Timothy Myrick/Mirick/Merrick (you'll find all the spellings in the old graveyard in Wilbraham). Tom (Curmudgeon), Jeri, and I found his grave some years ago thanks to directions from both Michael Cooney and the Ann and Frank Warner book.

Timber rattlers used to be fairly common in New England, but they don't much like to be moved. Individual snakes generally stay within a very small territory.

Some years ago then governor Meldrim Thomson stated that there were no rattlesnakes in New Hampshire. Someone from the Rattlesnake Mountain section of Raymond, NH (next town over from me in Nottingham) brought Thomson a bagful and dumped them out on his desk in proof that there are, indeed, timber rattlers in New Hampshire.

Linn