Jigsaw for May 17, 2026: Capt. Alden Partridge

Stylized painting that hangs in the Norwich University Library in Northfield. Based on an 1842 lithograph. Behind him are the North and South Barracks on the original Norwich, Vermont campus. The Marion Cross School sits about where the North Barracks were (left).

If you live in Norwich, you know the name Alden Partridge. He founded the school that became Norwich University, and on its own that would be enough for one historical marker. But the more you read, the more Partridge there is. He had been superintendent of West Point. He served in the Vermont legislature. He spent his life arguing that a free republic should be defended by trained citizens rather than a standing professional army. To borrow Whitman’s line, the man contained multitudes.

Today I want to talk about just one of them: Partridge the walker.

His reputation as a pedestrian was prodigious, and I will admit I never quite appreciated it until I watched the recent Ken Burns documentary on the American Revolution.

What stayed with me was not just the battles. It was also the walking: the sheer distances ordinary people covered on foot, because before the railroads that was simply how you got anywhere. Partridge took that everyday skill and pushed it to an extreme. For instance:

1. He walked the 110 miles from Norwich to Williamstown, Massachusetts, climbed Mount Greylock, and walked home again. The whole 220-mile round trip took four days.

2. In his mid-forties, he made the round trip to the summit of Mount Monadnock and back: 152 miles in three days.

3. On another outing he covered 300 miles round trip, finishing with a 64-mile push on the final day.

4. He once led a corps of pack-laden cadets from Norwich to Manchester and back, more than 150 miles, covering 45 miles on one of the days. Teenage boys, on foot, keeping his pace.
   
   As I said: multitudes. This won’t be the last we hear of Alden Partridge. There is a great deal more about him than I ever realized.
   
   
   Thanks for reading!
   
   Cameron Cross

Jigsaw for May 10, 2026: The Rover

It’s the time of year when we’re seeing bicycles everywhere as cyclists are eager to be back in the saddle after being sidelined during the ice and snow.

I was curious as to how the bicycle has evolved since its beginnings, and was delightfully fascinated by what I found.

The term “Penny Farthing” came from the British coins of the era: the penny was very large and the farthing very small. However, this is more of a modern term. During their heyday they were known simply as “Bicycles.”

I started here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny-farthing

http://www.barthaynes.com/the-history-of-the-penny-farthing/

During this time, penny-farthings, also known as ordinaries or high wheelers today, were only for the upper middle class and high society. Many bike clubs in Britain were extremely picky when it came to who they admitted. All members of leagues needed an official recommendation from a current member and a costly uniform.

In 1878, Albert Pope began to manufacture the Columbia bicycle and did so successfully for two decades in America. After this, the penny-farthing trend died down and gave way to John Kemp Starley’s Rover Safety Bicycle of 1885 (see puzzle) that more closely resembles the modern bicycle.

The penny-farthings are now a symbol of the Victorian era and a milestone in the launching of cycling as a sport. They are intriguing, and I hope to ride one someday.

Or not.

I have a feeling I might have a similar experience as Mark Twain had:

“When you have reached the point in bicycling where you can balance the machine tolerably fairly and propel it and steer it, then comes your next task — how to mount it. You do it in this way: you hop along behind it on your right foot, resting the other on the mounting-peg, and grasping the tiller with your hands. At the word, you rise on the peg, stiffen your left leg, hang your other one around in the air in a general and indefinite way, lean your stomach against the rear of the saddle, and then fall off, maybe on one side, maybe on the other; but you fall off. You get up and do it again; and once more; and then several times.

By this time you have learned to keep your balance; and also to steer without wrenching the tiller out by the roots (I say tiller because it is a tiller; “handle-bar” is a lamely descriptive phrase). So you steer along, straight ahead, a little while, then you rise forward, with a steady strain, bringing your right leg, and then your body, into the saddle, catch your breath, fetch a violent hitch this way and then that, and down you go again.”

Some local photos:

Also of interest:

Pictures of an Aroostook County man’s homemade one

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocipede

https://roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/jkstarley/

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/top10facts/855278/Ten-facts-Penny-Farthings-supper-club-event-London-high-wheel-bicycle

Early penny-farthing riders in American were known as “Wheelmen”.

Nearly seventy car makers began as bicycle manufacturers: Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC, to name a few.

The world record for distance ridden in an hour on a penny-farthing is 23.72 miles set in 1891.

