Well, according to the OED, a “charivari” (or “shivaree”) is “a serenade of ‘rough music’, with kettles, pans, tea-trays, and the like, used in France, in mockery and derision of incongruous or unpopular marriages, and of unpopular persons generally; hence a confused, discordant medley of sounds; a babel of noise.”

There are some interesting ruins down along Bolton Road that’ve caught my eye once or twice, and it turns out that they have a bit of history that goes along with ‘em… A ways back, the story goes, the fellow who lived here got himself married. Simple enough, right? Well, he figured that he liked it that way, and decided to just keep quiet about things — no ceremony, no party, no fuss. Well, somehow the folks in the neighbourhood got wind of it, and they thought they’d stop by sometime after dark when the new bride & groom would be getting settled down for the night. You know, kick up a fuss of their own.

I guess things got started off well enough, with some of the fellows hooting and hollering, banging on a few pots and pans, and all of that; the only thing was that the man of the house, after hearing the racket going on outside, decided to come to the door with a shotgun and fire it off into the dark. As you’re probably guessing, somebody got killed. Next day? Well, the unlucky groom got shipped off to jail.

Not sure what happened after that, really. To be honest, I don’t know much about the whole ordeal except for a little bit of hearsay. But there isn’t much left of the old homestead now. Aside from the one corner- section of the exterior wall, there’s a bit of the foundation intact, along with a few beams and sections of the garden wall out back. You know, it’s a nice spot — quiet, nestled in the bend of a small creek.

On a side note: we came across some deer bones nearby, which looked as if they’d been picked clean long ago. Only half the carcass though. Hunters’ work, I suppose.

[N 44^o 54' 32.6", W 75^o 44' 12.9"]