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DOVER FIFTY YEARS AGO
FRANK SMITH
974.402. D'15/smh
M. L.
Gc 974.402 D751 smh 2022499
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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R. W. H. Desh
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01095 5059
DOVER FIFTY YEARS AGO
By FRANK SMITH
South Dover took their grists to a mill which stood where the old stone cannot go back to the time when the mill now stands on the Medfield road residents "just lived and loved, and leading to Westwood. The miller of- worked and laughed and cried" but I ten took his pay in toll, for which can remember when every farm was tilled and most of the residents gained a living from the soil.
purpose he kept a set of measures at hand, by which to measure the re- quired amount of grain which the far- mer gave in lieu of cash.
Within my memory most farmers had not only a large field of corn but There was fun for the boys in going separate fields of rye, oats and bar- to the blacksmith's shop as well as ley. While in harvesting rye the the mill. In those days the black- cradle was in general use, yet I re- smith was an all round man who could shoe a horse or ox, set the far- mer's wagon tires, iron a carriage, rivet a shaft, or weld a broken cow chain. Today many country towns are in as much need of a blacksmith as were the early Colonial towns
member seeing Allen Norton, father of the late Rev. T. S. Norton, reap- ing rye on my father's farm with a sickle in the early sixties. Perhaps this was the last time that this an- cient instrument was used on a Dover farm. Rye was eaten in the family which offered special inducements to as a cereal, rye hasty pudding with New Orleans molasses was a whole- some and palatable dish, which often
the blacksmith to settle among them. Several families in Dover were the kinsmen of Dexter Pratt, Longfel- alternated at breakfast with fried low's "village blacksmith," who was corn meal mush. The early New England settlers learned to eat corn
a native of Sherborn.
Large crops of potatoes were raised
mush from the Indians, who ate it and the quantity greatly increased by
with a syrup made from the cattails a which grew in the swamps. Oats were grown either to mature for horses, or to be cut green for fodder-
frequent change in seed. The "Jackson white" was the favorite va- riety-with the "Ladies finger" for baking. The "Shenango" was a va-
ing cows. Barley was used for swine riety early grown and imported from and was ground with the cracked Nova Scotia, the seed potatoes being corn and cob, at the nearest mill, and taken directly from the boat in Bos- ton.
thus thoroughly mixed for feeding. To meet the necessity for grinding Henry Ford has recently referred to what I was taught and every farmer's son was taught, namely, that in sort- ing a pile of apples or potatoes al- ways begin at the bottom. Mr. Ford "One of the first things my grain, grist mills were numerous. I recall Sawin's mill at South Natick, Holbrook's mill at South Sherborn, Morse's mill at Little South Natick, Kingsbury's mill at Medfield, and says: Harding's mill at Medfield Junction. father taught me was to begin at Newell's mill at Charles River was the bottom, or at one end of the pile, used by the farmers at Dover Cen- and take the potatoes as they come. ter, also by those who lived in the When you go at it in this way you
I want to give a picture of Dover East part of the town. Residents of before the advent of radio, automo- biles, telephone and electric lights. I
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get them all in time. You don't have meadow north of Haven street was to worry about those at the top, divided into acre lots about 1830 and eventually they will fall right into sold at public auction. One of these your hands." A statement that is ab- lots purchased by my grandfather, solutely true.
