A lovely, lively day in Falls Village

FALLS VILLAGE — It was wet and chilly on Saturday, Oct. 1 — but that didn’t stop most of the various activities scheduled around town.The Farmer’s Market on the Green was canceled. (It was raining pretty hard in the morning.)But Judy Jacobs was available for Housatonic Heritage walks, covering the Beebe Hill schoolhouse and the Canaan-Falls Village Historical Society exhibits at the Depot on Railroad Street.The Depot is always a good place to drop in. There is always something new — if not to the people who work there, to the occasional visitor.This time around it was the fractured tombstone of Milo J. Freeland, rescued from the woods surrounding the cemetery in East Canaan and subsequently put back together (minus a missing piece never recovered) by Karl Munson and brought to the Historical Society.Freeland was the first African-American soldier to enlist, in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, in 1863. Noted abolitionist Frederick Douglass was instrumental in the formation of the regiment, recruiting more than 100 men (including two of his sons).The 54th Massachusetts was the subject of the 1989 film “Glory.”The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on Jan. 1, 1863, that proclaimed the freedom of most of the nation’s 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000. Black men then enlisted in the Union armies, in segregated regiments with white officers. The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment was the first such regiment raised among free black men of the North. The regiment was part of an unfortunate expedition to Florida in February 1864 and participated in the disastrous battle of Olustee, where it covered a Union retreat.A replica tombstone is now in the East Canaan cemetery.Jacobs said the Historical Society plans to feature the tombstone and the Freeland story for Black History Month. Also on the horizon from the Historical Society are tours of five Falls Village houses of historical note. The tour is scheduled for the same night as the Christmas tree lighting on the Green.Meanwhile, at the Congregational Church, the baked goods were selling well in spite of the gloomy weather, and inside the church hall, chili and cornbread were moving steadily. New pastor Michelle Wiltshire-Clement was working the room, greeting parishioners and getting used to the lack of cell phone service.The David M. Hunt Library had its usual monthly book sale in the morning, and the annual auction in the evening. Garth Kobal wrote in an email Sunday that “our preliminary figures indicate that we raised just over $15,00 for the library.”The auctions, live and silent, typically account for 20 percent of the library’s yearly operating budget, Kobal said.And for those who weren’t tuckered out after the auctions, it was open mic night at P.D. Walsh’s Country Store, where John Cooke and emcee Charlie Knox were getting warmed up at about 7 p.m. and planning to play with whoever showed up until 10 p.m. or so.