USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Rehoboth > History of Rehoboth, Massachusetts; its history for 275 years, 1643-1918, in which is incorporated the vital parts of the original history of the town > Part 24
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The influence of the Rehoboth Farmers' Club on the community was decidedly helpful as well as lasting. It served to stimulate higher ideals and better methods of farming; to disseminate valuable information through its library and its able discussions of vital topics; and to promote the social welfare of all concerned, making them better acquainted with and appreciative of each other.
After its mission had ceased, there was nothing to take its place until the organization of the Annawan Grange, Feb. 22, 1898. The Grange, known officially as "The Order of Patrons of Husbandry," stands for fraternity, education, and social help, and is designed particularly for the welfare of rural communities.
Millium M. Blanding
REUBEN BOWEN
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REHOBOTH AGRICULTURE
At the first meeting, which was held in the school-room of the Goff Memorial, the following officers were chosen: Master, Fred U. Cory; Overseer, Arthur C. Goff; Lecturer, Amelia Horton Car- penter; Steward, Frank A. Goff; Assistant Steward, Murray J. Bowen; Secretary, E. Gertrude Hobbs; Treasurer, Joseph F. Earle; Chaplain, Almon A. Reed; Gatekeeper, Frank H. Horton; Pomona, Mary L. Bowen; Flora, Mrs. Arthur C. Goff; Lady Assistant Steward, E. Amelia Horton.
The first regular meeting was held March 12, 1898, and on May 14, Welcome F. Horton, the first member by initiation, took the first and second degrees. The sisters of the Grange, by forming the Annawan Sewing Circle, raised $147 for furnishing the hall and also contributed towards the Lecturers' Fund and the State Educational Fund. Much good has been accomplished by sending books, flowers and fruit to the sick and "shut-ins" both within and outside of the order.
On April 28, 1908, the Grange, having met for ten years at the school-room in Goff Memorial Hall, received from the Annawan Baptist Church and Society the gift of their meeting-house, which they fitted up and have since occupied. The Grange has been free from debt since 1910, and an annual clam-bake helps to pay current expenses.
Through this organization, instinct with life, the interests of agriculture have been promoted, indirectly by stimulating social fellowship and directly by frequent lectures on some vital phase of the farmer's life.
Mention should be made of the several herds of fine cows in town. The brothers William B. and M. J. Bowen have for many years maintained a large herd of pure-blooded Holsteins, sending daily their full yield of milk unchallenged to Attleborough. George S. Baker also has a fine herd of Holsteins at "Hill Crest"; and Irving W. Kimball of South Rehoboth has a finely-bred herd of twenty-five registered Ayrshires; and there are numerous mixed herds which supply several milk-routes. Thomas MacNeil of South Rehoboth, a successful milk producer, has a remarkable Holstein cow with a record of eleven quarts (23.8 lbs.) in five hours, from 7 A.M. to 12 M. Frank H. Horton of Rehoboth Village owns a high-grade herd of Holsteins.
In 1855 there were in town 755 cows, 324 horses, 694 swine, and 567 neat cattle. In 1900 there were 1,188 cows, 569 horses,
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264 swine, 164 neat cattle, and 16,322 fowls. In 1916 there were 1,271 cows, 542 horses, 325 swine, 343 neat cattle, and 26,229 fowls.
These facts show an increase in live-stock on the whole, but with fewer horses now than ten years ago, and less than half the number of swine in 1855.
This increasing aggregate of live-stock on the Rehoboth farms is a sign of agricultural improvement. Farms cannot be kept at their best when the hay is sold off and but few cattle are raised. It has been well said that "Livestock farming is the best farming in the world, the enriching of soil and people."
State agricultural experiments show that alfalfa will grow readily in Rehoboth, and the raising of sheep again on our farms is strongly recommended by experts in that industry.
The State Legislature of 1856 directed the assessors of each town to collect information touching on various pursuits of the inhabitants for the year ending June 1, 1855. The following items are taken from the Rehoboth report :-
Number of horses, 324, valued at $21,329.
Number of oxen over three years old, 284; steers under three years old, 69; value of oxen and steers, $13,613.
Milch cows, 755, heifers, 163; value of cows and heifers, $25,- 648.
Butter, 43,837 lbs., valued at $1,686.10.
Honey, 180 lbs., valued at $36.
Indian Corn, 754 acres; average per acre, 25 bushels, valued at $18,660.
Rye, 195 acres; average per acre, 9 bushels; valued at $1,785.
Oats, 279 acres; average per acre, 163 bushels, valued at $2,333.
