Had I not locked my keys in my car, I never would have met Tom Fremantle, and this little page would not exist. As it was, towards the end of my quest to get myself back into my car, I asked Jay Hurley for some help. Though my lock foiled him, during the course of his attempt I learned that he was hosting a fellow from England and his mule. Tom was generally following the 1863 route of his ancestor, Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle. Sir Arthur's Diary, though I had not heard of it before, is, I later learned, well known among Civil War buffs. Upon going over to the town library, I saw someone there who matched the description Jay had provided, and asked whether he was the guy with the mule. Yes, he was.
Anyway, "What's this got to do with the A.T. or the Canal?" you may be wondering.
Tom had contemplated walking on the A.T. for a portion of his journey. It was a good thing he wasn't counting on it as he would have been prevented from doing this because of his companion, Browny, a small 17 year old packmule. (No pack animals are allowed on the A.T.)
However, he did walk on a small part of the A.T. in Harpers Ferry,
namely across the pedestrian bridge over the Potomac River. He had hoped that he would be able to get onto the C and O Canal towpath from there but had learned that the stairs on the Maryland side would prevent Browny from reaching the towpath. He also crossed over the A.T. a couple of times on his journey through Maryland. Upon finishing the journey, they will have walked several hundred miles further than the A.T. is long.
- Tom's Website
- Man and mule near end of Mexico-to-Manhattan trek - April 12 Bergen Record
- Man, mule get a kick out of cross-country trip - April 3 - Bucks County Currier Times
- The Hagerstown paper caught up with Tom as he headed through Sharpsburg, Maryland.
- Here's an article from the March 16 Gettysburg Times.
- Sir Arthur's Diary, a part of the UNC-CH digitization project, Documenting the American South. (However, this online version lacks the notes that are included in the Walter Lord version which is currently available in print.)
- Website for Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, created by Roger Hughes who portrays Fremantle in re-enactments. The site includes some discussion of Fremantle's diary as well as some excerpts.
- Tom has written about a much longer trip he made, by bicycle from England to Australia in his book,
Johnny Ginger's Last Ride. Here is an edited excerpt from the book.
Pictures: March 12 - on German Street in Shepherdstown, WV. and at Jay's barn
Week of March 10, 2002 - Kathy Bilton