USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Whately > History of the town of Whately, Mass., including a narrative of leading events from the first planting of Hatfield, 1661-1899 : with family genealogies > Part 12
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As we met the boy nearest ten years old, just starting for the mill, with two bags of grain on the old horse, and himself
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perched on the top of the bags, and saw the father and older boys at work with the oxen, we find only the mother and the girls and the younger children at home. If it is early morning we find them in their woolen short gowns and busy at work ; perhaps it is dairy work, perhaps common housework, perhaps getting on the great pot for dinner, for the pudding needs three good hours' boiling. Very likely the mother is carding wool or tow, or perhaps she is spinning on the great wheel if it is wool or tow, on the little wheel if it is flax. Or, perhaps, from a peculiar thwacking noise, we know she is working at the loom overhead.
If we stop to dinner, as we had better do if invited, we shall have a most savory platter of "boiled victuals," corned beef and pork, with turnips, green corn and beans, and a full-sized Indian pudding. The pudding will be served first, or rather we shall be called upon "To help ourselves," as they all do. A mug of homemade beer is ready to go from mouth to mouth, as required, and the "tapster," the boy who got up last in the morning, is ready to fill it up again when empty.
If our call is made of a winter's evening, even if we go early, there will be a roaring fire, for the evening backlog is always of extra size, as the boys don't want to put in a new one before going to bed and all want a good bed of coals when they get up in the morning. With the great forestick and an armful of wood well going, the room is warm, and almost as light with- out the pine knot or tallow candle as with it. The trundle-bed is out and the three little ones are snugly asleep. Their mother is busy mending, for do what she can the children will tear and wear their clothes, and "It is so much handier," so she says, "Mending them when the children are out of the way." Later in the evening she will be knitting, as this is never finished, for "grandpa" wants his stockings full, and so long that they will garter over the knee, and eleven pairs of feet, the average num- ber in a family then, can try both mother's and grandmother's nimble needles. The girls are sewing, perhaps the youngest is playing hull-gull or checkers with the brother next her in age. The boys are shelling corn, or splintering candle wood or ciphering. The father is peeling Indian brooms, or bottoming chairs, or braiding a whip, or, when he feels like it and the yarn is knit up close, he holds the skein for the mother to wind a new ball, "The girls do make such work, when they and the boys wind it !"
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You are struck with the deference, amounting almost to reverence, which is paid to the aged grandparents. They are expected to take the lead in conversation and the younger ones do not even whisper when they are talking. Grandmother is privileged to say what she pleases and to whom she pleases and - when she pleases. If conversation should seem to flag, the wife is ready to tell, with just a little of pride, how many "runs" she has spun in a week besides taking the whole care of the milk ; what extra luck she has had in "dyeing" ; and the new style of check she wove in that best blanket; and how much linen she put in the last web of linsey.
Perhaps a neighbor drops in, and then for some good sto- ries. If it is Master Scott or Benoni Crafts, he can tell of hunt- ing exploits with bears and deer most marvelous and fascinat- ing. He does not seem to be so very old, but you wonder how a man can go through in one lifetime all that he recounts. If it is old Mr. Parker, he loves to tell how the witch flew from the top of Sugar Loaf and lighted on a large oak that stood close by the highway near Joseph Sanderson's, and broke or bent the top into a curious shape, and then disappeared in the ground, leaving a hole which, to his certain knowledge, could never be . plowed up! And which, he might have added, the children always passed on a run and upon "The other side!" If the visitor be a Belding or a Waite, he is full of reminiscences of King Philip's war, when his ancestors were scalped by the Indi- ans or taken off to Canada. And, after the flip has been passed round, Lieut. Ebenezer Bardwell will give his own experience in the French wars, which are so fresh and full of incidents of Indian cruelty and torture, and told with such minuteness and graphic power as to make the younger girls crouch behind their mother's chair, and tremble when they go to bed. But all is hearty and sincere, and "without offence." And the evening prayer that comes before the last good night is "sweet incense," because offered from grateful and confiding hearts.
Such were the homes of the olden time, then common throughout this valley. And "home" was then a word with a real meaning, for home occupations, home pleasures, home associations and relationships filled up the round of daily life.
The want of commodities creates a demand, and a supply soon follows. A gristmill was built at Indian Hill by Lieut. Adonijah Taylor about 1763, and a sawmill only two or three years later. The sawmill stood where the Sandersons' mills
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now are, but the gristmill was some distance below. Afterwards a gristmill was built farther up the glen. About the same time a sawmill was built by Edward Brown at West street, on the site of the present mill owned by Rufus Sanderson & Son. And somewhat later, but before 1770, a gristmill and sawmill were set up by Reuben Belding on the site known as the Isaac Frary privilege. A tan house was built, probably in 1763 or '64, by Paul Belden. ·
For the raw material of a new supply of clothing they had only to wait till the first clip of wool and the first crop of flax could be prepared. The working up into cloth was all done at home. As early as 1709 Hatfield voted that Jeremiah Waite have liberty to set up a fulling mill at West brook, reserving the right to build a sawmill there, should occasion ever require, but it wasn't done.
Cotton from the West Indies began to be used in the valley quite early. It was spun upon a large wheel, like wool. Checks and stripes of all cotton, or cotton and wool, were not uncommon. Checked shirts were all the fashion for men and boys in this neighborhood for some time before the Revolution. Checked aprons and striped bedticks were in use. But the largest part of the cloth for ordinary wearing apparel and bed- ding was made of wool or linen or a mixture of the two, called linsey-woolsey.
Tow, which is the refuse combings of flax, was used for coarse stuff. Homemade tow cloth was of ready sale to the country merchants, who sent it to Hartford and other centres of trade where it was in demand. Many a young wife, or older daughter who expected scon to become a wife, has got out a web of fine tow cloth and exchanged it for calico or silk, or other coveted articles of dress or household luxury. The price of tow was about three pence per pound, and the common price for weaving it was six pence per yard. Yard-wide tow cloth sold at two shillings a yard, though the price varied according to circumstances. Checked cloths of linen and woolen were also an article of traffic and were sometimes made in excess of the household wants and exchanged for such things as the house- wife needed. Flaxen yarn was quite commonly prepared for market by such families as had an extra crop, and after the Scotch emigrants, who excelled in spinning and weaving, set- tled in Pelham, a lively competition sprang up in both the yarn and cloth trade, [perhaps it would be hardly fair to say that
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there was a jealousy of the foreigners] but it is believed that the Scotch women carried the day, both in fineness and evenness of thread and cloth.
When the daughters of the first settlers were grown some of them became adepts at spinning and made it a specialty. Theodora Scott, daughter of Benjamin, was a noted spinster, both before and after her marriage with Stephen Orcutt. As a matter partly of curiosity and partly characteristic of the time, and showing how much yarn of different kinds a young family . needed in a year, and how much a woman could do with her wheel for the support of her family, a single year's account is copied in full from Parson Wells' account book:
1781.
THEODORA ORCUTT, CR.
Sept. By spinning II Runs at 7s 4d, 3 Runs at 7d fo 9 I
Feb. 11. By spinning 4 Runs for handkerchiefs, O 2 4
Mar. 2. By spinning 8 Runs linen yarn at 7d O
4
8 1
Mar. 2. By spinning 5 Runs tow yarn O
2 8
Mar. 6. By spinning I Run fine tow yarn at 7d
0 7
Mar. 13. By spinning 2 Runs woolen yarn, O
I
4
Apr. 8. By spinning 13 Runs tow yarn 6 II By spinning 14 Runs linen yarn at 8d O 9 4
Apr. 29. By spinning 912 Runs fine tow yarn at 8d O 6
May 13. By spinning 2 Runs thread for stockings at 8d o By spinning 4 Runs fine tow yarn at 8d 2 8
I 4
By spinning 3 Runs coarse tow yarn at 4 old tenor O
I 7
By spinning 3 Runs coarse linen yarn at 6d O
I 6
June 19. By spinning 8 Runs fine yarn for lawn By spinning 22 Runs coarse linen yarn at 6d O
8 O
June 24. By spinning 2 Runs linen yarn at 8d
July 5. By spinning 10 Runs tow yarn at 4 old tenor 5 4
9. By spinning 372 Runs tow yarn at 4 old tenor O
I IO
JI. By spinning 10 Runs tow yarn at 6d 5 O
25. By spinning 3 Runs fine linen yarn at 8d By spinning 2 Runs coarse linen yarn at 6d By spinning 2 Runs fine tow yarn at 8d
I
4
31. By spinning I Run fine tow yarn at 8d O
9
6
Sept. 11. By spinning 9 Runs coarse tow yarn By spinning 2 Runs sent to Miss Graves O I I
By spinning 4 Runs tow sent to Miss Graves 8 Runs tow 6 O
5
£ 5 410
1781.
THEODORA ORCUTT,
DR.
Sept. 27. To 4 lbs 9 oz cheese at 5d
£o I II
To cheese 2 lbs 13 oz -- Do. 1 1b 14 oz at 4d 0 I 7
2
I O
8
Aug. 24. By spinning 19 Runs coarse linen chain
II O
I 4
4
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Sept. 27. To one pound old tobacco at 5d fc o 5
Oct. 17. To 212 lbs cheese at 5d-Do 6 lbs 14 oz at 4d o 3 4
Jan. 10. To 3 lbs 9 oz salt pork at 8d O 2 4
To 1 1b 13 oz cheese at 6d O IO To 12 bushel of parsnips at 2 I O O
Feb. II. To 2 1bs 5 oz tobacco at 4d,4 lbs 2 oz salt pork 0 3 4
Mar. 5. To 9 1bs ro oz salt pork C 5 9
April 2. To 4 lbs 3 oz rolled tobacco 8. To 7 lbs 10 oz salt pork, 2 lbs suet at 6d
I 5
8. To 6 lbs 9 oz flax 4 4
17. To 6 1bs fresh offal, beef, I bushel parsnips 3
May 4. To 5 lbs 5 oz salt pork; 17th, 814 lbs do., 2 lbs sugar at 7d O IO
30. To I 1b I oz rolled tobacco, good
O
4
J'ne 12. To 1 1b do., 4 lbs 15 oz salt pork
O
3 7
July 5. To 5 lbs 9 oz salt pork, 7 lbs cheese
O 6
4
Aug. 2. To 5 lbs 10 oz salt pork at 8d, one cheese 4 lbs 9 oz 5
24. To 6 1bs 12 oz cheese, 7 lbs 10 oz salt pork 3 7 3
To 2 lbs sheep's wool at Is 6d, 1 1b tow at 4d O 3 4 To 434 1bs salt pork, 4 lbs 10 oz cheese at 4d O 4 II To 7 pounds 12 ounces flour at Is O
I O To 12s of Mr. Marsh, old way IOS To I bushel Indian corn 3s of Mr. Graves
IO O
3 O
23. To cash delivered your brother Elijah Is Id
I I
· To I oz indigo of Dr. Chapin To 6 shillings received of Martin Graves
O IO
6
To 2 bushels of rye of Mr. Adkins at 3s
6 O
£5 4 10
A "run" of yarn consisted of twenty knots, a knot was composed of forty threads and a thread was seventy-four inches in length, or once round the reel. A "skein" of yarn consisted of seven knots. An ordinary day's work was four skeins, when the spinner carded her own wool ; when the wool was carded by a machine, she could as easily spin six skeins in a day.