Potatoes, 306 acres; average per acre, 66 bushels, valued at $15,135.
English mowing, 2,995 acres; English hay, 1,946 tons, valued at $36,028.
Wet meadow or swale hay, 982 tons, valued at $8,838.
Salt hay, 34 tons, valued at $340.
Apple-trees cultivated for their fruit, 12,135; value of fruit, $3,850.
Pear-trees, 140; value $75.
Cranberries, 10 acres; valued at $891.
LEWIS TAVERN
ANNAWAN GRANGE HALL
GRENVILLE STEVENS
CHAPTER XI NATIVE TREES
THREE centuries ago, before the white man's foot had traversed the Indian trails, Rehoboth's ample territory was covered with dense forests, including trees of many kinds, both large and small, with a tangled undergrowth of shrubs and ferns. A carpet of lush grass, dainty moss and creeping evergreens covered the teem- ing earth, while bright blooms of many hues, - violets, crowfoots, gentians, orchids and myriads of others
"were born to blush unseen, And waste their sweetness on the desert air."
For a long time after the town was settled, the cleared spaces were small as compared with the extensive woodlands which shel- tered numerous game-birds and wild animals. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century, within the town's present limits there were large areas abounding in oak, maple, pine, birch and other trees, while the big swamps were filled with a handsome growth of cedar.
We shall not attempt here to set forth the complete flora of Rehoboth, for that in itself would require a small volume, but rather to speak popularly of some of the more interesting trees as they are related to the pleasure or profit of the community.
Realizing that the forests are an important asset to the people, we would stimulate the interest of all in conserving them as a de- light to the eye, as a means of gathering moisture, and for their commercial value as wood and timber.
At the end of this chapter a list of the native trees of Rehoboth will be given, which is as complete as our present knowledge can make it.
In writing of the trees we shall call each by its common name, referring the reader to this list for the scientific name. The list accords with the names given in Gray's "New Manual of Botany."
It should be borne in mind that there is no fixed dividing line between a tree and a shrub. As a general rule, it may be said that a tree must have a single self-supporting trunk, and be at least fifteen feet high. In this particular our list follows mainly the
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excellent "Hand-book of the Trees of New England," by Dame and Brooks.
While large quantities of wood and timber have been cut off within the past twenty-five years, there are still left extensive tracts of woodland, some ready to cut and some growing to a future harvest, perhaps for the second or third time. The State census of 1905 reported 11,114} acres of woodland in town.
A true lover of nature riding over the rustic roads of Rehoboth in the growing season cannot fail to be impressed with the beauty and abundance of the vegetation. Along many waysides the soil teems with a rich and rapid plant-growth. Luxuriant vines fes- toon walls and trees and adorn the banks of streams; the eastern branch of Palmer's River is a perfect bower of beauty in its course below the site of the Village mill; grape-vines, woodbines, clematis and even the poison ivy mount and cling to the trees and shrubs, while the river ripples and rushes on beneath their check- ered shade.
In many spots the charming Sumachs take on the habit of trees. The Staghorn variety, tall and stately, with velvety-hairy bran- ches, bearing unique clusters of reddish berries (drupes) clothed with crimson hairs, forms picturesque colonies in pastures and margins of woods.
The Dwarf Sumach with its shiny leaves, often a small bush, as on Cape Cod, has here tall and ample foliage and forms dense wayside and pasture hedges stretching onward for many rods, often mingled with the handsome smooth variety (Rhus glabra), and together very beautiful.
Most delicate of all is the Poison Sumach of the swamps, usually known as "Poison Dogwood," whose brilliant autumn foliage is unsurpassed in richness and beauty, which the wary ob- server will admire at a distance.
Excepting the Cedar of the swamps, the Oak is the most widely distributed of the native trees of Rehoboth. Of this genus there are at least eight distinct species in town.
The Black or Yellow Oak is a large tree fifty to eighty feet in height, common and valuable for its timber. The yellow and bitter inner bark is used both for dyeing and tanning. The foliage turns a dull red-brown in autumn.
Similar to the black is the Scarlet Oak, also quite common, but differs mainly in the turning of its bright-green foliage into
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a flaming scarlet in October, making it the most beautiful oak of the woods.
The largest of the local oaks is the Red Oak, "the monarch of the forest," growing as high as eighty feet and from two to six feet in diameter. Its large acorns rest in shallow saucer-shaped cups. It is common except in wet soils.