Thomas Stevens was the first person to cycle across the United States on a penny-farthing, completing the journey from San Francisco to Boston in 1884. Whew!

Thanks for reading, as always.

Support your local historians!

Cameron Cross
for the
Norwich Historical Society

Jigsaw for May 3, 2026: St.-Gauden’s Little Studio

After my Maxfield Parrish post, I wanted to turn to his friend and Cornish Colony inspiration, Augustus St.-Gaudens.

I have visited his home Aspet many times. Like many of Parrish’s works, it always seems like a place with its own reality.

I first chose one of his famous works as the puzzle subject. Then I found the photo of his studio, which works perfectly for a jigsaw puzzle: striking individual pieces that combine to become a work of art in itself. No expanses of sky, vegetation, or background.

In 1885, Saint-Gaudens first rented what had been the Blow-Me-Down Farm. Seven years later he purchased the property, naming it after his father’s birthplace in France. Over the next 15 years, he transformed it into a thriving estate with gardens, a swimming pool, bowling green, and studio spaces where he created major works. He even developed a 9-hole, "cow-pasture" style golf course.

His year-round residence began in 1900.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens died in 1907, just after finishing the designs for the $20 Saint-Gaudens Gold Double Eagle coin. His widow, Augusta (!) Saint-Gaudens, established the Saint-Gaudens Memorial to maintain the site. It opened to the public in 1926.

Discover more: Interactive Map of Saint-Gaudens’ work
and Visitors' Photos, a sampling from TripAdvisor

Thanks for reading…

Cameron Cross

Puzzle for April 16, 2026: Daybreak

Maxfield Parrish created dream-like idyllic worlds. He often began with a photograph of a staged scene using family and friends.

And to think he did a lot of his work as part of the Cornish Colony, right here in Plainfield, NH.

I always get a kick out of proudly proclaiming
“Winston Churchill lived at the Cornish Colony!”

No, not that Winston Churchill.

Learn about the "father" of the Colony, Augustus St. Gaudens

Enjoy these other paintings in the same vein:

Learn more:

• Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park

• “Daybreak” on Wikipedia

• Many more works by Parrish
  
  Thanks for reading. Volunteer at your local historical society!

  
  Cameron Cross

Jigsaw for April 19, 2026 Phineas Gage

Many of us have heard of Phineas Gage and his famous construction accident in Cavendish, Vermont.

The gist of the story is that he survived an iron bar going through his head. That alone has fascinated people around the world and generated scholarly articles for over 170 years.

I had always pictured a man with a bar sticking out the top and bottom of his skull. But the reality is that the tamping iron blew completely through his head and landed several yards away. Phineas was helped (not carried!) into a cart, and brought into town.

Shortly thereafter, a Dr. Edward Williams arrived to find Phin. Gage sitting upright on the piazza of Mr. Adams’ hotel with a hole through his skull, calmly telling bystanders what had happened to him.

I remembered him quoted: “I’m going to need some doctoring.”

The actual line was: “Doctor, here is business enough for you.” By his own account, he never even lost consciousness.

The follow-up story, as most of us learned it, is that he survived but his personality was forever changed. He became irascible, unlikable, and “indulged at times in the grossest profanity.” But looking into it again now, it turns out those accounts were written by Dr. Harlow twenty years after the fact. And the change didn’t last his whole life.

In the years that followed, Gage worked at the Dartmouth Inn’s livery stable in Hanover, living in Lebanon. In 1852, he was recruited to work in Chile, where he drove a six-horse stagecoach on a 13-hour, 100-mile journey over rough mountain roads from Valparaiso to Santiago.

He stayed for nearly eight years, until the railroad came through. He returned to live with his parents in San Francisco, and died of epilepsy complications the next year, in his 36th year.

If you’re steady enough to handle a six-horse team on mountain roads in South America for that long, you’re probably pretty much in control of your faculties. The myth of a permanent change of character, repeated until quite recently, did him a disservice. What he went through looks a lot like what doctors see in brain injury patients today: impulse problems, a shorter fuse, difficulty reading social cues.

There’s a lot to read about Phineas Gage.