DYES. Logwood and indigo were the common dyes in use early ; later, madder was sometimes obtained. Cloth made of lamb's wool and of the finer grades of sheep's wool, as well as linsey-woolsey took a beautiful shade of color and was much prized by the young ladies A red riding hood set off to good advantage the plump face and natural tresses of the girls of that day, as did also the white sunbonnet.
Many families did all their own tailoring and dressmaking. Others employed some woman who had special taste and skill in these arts, who would come to the house twice a year and in a week or so cut and make, with the help of the inmates, the supply for the season. ,
6 I
I
2
5
I30
The first professional weavers in town were Robert Aber- crombie in 1779, Abijah Marsh in '82 and William Henderson in '89, but they had to depend for a living in considerable part on jobbing with the farmers. Perez Myrick, the clothier, was here in 1796, Capt. Amos Pratt in 1800.
VALUES AND PRICES. At this date all values were reck- oned in pounds, shillings and pence. A pound was equal to three dollars, thirty-three and one-third cents, and prices were estimated in currency instead of grain. There was, however, the "cash price" and the "barter price," the latter one-third higher than the former, and ordinary business was largely car- ried on by exchange of produce and homemade manufactures and labor. The wages of labor for an able-bodied man was three shillings (50 cents) a day in haying time, and two shillings for ordinary farm work. The common price of wheat was four shillings per bushel ; rye, 3s; meslin, 3s rod ; corn, 2s; barley, 3s ; malt, 2s 5d; flax seed, 4s 6d; turnips, 8d ; parsnips, 2s; good cheese, 5d per pound ; salt pork, 8d; flax, 8d; tow, 4d ; sheep's wool, 6d ; hops, Is ; indigo, Iod per ounce.
AGRICULTURE. The lands in the valley were found well adapted to wheat and this, with peas and flax, was the first. crop raised on the intervals. When these became exhausted wheat was raised on the newly cleared uplands. Peas were at first a favorite and profitable crop, but the yield soon diminished, or was kept up only by manuring, and the pea bug made its appearance and the crop was neglected. After a while, beans took the place of peas as an article of food, though not of traffic. Rye was not much raised till the wheat crop began to fail when it became, and long continued to be, an important crop. Barley was raised chiefly for the purpose of malting. Meslin, or mixt- ling, which was a mixture of wheat and rye, was pretty generally raised and used both for flour and malt. Indian corn was, however, the staple product of this as of all other parts of the country.
The season opened in spring quite as early as at the present day. Plowing began commonly the second or third week in April. Peas, oats and rye were sowed by the middle of the month, barley and flax by the first of May, and corn planting frequently began by May 5th. This crop was hoed three times, the hilling coming in July, as soon as the farmers had finished gathering the first crop of English hay. The corn was picked the last week in September and the first week in October.
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They commenced to mow upland English grass the last of June, and the meadows the second week in July. Rowen was cut the last of August. Rye, wheat and meslin were ready for harvest- ing about the 25th of July, barley a week later, and oats still later, though before August 15th. Peas were gathered the last of August. Flax was commonly pulled the first week in August, spread and turned in September and was ready to be taken up for "breaking" the last of October.
FOOD. Early in winter every family of considerable means killed fatted hogs and later a cow, the tender parts of which were used fresh and the balance dry-salted, or put in brine for summer use. This salted meat was the basis of the "boiled dish," which was the common dinner of the farmers. Very little fresh meat was used in the warm season. Next in importance, perhaps, came the boiled Indian pudding, which was regarded an almost indispensable part of a good dinner. Many families could say that they had as many puddings as there were days in the year. Indian was also commonly used for hasty puddings and Johnny, or journey cakes and samp.
Josselyn, 1674, says of Indian corn : "It is light of diges- tion, and the English make a kind of loblolly of it to eat with milk, which they call sampe ; they beat it in a mortar, and sift the flour out of it ; the remainder they call homminey, which they put in a pot of two or three gallons, with water, and boil it over a gentle fire till it is like a hasty-pudding ; they put this into milk, and so eat it. Their bread, also, they make of the homminey so boiled, and mix their flour with it, cast it into a deep basin, in which they form the loaf, and then turn it out upon the Peel, and presently put it in the oven before it spreads abroad ; the flour make excellent puddens."