The White Oak is a magnificent timber-tree, unrivaled in the toughness and durability of its wood. It is extremely valuable for farm wagons, handles, furniture, and for many uses. Col. Lyndal Bowen and William Henry Bowen were famous for their elegant white oak axe-handles which were greatly in demand. The supply of this excellent timber is being rapidly exhausted. There are, however, many fine trees still growing in Rehoboth, of much value to the owners. Its long acorn is sweet and edible.
The Swamp White Oak is a handsome tree fifty to sixty feet high, of rugged and picturesque habit, with many of the qualities of the White Oak, but somewhat less valuable for timber. It is common in swampy land and on the banks of streams. Many fine trees of this species grow on Manwhague Plain. The aspect of the tree is rough and shaggy, the bark dividing into large, flat scales. The edible twin-acorns rest in cups with pointed or fringed scales.
The Chestnut Oak1 is a tree of medium size, twenty-five to fifty feet high, distinguished by its leaves, which have a wavy margin. Its long acorn has a deep, thin cup; quite rare in our local woods.
The Scrub Oak is common everywhere in sandy or gravelly soil and is apt to form thickets. It is attractive in spring when putting forth its fresh foliage. Its wood is hard to cut and of slight value.
The Scrub Chestnut Oak often grows with the Scrub Oak. It is a low, shrubby tree, not uncommon in town and of no special value.
The Chestnut is a large, handsome tree, well known and rather common in our woods. Its excellent timber is prized for rail- road ties, telegraph poles and numerous other uses. It is greatly to be regretted that a bark disease (Diaporthe parasitica) is de- stroying the species. The disease fastens on a spot in the bark of the trunk, then girdles the tree and kills it. Owners in town are beginning to cut and sell the timber. The Chestnut is doomed.
1 Reported by B. F. Munroe.
17
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HISTORY OF REHOBOTH
Hickory is a term which includes several closely allied species: one yielding the sweet shagbark or shellbark nut; another the infe- rior pignut; and a third, the mockernut, so called because its fruit, including the husk and shell, is large in comparison with the small, pent kernel, and is thus a mocker promising more than it fulfills. The three are rather common in town, especially the last. All have a firm wood excellent for fuel and for lumber.
The Hop Hornbeam or Leverwood is a slender tree twenty-five to forty feet high, belonging to the Birch family. Its fruit resembles hop-clusters. The white, firm wood is used for levers. A few trees grow in the woods northeast of Perryville, where the real Hornbeam is also found sparingly.
The Hornbeam, or Blue Beech, is a low, spreading tree, twelve to twenty-five feet high, with a trunk-diameter of six to fifteen inches. It is a tough, hardy tree, sometimes called "ironwood," and grows in low, wet grounds, and on the margins of swamps. Its bark, dark, bluish-gray in color, resembles the Beech. Not very com- mon, even in the southeast part of the town, where it gives its name slightly modified to the "Hornbine" Church and School. The town people are wont to apply the term "Hornbeam" to another and larger tree which is in fact
The Tupelo (also called Sour Gum and Pepperidge). It is a graceful tree of medium size, whose abundant foliage of a dark, lustrous green, turns in early autumn to a brilliant crimson. The fruit is a small sour drupe. Its wood, although soft, is close- grained and hard to split: The tree is wrongly called "Hornbeam." It belongs to the Cornel or Dogwood family and is therefore related to
The Flowering Dogwood, a small, handsome tree, admired for its snowy white blossoms in May or June, and for the rich color- ing of its foliage and fruit in autumn, common in the Rehoboth woods, which it brightens and adorns.
The Birches are conspicuous in town, particularly the Small White Birch, which is common everywhere. The Yellow and Black or Sweet varieties are less common, but are used in part as small lumber for special purposes.
The Mulberry is interesting as a survival from the silk culture of one hundred years ago. There are at least two scattered colonies in town, one near the Salisbury place in the Hunt neighborhood, and the other one near the I. N. Allen place north of Perryville.
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The Sassafras deserves mention for its graceful presence in every part of the town,- a tree of decided beauty, marked by its rich yellow or red-tinted foliage and fruit in autumn, and by the aromatic odor and spicy flavor of all its parts, especially the bark of the root. Though usually a small tree, Miss Mildred E. Bliss reports four trees in a clump on the "River Meadow" each more than thirty inches in circumference.
The Swamp or Red Maple is abundant in our lowlands and is beautiful alike when flowering in spring and ripening its leaves in autumn.
The Rock or Sugar Maple is scarcely found outside the Rocky Hill area, whence some of our finest shade-trees have been trans- planted, as may be seen in part on the premises of Edwin Cushing and of P. E. Wilmarth in the Blanding neighborhood. In October the resplendent foliage of this noble tree surpasses in bright colors all other trees of the forest.
