A very cool aspect of researching The Clove has been the ability to drive to many of the locations where the events took place. A crucial part of the book takes place when Ben and Richard Earl travel to Alligerville, NY to pick up millstones made by Benjamin Alliger and his family. They made millstones quarried out of the tough Shawangunk Conglomerate, a type of extremely hard, quartz-rich rock. It is a forty mile trip each way for the Earls over unfamiliar roads. The men would be traveling with two huge animals, an Ox Named Cyrus, and Percheron Horse named Boaz, pulling a heavy wagon. During a period when America was divided by allegiance, British spys, terrorists and thieves roamed the mountains that still were teaming with rattlesnakes, wolves, bear, and the occasional unallied highwayman. I had a rather safer trip on the day I went to explore the Alligerville area, looking for old road and place names to use in my story. The way to Alligerville from my house is less than twenty minutes and goes through some beautiful old countryside dotted with houses and farms that have not changed except for age since the times I write about.
I was looking for a road that could accommodate a wagon carrying close to three tons of millstones and the gear needed to care for the men and animals transporting it. Not far from the home pictured above, I found an old burying ground. There were no signs to announce its name or affiliation, a common sight, there are many such rural cemeteries here.
Not wanting to pass up a look at some old gravestones, I walked over and found that the worn, lichen-covered stones were mostly unreadable, with the morning sun shining directly on them. I left them with the intent of returning when the sun had moved farther to the west, to provide more contrast across the stone faces. I drove a few more miles to the little Hamlet of Alligerville then continued on to my home. I felt I needed to come back to the cemetery the next day.
I returned the following day around 1pm, and the sun was shining nicely through the trees and directly upon a large stone that was inscribed “Benjamin Alliger” This was a stunning surprise, it turned out to be the final resting place of members of the family that produced the millstones that Ben and Richard Earl would be loading onto an ox-wagon 247 years earlier. It was an unexpected and sort of chilling discovery.
Happy Halloween!
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