met the love of my life.

I'm not the kind of person that remembers relationship "firsts" of any sort, but fortunately, I have the advantage in this case of being able to associate that night with another event, which was, at the time, a very big thing for me- a huge CD release show that my band organized and executed on March 28, 2003. It was our second album and we had put so much time, effort, and money into its production that we wanted to put on a spare-no-expense-or-effort concert at the rather posh Ellen Eccles Theater in Logan, Utah to promote it.

The show sold out and was a huge success, not to mention tons of fun for us on stage. After the show the band was selling and signing CDs, chatting with people and just enjoying the energy and celebrity that is in the air after a great show like that. It was there on the red carpet of the lobby, late into the evening that a good friend and neighbor of mine Miriam Williams introduced me to a cute little bandana-wearing, curly-haired friend of hers that she had dragged along with her that night, named Angie Olsen.

It was probably only a matter of days before I took her on our first date. We went fishing- she got the catch of the day and has been outperforming me ever since!

I'm a lucky guy to have such a wonderful companion as Angie, and the last 10 years have been the best of my life! Love ya, babe!

Scratch That One Off My List

 

 

Ice fishing never really intrigued me until moving to New England. Folks here take the sport much more seriously than I had been exposed to growing up out west. I love fishing, but I hate sitting and waiting. I like the kind of fishing where I am working my way up a stream, constantly reeling, jigging, snagging, etc. Thus, icefishing didn't seem my cup of tea. I wanted to give it a shot though, before I passed any final judgement and I had my opportunity this last weekend. A co-worker had invited me to come with him and a couple of guys that work at a neighboring planning commission to Crystal Lake, near the NH-VT border. The experience was not altogether unpleasant and we actually were pulling up some fish every now and again. The top 6 inches or so of the ice was just slush, which made for some soggy boots and rather chilly down-time, but I have to admit it is quite a thrill rushing to your tip up, pulling in that line hand-over-hand, and yanking out a big fat large-mouth bass. I might be tempted to try it again if the conditions were right.

Dangie on Ice

So Meredith is home to the annual New England Pond Hockey Classic, which is this huge weekend-long tournament on the frozen bay. This year over 200 teams registered. We took Mona down on the bay and she seemed to be wondering "how long has this awesome park been here?" It was really crowded, but we went back again Sunday afternoon and I got to try out my new hockey skates. For a couple months in the winter, the bay is dotted with ice-fishing "bob" shacks. In a couple of weeks there will be the annual ice-fishing tournament on the same bay and we're told that the hundreds of bobs out there make quite an impressive sight. I'll be sure to take a picture!

The Bears and I

I know we just posted recently, but something totally awesome happened today. We had bear visitors! A momma and her two cubs were up a tree in our next-door neighbor's yard! It was so cool!

Canoe Trip

I'm not going to try to catch any one up on our life since the last post. Suffice it to say, life is good. Instead, please enjoy the following pictures:

 We spent the night at the Ackers' home. They live in our branch (1hr and 20min away!). The next morning we went canoeing on Long Pond, where Brother Acker said we were sure to see beavers.

 And we saw four! That speck between the islands is a beaver.

 It was an incredibly hazy and wet morning, but it was so beautiful. For whatever reason there is this really odd cairn thing on the water. We don't know why... or how??

 No matter how hard we tried to point them out to Mona, she insisted on looking the opposite direction any time there were beavers to be seen. The next two pictures are from previous excursions.

 These are mushrooms, not flowers.

View of Squam Lake. Nevermind the girls in the center frame, they were laying there the whole time talking on their cell phones. I had to just take the picture with them in it.

Fore-Father's Day

I thought Father's Day would be an appropriate time to honor my Father as well as his (and my) fore-fathers. I had recently learned about my New Hampshire heritage. Here's how it goes:

My dad is Von Callister (b.1947 - Delta, UT)
his dad is Joseph Lathel Callister (b.1909 - Oak City, UT)
his dad is Joseph Platte Callister (b.1879 - Oak City, UT)
his mom is Caroline Eliza Lyman (b.1851 - Salt Lake City, UT)
her dad was Amasa Mason Lyman (b.1813 - Lyman, NH)

Amasa was an early convert to the church and actually an apostle while Joseph Smith was alive. He was born in the tiny northern New Hampshire town of Lyman, named so for the Lyman settlers of the town some 30 years earlier. Amasa's father (Roswell Lyman) died when Amasa was only 5 and Amasa's grandpa on his mother's side (Perez Mason b.1747) played a big role in raising him until he too passed away when Amasa was 11 or 12. At the age of 17 Amasa heard the missionaries that were passing through Lyman and was baptized and moved to upstate New York to join the saints.

I was anxious to research and try to locate some graves of these people. I discovered that Perez Mason was actually very easy to find since he had been a veteran of the Revolutionary War and most war veteran's graves are kept on record. So we knew the cemetery he was buried in and thought we might get lucky and find that Roswell and Perez's wife are also buried there. Well, we took the drive (I think it was about 1hr 15min) to the North Monroe cemetery right on the NH/VT border where we quickly found Perez's headstone and his wife's right alongside. It was pretty cool!! Unfortunately we didn't find Roswell there, nor at the two other cemeteries we searched in the area. It's entirely possible that he is buried in Lebanon, NH where his parents and at least some of his siblings are buried. Lebanon is only about an hour away from us, and might be a fun trip some other time.

It was pretty thrilling to be standing next to my Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather's grave!
Happy Father's Day Dad, and happy Father's Day Perez :)

Our Home... and a Canoe!!

Come one, come all and take the tour of our home. This post is in response to popular demand. Enjoy the video tour. 

Another great reason for posting is to tell you all about my birthday present to myself. I have been keeping an eye on Craigslist and every yard sale I've passed since we got here, looking for a boat. You practically cannot live here and not have some sort of watercraft. I found a canoe that was nearby, in great shape, and best of all: super cheap. I picked it up yesterday and just took it out today for the first time. It was awesome :)

To the Coast!

Saturday Angie and I spent the day in Portsmouth, NH. Portsmouth is a really cool town. It was settled in 1620 and has lots of cool historic sites and stuff (which I appreciate). It's only about 60 miles from where we live, so we had to go check it out. By pure serendipitous chance, we happened to be there for their annual Market Street Day. It was crazy, they had blocked off almost all of downtown and there were hundreds of booths, good smells, live music and thousands of people. We toured the home of William Whipple (signer of the Declaration of Independence), and I had myself a good ol' New England lobster, which was spectacular, by the way. We walked all over town (which is actually pretty small) and drove to  Odiorne State Park, which is just a nice park along the sea shore. This is the coastline that the vikings saw 700 years ago and named Vinland (if you buy into that kind of stuff (...and I do)). Enjoy the pictures

First week fun

Angie and I built a box fort with all our empty boxes (we had tons). We had fun collapsing it too.

This weekend was also the international classic arcade tournament at the "world famous" Fun Spot classic arcade museum about 3 miles down the road from Meredith in Weirs Beach. They have so many arcade machines, it's really something else. Angie and I bought $5 worth of tokens and played a bunch of games. It was pretty fun. Most of those machines hold the current world record scores. The picture is of me playing on the first and only Pac-man machine that has ever been beaten (notice the plaque on top).

It was beaten by this guy: