Skiing with Henry Knox by Sam Brakeley

Skiing with Henry Knox by Sam Brakeley

Author:Sam Brakeley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Islandport Press
Published: 2019-10-28T15:36:34+00:00


Stopping by the woods on a snowy day.

6. I Go to a Solitary and Painful Bed

The Catamount Trail from Mountain Top Inn & Resort to Route 125

Near the turnoff of the groomed trail and out of the Mountain Top Inn & Resort’s trail system, I meet two men skiing in the other direction, with day packs on.

Spotting my own large backpack, one of them begins the conversation with “Are you Zach?”

“No,” I tell him, “I’m Sam,” with an obvious question in my eyes.

Laughing, he explains. “I probably should have introduced myself, or commented on the weather or something first. There’s a kid named Zach who got in touch with the Catamount Trail organization. He’s having trouble with a delaminated ski, and since we were heading out here, we were told to keep an eye out for him.”

We chat some more. It turns out they are skiing for three days but stopping at inns and B&Bs each night. “The cushy way,” describes the second one. They congratulate me on my progress thus far and wish me luck for the coming miles. Nice fellows, although one of them is wearing some sort of earmuff headpiece that I can’t help but judge him a little bit for. Oh well. We all have our weaknesses, I guess. I myself have a tendency to overindulge in anything that’s chocolate and coconutty, like Mounds bars or German chocolate cake. His just happens to be fuzzy in addition to decades out of fashion.

Knox had finished the final crossings of the Hudson River near Albany, but the river was not his only hurdle in the city. Before even leaving the town he was forced to renegotiate agreements with all of his wagon drivers. Since the journey was taking far longer than originally planned, they wanted more money, and they weren’t going to move until Knox and General Schuyler promised it. A Mr. Palmer, who was a head wagon driver, met with Schuyler and proved to be a hard bargainer. Schuyler offered “18s. 9d. and Palmer asking 24s. per day for two yoke of oxen.” (In layman’s terms, Schuyler was offering 18 shillings and 9 pence (12 pence to a shilling) per day, while Palmer wanted 24 shillings per day.) Schuyler, apparently a tough negotiator himself, refused to waver, and so “the treaty broke off abruptly and Mr. Palmer was dismissed.”1 New wagon drivers would be needed.

At first glance, it would seem unpatriotic and miserly to be fighting over a couple of shillings when Washington was in need and the fate of the country was at stake. But we must remember that this was their livelihood. Surviving in the North Country in the eighteenth century required working a combination of jobs. These drivers were likely farmers, lumberjacks, potash makers, syrup producers, hunters, trappers, fishermen, and myriad other professions. They also would have taken on a variety of other odd jobs as needed and as were available. Few of these occupations paid well, and all were hard work (which still mostly holds true in the twenty-first century).



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