Downtown Kennett Square was one jumpin' joint on Thursday, June 18. Despite the iffy weather forecast, people were dining in the streets, artists were painting, musicians were performing, and parents and kids were dancing.
As if that wasn't enough activity, there was also a history tour going on, focusing on the activities of the town's 19th-century abolitionists. I was one of the tour guides: I took two groups of folks on a tour that started at the Underground Railroad mural on Willow Street and continued along East Linden Street to North Union Street. The tour script, prepared by town historian Lynn Sinclair, was excellent and contained all kinds of historical nuggets. For instance, I never knew there's a cannon (now almost hidden in the ivy) at Broad and Linden Streets, in front of the former borough hall. It's called "Old Ben Butler," in honor of Benjamin Franklin Butler, a Union general in the Civil War. The cannon was fired to celebrate Union victories.
On both of my tours I was fortunate to have knowledgeable folks who added interesting side notes. Tourgoer Tom Herman of West Marlborough shared with the group that General Butler was so despised by Southerners that they actually made chamber pots with his picture prominently displayed.
Throughout the evening I had happy memories of the late Mary Dugan of Marlboro Village, a local schoolteacher who was an authority on Underground Railroad activity in the area and did a great deal of research on the history of East Linden Street.
After the tours, one special tourist and I returned to State Street, where I had a terrific chicken burrito from A Taste of Puebla, which set up a tent in the Genesis Walkway. My dinner companion and I were sitting next to each other at a table on the sidewalk, and one humorous friend came up to us and said it looked as if we were available for consultation, a la Lucy offering psychiatric help for 5 cents in the Peanuts cartoon.
"Have a seat," we said.
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