The Barn

It’s not that I don’t like Boston; on the contrary, it’s a great city if city life is what you want. I’m just through with all the noise and inconvenience that goes along with it. I wanted quiet roads, trees, starry nights, and crickets. I wanted to build a house in Williamstown, MA. My realtor called and told me about a plot of land she felt would be perfect for me. The only extra expense I would have would be the demolition of a dilapidated barn. A fire had destroyed the house more than 100 years ago. I looked at the pictures she sent, found the location on Google Maps, and bought the plot sight unseen. The following weekend, I packed up the car and headed for Western Massachusetts.

It was a pleasant two-and-a-half-hour drive along Rte. 2, also known as the Mohawk Trail, to my future home. I met the realtor at her office and followed her to the property. It was everything I had hoped for: tall maple and pine trees, a view of the Berkshire Mountains, no traffic, and the remnants of a barn the deed said was built in 1768. The real estate agent left shortly after we got there, leaving me to explore my new domain. The barn was my first stop.

Part of the roof had fallen in, and several of the wallboards were missing. The door had come off its hinges and was lying on the ground. The conservative me said to stay outside, but the inquisitive me insisted I continue exploring inside. If you’ve ever been in a barn, you know what I found. Empty stalls with remnants of straw lying in them, rotted leather straps, rusted farming tools, and the occasional mouse scurrying across the floor made up the contents of my not-so-new barn. As much as I hated to do it, the old structure would need to come down.

On my way back outside, I heard a loud crack just before my left foot broke through a floorboard, and I found myself wedged up to my kneecap. It took some time and no insignificant amount of pain, but I finally freed my leg from its prison. Staring down into the new hole, I saw the outline of a pouch or leather bag. I pulled out my phone and used the flashlight app to take a closer look. Hidden between the joists were two old-style military leather backpacks in surprisingly good condition, given the amount of time they must have been under the barn floor. Using a rusted grub ax, I pried several boards loose and retrieved the bags.

Ignoring the pain in my knee, I rushed to the car, gently placed my two prizes on the seat next to me, and opened one. The bag was filled with pages of brittle journal pages. The car seat was not the place to investigate what I had just found. I carefully closed the flap, placed both bags on the floor, and drove back to my Boston apartment as fast as possible without getting a ticket. The two-plus-hour drive felt excruciatingly slow, but once I was home, with the brittle pages laid out on my desk, time raced by.

The journal was written by a conscripted British soldier named Nathaniel Talbert. He never wanted to be in the military, but he was an orphan, and the king needed bodies to fill his army's ranks, so he had no option. Nathaniel fought at the battle of Lexington and Concord and tried not to kill anyone, but in the fog of war, nothing was definite. It was during the battle of Bunker Hill, where he watched helplessly as his comrades fell all around him, that he decided if the king wanted a war, he could come fight it himself. As for Nathaniel, his soldiering days were done. That night, the sounds of battle ringing in his ears, he gathered up whatever he could fit in his two bags and slipped out of camp.

Two days later, exhausted and hungry, Nathaniel stopped to rest on the outskirts of a little town built on the Hoosic River called Williamstown. He stripped off his uniform with its red coat and exchanged it for civilian clothes he had stolen along the way. He saw a community barn-raising taking place and asked if he could help. The people were happy to have an extra pair of hands to lighten the load and welcomed him with a smile and a much-appreciated meal.

That was the last entry in Nathaniel’s journal. I have to assume that during his first night there, he hid the bags in the barn’s floor joists. I won’t be demolishing that barn. Instead, it will become a monument to a young man who made the most of a second chance.