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Gc 974.401 W89n v.2 1134244
M. U.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01101 2280
WORCESTER'S $2,000,000 MUNICIPAL MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM
WORCESTER COUNTY
A
Masz.
NARRATIVE HISTORY
By JOHN NELSON
AUTHOR, JOURNALIST AND MEMBER EDITORIAL STAFF THE WORCESTER TELEGRAM AND THE EVENING GAZETTE
VOLUME II
---
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC. NEW YORK 1934
一
15.00 (3vols)
CHAPTER XXXIII.
History of Worcester County Stores 1134244
The mercantile history of Worcester County is yet another instance of the extraordinary extremes represented by the early days and the present- the primitive country store and the great city emporium. Both, strange to say, classify as department stores. The isolated rural merchant had to keep in stock everything demanded by the every day needs of his customers, who were the people of his village and of the farms round about. He must carry dry goods and clothing and shoes ; meats and groceries ; hardware and cutlery and fishing tackle, firearms and powder and shot ; crockery and kitchen ware ; medicines and candy and numerous "notions"; materials for home indus- tries ; farm and garden seeds and farm and garden tools ; dairy supplies, and on through a seemingly endless list. The city store of today can hardly boast a greater number of "departments."
As a village emerged into the beginning of a populous town, its mercantile interests broadened. Instead of being dependent upon the one general store, the people had their specialty shops which opened one after the other,-drug store, dry goods and millinery store, butcher shop, tailor shop, hardware store, which, perhaps, also took on the aspect of a department store. Rival establishments came along. Eventually each growing community took on some of the aspects of a small city.
But many of our county towns did not grow rapidly, and some never grew at all. They had no important manufacturing, or, if mills were estab- lished, they were located at a distance from the center, and by their presence created villages of their own. The old village store continued to be the main- stay of its community. In such of these places as were off the railroads, this condition continued for many years, and, in fact, country stores of this char- acter may still be found within the boundaries of the county.
The trolley lines had their effect upon those stores that came within their immediate influence, in giving the country people easy and cheap access to the
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WORCESTER COUNTY
cities and large towns, to the stores of which they transferred a part of their trading. Yet in the villages into which the street railway penetrated, the stores continued to prosper in a moderate way. A great many of them had not changed their methods for years. They looked within and without as they had always looked. Some of their owners wakened to the fact that if they were to survive they must put their business on a modern basis and proceeded to do so. Others dragged along in the same old way.
Then came the automobile, and with it a revolution in the buying habits of farmers and everyone else who lived in the country. The motor car became as necessary a piece of farm equipment as the mowing machine. The village storekeeper either adopted "city ways" of merchandising his goods, or sold out, or failed. Yankee enterprise, which perhaps had been lying dor- mant, came to life. The village store put in its gasoline pumps and in many instances a service station. Its proprietor learned to cater to the tourist trade. He began to sell cold drinks as a new "department." In some cases his family started a lunch room, and converted their best chambers for the convenience of passing travelers.
Time was when stage coaches stopped in front of the same old building, to leave and take on mail, and were received by the proprietor of the very same store. Now it is the motor car that pulls up at the door, to have its tank filled with gasoline, or to permit its occupants to do a little country trading. So, when the chain stores began to invade the towns, the village stores were very far from finding their competition ruinous.
It is difficult even to imagine what the very earliest stores were like in . Worcester County, then the wilderness Nipmuck Country of the Massachu- setts Bay Colony. First was the occasional trading post established by some venturesome Englishman who saw his chance of making large profits from barter with the Indians. The pioneer settlers may have had some slight dealings with such as he. It is conceivable that in a little settlement some household started keeping a few necessities for the convenience of their neighbors and their own profit. Such a store, if one may call it that, was a cabin of logs, rude to the last degree. Yet out of so small a beginning may have evolved the country store of the village period of the community. More likely, perhaps, a wide-awake individual of the coast towns had his eye open for an opportunity, and finding it in a growing settlement, proceeded there with a stock of goods and started business. Whatever the beginning, a village did not have to arrive at any considerable population before it had its store.
