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Centuries-Old Tomb Opened, Repaired in Savoy

The stone vault has been empty for years and may have been used for the storage of bodies during the winter months. It's also believed to have been built for early settler Joseph Williams but no one's sure where he ended up. 

SAVOY, Mass. — Earlier this month, stonemasons rehabilitated a more than 200-year-old crypt that was built into the hillside of Tomb Cemetery.

The front of the stone structure was shifting forward and the Cemetery Committee feared that it may topple over Now, it stands up straight — supported by reset pins — and the surrounding stone wall has been put back into place.

This project has been on the panel's radar for years and was unanimously approved at Savoy's yearly town meeting in June.

"The reason I did it is because it was caving in," committee member Joan Ziter said. "It's a one of a kind. Where have you seen another one like it here in Berkshire County? It's a unique item."

It took about four days and some heavy machinery for the task. Volunteers cleared the overgrown area and worked to stabilize the structure's smaller stone surroundings in preparation for the work. The work was done by Trimarchi Landscape Design & Stonework of Adams.

The crypt is said to have been built before 1818 by Joseph Williams, an early settler of the town that was incorporated in 1797. Located on Route 116, it is empty, seemingly unlabeled, and is rather mysterious to locals.

"No one was ever interred in that tomb," Ziter said.

"But I do believe that in its 200-year history, I believe that in the winter when people passed, bodies were put in there until they could be buried in the spring, which is what I think might have been its intent— I think it was built for him but he never used it."

The structure is practically all stone besides its metal door and was built using gravity to hold it together. Ziter said the curved interior of the tomb was sealed with cement in the 1900s.

She also detailed the interesting history that surrounds the cemetery.  The morbidly named Tomb School was located across the street until the late 1800s. In the 1920s, the Cherry Hill School was built next to the cemetery and is now a private residence.

Below: the prior condition of limestone blocks at the front of the crypt can be seen at top right and, below, Joan and Lizz Ziter stand in the fixed doorway; other photos show John Trimarchi, Fran Gardzina and Jeff Ziter at work on the structure. These photos were submitted. 

Amphibious Toads Procreate in Perplexing Amplexus

By Tor HanseniBerkshires columnist
08:09PM / Sunday, May 05, 2024

 

Toads lay their eggs in the spring along the edges of waterways. Photos by Tor Hansen.

My first impressions of toads came about when my father Len Hansen rented a seaside house high on a sand dune in North Truro, Cape Cod back in 1954. 

 

With Cape Cod Bay stretching out to the west, and Twinefield so abundant in wildflowers to the east, North Truro became a naturalist's dream, where I could search for sea shells at the seashore, or chase beetles and butterflies with my trusty green butterfly net. 

 

Twinefield was a treasure trove for wildlife — a vast glacial rolling sandplain shaped by successive glaciers, its sandy soil rich in silicon, thus able to stimulate growth for a diverse biota. A place where in successive years I would expand my insect collection to fill cigar boxes with every order of insects abounding in beach plum, ox-eye daisy and milkweed. During our brief summer vacation there, we boys would exclaim in our excitement, "Oh here is another hoppy toad," one of many Fowler's toads (Bufo woodhousei fowleri ) that inhabited the moist surroundings, at home in the Ammophyla beach grass, thickets of beach plum, bayberry, and black cherry bushes. 

 

They sparkled in rich colors of green amber on beige and reddish tinted warts. Most anurans have those glistening eyes, gold on black irises so beguiling around the dark pupils. Today I reflect on a favorite analogy, the riveting eye suggests a solar eclipse in pictorial aura.

 

In the distinct toad majority in the Outer Cape, Fowler's toads turned up in the most unusual of places. When we Hansens first moved in to rent Riding Lights, we would wash the sand and salt from our feet in the outdoor shower where toads would be drinking and basking in the moisture near my feet. As dusk fades into darkness, the happy surprise would gather under the night lights where moths were fluttering about the front door and the toads would snatch bugs with outstretched tongue.

 

In later years, mother Eleanor added much needed color and variety to Grace's original garden. Our smallest and perhaps most acrobatic butterflies are the skippers, flitting and somersaulting to alight and drink heartily the nectar abounding at yellow sickle-leaved coreopsis and succulent pink live forever sedums of autumn. These hearty late bloomers signaled oases for many fall migrants including painted ladies, red admirals and of course monarchs on there odyssey to over-winter in Mexico. 

 

Our newly found next-door neighbors, the Bergmarks, added a lot to share our zeal for this undiscovered country, and while still in our teens, Billy Atwood, who today is a nuclear physicist in California, suggested we should include the Baltimore checkerspot in our survey, as he too had a keen interest in insects. Still unfamiliar to me then, in later years I would come across a thriving colony in Twinefield, that yielded a rare phenotype checkerspot (Euphydryas phaeton p. superba) that I wrote about featured in The Cape Naturalist ( Museum of Natural History, Brewster Cape Cod 1991).