CORNWALL — On Sunday, May 25, Cornwall held a powerful ceremony to honor local veterans of the Revolutionary War.
At the cemetery on Route 4, about 25 attendees gathered to witness the placement of 10 grave markers. Bill Dinneen of the Cornwall Historical Society and Warren Stevens led the ceremony.
“These markers had gone missing from the cemetery, we don’t know when,” Dinneen said, showing six bronze and four cast iron markers that were recently restored and painted.
He explained the markers were found in bushes at the edge of the cemetery by Gene Swanson, of Washington Depot. It was unclear why they were removed from the gravestones, and Dinneen said there could be more elsewhere in the cemetery.
Bill Dinneen, left, and Warren Stevens explain the history, discovery and restoration process of the grave markers to attendees May 25.Photo by Riley Klein
“Today we have 10 markers. We have 32 names” of buried Revolutionary War veterans, Dinneen said. “The bronze markers will go to ranked soldiers,” such as sergeants, and “the cast ones will go to the oldest” of the infantry soldiers.
The restoration process included sandblasting, priming and painting. He was not certain, but Dinneen said the markers may have been originally placed by the government around World War I, at which time the original tombstones were replaced with harder stone.
Stevens explained the symbolism of the markers: A big star in the middle represents one of the colonies, 13 little stars represent all the colonies, the years 1775 and 1783 show the duration of the war, the words “A Patriot’s Grave” and “E Pluribus Unum. From many, there is one,” he said.
Susan Hellmann placed a bronze marker at the grave of her ancestor Noah Harrison. Photo by Riley Klein
Attendees, some of them descendants of the veterans, assisted in the placement of the markers.
Susan Hellmann, of Cornwall, said she would be placing a restored marker at the grave of “my great, great, great grandfather Noah Harrison” who served in the Revolution. “I feel like I’m going to cry. It’s just very touching, very powerful,” she said.
Dinneen read the rank, company and lifespan of each veteran as the markers were being placed, then Stevens fired a blast from his musket. When all the markers were set, the names of the other Revolutionary veterans buried in town were read aloud.
Warren Stevens fires his musket.Photo by Riley Klein
The ceremony was held as part of Memorial Day remembrances in Cornwall. It also marked the first official event in town for the nation’s 250th birthday with more to come.
As the occasion came to an end, a light rain began.
A bronze marker was placed at the grave of James Bierce, who lived to the age of 94 after serving in the Revolution with Captain Smith's Company. Bill Dinneen noted many of the Revolutionary War veterans buried in Cornwall lived to old ages. "The average age that these veterans died was 72 years old," he said.Photo by Riley Klein
Travel league baseball came to Torrington Thursday, June 26, when the Berkshire Bears Select Team played the Connecticut Moose 18U squad. The Moose won 6-4 in a back-and-forth game. Two players on the Bears play varsity ball at Housatonic Valley Regional High School: shortstop Anthony Foley and first baseman Wes Allyn. Foley went 1-for-3 at bat with an RBI in the game at Fuessenich Park.
Anthony Foley, rising senior at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, went 1-for-3 at bat for the Bears June 26.Photo by Riley Klein
Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.
Pearson first encountered the world of alternative publications — magazines filled with experimental writing, artworks in the form of a book, and samizdat literature — as a young writer living in Berlin just before The Wall came down in 1989. Later, in New York City, she spent a great deal of time with artists “who were always making and assembling, whose continuous art-making made the thin membrane between art and life even more porous,” she explained.
Pearson traces the idea of publishing to a 2001 exhibition of artist-poet Joe Brainard. That show led to “The Nancy Book,” Siglio’s debut title in 2008, and she’s never looked back. The book contains over fifty full-page reproductions of Brainard’s dazzlingly accomplished and witty drawings of the cartoon strip character, Nancy. It includes essays and contributions by Robert Creeley, Ann Lauterbach, Frank O’Hara, Ron Padgett, and other poets of great renown, all thrilled to celebrate and remember Brainard (sometimes called “a poet’s artist”) who died of AIDS in 1994. Pearson said, ‘My first project with Brainard was such a good experience, I kept going. “
Since then, Pearson, the sole proprietor of Siglio, has designed, edited, and published over 40 books and other printed editions. Her books are characterized by unexpected juxtapositions of texts and images and collage-like assemblages, as well as for carefully designed and gorgeously printed volumes. Her list includes many “rediscoveries” of unpublished manuscripts and little-known publications. At the same time, she has commissioned new work from an impressive array of artists and writers such as Christian Marclay, Sophie Calle and Cecilia Vicinua among others.
Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.Richard Kraft
Though most Siglio books feature work by artists and writers from the 1960s to today, one standout— “Tantra Song” (2011) — showcases vibrant 17th-century Indian tantric paintings collected by poet-ethnographer Franck André Jammes, their modernist feel echoing Hilma af Klint or Brice Marden. Siglio also frequently draws on the spirit of the Fluxus movement, reissuing works by figures like John Cage and Ray Johnson with editions that honor their playful, ephemeral, and poetic origins.
Siglio also excels at photo-narratives rooted in highly specific, often eccentric concepts. “Memory” (2020), by avant-garde writer Bernadette Mayer, reproduces her journal and daily rolls of 35mm film from a month in the Berkshires in 1971, capturing the texture of each day. “Call and Response” (2022), created during COVID lockdown by composer and visual artist Christian Marclay, pairs his photographs of London’s quieted streets with musical scores composed in reply by his friend Bruce Beresford—each image in dialogue with sound.
Siglio books are sold through it’s website (sigliopress.com), as well as museum or specialty bookshops. (The Lenox Bookstore represents a number of Siglio books; the newly opened Lakeville Books & Stationery has copies of “Tantra Song.”) In all cases, Pearson strives to make “two or three degrees of connection” with each book buyer, including a “special gift” — often a piece of printed ephemera — with each purchase.
