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Recently I had the opportunity to spend the afternoon at Handsell with some wonderful children and teachers from Cambridge Day School.
We learned of, and discussed, the local history of the house, the land and the people as far back as thousands of years ago. This area is so rich in historical bounty, so ingrained in the lives of people from Native Americans to colonists, explorers like John Smith, farmers who have worked the fields from sun up to sun down for hundreds of years, generation after generation. Over the last several thousand years it has been dotted with Indian villages, overflowed with tribal nations, been granted to military officers, been part of a reservation, been part of the local slave culture as well as part of Harriet Tubman's escape routes during the underground railroad. So many things to so many people.
Today it stands much as it has for centuries, undeveloped farmland and wetlands for miles and miles. This big brick manor house, beautiful in its own way, still standing tall and keeping watch after 300 years, is in need of some loving restoration. The good people at the Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance (www.restorehandsell.org) are working very hard at doing just that. The process of buying and restoring Handsell is very much in motion and will keep this piece of local history alive, as well as offering a meeting place for those who wish to research the history and/or the environment around the Nanticoke watershed.
I'd like to wish a special thanks to John Lewis for inviting me to be a part of it.
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