Sticky Situation ~ A Tale from Yesteryear

The Night They Moved The Post Office

Of all the moves made by the Chepachet Post Office, none was more memorable to Robert Steere than the exodus out of our Brown & Hopkins Store to diagonally across the street to the Hawkins' building (now "Post Office Antiques")

Helen Steere Brown wrote
in her book "Looking Back"........

"It was an evening in summer, and Joshua Angell had come up to the village of Chepachet from South Glocester to buy a jug of molasses. Instead of returning right away, he stayed to watch them dismantle the pigeon holes and paraphernalia and move them to the new location. He set his jug of molasses on the floor. It was a hot day and it overflowed.

Bob, who was about 10 years old at the time, stepped into the molasses with his bare feet. Instead of cleaning them off, he walked home down the unpaved road through the village, collecting dust and dirt all the way. Upon arrival, his feet escaped notice, and he went to bed ~still covered with molasses and part of Main Street.

By next morning, both molasses and Main Street had left their mark upon the sheets, and the discovery..................

led to dire consequences which Bob vividly recalled for the rest of his life."