It was through Mr. Morgan's store that I got my first exposure to the larger world outside of Great Barrington. I can remember very early on seeing pictures of people like U.S. Grant and Tweed of New York. And later, I would see pictures of the presidential candidates Tilden and Hayes.

Mr. Morgan made many suggestions to me. And he arranged for me to become the local Great Barrington correspondent to the Springfield Republican while I was still in high school. This was the most widely circulated paper in western Massachusetts.

I also became a contributor to T. Thomas Fortune's New York Globe and its successor the Freedman.

But my main form of communication with the town's people outside of school was through the church.