USA > Maine > York County > Parsonsfield > A history of the first century of the town of Parsonsfield, Maine > Part 23
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In 1775 the woodman with his ax first came. Openings were made and four log-cabins erected that year. In 1780 eleven cabins, each with a hovel, surrounded with patches of vegetation among logs and stumps black as night, graced the landscape. Then one by one came the old pioneers, and little by little the shaded ground was opened to sunlight, till in 1785 full sixty punctures had been made in the dense woods, and as many smut spots revealed to the sight.
A colored picture of one of these new farms as they then looked would be interesting. Yet considerable progress had been made. Fields were
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fenced with logs. Acres of corn, rye, flax, clover and vegetables were producing luxuriantly, yielding a full supply of food for man and beast.
HOUSES.
When our ancestors first came into the wild woods of Parsonsfield, they built houses for temporary shelter similar to the logging-camps of the present day. These soon gave place to more permanent structures or else were made to do until saw-mills were put into operation.
The writer recollects one of these improved dwellings, built about 1780 and used as a shop late as 1820. It was not far from twenty by thirty feet, one story, hewn frame, boarded with shingles four feet long, a timber floor nicely smoothed, a home-made door with ball and socket hinges and big wooden latch lifted by a string. Slide windows admitted light and excluded cold. The chimney, at one end, built of rocks, clay and wood, was ample, substantial and almost ornamental.
The recess on one side was a bedroom, on the other the dressers where the grandmother ranged upon their edges, her well-scoured pew- ter dinner set. Hanging ladders did duty as stairs, while trap-doors saved the unwary from sudden falls.
THE KITCHEN.
It would require pages to describe minutely the kitchen of olden days. It was usually some twenty feet square. It served as pantry, cook and living room, and occasionally as sitting-room and parlor. Most prominent was the big chimney, with its broad mantle shelf, and fireplace capacious enough to admit a back log of the largest diameter four feet long. This foundation for a fire was dragged into the room and rolled over the glowing embers into its place. Then came back stick, fore stick and filling. From a wooden bar or iron crane, pot hooks and trammels depended, and perchance a big bellied iron pot The earthern dye-pot stood in one corner, upon which, according to tradition, the bright boy of the family was seated when his grandsire expounded the law. Hence the saying "dye-pot law."
Around and overhead, posts and beams stand out. There is a shelf in every niche, wooden pegs driven here, and wooden hooks fastened there. A long crane for drying clothes, swinging out or back as occa-
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sion requires, while just below the beams a pole extends across the room, always ready for use. Peg number one is for the long handled frying-pan, number two for the skillet, and so around to the brass warm- ing-pan hanging near the old folks' bed, under which is a trundle-bed all out of sight. Beneath the uncurtained front windows a well- scoured table stands, while between them hangs a looking-glass. A trusty gun, with flint lock, rests above the door. A few chairs and blocks are pushed into corners. And last but not least, in the middle of the floor is seen a box cradle, or possibly trough with rockers, in which is sleeping the fat-faced last comer, while the fond mother pushes forward her preparations for the next meal.
FOOD.
In the early years of the town people lived almost entirely upon the products of their land, flocks and herds. Commonly there was a full supply of corn, rye, potatoes, peas, beans and garden vegetables. The sweet grasses insured an abundance of milk and meat. Fresh air and plenty of exercise gave the children an earnest appetite.
. Before the introduction of brick ovens it was customary to bake bread either before the fire or by wrapping a loaf in cabbage leaves and bury- ing it in hot ashes. Potatoes also were roasted in the ashes, then shook till clean. Corn food was likewise prepared in the form of samp, hominy, hulled corn and hasty puddings. With ovens came baked beans, pumpkin bread, suet puddings, and apple dowdies. Prepared in these and other ways corn was the staff of life, palatable and wholesome. Our grandmothers could cook luscious cakes and pies, but they held that dainty food made puny sickly men and women. Tea and coffee were luxuries proper for the aged and infirm, but hurt- ful to growing boys and girls.
TRANSPORTATION.
At first most of the burdens were borne on human shoulders and the backs of horses. Single horses could wind in and out among stumps and logs better than yoked oxen. A grandmother said, "I helped bring to the stack on poles our first crop of hay." A grandfather said that he "killed a lamb, carried the meat to Saco in saddlebags and exchanged
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it for groceries." Panniers or side baskets were in frequent use. If the load was a single article a stone was used to balance it. Sometimes a sort of drag consisting of two crooked poles with slats across was at- tached to a horse. From this, first sleds, and what passed for sleighs, were common in winter.
Horses were trained to carry a man in the saddle with a child before him, and a woman with a child in her lap, on a pillion behind him.
The second step in farming was clearing and fencing the fields. At these log rollings oxen were necessary. Soon as the fields were free from logs, wheels and carts were introduced. A quarter of a century passed before road carriages were known.
LOG ROLLING.
Cutting down trees was the first work of the pioneer. These trees were neither few nor small. Most of them were from one to four feet in diameter. When the torch was applied to these prostrate trees the branches were consumed, but the blackened trunks remained, encum- bering the ground, till it was convenient for the farmer to pile them. A swamp or hillside was selected as a place of deposit. Neighbors were invited to change work. A gallon runlet filled with the best West India was procured.
