Bear Island break-ins

[KonaChick]

Originally Posted by wildwoodfam

Things like this happen ALL THE TIME - this is lake winnipesaukee, New Hampshire, USA, not shangri-la!

Do people really still believe that you can leave things unlocked, or even visible in camps that are vacant all winter and not think some idiot will come along and decide he or she has better use for the item you own?!

We close up at the end of summer and anything that even "looks" valuable, even though we may have purchased it at the Christmas Tree Shop for $4.99, gets put into the interior closets and locked up, the drapes and blinds closed, the doors shuttered, and the bulkhead padlocked. As unfriendly as this may look and seem we have never been robbed - while neighbors on all side report break-ins almost annually!

You make it sound as if people who have had break-ins are putting out the welcome mat and are leaving the family jewels on the screen porch with a "help yourself" sign attached. Someone who is hell bent on breaking into a home will do so reguardless of how many locks are bolted...albeit some places are easier targets than others and I'm sure that was the point you were trying to make.

[wildwoodfam]

Originally Posted by KonaChick

You make it sound as if people who have had break-ins are putting out the welcome mat and are leaving the family jewels on the screen porch with a "help yourself" sign attached. Someone who is hell bent on breaking into a home will do so reguardless of how many locks are bolted...albeit some places are easier targets than others and I'm sure that was the point you were trying to make.

Please don't misinterpret what I wrote - I said nothing about setting yourselves - ourselves (since I include myself in the group!) up for break-ins when we leave our camps and homes vacant all winter long. I said - if you travel around the lake in the winter on a snow machine and see some of the things left out in full view of whomever passes by - and knowing that there are thefts (growing in number) each year up there - it makes sense to hide or make it unwelcoming for the would be thief.

The last poster sums it up by stating "I guess the old days are gone."

YOU GUESS?!!?

Nothing about summers on Winnipesaukee (with the exception of laying in the hamock at the waters edge) very much resemble the "old days." Frankly most of thats a good thing...I can get my dunkin donuts now and not drink the sludge from the 40year old percalator in the cupboard, and I can read the Boston Globe online from my dock, and I can do a lot of things we couldn't when I first started going to the lake in 1967!!

The OLD DAYS - including the simpler and safer aspects of lake winnie living are gone, as sad as that is for most of us - they are gone.

I cannot be the only realist in this forum?!

[CanisLupusArctos]

Hope this helps cheer things up...

There are no 'old days.' Break-ins have been happening since the beginning of time, along with every other type of crime. In the Bible and many other ancient texts are plenty of references to every kind of evil imaginable. It's just that within any specific place, eras come and eras go... each has its own nice things and its own crimes. I mean, here at Winni, the Old-old days saw tourists and residents always under threat of death from Indian raids (when you're in the Moultonborough Old Country Store go upstairs and see the Indian shutters where the women and children used to hide during the raids). Then things quieted down until an era came where guys with handlebar mustaches drank whiskey over card games and occasionally ended up shooting pistols at each other and those around them.

Those who put up with the threat of death by Indian were also able to stake claims or buy already-claimed property for dirt-cheap... try doing that today. Those who lived with the possibility of taking a bullet from a drunken good ol' boy were also able to ride trains from the lakes region to just about anywhere.... nowadays the only train between Ossipee and Boston carries gravel and the Lincoln-Laconia-Boston rail line stopped regular passenger service in the 60s so we're all stuck paying $3+ a gallon for gas to countries that don't even like us.

But there are a lot of nice things about this era we're in... and some not-so-nice things... and regardless of what they are, this era will give way to something else with new perks and new problems.

[wildwoodfam]

Originally Posted by CanisLupusArctos

Hope this helps cheer things up...

I mean, here at Winni, the Old-old days saw tourists and residents always under threat of death from Indian raids (when you're in the Moultonborough Old Country Store go upstairs and see the Indian shutters where the women and children used to hide during the raids).

Sorry to disagree - but I see this misconception quite often. The reference of "Indian Shutters" was not a term used until the early 19th century 1820's-30's. Quite a while after the discord between early settlers and natives resolved in this region of the country.

The pocket shutter - which dates back to use in early Great Britain and other European countries as far back as the 16th century - was brought to the New World by settlers who used them for the same reasons they had used them in Europe and Great Britain. Indian Shutters were not used to "protect" agains raid - rather they were and are used for the same purpose we use "Shades" today - privacy.

The fact is that neighbors, passers by, and yes, the locals, thought nothing of walking up to a family homestead and speaking or calling into windows at any given time, day or night. So pocket shutters were created to slide shut and lock, to prevent this disruption from occuring.

Don't believe me - show me an Indian Shutter with an arrow head cut or better yet, a tomohawk cut in it?? Ever see one of those? Neither have I, and I have seen hundreds of "Indian Shutters."

We have tons of these in our old homes in many New England towns, and on campuses at various boarding schools (including my old home on one of these campuses). We did a whole study and course on these historic homes.

[nj2nh]

Weren't these shutters good protection from the weather, too? I thought that is what they were actually for. I have never heard the term Indian Shutter before.