For many years very little money entered into the business of the rural store. The differences in currencies between the Colonies, and, following the Revolution, the confusion of currency, made barter the only practical method
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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY STORES
of country business. Not only was the trade of the store carried on in this manner, but charges in the taverns, doctors' bills, ministers' salaries and the hire of labor were paid in kind, in farm produce such as corn, rye, wheat, flax, or articles of home manufacture, such as blankets, coverlets, fabrics, and baskets. It was known as "country pay." One merchant told the story in a brief advertisement which said, "All kinds of country produce will be received in payment and every favor gratefully acknowledged. Good rock salt exchanged for flaxseed or rye, even."
Likewise, the country storekeeper must have bought his stocks of goods from the wholesaler by barter, which, it is not impossible, was highly profit- able to the city merchant, whose opportunities for disposing of the products of the farms and such backwoods commodities as furs, and the profits thereon, could not have been known to his customer. There could have been little passing of gold and silver.
An Old Country Store-Frederick A. Currier of Fitchburg, whose antiquarian research was in the latter part of the last century, brought together reminiscences to paint a true picture of the country store of a hun- dred years before, as follows :
"Entering through the narrow door, the customer found himself in a room whose unplastered walls and ceiling crossed by beams were thickly hung with all sorts of goods. The shelves, from floor to ceiling, were filled with such articles as a plain people would call for, the dry goods being . arranged with an eye to effect with different-colored fabrics in contrasting streaks, fresh goods upheaving the old and easily traced in strata, while fancy articles hung from hooks in the partitions of the shelves.
"From under the counter came cotton batting and factory yarn, and the woolen skeins spun by farmers' wives. There was no show window display, as is customary at the present day. Many remember the calicoes of those days, deep-dyed in indigo-blue and red, the bandanna handkerchiefs mottled with white, the cotton thread, knotted in hanks and exhausting the best range of color.
"There was no commercial traveler in those days, bringing his samples to the merchant's door, but twice a year the trip to Boston by stage was made to buy new stock. Its arrival was as great an event as the 'openings' of today, the women taking samples of the calicoes, which they washed and hung from their windows to dry, to test the colors. They were makers of rare bargains, buying stuffs which brought solid comfort, washing well and wearing well ; the silk and sheen, which were their real texture, were imparted to them by the satisfaction they had in them. Country maidens fitted their calicoes with care and wore them with exquisite neatness; if they overrated the fineness of
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the fabric, their worldly ignorance helped them to be satisfied and happy in small things. In a row of drawers were kept the few pieces of silk and webs of lawn and lace. The lawn was of good quality, and from it, when her time came, she who had never known gay attire was sure to have her last robe decorously fashioned by loving neighbors.
"From the lace were made the caps worn by matrons past middle life, the borders being prettily wrought with floss. Such webs were apt to get shop- worn, with yellow streaks and indelible creases, positive toothmarks of time; but there were no 'bargain sales' on account of these brands of long posses- sion. The storekeeper always assured the women the streaks would wash or wear out. He may have had an artist's eye for the mellowing of his goods, and loved that creamy tint which creeps along its folds into the meshes of old lace-indeed into all long-woven, undyed fabrics.
"A peculiar odor pervaded the place, sometimes of molasses, sometimes of fish, and again of tea and coffee, with a faint scent of snuff or a strong smell of New England rum when the trapdoor to the cellar was lifted, where were also kept the butter and pork. The spigot of the molasses hogshead, at the rear of the store, seemed always drizzling into the tin measure, which in summer made an excellent fly trap. The molasses had a yeasty trick of foaming, and once in a while it sugared.
"The little box of a counting room had its walls zig-zagged with broad tape, a receptacle for bills and letters, many yellow with age, while the upper- most, with faded labels, had served as roosts for generations of flies.
"The candies of these stores were a delight to the children, who looked at the red and white sticks in the brass-mounted jars with longing eyes. These candies might be rather stale, but to the buyers a freshness was imparted to them by their rarity.