Isaac Howe, is still held by his heirs. I am old enough to remember at
While the Pokanoket Club is pay- ing $15.50 a ton for coal, Amos W. Thanksgiving the turkey roasted on Shumway, who previously owned this the spit before the open fire and the Dutch oven in which were baked cream of tartar biscuits, which once in a while took the place of raised bread in my mother's household. The faggots. made by my father, were burned in the brick oven preparatory to baking pots of beans, brown bread and a goodly supply of pies. In the fall the most perfect pumpkins were selected and baked in the brick oven, the, pulp to be taken out with a wooden spoon and eaten in bowls of the richest milk. I still remember the long handled wooden shovel which was used in taking the pies out of the oven. farm, as did his father before him, cut on the farm wood lot, as did all other farmers in the town, all the fuel used in their households. The big wood pile containing a year's sup- ply of wood, which had been carefully worked up during the Spring months, is especially remembered on this farm, although it was characteristic of most Dover farmers. During the Summer the wood was carefully housed in the wood shed. and as evenly piled as cord wood. Those farmers, however, who thought that dry wood burned too freely, filled their sheds with cords of the clearest pine wood which was used in kindling The cranberry bogs through ne- glect are now overgrown and no longer yield their fruit which was once carefully gathered and often sold in the Boston market for $20 a barrel. The larger harvests were gathered on the river farms in the west part of the town. The decline in the cranberry crop on Dover farms is probably due to the cultivation of more marketable varieties on Cape Cod. On every river farm there was a "cranberry board" (and if a mod- ern one) it had a wire screen in the the green wood fire. Every night a bushel basket was filled with shav- ings and carefully split pine wood, which was used in building the fire next morning. This chore was never neglected and many a country boy was trained to habits of care and thoroughness through its daily per- formance. This was my job on my father's farm and I well understood that it was never to be neglected, al- though the shavings had to be made with a draw shave each day and the wood carefully split. With the intro- middle on which the cranberries were duction of the air-tight stove, peat, received and assorted for the market. of which there are good deposits in The board was heaped high with Dover, came into use. In the Spring the winnowed berries, which as they peat was cut in the meadows into passed to the first gate were care- bars about two feet long with the fully screened, removing all sticks, peat knife. (A picture of such a stems, and shriveled berries. An at- knife, used for many years on the tendant at the second gate carefully Chickering homestead, is given in the removed all soft and decayed ber- Narrative History of Dover.) The ries and passed them on to the last bars of peat were piled cob house fa- gate where they were carefully in- shion about two feet high and al- spected and all white or imperfectly lowed to dry during the summer. In colored berries removed, as they the fall it was housed and burned rolled into the barrel in which they during the winter months. A peat were sold. In those days farmers
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had to depend upon flour barrels, for carefully bled. The whiteness of the shipment of their fruit, which veal, which is so much appreciated were picked up in Boston, or at is brought about by the excessive stores in the vicinity. As some bar- bleeding of the animal. "The calf rels held from a peck to a half pen and the sheep pen" have disap- bushel more than others, every far- peared from these old farms. There mer had a "barrel measure" which were numerous traders especially in he applied and so selected the smal- adjoining towns who dealt in cattle lest barrels in which to ship his and were out among the farmers for crop. Picking over cranberries in a the purchase of stock, as follows:
warm kitchen in November was a Asa Clark, John A. Newell, and most agreeable task, which as a boy Francis Hammett of Medfield have many times done in my Charles Hartshorn and Horace Drap- I father's house or for $1.50 a day in er of Walpole. the kitchen of a neighbor.
At an earlier time Jabez Baker, Bula Bullen and George Cleveland were traders of the town. Joseph Fisher of Westwood, Thomas Gould of Natick, and James Kennedy of Dedham, bought and sold horses and traded with the farmers.
Some farmers had a few hop vines (perennials) for which they cut each year long pine poles on which the vines ran during the summer often reaching to the very top. When in full bloom, the poles were cut down
Sheep have long since disappeared and stored in the barn. On the first but some of the numerous places on rainy day all took hold to pick the Charles River, where in the spring of blossoms, which were dried and used the year, they were washed for in making potato yeast and hop beer, shearing, are still pointed out. A a concoction in which spruce, winter good shearer could shear twenty-five green, liverwort, and sarsaparilla sheep a day for which he was paid were steeped with the hops. All these ingredients my mother often lar. At an earlier time sheep wash
gathered for the "home brew." This wholesome drink was often brewed and drank by the whole family dur- ing the summer months.
from seventy-five cents to one dol ing was a gala day, liquor was free ly used against exposure.