To explore further, visit some of my sources:

• Phineas Gage’s Story — University of Akron

• Harvard Neuro Blog discussion

• “Then Again” VTDigger

• Phineas Gage’s Great Legacy — NIH PMC

• Phineas Gage — Wikipedia

• A few chapters of Malcolm Macmillan’s “An Odd Kind of Fame: Stories of Phineas Gage,” the definitive scholarly book

• Extensive archive at Harvard

• Everything You Know About Phineas Gage Is Wrong
  Some new facts, including his time P.T. Barnum’s “freakshow “museum in New York

  
  Phineas was born in Lebanon, injured in Cavendish, recovered in Lebanon, worked in Hanover. I think of him every time I drive to Okemo.
  
  Finally, a psychology professor and his students made a stop-motion Lego movie recreating the accident.
  
  Of course they did.

Thanks for reading, as always.

Support the Curioustorian

Cameron Cross

Voluteer at your local historical society.

Jigsaw for April 12, 2026: Dublin Corner

This week’s puzzle features a colorized postcard c. 1907 showing the intersection of Justin Morrill Highway and the Old City Falls Road looking southwest. This was known locally as “Dublin Corner.”

As detailed in John Freitage’s wonderful article, some thought it may have been a little cluster of Irish settlers. John spoke with Suzanne Lupien, who farms with draft horses. She told him that the hill heading toward Vershire on Old City Falls Road was so steep that wagons needed to put on an extra team of horses. Hence “Doublin’ Corner.”

Seeking to verify, John asked around.

Thanks to John Freitag for the inspiration, and you for your interest and support.

Cameron Cross

Big crowd for Lebanon! At that time the population was a little over 3,000.

Passengers arriving at the Lebanon Depot, en route to the racetrack.

I knew that a racetrack existed in the Riverdale neighborhood, thinking it was for horse and harness racing. Turns out there was a lively stock car racing scene there into the Fifties, and countless other events through the years

Many pictures on this Facebook page
Many more photos of Stock Car racing in the Fifties

Enjoy!

The Curioustorian

Here’s your Sunday jigsaw: https://jigex.com/dE7GX

The 1922 Dartmouth Winter Carnival saw the first competition on the newly constructed jump overlooking the 13th green of the Hanover Country Club golf course.

The tradition continued until 1985, when the NCAA dropped ski jumping. It was torn down in 1993.

The competition attracted thousands of spectators, as evidenced by this photo from 1934.

Note the crowd at the top of the hillside, as well as the stylish skiing garb.

Photos courtesy of Dartmouth College

Cameron Cross

for the

Norwich Historical Society

Jigsaw for March 29, 2026: https://jigex.com/DKE1L

In the original photo below, you can see the 1906 team on Memorial Field, before the current football stadium and Red Rolfe Field were built.

Crosby Street runs behind the grandstand, and the street beyond the flagpole is East Wheelock. See if you can spot some buildings that are still standing.

See more early uniforms here:
Dartmouth Baseball's early "Sartorial Splendor"

See a timeline and history of Dartmouth baseball
in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine archive

Thanks for reading. I welcome your questions and comments.
Please pass this along to any baseball fans you know

Thanks for reading,

Cameron Cross

The White Owl Diner in Lebanon, NH in the 1960s.

A vintage 1932 Worcester Lunch Car, it was purchased that year and re-christened The White Owl Diner in the early 1930s. It survived the 1964 Lebanon fire, before being demolished for the new bridge on Route 120 as part of the make-over of Hough Square in 1970.

A 1964 Lebanon Fire: 60th Anniversary film from the Lebanon Historical Society’s director Nicole Ford Burley is worth your while.

Here's that now-changed intersection on Google Street View:

Other photos of interest:

Cameron Cross

Other Sources:

https://dinerhotline.wordpress.com/tag/white-owl-diner/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/lebhistoricalsociety/posts/1993017307860297/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/lebhistoricalsociety/posts/1148611112300925/

Try this week’s jigsaw puzzle: https://jigex.com/B6n2v

Dirt roads are everywhere hereabouts. We had a preview this week of the big mud to come.

Imagine how it was in the 1920s, when fewer than 10% of Vermont roads were paved.

Many farmers simply stayed home and worked making maple sugar, mostly, not syrup.

Even today in Vermont, most towns have many more miles of dirt roads than paved roads.

A few nearby towns illustrate the point:

Norwich — Total mileage: 113 | Dirt mileage: 63
Strafford — Total mileage: 80 | Dirt mileage: 66
Thetford — Total mileage: 99 | Dirt mileage: 52

But then there are exceptions:

Hartford — Total mileage: 159 | Dirt mileage: 43 (it’s practically “urban”)

Look up other Vermont towns:
https://vtransmaps.vermont.gov/Maps/Publications/Surface_byCountyTown.pdf

If you think your road is bad, consider:

Happy traveling,

Cameron Cross
The Curioustorian

Jigsaw for March 8, 2026: 1907 Postcard of Fairlee

Too many pieces? Too few? How to customize your puzzle

A kind soul loaned her postcard collection to the Norwich Historical Society for use in our weekly jigsaw puzzles.