"The country store served as the village debating society, and around the stove of winter evenings the discussion was of topics forestalling the weather, of stock and produce, of sickness, of the prices, praising the work of wives and daughters, and criticising the latest sermon. The people loved discussion, and party spirit ran high. Affairs of state and nation were handled with crude but clear logic ; especially before town meeting many important ques- tions were earnestly considered. Many of the company were tireless whit- tlers, keeping the storekeeper well supplied with kindlings. Unoccupied composure is said to be the outcome of polite society, and the whittling of the store loiterer simply the force of the habit for work oozing from his fingers' ends.
"The store of a late autumn day was often like a miniature fair, and the storekeeper and his clerk had not a minute to spare from his twine and yard-
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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY STORES
stick. The farmers' wagons, driving up with their butter, eggs and produce, departed with lighter bundles, and the occupants with quicker steps, they having been enlivened by the sight of new goods, the meeting with old friends, hearing the latest news, and going away refreshed. Promptly at 9 o'clock the store closed its door and talkers and listeners went home."
The storekeeper of a Worcester County village was usually an important citizen. The mere fact that he had sufficient capital to engage in the business gave him a standing above most of its fellows, and very often he was hon- ored by his townsmen by election to town office or to the General Court. Fre- quently he was entitled to write Esquire after his name. Occasionally, the storekeeper was lacking in the strict ethics of New England business, and it even happened that his customers were driven to practice as sharp methods toward him as he toward them. But usually, only the honest merchant, known to his community as one to be trusted, his word as good as his bond, survived to build up a place for himself and his business.
As we have said, the department store of today is merely a large scale duplication of the rude establishment where our forefathers did their trad- ing. But the modern store does not carry what was perhaps the most impor- tant item in the whole inventory of the old time predecessor, that of spirituous liquors. In their sale lay the rich source of profit. A license was required, which probably helped the seller by restricting competition. The place in the lives of the people occupied by strong drink, and particularly rum, may be noted in the charges in the ancient daybook of the village store at Lunenburg for the year 1800, as follows :
I gal. N. rum, 3s. 6d.
Rum and crackers, Is. 3d.
6 yds. India cotton, I2S. I orange, 4d.
I doz. crackers, IS.
Spirits and snuff, Iod.
1/4 lb. Souchong tea, Is. 6d.
I qt. N. rum, IId. "Goods Chawked Up," 4s. Iod.
13/4 calico, 4s. 5d.
2 qts. molasses, Is. 9d.
Peck of salt, 2s.
2 lbs. cotton, 4s.
1/2 doz. eggs, IS. 11/2d.
21/2 lbs. salt fish, II12d.
I lemon, 612d.
I lb. butter, Is. 9d.
I 1b. raisins, Iod.
3 mackerel, Iod.
14 muslin, Is. 5d.
Spirit and lemon, IS. Lemon and spirit, Is. 6d.
2 lbs. of sugar, Is. Iod.
1/2 mug toddy, 6d.
One gets a very good idea of the needs of people in the enumeration of goods contained in the published announcement of the opening of a new store, as follows: "General assortment of English, American, and West India goods, among which are: Black, brown, olive, green, violet, mulberry and mixed broadcloth ; buckskin, plaid, black, blue, drab and lavender cassi-
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WORCESTER COUNTY
meres ; satinets ; pilot cloths; silk, Valencia and velvet vestings; flannels; sheetings ; bedticking ; a large assortment of merinos, and dark prints ; alpine, black and colored silk; bonnet linings; Highland and Valencia shawls; silk and cotton handkerchiefs ; scarfs; wrought muslin caps and collars; lamb's wool, merino, mohair, cashmere and worsted hose; black and white silk; embroidered silk ; kid gloves, buckskin, woolen and Berlin ditto; black veils of superior quality, barege, jacoinett, plain ; spotted and plain muslin ; lace insertions and edgings; colored cambric; furniture patch; plaid and brown tablecloths, damask, super brown and white linen ditto; silk and cotton vel- vets; white and colored wadding; plain, gilt, figured and lasting buttons ; short boas and comforters ; etc., etc.
"Also prime molasses, flour, rice, teas, coffees, tobacco, raisins, brimstone, spice, oil, salt fish, sugars, snuff, figs, sulphur, saleratus, salt port, etc. etc .; flour cloths ; boot and paint brushes, dusters, brooms, and broom brushes, together with many other articles not enumerated. All of these are offered on the most reasonable terms."
