Latest / The Red Solo Traveler Podcast / The British Burned 27 Ships at This Landing. The Last Warehouse Is Still on the Dock.

Transcript

The British Burned 27 Ships at This Landing. The Last Warehouse Is Still on the Dock. · The Red Solo Traveler Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Picture walking into like a quiet, scenic New England bakery
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: to buy a croissant only to discover you're scanning on
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the exact site of the most violent, fiery bank heist
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: of the 19th century.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Right. It's a completely jarring disconnect.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: It really is. And that disconnect between You know, the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: present day scenery and historical reality is exactly what happens
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: when you visit a specific piece of waterfront real estate
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: in Essex, Connecticut.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: So welcome to the Red Solo Traveler podcast. Today, we
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: are opening up a brilliantly detailed travel post from April
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: 2026 by Louis.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, his piece focuses on the steamboat dock. At the
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: foot of Main Street.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Right. And our mission today is simple. We are going
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: to look right past those glossy tourist brochures that promise
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: you a breathtaking view.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Because that's not the real story.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We want to unpack the raw working class greedy
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: history that actually built this town.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: It's just a profound geographical irony, honestly. Yeah. You drive
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: down to the end of this picturesque village. You park
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: your car, stroll out onto this wooden apron, and you
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: just breathe in that serene river air.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: It feels super relaxing.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Right. The setting practically mandates relaxation. Yeah. But you are
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: completely unaware that you are standing on ground zero of
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: the largest single American shipping loss of the entire War
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: of 1812.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Which is... Okay, let's unpack this. Because to understand the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: physical building that stands on that dock today, we really
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: have to talk about the night the river burned.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: We do. We have to go back to the night
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: of April 7th, stretching into the early hours of April 8th, 1814. And, uh.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: If we're looking at a map from that era, we
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: wouldn't even be looking for Essex.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. You'd be looking for Petipaug.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Petipaug. Right.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Petipaug was the name of the settlement back then. And
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: it's crucial to strip away our modern biases right from
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: the start.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Because today we just see a pretty river.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You and I look at the Connecticut River and
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: we see nature. A place to kayak, maybe watch some birds.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: But in 1814, that river was not scenery.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: It was basically a highway.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: It was a massive working road. Think of it as...
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: like the Interstate 95 of its era. And Petty Pog
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: was a roaring industrial manufacturing point on that highway.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: So when Captain Richard Coote of the Royal Navy decides
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to attack this town, he's not trying to terrorize a
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: quaint fishing village.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Not at all.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: He is executing a targeted strike against an enemy manufacturing hub.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: But the mechanics of this raid, I mean, this is
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: what really catches my attention.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Logistics are wild.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Right. Coote leaves his warships out in Long Island Sound.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: He loads 136 British sailors and marines into open boats
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: and they row.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: In the dark.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Yes. They row six miles up the Connecticut River in
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: the dead of night. Why would the Royal Navy bother
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: rowing six miles in open boats just to attack this
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: specific dock?
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is that you have to respect the
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: sheer physical reality of that decision.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: It sounds exhausting.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: It's a staggering amount of exertion. Rowing heavy, wooden open
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: boats loaded with armed men and all these incendiary supplies.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Six miles upstream against a river current.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: And the strategic risk is just off the charts.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. They're willingly rowing into a geographical bottleneck. If
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: they're discovered, they could easily be trapped and annihilated from
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: the banks.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: But they did catch a massive tactical break, right? The
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: American fort at Saybrook Point. The one specifically designed to
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: guard the mouth of the river.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: It was totally empty.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Just completely empty, which was supposed to prevent exactly this
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: kind of incursion.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: A catastrophic intelligence failure on the American side. And just
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: a stroke of incredible luck for Kute.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: So they sleep right past the empty guns.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Right. They made their way those six miles and came
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: ashore near the foot of Main Street right around 4 a.m.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And they took the village without any real resistance.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: None. But what makes this raid so fascinating is its discipline.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: This is not some mindless sacking of a town.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Because they spared the houses?
