Picture yourself snug on top of a hand sewn mattress stuffed with straw. Your pillow is filled with the feathers of the chickens killed last month and stuffed into the empty flour sack mother’s been saving for such an occasion. Before that, you had none.
A few minutes ago you climbed the wooden ladder to the loft that your father and grandfather nailed together to get to your bed. All of you – six in total, are sleeping up here this stifling August night. You and your siblings are roasting. The winter will be only slightly better. You can huddle together for warmth. But on the nights of blowing snow, it’s not uncommon to find inches of the freezing cold stuff blanketing your blankets. It has a way of finding the cracks.
And so is life for the Mooneys, the Daggitts, the McAdams (Sheahens), the McCrarens and Stupeys as they settled this untamed land in the 1840s. They are Irish, German, English, Catholic and Lutheran alike. They came with hopes and dreams of a better life even knowing they would have to work hard for it.
They would have us believe they were not afraid. Yet when you read of the illness that wiped out an entire family, or imagine them toiling the land – ridding the rocks and trees to make it farmable, you realize their first couple years the crops were designed at first to keep them alive and hope to sell what they can to purchase or barter flour, sugar or other staples. They weren’t fooling us.
Today we see images of hurricane ravaged countries and wonder how they will endure? They possess the dormant pioneering gene within them. It’s part of that survival instinct that kicks up within all of us when faced with this kind of travesty.
That’s why preserving the Francis Stupey Cabin is so important.
It reminds us of what it took to leave your homeland and all that you knew was sacred. To venture across an ocean and forge a land that was different, deal with people that were different, with different religious and languages. One had to have a clear and logical path to survival – and yet it was done not just as a single family unit, it was also done as a pioneering unit. These founding families joined forces in those tough times of blizzards and illness, of droughts and growing pains.And when it was all over, to come out the other side of all of it smarter and stronger.
The cabin, built in 1847 is Highland Park’s oldest standing structure. It’s located in Laurel Park between the library and city hall. The cabin was given to the people of Highland Park as a Centennial gift in 1968 by Exmoor Country Club, where is was the caddy shack for many years. The Historical Society moved, restored and furnished the cabin in the period of 1850. For more information or make a donation, check out the Highland Park Historical Society’s website, highlandparkhistory.com.