The Nathaniel Trail consists of 17 caches. Because all 17 are part of the geoart, please don't forget to do your homework before setting out to find these caches. For 14 of them, you'll need to enter a simple solution into Certitude in order to receive the actual coordinates for those hides. To find caches 15-17, you'll need to carefully collect information from each of the 14 caches. Some of the trails are used by equestrians, so be prepared to yield to riders. And please pay attention to hunting regulations and schedules. Wearing international orange is never a bad idea. I've never seen one in Carroll County, but a bear was sighted in this area in December 2018, and others have been reported in backyards in Carroll recently. So be careful as you hike these woods. I strongly urge you to solve all the little puzzles BEFORE you head for the trails. All 17 caches could be found in a couple or three hours and three or four miles of relatively easy walking. If you love birds, remember your binocular. And if you don't love ticks, remember your Deet or chemical of choice. As you cache, may you find joy and peace.
I introduced Nathaniel to geocaching in 2013, right after I became fascinated by it. Very soon, JAF430 joined us on our Thursday afternoon outings, which also included Nathaniel's other great love--hawks! We called this combined activity hawking/caching, geohawking, or just gawking. We'd push the limit regarding caching, since Nathaniel needed to move about in a wheelchair, having been born with spina bifida (open spine) and being thus paralyzed from mid-rib down. We were always grateful to cachers for placing wheelchair-accessible hides, but on those outings we'd also target the 1.5-terrain hides, thinking we could get his wheelchair close to most of those. But sometimes we would have to settle for bringing the cache container back to the car, where Nathaniel could have the pleasure of opening it by himself--and how he loved to do that, and also show us that he could finagle the logsheet out of most baggies. Truth be told, though, his favorite containers were the lock-and-locks--maybe he loved the popping sound the tabs made when he snapped them open and closed.
Nathaniel was named for two great American thinkers. One was Hawthorne (whose "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" might be appropriate reading for contemporary Americans). The other's last name will get you the coordinates to this hide. Below are a few clues:
In 1778 this complicated American proposed a Virginia law prohibiting the importation of enslaved Africans. In 1784 he urged banning slavery in the Northwest Territory, ceded by England in 1783. And in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), he insisted that slavery corrupted masters and slaves alike and that it was an abomination to God. He wrote, "The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances [as slavery fosters]. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriae of the other." He also proposed, in 1824, a national plan for ending slavery, in which the federal government would purchase slave children for $12.50 each, educate them, and send them to Santo Domingo.
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.