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Cootie's men spared the residential houses. They didn't burn
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: the village to the ground. Instead, they spent the entire
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: morning systematically hunting down and destroying the industry.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: And specifically, they were after the privateers.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I want to pause on that term because the popular
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: imagination usually treats privateers as just like patriotic pirates. Right.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Rose with an American flag. Exactly.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But looking at the sheer scale of the British response,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: there is clearly a deeper economic threat here. Why were
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: they so dangerous that the Royal Navy risked 136 men
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: in the dark?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Well, because privateers in 1814 were essentially the equivalent of
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: high-risk venture capital startups. Oh, wow.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: OK.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The young American government did not have a massive
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: navy capable of going toe-to-toe with the British fleet. So
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: they basically crowdsourced the war at sea.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: So local investors pool their money?
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Right. Local investors in towns like Petipag would pool their money,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: build a fast-armed ship, and secure a letter of marque.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: And that made it legal to hunt British ships.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Completely legal to hunt down and capture British merchant vessels.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: So they are essentially monetizing the disruption of the British
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: supply chain.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Precisely. If an American privateer captures a British cargo ship
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: filled with, you know, sugar, rum, or textiles... They bring
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: it back and sell it. And the investors make a
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: massive profit. Petty Pog was churning out these armed startup
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: vessels at a terrifying rate.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Just bleeding British commerce dry.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Coote didn't row upriver to steal the town's silver.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: He came to cut the head off the snake of
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: this whole maritime venture capital machine.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: And they succeeded, right, because by the time the British retreated,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: they had burned 27 vessels.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: 27, including brand new privateers still sitting on the stocks,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: totally unfinished.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Just gone in a matter of hours. It was the
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: largest single American shipping loss of the War of 1812.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: It was. Which brings us back to the geography of
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the modern museum. The shipyards themselves, where those 27 vessels
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: were being constructed, they weren't sitting exactly where the museum's
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: lawn is today, right?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: No, they were located just around the point.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: So to be clear, this specific building on the dock
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: wasn't building the ships that got burned, right? It wasn't
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: a shipyard.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Correct. The shipyards were around the point. But the piece
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: of ground where the Connecticut River Museum sits today was
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: the central nervous system of that entire industrial zone.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: OK, so it was the hub.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Right. That dock was where the materials came in, where
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: the money changed hands, where the troops landed. And that
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: is exactly why the museum is located on that working
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: footprint today.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Not just on some nice scenic lot up the hill.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It anchors you to the ground where the violence
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: of 1814 actually happened.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: But the town didn't just fold up and disappear after
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the British burned their primary economic engine.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: No. The industry eventually rebuilt. And it evolved.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And that evolution leads directly to the physical building that
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: stands on that dock today. Which, I should add, is
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: not a replica.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Not at all.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: If you walk into the Connecticut River Museum today, you
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: are walking into the authentic 1878 steamboat dock warehouse.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: And it is the absolute last warehouse of its kind
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: left anywhere on the 410-mile stretch of the Connecticut River.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Every other one is just gone.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Lost to time, fire, development. This is the sole survivor.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Now, let's untangle the timeline a bit. The raid happens
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: in 1814, but this building dates to 1878. Right.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: There's a gap of over 60 years there.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: So this represents a completely different era of the river's life.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: You're looking at the evolution of the economy. By 1878,
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: the maritime world had shifted. The era of building massive
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: wooden sailing ships was giving way to steam power.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: So this building was purely a steamboat terminal.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Purely a terminal. Long before the interstate highway system, Hartford
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: steamboats acted as the primary transit corridor. And this warehouse
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: was built as a machine to facilitate that.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you look at the architecture, the incredibly wide doors,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the immediate proximity to the deep water, you can tell
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: it wasn't designed for aesthetics.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: No, it was designed to move heavy freight and human
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: beings as efficiently as possible. It functioned as a passenger
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: terminal and a cargo shed. All the way until 1931.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: And then the steamboat era just died out.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Replaced by trains and early automobiles. But the amazing thing is,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: this building simply refused to quit. It survived the death
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: of the very era it was built to serve.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Which is incredible.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: And what's really great is that today, even as a museum,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: it still does exactly what it was engineered to do
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: over a century ago.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: It faces the water, it takes tickets, and it sends
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: boats out.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: The function remains entirely pure. The only thing that has
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: changed is the cargo. Instead of loading timber and businessmen
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: heading to Hartford, it loads tourists and history buffs.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: It's basically a monument to enduring maritime success.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Which provides the most incredible thematic contrast for the artifact
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: sitting right in the middle of it.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, definitely.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Because inside this surviving 1878 warehouse sits a monument to
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: a spectacular, albeit genius, failure. Here's where it gets really interesting.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I am talking, of course, about David Bushnell's turtle.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: The turtle. designed right in the area from Westbrook between
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: 1775 and 1776.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: And it was the first submarine ever used in combat, right?