Milk and bread or hasty pudding and milk, was a common breakfast and supper dish for children and old people. Pea soup or porridge and stewed peas had not gone out of date, though beans had largely taken their place. Baked beans, as a regular weekly dish, came into use as early as this town was first settled, though it was a dish unknown to our early English ancestors.
The bread commonly used was made of rye or meslin flour, and pie crust was sometimes made of this flour. Wheat flour was used to a considerable extent especially among the well-to-do farmers. Bolts to run by water power were set up in the mills and some families had hand bolts. The flour was not so fine as
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that now in use and, consequently, was much more healthful. Cakes and pastry made of wheat flour were kept on hand for "company" and for all extra occasions. Turnips were in uni- versal esteem and use as an essential part of the "boiled dish." By early sowing a summer vegetable was secured, and by sow- ing a second crop to succeed barley, or on new land burned over, they were tender and juicy through the winter. Parsnips were more rare.
PUMPKINS. Josselyn in his New England Rarities, pub- lished in 1674, speaks of pumpkins, squashes and watermelons as grown by the Indians and also by the English. He mentions a peculiar sort of round yellow squash which, when cooked and prepared with butter, spice and vinegar, was "The ancient New England standing dish." This is believed to refer to our pumpkin. In his Wonder Working Providence, written 1651. Johnson says, "Let no man make a jest of pumpkins, for with this fruit the Lord was pleased to feed his people till corn and cattle were increased." Baked pumpkin and milk was a dish much relished by many. The art of drying pumpkins seems to have been learned of the Indians. In spring and summer this could be soaked and used for sauce as well as for pies. In those early days "pumpkin parings" were as common in the fall as "apple parings" have been since, and made as merry an evening.
APPLES. A few apples were brought from Hatfield and Hadley as a luxury, but they did not, of course, come into gen- eral use till the trees had time to grow. The first orchards in our limits were planted by Abraham Parker whose widow made five barrels of cider in 1771, by Joseph Belding, who made that year four barrels of cider, by Benjamin Scott, who made three barrels, and Martin Graves, who made five barrels. Lieut. Ebenezer Bardwell probably set an orchard where he first built on the Deerfield road, and also another where he built a mile north of the meeting-house. Parson Wells set trees extensively on his land in the center of the town soon after 1771. He began to sell cider and vinegar as early as 1785. The price for apples was Is 6d per bushel, for vinegar, Is 6d per gallon and for cider, 5s per barrel.
POTATOES. Potatoes were unknown to the first settlers of Whately as an article of food. Justin Morton stated to the author, that "David Graves brought the first potato into town in his saddlebags on his return from Boston about 1765." He
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added, "The boys loved to go over to the Straits and do chores for Mr. Graves for he would give them a potato as pay and we used to carry it home and plant it. I can remember when they did not have any potatoes on the table for dinner."
"The culture of the potatoe, in this part of America, was first introduced by the Scotch who settled Nutfield. now Lon- donderry, N. H., in 1718-21." [Everett's Life of Stark.
The same people settled Pelham, Mass., about 1740, and started the cultivation of the potato there. It found its way into Hadley before 1760. At first it was regarded by our peo- ple as an unfit article of food, and the prejudice against it was slow in giving way. Many of the older folks refused to taste it till the day of their death. In some towns it was looked upon as a sort of forbidden fruit. The Rev. Jonathan Hubbard of Sheffield, who died in 1765, came near being dealt with by the church for raising twenty bushels of potatoes in one year. About 1780, potatoes are mentioned in Parson Well's account book, sold in small quantities of from one-half to one and two bushels. The price was Is 6d per bushel.