Swine were kept on every farm and as they increase rapidly were found to be a profitable investment. Stone the clearest pork, with a goodly sup
The pastures which once fed many cattle are now grown up to wood or jars of the whitest lard, barrels o: underbrush which has greatly changed the face of nature as I re- ply of sausage, ham and bacon wer member it. Most farmers made it a found in every farm house. The ba business to fatten young cattle, con of that day was the smoked an which were sold as beeves in the fall pickled shoulder and not the thir and the profit used in paying the strips of inferior pork called "bacon' year's taxes. Others fattened oxen today. during the winter and turned them
Farmers were interested in the in the spring for a younger team weekly live stock quotations in th with which to do the year's work. On "Boston Cultivator", "New England every farm, until superseded by the Farmer," and "Ploughman," all o production of milk for city residents, which agricultural papers circulate the fattening of calves through the in Dover. The Wednesday cattl spring and summer months was a market at Brighton was attended real industry as the presence of mar- not only by the traders of the town but by the farmers as well, who of
ket men would show. Every farmer had his set of lances, and the day ten took their boys along with then before slaughtering, calves were to their great delight and pleasure
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The Brighton market covered a large at the nearest sawmill which was of- area which is now built over with ten but a short distance away. For- tunately there were no portable saw- mills in those days. Carpenters in the fifties rceeived $5 a week, or a dollar for a single day's work. Young men worked in the mills at Charles River Village for $8 a month and their board; while married men re- ceived $13 a month. These prices held up to the time of the breaking out of the Civil War in 1860. houses. This area was divided into pens for swine, sheep, cows, matched oxen, steers, and young cattle, to- gether with horse trading around the large stable in which the horses were housed. The yards on the south of the main street were for eastern cat- tle, especially those from Maine. Drovers from this section put up at "Skates Tavern," while others stopped at the big "Cattle Fair Hotel" on the other side of the street. The feed- ing of swine was reduced to a sci- ence. In the early morning, to bar- rels of water which stood in every pen was added shorts and such a quantity of salt as would create the greatest thirst. Troughs were con- stantly filled with this mixture and every pig was made to drink as much as possible, for every pound thus added was turned into cash when the pig was weighed. Wednesday eve- nings droves of cattle passed through the town being driven to Rhode Is- land and points south.
There has been a wonderful im- provement in the water supply since my boyhood days, when in time of drought, which seemed to come often, all the water used in my father's family, that of my uncle, Joseph A. Smith, and some of the neighbors, had to be carted from a never fail- ing spring on our farm. Barrels and half hogsheads placed on stone-drays and drawn by oxen were filled with water. To prevent plashing a board was placed on the water and in cold weather half hogsheads were filled at night and allowed to freeze over be- fore transporting. I note windmills, as well as driven wells, which now supply Dover homes.
While carpenters are charging $12 a day for work on these farms, and clear pine lumber at one time (1920) was selling at $240 a thousand, the farmers a half century ago did their own carpentry, cut their own timber, on their own land, and had it sawed
The few oak trees left standing, companions to those long since cut for ship timber, have largely suc- cumbed to the ravanges of insects. The cutting through the year of large quantities of fire wood, lumber, and the burning of charcoal, which found a ready sale in Boston, kept the farmers, who were constantly on the road loaded with ship timber, charcoal, hoops or cord wood with a considerable amount of ready money.
Dover farmers stoped over night at a tavern at the Southend, just across the Roxbury line and from this fact the well known Dover Street in Bos- ton gets its name. Every farmer carried cold victuals and a two- quart runlet filled with new rum from which he frequently quenched his thirst. Some of his neighbors prob- ably stopped for meals with Jona- than Battelle, who had a victualing house in Roxbury. In the Dover Street tavern there was a long hall with beds on either side which ac- commodated at least forty persons. Here the farmer selected an unoccu- pied bed, or if there were none un- occupied, turned in with a neighbor (often amid a snoring crowd). In the winter the farmer was up by times (long before daylight) to feed his oxteam and get an early start down town.
Edward W. Grew's house lot, "Jun- iper Knoll," was a pasture in my boy- hood days, which in early summer was blue with low blue berries, which were succeeded by the half high blue berry which lasted into the early fall.