It was a beautiful set of cards, but this one of Fairlee from 1907 grabbed my attention. I had never seen it before, but had climbed those same cliffs.

As I looked more closely, something didn’t look quite real.

As I learned more, I discovered that postcard companies often started with a photograph, then redrew and enhanced it so the fields, river, and buildings looked idealized, almost like a miniature landscape painting.

Many were actually lithographs, made in Germany, using as many as 20 separate color plates.

I now look at local landscapes through the lens of mile-high glaciers and Lake Hitchcock. Can you imagine a glacial lake bottom forming those beautiful flat fields?

How close was the artist’s rendition?
Here are two photographs taken more than a century apart.

1910:

2025:

More about postcards: Linen Postcards

More than you probably want to know about the Golden Age of Postcards

Other photos of interest:

More photos of Fairlee from the Internet Archive

Thanks for reading,

Cameron Cross

Support your town’s historical society!

Jigsaw for March 1, 2026: Central Vermont Railroads, 1877

On July 17, 1854 Hartford’s Joseph and Forrest Savage and their two Hazen cousins stood at the Boston depot with instruments in hand.

As the train pulled away from Boston, the crowd sang a poem composed by John Greenleaf Whittier. It was set to the familiar tune of “Auld Lang Syne.” It became the theme song of the movement, and the brothers played it at train stations and on steamships during their journey west.

They traveled first by rail to Buffalo, then across Lake Erie aboard the steamer Plymouth Rock.

From Detroit, the men rode west by rail again before boarding a similar river steamer, the Polar Star, in St. Louis.

A contemporary account notes:

“We had four Potawatomies going to the Kickapoo Indians, from Milwaukee. We have six slaves with their masters going to work hemp in Lexington, Missouri. Some of them appear happy in their midnight ignorance. The master of one said he paid $1,400 for him. One poor fellow has left a wife and five children in Kentucky, but his master was compelled to sell him to save himself from ruin. We had many slave-owners on board, some of whom talked loud about tar and feathers on our arrival.”

The paddlewheels churned down the Mississippi and up the Missouri rivers toward Kansas City. They arrived July 28, 1854.

From there, the musicians loaded their horns, supplies, and gear for a 40-mile, overland trek to the Wakarusa River. At the Kansas border, they paused again for a rendition of Whittier’s poem. When the made camp in Lawrence, those same instruments joined with other musicians as part of the first band in Kansas

Twenty-five years later, at an Old Settlers’ reunion, Forrest Savage was in the band to play the song again.

Cameron Cross

For a detailed accounts of the Emigrant Society and the First Kansas band, see:

https://www.kancoll.org/khq/1943/43_2_barry.htm
https://www.kancoll.org/khq/1936/36_3_bumgardner.htm

Open to offers, for any or all.

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Years: ~2015–present

Original New: $199

Reverb Range: $110–$160

A 20-watt solid-state practice amp with built-in reverb and tuner — still in production and holding value steadily.

Fun fact: The Crush series helped bring Orange’s iconic British look into affordable, modern solid-state form.

🎤 Behringer Ultracoustic AT108

Years: ~2005–2015

Original New: $129

Reverb Range: $60–$100

A compact 15-watt acoustic amp with mic and instrument inputs — simple and practical for small spaces.

🎛 Fender Mustang II (V1/V2)

Years: 2010–2016

Original New: $199–$229

Reverb Range: $120–$180

A 40-watt modeling amp that introduced many players to USB connectivity and digital amp voices.

Fun fact: The Mustang series helped normalize modeling amps for beginners long before they became standard.

🔊 Behringer BX900

Years: ~2006–2015

Original New: $199

Reverb Range: $100–$175

A 90-watt 2-channel bass combo with a 7-band EQ and “Ultrabass” feature.

🇨🇦 Yorkville BassMaster XM50

Years: ~2000–2008

Original New: $299–$349

Reverb Range: $120–$200

A rugged 50-watt Canadian-built bass combo with RCA line-in and line out.

