As I was driving through Thomastown last month, I thought I could stop by at Pat Gibbons’ house and get the latest updates. Those who don’t know Pat The Fox Man, can read his story here. This story has been copied and pasted so many times that I gave up being annoyed.

Fortunately, Pat was home, we spent a few minutes visiting and went to the fox pen. It was about 4 pm, one hour before the foxes are let inside for the evening, and I didn’t want to make them upset by dragging them out for a picture. Minnie was already whining, overreacting like the drama queen she is. Nothing is ever right for poor Minnie 🙂

It took a lot of flattering ( ‘who’s a good girl?’) and a prolonged shoulder massage to get her to lift her ‘ cheerful’ face to me for a picture. Not…

(1) Peter Folger, (2) Phoebe (Floger) Marshall (3) Major Elihu Marshall, (4) Elizabeth (Marshall) Guion, (5) Elijah Guion, (6) Elijah Guion II, (7) Alfred Beck Guion, (8) Alfred Duryee Guion, (9) Alfred Peabody Guion, (10) Judith Anne Guion

Peter Folger had a useful, versatile, practical cast of mind, combined with staunch idealism, that reminds one of his grandson, Benjamin Franklin, later on, and may in fact have been Franklin’s model. Franklin, you’ll remember, never could see anything that needed doing, from inventing a new stove or streetlamp to launching newspapers and founding libraries and philosophical societies, without getting in and doing it. Peter Folger, who knew surveying, first laid out Edgartown and its surrounding farms, then became the town’s first school-master, town clerk and record-keeper, and finally it’s only magistrate. He learned the Indian tongue, served as the settlers’ translator and diplomat in their dealings with the tribe, and the…