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Ice Sledding

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Mrs. Lucretia Wilson Eels (1815-1900), a widow of Dr. George Eels (as indicated by her black mourning dress), is being pushed into town on an ice sled on the Deerfield River. Mrs. Eels had been a long-standing member of the local historical association. For a time, she had taught at the Deerfield Academy. Travel in the winter has always been a problem. If there was too much ice, then as now, the roads were nearly impossible to navigate. A frozen river offered a kind of highway for ice skates. Since Mrs. Eels was in her seventies when this picture was taken, she used an alternate method coming to town through the help of her neighbor, Spencer Fuller (1863-1911).

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