Free Here Is Where: Discovering America's Great Forgotten History by Andrew Carroll Page B

GP, which became
Jeep
. Also, I need to see your ID.” I’m not sure that he’s entirely accurate, but as I hand him my driver’s license, I’m not about to argue.
    He seems genuinely intrigued by Dyer’s story, but he’s confused by my intentions; if I know there are no plaques or signs about Dyer, “What’s the point of coming here?” he asks. Cars are starting to line up behind me.
    “I just have to see it firsthand,” I say quickly.
    “Happy hunting.”
    Over the past three and a half centuries the land around the hospital has changed, and no structures or foundations from the seventeenth century have survived. Anything, everything, related to Mary Dyer is gone.
    “That’s probably why there’s no marker about her—there’s nothing there,” a staff member at the Newport Historical Society suggested when I called them months ago to verify where Dyer’s property was. “Preservation funds are limited as it is, and priority is usually given to sites where there’s
something
to point to.”
    A tangible link to the past certainly has its advantages. Ideally, we hope to see the original building or fort or house because these help us to summon the memory of those who worked or fought or lived there. An empty spot of land often isn’t as evocative as the genuine article.
    But even if “nothing” remains, there is value still in visiting the general area, I think. The stories, not the physical sites, are what’s paramount, and they become more indelibly impressed in our minds whenwe travel to where they occurred. The journey alone inspires thoughtful contemplation, and inevitably we chat with others about our endeavor along the way, as I did with the security guard and also with a woman on the train to Providence, who saw me reading Dyer’s biography and was curious about “the Quaker Martyr from Rhode Island.”
    At the destination itself all of our senses are engaged. Dyer’s old homestead presses up against what is now Coasters Harbor. Strolling around this picturesque neighborhood, hearing the light lapping of the waves and taking in the briny air, I have a better idea of her life here in Newport and how far she was from her first home in Boston. For us it’s an easy ninety-minute drive to Massachusetts. In Dyer’s time the journey took days, and she often went by foot. I can’t imagine how punishing this must have been in both body and spirit, especially her final trip. With every step she knowingly moved closer to a horrific death—and yet kept walking. I doubt I ever would have focused on the depth of her courage had I not come here. Now I’ll never forget it.
    My contact at the Newport Historical Society touched on one other matter that can’t be overstated when it comes to why historical sites often go unmarked: lack of funding. Obviously it costs money to get these signs and plaques made, to say nothing of the hefty expenses required to erect a statue or refurbish an old property, and preservation and historical societies across the country are operating on shoestring budgets as it is. They also rely extensively on dedicated volunteers, and, having called on many of them already, I can attest that they are a consistently helpful and knowledgeable bunch.
    At the forefront of the movement to protect America’s past is the revered and privately funded National Trust for Historic Preservation, and each year the organization releases a list of the nation’s most “endangered sites.” It is a sobering catalog of extraordinary landmarks that have either been neglected or are at risk of being destroyed. The Trust recently included on its list the Human Resources Center in Yankton, South Dakota (formerly the South Dakota Hospital for the Insane), and the building is historically significant because its winged design and sun-drenched rooms were intended to create a soothing environmentfor patients. I immediately contacted the center about coming out for a visit before it was demolished, and