East Catamount Hill Road the Ira (?) Shippee site

 

This past Saturday , with a helpful hint from Ed Gregory...  (" it's off beyond and to the left of that pond"),  we found the "I. Shippee " house site - the one we walked right past a week ago on our first Catamount foray.  This house is on the 1858 map , but not on the 1871 "beers" map.
It was worth 2 trips!

The house foundation sits on a rise just a few hundred feet southeast of a shallow pond. As soon as we crested the rise, voila! -  a deep cellarhole with cast iron stove remains. This cellar was about 16x20.  The nearby stone remains , including a brick pile about 20' north, suggest a very large house., maybe 4 times the cellar footprint.

In the above picture I am standing at the approximate western edge of the house's foundation.
Below you can see a large swale - maybe 3 acres - just to the east.



Beyond the cellarhole to the north you can make out some more stonework.  Possibly where a barn stood. More pics to come.

I am standing in the swale looking at the cellarhole mound. Mr. Shippee's cellar hole was built up on the the east side. He saved a lot of digging here.


In the above  view I am about 200' away looking up the swale with the house and a possible barn foundation in sight.
As I walk up the swale the stone work to my left is at the same elevation as the house foundation (out of view to my left. There is a low stone wall crossing the swale, (right edge of pic).


At the low stone wall (and up the hill to the right) is a massive "spiral " blowdown tree.


A cherry?  maple?   I don't think it is a softwood tree....



After crossing the wall the possible barn foundation is on the rise at the end of a zig-zag wall.  What was going on here?.  Ed Gregory says this fellow was a sheep farmer , which makes sense as the sheep craze was widespread in the 1820s and 1830s.  Did Ira and his family build these walls as sheep pens?

Here Sarah is approaching the "barn".  Below is the best close view. There is a sort of rectangular shape to these ruins, see below,  so it is reasonable to think of this as a barn foundation.  It is at the same grade +- as the house, on top of the rise.

-------------------- That's it for the "I. Shippee" house site. ...  I think this was Ira Shippee as I have found a an 1833 mortgage deed (83-370)  from Ira Shippee to one Rominer Smith for $550, which he (Ira) paid off by 1837.  That amount of money suggests the house was already there. --------------------

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Next the intrepid hikers got lost for about an hour, as we followed a gully which might have been a road in a south west direction.  Our detour began sat the head of the gully where there is a collapsed tent site. (in the middle just past Sarah).



The tent might have been used last year, but it in poor shape.

This the "Road" not to take !  Those boulders should have been enough of a clue to turn us back, but...
---- On the ledgy slope

to the right (northwest) is a sort of cave. 

Closeup pic of the cave - this looks real.  We did not explore...
This is in the area of the so-called "Catamount den" but i think this is not the real thing.


------ The map above shows our side trip route down the gully/ravine, which was less and less fun further down. There was no cell phone service here so my IPHONE map was useless!  "NEXT TIME BRING A COMPASS"  is ringing in my ear.... Then, good luck.... we came upon a blazed trail (yellow stripes) so we swung west and followed the trail (dashed line) until it met a woods road - the very road we should have been following from before. ....
We took this road south until it reached a 4-corners (see map) by a Beaver Pond.


Lots of chomping.  



Let's see.  "If we cut these into cordwood sizes, we can haul them more easily...".  Or is there no plan here?

Above - the small lodge.. and below, headquarters!


As we walked back to the 4 corners we saw this sign on the road we had just hiked down.
..........................
Now the last stretch, walking up North Catamount Hill Road to where we left Sarah's car.
Thers is alwway something (s) interesting on our walks.  This burl (gall?) must have weighed a pound. That's why it broke the branch it grew around.


If the town maintains this road it must be once every few years....


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