The American Holly (Ilex opaca), often a tree fifteen to twenty feet high, is found in North Rehoboth, and on the borders of Man- whague Swamp. On account of its spiny, evergreen foliage and bright red berries it is much prized for Christmas decorations.
The Basswood or Whitewood is very rare in town. The writer has seen specimens of it growing on the slopes of Rocky Hill and in the woodlands north of Perryville.
Of the cone-bearing trees of Rehoboth, the Hemlock, though rare, is worthy of mention. Its great size and extremely delicate foliage render it conspicuous. The women of the olden time made brooms of its silvery evergreen sprays, and the boys, cross- bows of its brittle but elastic limbs.
There is in town no native Spruce or Fir or Larch. A few small trees of Red Spruce have sprung up on the C. F. Wilmarth farm in North Rehoboth, but nearly every one has been cut for a Christ- mas tree. They were not native, but doubtless started from the seeds of an ornamental spruce on the old Rounds place near by. In like manner we may account for the few diminutive Fir trees growing in the swamp on the B. F. Munroe farm. They have es- caped from cultivation and seek in vain to become established in this climate; whereas the White Pine and Cedar are at home here and grow naturally.
The Red Cedar, too, grows freely in these pastures and uplands. On Great Meadow Hill and elsewhere it mingles with hardwood
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growths and is rather common. Its wood is pale red and aromatic and is prized for posts.
The Cedar (White Cedar) is a symmetrical tree of medium size, twenty-five to fifty feet in height and from six inches to two feet in diameter, with a brownish-green foliage and an aromatic wood. It formerly covered the town's immense swamps which, taken together, contain perhaps two thousand acres. Large quantities of this elegant timber have been sawed into shingles and box- boards, and some of it into boat-lumber, as the wood is light and buoyant. Within recent years portable steam-sawmills have been introduced and the timber in and about the great Manwhague Swamp has nearly all been harvested.
In 1910-13 Joseph Lunan & Sons of Fall River operated their mill on the border of this swamp and built a corduroy road into its midst, cutting off not only the vast cedar supply, but also the magnificent pine timber in the near-by forests, along with consider- able quantities of oak and maple.
The ordinary method of securing cedar is to cut and haul it from the swamps while the ground is frozen. There are still left many acres of this fine timber in the northern or Squannakonk Swamp, as well as large areas still uncut in the swamps of North Rehoboth, along the Meadow Hill Brook, through C. F. Wil- marth's land and northward.
Above Stevens' Corner, and running up into Norton and At- tleborough, is a cedar swamp of some four hundred acres, one hundred acres of which is said to belong to Rehoboth and is owned by numerous parties in small lots. In all these swamps there are many small trees growing along with the larger timber trees, which are in demand for oyster-poles. These bring a good price: e. g., Mr. Wilmarth recently sold standing, eight hundred poles at twenty cents each.
It is remarkable that when the cedars are harvested, as in Man- whague Swamp, there springs up a growth of Red Maple with a mere scattering of pines and cedars. What is the cause of this? One theory is that the seeds which come up have been lying dor- mant for many years and are now favored by the changed con- ditions. Another theory is that the birds and winds carry the seeds from outside, which are now free to grow. Still another theory is that seeds may be and are spontaneously produced. We leave the problem for our readers to think about and discuss, only sug-
SIXTY-YEAR-OLD PLANTATION OF WHITE PINE IN REHOBOTH Owned by Mrs. Clara I. Hubbard and Miss Fannie Dowse.
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A VIEW OF THE HUBBARD-DOWSE TRACT, TAKEN INSIDE THE WOODS
Acknowledgment is made to the State Forestry Department for photographs used in a bulletin,-"The Older Forest Plantations of Massachusetts."
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gesting that the skeptical should take a tramp through the southern end of Manwhague Swamp.
The White Pine is a stately conifer from fifty to eighty feet high and from two to four feet in diameter. The foliage needles are in clusters of five, and in color a soft bluish-green. Not count- ing the cedar, the pine has been the chief timber tree of the town, much of it having been made into box-boards. Within twenty- five or thirty years there were extensive pine woods in Rehoboth, especially in the south end of the town, but the portable sawmills have laid them low. In the years 1887-9, James Smellie of Fall River ran a three-fold mill, for shingles, long boards and box- boards, and harvested large areas of choice pine in South Reho- both. Later, Alfred Moore of Providence stripped the "Mason lot" and the enormous pine-bearing tract in the vicinity of Devil's Pond. In 1913, Hugh A. Smith of Attleborough harvested the Munroe lot of one hundred and ten acres, north of Perryville, and also the Marcus Round and other lots, containing much hard- wood, but also considerable pine. Thus have the noble pine forests of Rehoboth disappeared. Will they grow again? Not as ex- tensively as before: for one thing, because more land is being cultivated. To make sure of future growths of pine the trees must be planted.