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In damp places the swamp blueberry here on tall trees, which made apple flourished and in many fields the low picking very hard and difficult. Now black berry was found in abundance. farmers set out dwarf trees and pick Black raspberries, (thimble berries) most of the fruit while standing on and high blackberries, not to mention the ground. Many farmers kept a wild strawberries were gathered in barrel of Roxbury russets tightly large quantities especially where the headed in a dark place in the cellar, ground had been burned over the pre- or buried in a sand bank, until old ceding spring. To the gathering of election day the last of May, when it was opened for the family and the apples found to be as hard and sound as when bathered in the fall. This was the farmer's cold storage.
this fruit squads of berry pickers- women and children-came from South Natick. To market this fruit, and other products of the farm, mar- ket men having regular days for their Boston trips are recalled as fol- lows: John Harden, North Medfield; Frederick H. Wight, George D. Ev- erett, and Sumner Allen of Dover and earlier Reuben Draper of South Na- tick It will readily be seen that this business netted many thousands of dollars in the aggregate to Dover farmers
Fifty years ago Dover was as well supplied with butcher's carts, baker's carts and fish carts as any of the surrounding towns: the fish dealer also carried a full line of tropical fruits, and announced his arrival by the blowing of a long tin horn which gave rise to the saying "You can't sell fish if you don't blow your horn."
In the virgin soil all kinds of fruit trees flourished. Every farmer had an abundance of black mazard, oxheart and white heart cherries, it was all out doors."
which ripened in succession and fur- nished the family with abundance of
this healthful and delicious fruit. town) every plow. cultivator, hoe, or
Peach trees bore with such profusion that a tip-cart load was often gath- ered from a single tree. Pears were raised for the market and the "Bart- lett pear" of those days was never excelled. There was considerable va-
Hundreds of bushels of native fruit were gathered in the pastures or cleared fields which were either sold at the mill or made into cider. I re- member that my father sold one year more than five hundred bushels of such apples at Holbrook's mill at South Sherborn, which I had helped to gather. The making of cider vin- egar was a business on many farms. The fact that there were 12 cider mills in town. with others just across the line in Medfield, Sherborn, and Natick shows the value of the apple crop in those early days. Henry Goulding made large quantities of vinegar which he stored in casks on long stringers in the open air. The wit of Hiram W. Jones is recalled who after calling on Mr. Goulding remarked that he had the largest vinegar plant he had ever seen, that
On my father's farm (and this was generally true thrughout the spade was carefully cleaned and put under cover at night. The mowing machine was housed and nothing of iron or steel construction was left in the field to rust out.
.. Dealers in agricultural imple- riety in grafted fruit, and sweet ap- ments tell us that the hard lot of ples of which large quantities were the Western farmer is greatly ag- raised and sold in the Boston market gravated by the practice of leaving were grown. Baked sweet apples, unhoused the tools used in their work eatén with bread and milk, were and so frequent renewals at large ex- every where a favorite dish and con- pense are required.
Haying always commenced imme-
sumed in large quantities. The gen- uine "Roxbury russet" was grown diately after the Fourth of July, and
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with the cutting of the river mea- neck had great keeping qualities, dows, often extended into September. beans tomatoes (at first called love Preparatory to haying the road was apples) turnips, including the ruta- mown out and not a vine or shrub bagas and the Swede varieties, citron, was left standing. The roadside was musk-melons, and water melons. carefully raked and all that was not good for fodder or bedding was care- fully burned. Seeds for all this variety of vege- tables were carefully saved from the best specimens of the year, and those which had varied in the direction of some desired excellence. At plant- ing time the seed of not one of this
As my father's farm extended for a third of a mile on both sides of Smith street, which was originally cut through the farm, it was no large variety of vegetables was small task to mow the road out, a wanting, or had to be purchased at the village store. All seeds were
job which I am sorry to see is now left undone and the roadside is al- carefully saved and stored in the lowed to grow up to wood. Previous "seed box" and exchanges were of- ten made with neighbors ,when the value of a new variety had been es- tablished. to the purchase of mowing machines in the early sixties, all mowing, spreading of the grass to dry, rak- ing, pitching on in the field, and stor- Economy was practiced in the corn ing away in the barn, was done by field. At the first hoeing all miss hand. While my father was milking hills-where the corn had failed to come up-were planted to beans; at the second hoeing a liberal quantity of pumpkin seeds were planted in the the cows in the morning the hired man did 2 hours mowing in the field before my mother's 6 o'clock break- fast was ready. Some farmers hills with the corn and at the last dropped an egg into a glass of cider hoeing turnip seed was sown broad- which they drank before mowing in cast. In the fall the beans were the morning. Supper was at 5 carefully pulled and stacked to dry. o'clock, and in haying time, scythes After the corn was removed in the were ground after supper for an fall the ground was literally yellow early start in the morning. The hay with pumpkins, and later an abund- crop, now neglected. was an import- ant crop of turnips was gathered, all ant crop and enough hay was often of which was in addition to a heavy sold to pay the year's taxes and no crop of corn. The turnips and pump- small part of the cost of the family kins were carefully housed and used groceries .. in stock feeding as long as they
In the vegetable garden of today I could be kept from freezing in the do not find the variety of vegetables cold barns of that day. Rings of that were once grown on Dover pumpkins for winter use were cut farms. There were not only green and dried in the sun by the house- corn, which was first raised on these wife the practice having been learned farms by the Indians, but peas, from the Indians.