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: The very first.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: But I really want to emphasize the sheer, terrifying physical
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: reality of what this was. Because when you say submarine,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: you picture like a sleek steel tube.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Right. Nuclear powered. Yeah.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: But the turtle was just a claustrophobic, hand-cranked wooden egg.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: And strapped to the outside of this oak barrel was
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: a time-fused mine.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: It was literally a wooden egg.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: If you are Sergeant Ezra Lee, the guy tasked with
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: piloting this thing against the HMS Eagle on the night
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: of September 6, 1776, you are essentially climbing into a coffin.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: A coffin with a bomb attached to it.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Sealing yourself in and hoping for the best.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: The physical demands on Ezra Lee were just unimaginable. He's
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: sitting in total darkness. He acts the engine, turning hand
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: cranks to move.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Manually cranking a submarine.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Right. And he acts as the ballast system, pumping water
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: by foot to sink and rise. He's the navigator and
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: he's the weapons officer. All with a strictly limited supply
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: of oxygen.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: So he takes this contraption out into New York Harbor
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: to attack this massive British warship. The goal is to
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: maneuver underneath the hull, use a hand-cranked screw to bore
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: a hole into the ship, attach the mine, start the timer,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and furiously crank away.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: It's a mission that requires everything to go perfectly, and
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: instead it completely fails.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Right. The screw just wouldn't bite into the hull. He
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: eventually runs out of air, abandons the mine, and retreats.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: The mine just drifts away and explodes harmlessly.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: It was a total operational failure.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: But the reason it failed is what fascinates me. It
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: wasn't that the wood of the British ship was too hard.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: It was because the British had started coppering the bottoms
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: of their ships.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they had lined the hulls with copper plates.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Why would they do that in 1776? Were they expecting
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: some marine attacks?
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: No, the copper had absolutely nothing to do with naval combat.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: It was actually a solution to a marine biology problem.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Wait, really?
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, specifically a highly destructive creature called the shipworm. These
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: worms would bore into unprotected wooden hulls turn the timber
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: into Swiss cheese, and sink the vessel.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: So the British Navy spent a fortune wrapping their warships
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: in copper just to keep worms away.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It stopped the worms and kept seaweed off the
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: hull so the ships moved faster. But that thin layer
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: of copper, designed for a worm, perfectly neutralized David Bushnell's
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: combat technology.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Because the wood screw couldn't pierce the metal.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Now, George Washington later called the turtle an effort of genius. Yeah.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: And from an engineering standpoint, Figuring out underwater propulsion in
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: 1776 is definitely genius.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: It was a massive leap forward. But we have to
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: look at the reality of the combat application. As Louis
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: points out in the source material, genius is not a
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: hole in the flagship.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Genius is not a hole in the flagship. The mission
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: was a failure.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: It was a failed first try.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: And I appreciate that the museum doesn't pretend the submarine
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: actually worked. They don't rewrite history to make it a
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: triumphant victory. No.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: They present it as the vital prologue to Connecticut's later
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: submarine dominance, Denningrotten. You have to start with the clumsy,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: terrifying failure to get to the modern success.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: And they actually let you experience that terror. You can
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: sit in a full-scale replica at the museum. You can
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: turn the cranks.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: And you definitely should. My advice is to sit in
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: the replica. Understand the problem, feel that claustrophobia set in,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: and then get out.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Sit in it, panic for a second, and get out.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Because once you escape that wooden barrel, your natural urge
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: is going to be to see the actual river. Which
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: brings us to experiencing the site today.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: The logistics of a visit.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Louis gives some great practical insight, what he calls useful color,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: on how to navigate this. Let's talk about the stairs.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: The stairs are actually the best part of the interior.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Which is funny because the third floor has rotating exhibits, right?