It will be noted that no mention is made of brandy and rum. Perhaps the temperance movement was responsible for the departure from a time- established practice, or perhaps the proprietors considered it wasted printers' ink to mention so obvious an item of merchandise.
Anecdotes of the Village Store-It took a resourceful and worldly wise storekeeper to meet the exigencies of business as conducted in the village store. Stories have come down through the generations which illustrate the relations that sometimes existed between merchant and customer. Several of these have to do with Captain Oliver Fox who conducted the "Old Red Store" in Fitchburg in the period from 1810 to 1814-a wide-awake ani shrewd man, but so were those who dealt with him.
One day Joel Page, Sr., was in the Red Store and mentioned the havoc grasshoppers were making on his farm. "Pooh! pooh!" said the captain, "I'll give you two dollars if you can bring me a bushel of grasshoppers off the whole farm." Forthwith, Mr. Page hurried home and set the entire family gathering live grasshoppers, and the next day presented himself and the disputed bushel in a bag. Fox denied the two dollar bargain, and refused to pay, but the farmer was firm in his demand, and vigorous words passed back and forth. Finally, Page declared that unless the money was forth- coming instantly he would dump his myriad of grasshoppers on the floor. Thought of a storefull of hopping insects quickly won the wagered cash.
Tea in those days was a luxury and sparingly used, and storekeepers were popularly supposed sometimes to get the first use of the leaves before they were offered for sale. Captain Fox was under the suspicion of the good
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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY STORES
housewives of the village and farms. Suspicion also rested against the farmers who used wood ashes for making their domestic soap and were charged with drying the leached potash and mingling it with unleached when it was sent to the store for sale or barter.
One day a farmer loaded a wagon with barrels of ashes, and his wife drove down to the Red Store. "I suppose you are taking ashes?" she said. "Oh, yes," replied the captain, and ordered that the wagon be driven to the shed and unloaded. The good woman entered the store, and bought tea and spices and other articles, until there was a balance of 17 cents against her. She had just concluded her shopping, when the clerk called the captain aside and whispered that the ashes looked suspicious. "Hold on," cried he, as the customer was mounting to the wagon seat. "Haven't those ashes been leached?" "Oh yes," she called back, "but I thought they'd do in paying for tea grounds."
Another astute customer learned how to get the better of a storekeeper. A somewhat notorious character who lived a little out of Fitchburg, walked into a store one day and handed the proprietor a bottle with the request that it be filled with New England rum. The merchant went to a row of barrels, filled it, and handed it to the waiting customer, who, after putting the bottle in his pocket, fumbled through his clothes for the money, and could not pro- duce one cent. He said he must have left his cash at home, and would pay the next time he came to town.
"No you don't," cried the storekeeper, "that won't work here. Hand back that bottle," which the man did with evident reluctance. The proprietor poured back its contents into the barrel, and returned the empty bottle, saying, "Don't you ever come into this store and ask for liquor without having your money with you."
The would-be patron strolled out of the door, and hardly had entered the open air when he pulled a bottle from a pocket and took a long and satis- fying drink. He had worked an ingenious game of substitution. On the way to town he had filled one of a pair of bottles with water from a wayside spring. In returning the bottle, he had handed over the water-filled recep- tacle, and the indignant storekeeper had not noticed the difference as he poured its contents into the rum barrel. The story got out, and the proprietor was charged by his cronies with having lost nothing, for he had sold the water mingled with the rum at full price.
The liquor business of the country store was astonishingly great. Social drinking was common practice, of course, and many stores made a practice of providing a stimulating drink for customers every morning. One store compounded its social glass of rum, raisins, sugar and nutmeg, pleasing to
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the accustomed palate, and likewise stimulating. When the farmer came in with a load of produce, he must always have his jug of New England rum.
Home Straw-Braiding and Hat-Making-Later, the country stores did a great business in braided straw and palm leaf and hats made from them. In 1831 we find one of them advertising "Wanted, 10,000 yards of leghorn or eleven strand braid, also nice Dunstable and palm leaf hats, for which a fair price will be given." Women and children braided straw as a regular source of income, the latter being taught the art when very young. As there was no machinery, every straw hat or bonnet had to be made by hand.