We are glad to direct the reader's attention to the pine woods on the Christopher Carpenter farm, half a mile north of the Vil- lage. This grove, containing seven acres, was set out in 1860. The trees are in regular rows ten or twelve feet apart each way. They now, after a growth of fifty-seven years, average fifty feet in height and contain, according to the State Forester's estimate, 306,570 board feet. The grove is impressive by its size and stateli- ness and merits its designation as the "Cathedral Woods." There are scores if not hundreds of acres of land in Rehoboth which might be profitably planted with pines, including a considerable part of the ministerial farm. Forty years hence such trees would be a valuable asset for their beauty as well as for their worth in money. "The planter of the present day," says the State Forester, "can assume that he is investing for a 10% or 12% return."1
There is a growing interest throughout the State in the pres-
- 1A disease known as the White Pine Blister Rust threatens the destruction of all the white pines. It has not yet been discovered in Rehoboth and may be avoided by destroying all currant and gooseberry bushes which first take the disease and communicate it to the pines.
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ervation of our forests, whose enemies are fire and moths. Hitherto the moths have done little if any damage in Rehoboth.
In accordance with legislative acts of 1911, a State fire-warden was appointed with district deputies to supervise the work of the town wardens. The smaller towns have been provided with a fire-fighting apparatus costing $500.00, for which they pay one- half the expense; and a system of watch-towers has been instituted for the early detection of fires. One of these towers, of which there are nineteen in the state, rises from the summit of Great Meadow Hill, which has an elevation of 263 feet, the highest in town. This tower is forty feet high and commands a view of Rehoboth and, in part, of the surrounding towns. A road runs over the hill past the tower, passable for wagons, but rough with stones. An observer is on duty every day from March to November inclusive, who is paid $60.00 a month. When a fire breaks out he locates it by the help of a disk marked with the points of the com- pass, and phones the local fire-warden or a deputy. The present town warden is Benj. F. Munroe, and the observer is Joseph Zilch. The town in which the fire occurs bears the expense of fighting it. Neighboring towns aided the state in building the tower, - Rehoboth, Taunton and Attleborough contributing $100.00 each and Norton $50.00.1
Modern forestry shows, - although the custom is centuries old in Germany, - that forests can be kept growing indefinitely and yield a steady profit to the owners by cutting off from time to time the mature trees, leaving the younger to grow in their turn to the harvest.
A sound financial policy wisely applied would protect our trees from careless destruction; but too often a narrow greed of gain causes a senseless waste of tree-life with scarcely an adverse thought on the part of the owners or lumbermen, whose sole aim is the coveted dollar or its equivalent.
In view of this tendency we would lay special emphasis on the aesthetic value of trees and woodlands in a town. The living tree is Nature's symbol of strength and beauty. "And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water." To look daily upon beautiful trees is to have their beauty reflected in our lives and to take on a certain ruggedness of character. Our forests should be
1 There were two annoying fires south of Rehoboth Village in October, 1916.
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taxed low enough to encourage the owners to spare and enjoy them. This idea of proper conservation should be drilled into the minds of our children. The poetic sentiment of "Woodman, spare that tree" would make our people richer in the love of nature and of the Great Author of nature.
"My heartstrings round thee cling Close as thy bark, old friend! Here shall the wild bird sing, And still thy branches bend. Old tree! the storm still brave! And woodman, leave the spot,- While I've a hand to save, Thy axe shall hurt it not."
A LIST OF REHOBOTH TREES
Abies balsamea, (L.), Mill. Fir; Balsam fir.
Chamaecyparis thyoides, (L.) B. S. P. Cedar; White cedar.
Juniperus virginiana, L. Red cedar.
Pinus rigida, Mill. Pitch pine; Hard pine.
Pinus Strobus, L. White pine.
Tsuga canadensis, (L.) Carr. Hemlock.
Populus candicans, Ait. Balm of Gilead.
Populus grandidentata, Michx. Large-toothed aspen.
Populus tremuloides, Michx. American aspen.
Salix alba, var. vitellina, (L.) Koch. White willow.
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