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: But Louis says to skip the third floor and definitely
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: ignore the elevator.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Yes. The best 10 minutes in the building are spent
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: in the stairwell.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: And that's because they've installed this continuous vertical mural and
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: aerial photos that track the river's entire 410 mile run.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: It starts at the top of the stairs near the
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Canadian border where the river begins. And tracks all the
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: way down to Long Island Sound at the bottom floor.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: It's just a brilliant use of space. But eventually you
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: want to get outside. And since this dock still functions,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: there are two distinct boats you can choose from.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And it is vital you book the right hull for
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: what you want to do.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: So the first option is RiverQuest. What is that experience like?
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: RiverQuest is a 64-foot ecotour boat. It's spacious. You can
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: walk around, bring a lunch. This is your choice if
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: you want to see the natural ecology.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: So it's great for seeing eagles and just enjoying nature.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a smooth, comfortable ride focused on the environment.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Okay. So if that's the nature boat, the second option
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: is the on-rust. That's the historical one, right? Yes.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: The on-rust is a painstakingly accurate replica of a 1614
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: yacht built by Adrian Block.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: 1614. So that's not going to feel like a modern
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: eco tour.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. It is a completely different tactile experience. Right.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: You are feeling the wind. Catch canvas rigging, smelling the tar.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: You're experiencing the river, how 17th century navigators felt it.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: So it's nature versus history.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Pick the one that matches the energy you want
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: to expend.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: And a great ticketing detail, Louis points out. Buying a
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: cruise ticket automatically includes your same-day museum admission.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: It's a fully integrated package.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Now, I do want to address the listener directly with
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: a practical tip here. Do not fall into the tourist
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: trap of overbooking your day.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Yes. Louie is incredibly firm on this warning.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Because if you look at a map, you see the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: museum in Essex, you see Mystic Seaport, and you see
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Gillette Castle. And they all look deceptively close.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: And you might think, I'll just do all three on Saturday.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Right. But you should absolutely never stack this museum, Gillette Castle,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: and Mystic Seaport on the same clock.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: It's a massive physical mistake. They are totally different physical experiences.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Mystic is a sprawling village to walk for miles around.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Gillette is a ridge you have to climb.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: And Essex is a dock you stand on.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Right. It's a dense, contemplative space. You will exhaust yourself
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: if you try to jam all three into one day.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: So if you're planning an itinerary, what's a better pairing
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: for Essex?
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Pair with the Essex steam train. It's just a few
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: blocks up the road.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, that makes sense.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Make the museum your morning, absorb the history of
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: the 1814 raid and the turtle, and then spend your
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: afternoon riding the steam train or taking the riverboat.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Let the history breathe.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? We started by talking
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: about this pretty scenery you might just glance at from
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: the I-95 bridge.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: But it's not just pretty scenery. No.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: It is a working road with layers of scars. From
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the 1814 fire that burned 27 vessels, to a surviving
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: 1878 warehouse, to a failed 1776 submarine.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: It is a remarkably heavy history packed onto one small footprint.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: And yet, it's also a story of resilience.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: It really is. And the source material points out something
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: profound about the environmental resilience of the river itself.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Well, for most of the industrial century, the Connecticut River
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: was essentially a working sewer. The mills and factories heavily
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: polluted it. Right.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: The dark side of industry.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: But it has come back far enough that today, bald
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: eagles actually hunt from the trees along the banks. Wow.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: It challenges you to think about how historical waterways can
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: heal if they're just given the chance.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: The apex predators have returned. It's an amazing thought to
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: mull over how these waterways have these hidden scars, but
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: they can still recover. Thank you for joining us today
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: on the Red Solo Traveler podcast. Until next time.