DRINKS .- Beer, made from malt and hops, was the com- mon artificial drink used in families at the time Whately was settled. Hops grew wild in many places, but most house- holders had a few hills in their gardens, or beside the pigpen. Malt was made of barley and meslin and a poor grade of winter wheat mixed with chess. A small family would lay in eight bushels of malt for a year's supply, while larger families would lay in as many as fifteen bushels. There is no record of a malt- house in Whately. The malting for our families was done by Joshua Dickinson of Hatfield, and afterwards by Mr. Wilkie. A strong ale was sometimes made, but the beer for common use was weaker, and was brewed in the summer time as often as once a week. Flip was made from this weaker beer. Barley coffee was considerably used as a breakfast drink-acorn coffee occasionally. Tea and foreign coffee were rarities at the tables of the common farmers. After apples became plenty, though beer continued to be used, cider became the family drink. Milk punch and flip were the favorite drams for home use, flip of the tavern loungers, and the latter was sold by the mug. After cider took the place of beer, cider brandy largely took the place of flip.
MAPLE SUGAR. The Indians appear to have learned the art of making syrup from the sap of the maple. As soon as
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they obtained kettles by barter with the whites they made sugar in considerable quantities, though of an inferior quality. They had manufactured it as early as 1750. It was made by the Chestnut Plain settlers ever after they became established, though at first in small quantities. Before the Revolution some families depended on it for their year's supply and, in 1784 or '85, it became to some extent an article of trade. The price at first was 6d per pound.
Maple sugar was made by most of the farmers living in the central and west parts of the town from a very early period. In the east part of Whately the maple was the soft or white maple and the sap flowing from this variety has but little saccharine matter in it. Early in the history of Hatfield large quantities of sugar were made on Mt. Esther, as well as other localities in Whately.
The name of Easter is the way that old people called Esther, and that hill is still more often spoken of as Easter than any other way. It gets its name from some one of the Hatfield dames who not only had a dairy house, but a sugar camp on that natural home of the sugar maple. It was fertile and pro- duced a rich supply of succulent food for the cows, and so the cows were driven to Easter, and the dairying was done near where the cows procured their food. But who the Easter or Esther was I do not know.
A dairy house was built by Salmon Dickinson, about 1745 to '50, on the lot owned by him adjoining a piece of woodland in the White pasture. This was about forty rods west of Chest- nut Plain road and the land is now owned by Robert Dickinson. This was used in the spring for the making of maple sugar and later in the season for dairy purposes. A daughter of Salmon Dickinson, Mary, married Samuel Dickinson who built where Samuel and Horace Dickinson lived so long, now owned by Rob- ert Dickinson. I have heard of others, but only know cer- tainly of one.
John Crafts built a dairy and sugarhouse on Easter about the time of the siege of Boston. He bought a number of cows with the view of taking them near to Boston and supplying the soldiers with milk, but the evacuation of Boston by the British and the removal of the army to near New York spoiled his plans, so he built the dairy and sugarhouse as mentioned above. His sister, Martha, did the work there several summers and I have often heard her relate many incidents of her life there.
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Among them that the pigeons were so abundant that when she fired a gun at them one time, just as they flew up in a huddle, she gathered up twenty-eight either dead or more or less disabled.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE TOWN INCORPORATED.
Before the town of Whately was incorporated, the town of Hatfield, at a meeting held 23 May, 1770, passed the follow- ing vote :
"Voted to set off the town or district to be made from the north part of Hatfield, on petition of the northern inhabitants."
Then follows the boundary lines of the new town as given in the act of incorporation. Recorded in Hampshire'Registry, book 67, pages 474-475.
From this it will be seen that the vote was taken nearly a year before the incorporation, showing that the subject had been agitated and the terms of the division agreed upon, includ- ing the rather sharp operation of so carefully arranging the line as to throw the expense of maintaining the bridge over the west brook on Chestnut Plain road.
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