I can’t believe another year has come and gone. As the end of the year approaches, I am reminded of the first time that I stayed up to ring in the new year. It was for the year 2000 and my family gathered at a relative’s house on Cape Cod and had a huge party. I was enjoying myself immensely when I overheard my older cousins talking about how at midnight the world might end. I was worried for a moment, but then convinced myself that my cousin was just telling one of his tall tales and forgot about it. Midnight came and went and the world was still standing. Well before the Y2K scare, Suffield had an incident where the apocalypse foretold by some also never came to pass.

Our roads are a vital means of connecting us and are a key part of making holiday memories with loved ones possible. You may take for granted that there is a road that can take you where you want to go for Thanksgiving dinner, but it wasn’t always this way. A key part of the growth in the road network in the early days of our country was the creation of turnpikes. In Suffield, the development of the Hartland Turnpike provides us with a glimpse of how these toll roads came to be and still impact us today. 

As an October baby, I have always loved everything about the fall and Halloween. In particular, I have always loved the stories of ghosts and monsters, especially those that are purported to be “real”. And while it is fun today to try to figure out for yourself if a place is haunted or not, 100 years ago, Suffield was facing a real specter, the specter of the 2nd Ku Klux Klan (KKK).