beans. a variety of greens (which in- Never having had a sister I do not cluded beet greens, mustard. pig- know all the ways the girls had of weed, dock and parlsey,) cabbage. earning spending money. Women of parsnip (grown from seed gathered most families added substantially to from the best specimens of wild their income by sewing straw hats or parsnip growing by the road side) bonnets, the material for which was carrots, lettuce, onions (often roast- put out by the Medfield Straw Works. ed in the winter for the cure of colds) A wagon, especially built for the pur- radish, beets, (grown for the weekly pose covered the territory each week, codfish dinner) cucumbers, a great va- during the winter and spring, put- · riety of squashes of which the crook- ting out many thousand yards of
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straw braid which was returned in $650,000, for the support of hospitals hand-made hats and bonnets.
An exceptinoally smart sewer was employed by D. D. Curtis Co. of Med- field, at the opening each season, and her pace in sewing hats and bonnets, of the different kinds of straw, was set for all sewers and the price fixed accordingly.
did this as a boy more than 70 years ago. Popcorn was raised by the boys, especially after the rice variety was introduced and sold to the grocers in the vicinity in order to get a little spending money. They gathered the yellow cowslips (marsh marigold, the spring) and gave them to their
mothers, or sold them to those who wanted to purchase greens. Older boys had been known to take an axe to school and during the noon hour
Many a housewife earned a hundred and fifty dollars in a season and when joined by daughters, the family in- come was greatly increased. How often have I seen Mrs. Eudora Shum- cut cord wood. In this way they way Sawin at this work, and I have earned considerable money during no doubt the money earned in this the winter term of school. I recall way went to the Dover Historical So- that Charles H. Chickering, father of ciety, as Mrs. Sawin, with her hus- the present town moderator did this band, was a founder of the Sawin one winter. Memorial.
Some boys picked strawberries in their season, for the farmers who en-
I know perfectly well how the boys got money for the Fourth of July, gaged in strawberry culture. At that picnics and cattle shows, including time strawberries were sold in full the performance of Prof. Harrington, quart boxes and every berry was the ventriloquist, who made yearly hulled as it was picked from the vine. visits to the surrounding towns to I have myself picked two bushels of the great delight of the boys.
strawberries a day and hulled every
Some interesting facts have re- one. Boys had an opportunity to cently been established with thirty- earn money by picking peas for those five boys and thirty-five girls in a Boston high school, showing how Boston market.
farmers who raised them for the The pickers were much and how the average child of paid so much a bushel for their work. hard working fathers and mothers Excursions for gathering wild spend their money today. The can- grapes and barberries in the fall were vass shows that the average high of especial interest to boys and both school girl in the district spent $4.15 products found a ready sale.
weekly while the boys spent $2.53. Boys picked berries covering the This money was spent by the boys succession of low blueberries of June and girls for telephone, carfares, to the high blackberries of Septem- soda and ice cream, candy and gum, ber. Chestnuts were gathered in the
cigarettes, movies and theatres, fall and for three dollars some boys dances and lunches. In addition to built the fire in the district school the above the girls spent for hair house during the winter term of dressing and for face powder, while fourteen weeks; others pumped the the boys spent for ball games and church organ for five dollars a year. pool and bowling.
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