Are they similar to the decorative shutters on homes now? Like the ones, perhaps, all over Williamsburg?

nj2nh

[wildwoodfam]

Originally Posted by nj2nh

Weren't these shutters good protection from the weather, too? I thought that is what they were actually for. I have never heard the term Indian Shutter before.

Are they similar to the decorative shutters on homes now? Like the ones, perhaps, all over Williamsburg?

nj2nh

The decorative outdoor shutters were created as protection against the weather. Indoor pocket shutters are different, and served a different purpose. The shuttered inside the window....

I think the Williamsburg Homes you refer to - much like the New England homes in our "quintessential" villages often have both, pocket shutters and weather shutters....but you see more often the decorative shutters that hang on the outside of homes.

[CanisLupusArctos]

What I saw at the Old Country Store didn't look like shutters though. It looked more like a "secret" closet like what you find in those supposedly-haunted houses you see on the History Channel. The sign on it said "Indian Shutters" and said what it was for. That was a few years ago. I haven't been to the upstairs museum since; I keep getting distracted by the smell of the aged cheddar wheel at the regster.

To FLL's question (and anyone else wondering)... there is a cam on the market for less than $100 on NewEgg.com. It is the Panasonic BL-C1A. Tiny little thing but I have used it and I liked it. I borrowed one to use as a backup cam when my primary WeatherCam was down for service last fall. I believe it has motion sensing as a trigger but it doesn't say so on NewEgg's site.

[CanisLupusArctos]

Originally Posted by wildwoodfam

Sorry to disagree - but I see this misconception quite often. The reference of "Indian Shutters" was not a term used until the early 19th century 1820's-30's. Quite a while after the discord between early settlers and natives resolved in this region of the country.

The pocket shutter - which dates back to use in early Great Britain and other European countries as far back as the 16th century - was brought to the New World by settlers who used them for the same reasons they had used them in Europe and Great Britain. Indian Shutters were not used to "protect" agains raid - rather they were and are used for the same purpose we use "Shades" today - privacy.

The fact is that neighbors, passers by, and yes, the locals, thought nothing of walking up to a family homestead and speaking or calling into windows at any given time, day or night. So pocket shutters were created to slide shut and lock, to prevent this disruption from occuring.

Don't believe me - show me an Indian Shutter with an arrow head cut or better yet, a tomohawk cut in it?? Ever see one of those? Neither have I, and I have seen hundreds of "Indian Shutters."

We have tons of these in our old homes in many New England towns, and on campuses at various boarding schools (including my old home on one of these campuses). We did a whole study and course on these historic homes.

Sorry, my info came from the interpretations posted in the general store itself. If you go in there (upstairs, to their museum) and see the same interpretation is still there, you should see if they'll correct it.

The fact remains that rural New England in the 1600s and early 1700s wasn't a friendly place for white settlers. Indians saw the European settlements threatening their way of life, and like any self-respecting people, they didn't sit by passively and watch.

I was only using it to make a point that the break-ins on Bear Island aren't a sign that the world is worse than it ever was because "eras come and eras go, and each has its pros and cons."

[wildwoodfam]

Will have to check out the references at the Old Country Store - we get there weekly throughout the summer - every guests wants to visit!!

I also would agree with you - theft and robbery is nothing new - not here or in general. Still - sad that there is an innocence lost feeling at the lake. For most of us, the lake always afforded an escape from the problems of the busy world we live in....now the lake is just part of that same world!

[CanisLupusArctos]

Definitely check out the museum upstairs at the country store. It's been a few years since I've been up there but as I remember they had a lot of artifacts including the building itself (early 1700s).

I agree, there's an innocence lost as the outside world takes up more residence in the lakes region. I think in this case it's two factors... first, the area's population is up. So if you had 1 criminal when the population was 100, (just an example) you'd have 2 criminals if the population rose to 200. Yet the headline would read, "Crime has doubled" without also noting that the population had doubled. Readers would be left to think that something was wrong when in reality it was just mathematics.

Second, until just a few months ago, we were in an "age of excess" in which a lot of kids around here probably got snowmobiles for Christmas. The next thing you know, they were probably looking for some sort of trouble to cause, like groups of kids often do when they hang out. Up until a few years ago they didn't have as many material possessions to aid them in their quest for rule-breaking. Until a few years ago they also didn't grow up with teams of counselors reminding them that nothing is ever their fault... therefore they had a greater fear of consequences than the current generation.

That's just my guess...

[fatlazyless]

How about an outdoor video cam activated by motion? Is there a cheapie one available on the market for say one hundred dollars? Maybe a mini cam that looks like an outdoor light fixture that records video for 90 seconds when activated by motion.

For the local police prosecutor, a picture is worth a hundred words, and a video is probably worth a thousand words.

[Pepper]

Originally Posted by CanisLupusArctos

... Until a few years ago they also didn't grow up with teams of counselors reminding them that nothing is ever their fault... therefore they had a greater fear of consequences than the current generation.

That's just my guess...

AMEN!

and ...

Originally Posted by CanisLupusArctos

...I keep getting distracted by the smell of the aged cheddar wheel at the regster. ...

Definately our #1 reason to visit that store! MMMMMmmmmmmmm.