Fun fact: Yorkville gear was built in Canada under the Traynor division and earned a reputation for being working-musician tough.

Warmly,

Cam

Jigsaw for February 15, 2026: Lake Hitchcock in the Upper Valley

My previous post on Lake Hitchcock had all the goodies: a zoomable map, lots of links to further exploration, and a couple of great videos, including:

Richmond Middle School teacher Greg Stott’s documentary film, The Last Ice, shares photographs and drone footage of evidence from Norwich and the Upper Valley’s glacial past.

It’s all featured in this Thursday’s episode of Discover Norwich Zoom series.

Click here to register and receive the link.

Next week: Paul Sample’s local connections. Then we return to our regularly scheduled Curioustorian posts, taking up the story of Hartford’s Savage and Hazen brothers’ move to Kansas.

As always, thanks for reading

Cameron Cross

Jigsaw for January 25, 2026: The Lewis House

as it looked when you could enter the Town Offices through the entrance to the right of the porch.

We are fortunate to have a very active Historical Society in Norwich, led by director extraordinaire Sarah Rooker.

Our headquarters and museum at the corner of Main and Elm have quite a history, as Kevin Hybels lays out in his excellent piece about the Lewis House.

Cameron Cross

Jigsaw for January 18, 2026: https://jigex.com/9vbWR

I did a little more digging and found something puzzling (ha!). Joseph Savage decided to go join the Immigrant Aid Society on Sunday, August 26, 1854. He arrived in Boston two days later, on Tuesday the 28th. The train was leaving the next day, August 29.

Last week we talked about Joseph being surprised (astonished?) because his brother Forrest and two Hazen cousins were already in Boston and they had gotten there before him, despite leaving after him.

I’m guessing they took different routes. I looked into it and found Lloyd’s American Railroad map. The Northeast portion of that is this week’s puzzle. But that map got me even more confused. Does anyone know the routes available between White River Junction and Boston in 1854?

For a more challenging map puzzle: 1861 Boston to Kansas railroad map

Hi-res zoomable image that rewards close scrutiny.

As always, thanks for reading

Cameron Cross

Jigsaw for January 11, 2026: The Savage Brothers from Hartford, VT

Phew….this week I didn’t go down a rabbit hole. Rather, I followed a thread and started weaving a tapestry. Last week’s puzzle was a photo of a early settlers’ reunion in Lawrence, Kansas. I thought it would be a great puzzle, and I made the connection to Vermont by learning about the New England Emigrant Aid Society.

By most measures, it was a tenuous connection. I knew there was more to it, so I kept following various threads and found these brothers and learned of their amazing move to Lawrence, Kansas.

Joseph and Forrest Savage and their cousins, the Hazen brothers, had been accomplished musicians in high school and in the Hartford Town Band. Abolitionists were very active in Vermont, and on Sunday, August 26, 1854, Joseph suddenly decided to emigrate to Kansas with a party organized by the New England Emigrant Aid Society.

Joseph made his way by rail to Boston in time for the departure on August 29.

When he went to the station the next day to join the party bound for Kansas, he was surprised to find his brother, Forrest Savage, and two cousins named Hazen, who were also members of the Hartford band. At the last moment, they too had decided to go to Kansas, all bringing their instruments:

“one E‑flat copper‑key bugle,
one brass post horn in B‑flat,
one B‑flat cornet,
and one B‑flat baritone.”

It was then that their real adventure began.

Pass this along to those who might be descendants.

There is so much more of this story, I will continue ‘in future posts.

Thanks for reading,

Cameron Cross

Puzzle for January 3, 2026 Early Settlers of Kansas

As I learn more of Vermont’s Abolitionists, I found a connection between the founding of Lawrence, Kansas and Vermont in the New England Emigrant Aid Society They directly funded ardent abolitionists to move to Kansas, in order that its citizens vote to make it a Free State. This issue led to “bleeding Kansas” and many consider those battles to be the indicator that the slavery issue was not to be settled peacefully, some even deeming it the “first battle of the Civil War.” You may care to dig deeper in some of the articles below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_Kansas

https://www.explorelawrence.com/blog/post/the-founding-of-lawrence-the-arms-race/

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/bleeding-kansas

Explore the Full Archive

Many of the earlier puzzles from this year have only been seen by a few people. You can find the complete collection of every historical deep-dive and jigsaw puzzle right here:

👉 View the Full Curioustorian Archive

Thanks to all for your support.

Best,

Cameron Cross