"The Sound of Music"

Yup, also in Stowe, Vermont you will find the home of the Von Trapp family.  Yes, that Von Trapp family.  If you haven't see "The Sound of Music," rent/buy it, watch it and get back here asap.

The Von Trapp's truthful escape from Austria was by train to Italy, then onto London and by ship to America.  The rest of the story in "The Sound of Music" is pretty accurate.  They then toured America telling their story and singing through the rest of the 1940's.  Finally settling in Stowe, Vermont they purchased a 2,500 acre farm and began welcoming guests to their 27-room family home in the summer of 1950.

Photo courtesy of the Von Trapp family website

The original home burned down, and they replaced it with a 96-room lodge reminiscent of their homeland's Austrian architecture. Check it out at http://www.trappfamily.com/about-trapp-family-lodge.htm

Innsbruck Inn, Stowe, Vermont

Built in the distinctive Tyrolean architectural style, Innsbruck Inn grew out of the imagination of the Drolet family.  They got all caught up in the 1964 Olympics where Stowe, Vermont's own favorite son, Billy Kidd, won the first ever Olympic medal for the United States in alpine skiing in, ta-ta, Innsbruck, Austria.  By 1966, Kidd was actually outracing the famous Jean-Claude Killy.


Jean-Louis & Lucille Drolet started by building a big chalet house and turning it into a Bed and Breakfast - before B&B's were the cool thing to do.  By 1972 they were ready to build their hotel - our hotel - also in the Tyrolean style and duplicate Innsbruck's feel of skiing history.

Downstairs is the darkly wooded bar and eating area with stucco walls covered with photographs of great skiers, familiar guests and artifacts you would expect to find in the Alps.

The room was wonderful, the food was excellent, the owners are wonderful, and we would go back in a heartbeat - if we were ever in the New England north again!  Next time maybe we will take the sleigh ride through the fields around the Inn and across their covered bridge.  It was really all very beautiful - just like you would imagine a snowy New England winter.

Hey!  Where's your coat!  Can't get that man to wear a coat for love nor money!

Now Taking a Left Turn Into Vermont

Between what we now know as the Connecticut River and Lake Champlain is the land we know as Vermont.  The Algonquian and the Iroquois knew the land - but didn't really have settlements there.  It was a hunting ground, and they would set up encampments in the Coos and Oxbow along the river areas while laying in a supply of fish and maple sugar or growing a corn crop.  Then they would fade back into the forests and mountains.  Amazing, isn't it?  It is certainly a harsh climate in the long winter months.

The first European, Samuel de Champlain, found it daunting even though the French certainly knew how to build more weather-resistant housing and had tools that made harvesting firewood easier.  They were the first to attempt colonization, trying to establish Quebec around 1609.  It was then over 60 years later that they ventured a permanent settlement, this time at what had taken on the name of Lake Champlain.  This venture went no where either, and the region again returned to being a no-man's land, literally.

A century later, around the time of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), those tribes that aligned with the French came into this land to raid the occasional English settlements that had popped up over the last few years:  the Abenaki and Mi'kmaq of the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Algonquin, Lenape, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Shawnee and Wyando.  Evidence of their encampments have been found by archeologists.

Folks nowadays think, "Shame on Americans for stealing native American land."  Well, seems the natives didn't much want what we know as Vermont.  And if there was any stealing going on it was European vs. European.  The English took it from the French (who didn't really much want it either), then New Hampshire's royal governor Benning Wentworth granted some of these lands to family members that New York's royal governor, George Clinton, believed belonged to New York.  They fussed over the issue through the French and Indian War and the American Revolution and for several years after that (1749-179) before someone finally payed off New Yorkers with $30,000 so that Vermont could stand on its own and become the very first state admitted to the Union after the 13 colonies adopted the Constitution. 

Right now, all I know is that I am c-o-l-d.  It's beautiful - but it's c-o-l-d! I have my knee high, sheepskin-lined fur boots on and a wool blanket, but I'm still c-o-l-d!  I want my hotel room, and I want a hot shower!  

Finally, the Innsbruck Inn at Stowe, Vermont.

Fort Williams, Maine

It is a very cold and blustery day.  This accidental visit to what was Fort Williams makes it seem as though it was not a place to be assigned to in the winter - but, of course, men definitely were.

It was established in 1873 as The Battery at Portland Head (as in Portland, Maine) as a sub-post of Fort Preble.  In 1898 it became a separate and independent fort designated Fort Williams in honor of Brevet Major General Seth Williams.

Williams was a native of Maine, graduated 23rd in a class of 56 from the U.S. Military Academy in 1842, and served as an aide-de-camp to General Robert Patterson in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).  Subsequently, he became adjutant at West Point from 1850 to 1853.

He served as an Assistant Adjutant General in the Union's Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War.  For you Civil War aficionados, Williams was a groomsman at Maj. Gen. George McClellan's wedding in New York City on May 22, 1860. Seth Williams served as assistant adjutant general to McClellan in the Department of the Ohio in the summer of 1861.

Also, it was Williams who took Grant's message to respectfully suggest surrender to Robert E. Lee during the Appomattox battle, and it was Williams who delivered the terms of surrender to the rebel forces.  Those terms were accepted at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.  All pretty good reasons to honor him by naming a fort after him, huh?

Fast-forward to April, 1945 and you have an memorial here at Fort Williams of the greatest loss of U.S. Navy personnel during World War II in New England waters.

 In memory of the officers and crewmen of the

U.S. Navy's Eagle Class sub chaser

U.S.S. EAGLE 56 (PE-56)

Torpedoed and sunk by the German U-boat U-853

approximately nine miles southeast of this

location on Monday 23 April 1945 with the loss of

forty-nine officers and crewmen.

Thirteen survivors were rescued.

The greatest loss of U.S. Navy personnel

 in New England waters during World War II