The rye straw brought from the field was bleached on the grass, scalded in soapsuds, and smoked in sulphur in a barrel, and then dried and split into strands with a little hand machine. It was then ready for braiding, which was done in many pretty patterns. There was always a ready market for it, through the stores, among the manufacturers of hats.
The palm leaf braid and hat manufacturing as a home industry followed that in which the native straw was used. Some of these hats found their way to America in 1829, and a Boston merchant noted their durability and saw a future for them. He imported a few bales of the palm leaf from Cuba, and employed a Dedham woman to take one of the hats to pieces, learn how it was fashioned, and try to make one like it. She was successful, and chanced to teach the art to a Petersham woman, who passed it on to her neighbors, and the industry spread all over the county. The greater part of the business was transacted through the country stores, which furnished the families with the palm leaf and purchased of them the braided material or the completed hats.
These hats after being sewn into form, were very rough, and had to be ironed smooth, a task that required strength and therefore was passed on to the men-folk. Gradually the palm leaf hat industry centralized in factories. At the peak of popularity of this broad-brimmed headpiece, one Barre fac- tory was turning out the seemingly incredible number of two hundred thou- sand dozen annually. Old people remember when nearly everyone who labored under the summer sun wore a palmleaf, and it was invariably asso- ciated with farm work.
It was in an Upton store, through the purchase of straw braid and the manufacture of straw bonnets, that the great Knowlton hat business of that town had its beginning.
Prices of the Years 1800 and 1900-"Running over diaries, letters, and account books and utilizing whatever 'prices current' have come down to us and such advertisements as one can find in the newspapers, it is possible to reach a rough approximation of something like a chart of prices," wrote
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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY STORES
Channing. "Taking five commodities that may fairly be classed among the necessities,-flour, beef, coffee, sugar, and butter,-let us compare prices in 1800 and in 1900. In April, 1800, a householder at Boston could buy one pound of each of these things for eighty cents ; his successor a hundred years later would have paid one hundred and ten cents or about one quarter more. A century ago, beef and mutton were cheap, costing about eight cents a pound. Breadstuffs, on the other hand, were high; corn bringing seventy- five cents a bushel or more and flour costing from eight to ten dollars a bar- rel. Coffee was a little cheaper than it is now, but sugar cost from fifteen to twenty cents a pound, instead of five or six ; and butter brought twenty cents instead of about thirty-five for the same grade and season.
"There was considerable variation in prices in different parts of the coun- try, owing to the crudities of the transportation system. Breadstuffs were noticeably cheaper outside of New England, but imported foods were as a rule more expensive, in these early years, at New York and Philadelphia than they were at Boston and Salem. One of the things that surprises a student is the constancy of the yearly average of food prices at any one place and the seasonal variations which are repeated year after year.
"Turning now from food to clothing, it appears that it cost about as many dollars and cents to provide a suit of clothes or a dress as it does at the present time. Fashions in clothing and nomenclature of goods change so rapidly that it is impossible to construct anything like a chart of prices of textiles. Cottons had not begun to take the place of woolens and linens in 1790, or even in 1800, and the price of fabrics had not yet been affected by the introduction of cheap manufacturing processes, cheap fibre, or the pro- duction of ready-made clothing of all prices and qualities. John Pierce valued a broadcloth suit, which a parishioner had given him, at forty-four dollars, and Jefferson paid twenty-eight dollars each for the liveries that were worn by the servants at the President's Mansion. Footwear appears to have been much cheaper then than now; ladies' slippers costing less than two dollars a pair. As soon, however, as one gets away from the everyday things that one associates with human existence, prices are out of all comparison with those of the present day.
"Up to 1800, house warming was by means of wood fires in the old- fashioned fireplaces, although Franklin and Count Rumford had already designed more effective means for utilizing the heat of burning wood and coal. About 1809 advertisements of stoves and furnaces begin to appear in the newspapers. Jefferson used coal brought from Richmond by water to heat the presidential mansion during a part of his term of office, and not many years were to pass away before Judge Pierce was having semi-bitumin- ous coal delivered at his house in Brookline for twelve dollars a ton. Taking
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