Imagine a ten-acre lot now smooth and green as a lawn, covered with these half consumed giants of the forest. See a dozen stalwart forms in tow frocks "wetting the whistle" before they grasp the sharpened axes. Hear the noisy teamsters "haw" and "gee" to clear the frequent stumps. Log after log is drawn to the hillside and added to the pile by men with skids and handspikes.
The close of the day shows us the men of the morning covered with smut and ashes, tired and jolly, but proud of the betterments accomplished.
ROADS.
Parsonsfield is noted for its highlands and lowlands ; for its rocks and brooks, but more for its winding roads, which climb the highest hills, then dip into the lowest valleys.
In the plan of the town, land four rods wide, along every range,
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and every fourth check was reserved for highways. The original plan was not carried out. Families came in, one at a time and two together. Each selected an elevated and central spot for his domicile, and marked a path to the house of a neighbor by spotting trees. This foot track became a bridle path, then a sled road and finally a town way. One of the first acts of the new town was to require the removal of obstructions from these private walks, practically making them public thoroughfares. They were at best only such passways as farmers open through their woodlands. In the process of time stumps rotted, the larger stones were removed, and the surface of the roadbed leveled. Up to the close of the century the rattle of the modern car- riage had not been heard. It was the era of horse blocks, pillions and saddlebags.
IMPROVEMENTS.
During the year 1784 Thomas Parsons, Esq., built the first modern frame house in Parsonsfield. The boards were probably sawed at a mill he had in Effingham, where the Towle mill now is. Somewhere between the years 1785 and 1790 three saw-mills were put into opera- tion. One by Benjamin Smith at Blaisdell's Mills, one by Joseph Gran- ville where Lord's Mills are; the other by Asa and Josiah Pease, known as the Dearborn Mill. The working of these mills caused a revolution in buildings all over town, and prepared the way to an extensive lumbering business.
At first there were too many roots for plows, and too many stumps for the free passage of carts. The first wheels were sawed off from the butt of some elm tree, or other tough wood; they were four or more, inches thick with a hole in the center, bored with a pod augur and enlarged with a gouge. The style of plows introduced about this time were in common use down to 1820 and later. The hoes of the period were made to kill sprouts. Fork tines were as large as a farmer's fingers.
Soon as mills were erected, settlers went zealously to work drawing logs for boards, and timber for frames. Barns, to shelter live stock from storms and cold, as well as for the preservation of crops, seem to have taken precedence. Then spacious houses, boarded and glazed, having brick chimneys and ovens, but without a particle of paint or paper rapidly supplanted the old pent up cabins.
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New buildings gave an improved aspect to farms and homes. New roads were opened and old ones smoothed, facilitating neighborly inter- course and business interests.
With new houses came the desire and apparent necessity for more fashionable furniture. Ways and means must be devised to meet these expenditures, so the lofty pines, growing here and there all over town, were cut and drawn to the seaboard.
While the toiling husband and his stalwart sons had been providing better buildings, the thrifty housewife and her helpful daughters had been equally busy converting wool and flax into useful and tasty fabrics.
CROPS.
Hay, to the production of which seven-eighths of the improved land in town is now devoted, was at first found growing only on a few beaver meadows. A cow was sometimes exchanged for a ton of hay, and a sheep for a hive of bees, to insure good luck.
It was customary to burn a clearing early in the spring and sow the ground to peas and clover seed, thus providing for summer food as well as a hay crop the next season.
About the middle of May the torch was applied to the big cut down, intended for corn, and pumpkins. Patches of potatoes and beans were planted here and there. A suitable plat was reserved for flax. In August, winter rye was hacked in among the ripening corn.
The green pea was first in time: The common use of the dry pea gave rise to the couplet :
"Pea porridge hot and pea porridge cold, Pea porridge best when nine days old."
Corn was ground into meal in the distant mills or prepared for hominy and samp in the home mill.
Potatoes were buried deep in the ground on some hillside to save them from winter's frosty cold.
Flax was pulled and carefully spread upon the ground or beneath still water, two or three weeks, to rot. The outer coating was mashed with a sharp edged hand-brake, after which the deft workman at the swingling board beat the broken husk from the fibre. Thus prepared
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the good woman of the house drew it through a many toothed flax comb, to separate the tow from the linen, preparing one for the foot- wheel, the other for the hand-cards, the spinning-wheel and loom.
Before the erection of barns, rye was threshed by holding the bundle above the edge of a bin or cask and whipping the heads.
Time brought about changes. Plows came into use. Hay-mows grew in size. Cotton supplanted flax sixty years ago. At nearly that date wheat and rye were grown in about equal quantities.
Oats were introduced soon after and have grown in favor till now they constitute more than half our grain crop.
BUSINESS.
The primary women of Parsonsfield carded, spun, wove, colored and made up the family clothing. Their handiwork, though not so fine or showy as the garments and fixings of today, would outwear our mod- ern flimsies seven times over.
The implements of the men were home-made, but answered well their purpose.
The farms yielded a supply of corn, rye, potatoes, peas, beans and flax. The flocks plenty of wool, and the herds an abundance of meat milk, butter and cheese. Then there was a disposition to share the surplus with the needy. People lived and helped others live.
In process of time, carding and cloth-dressing mills were built. Tanneries were planted here and there. Trained tailors and shoe- makers succeeded.
Soon as saw-mills were put into operation the transportation of boards to our sea ports commenced. 'Lumber was our principal export up to 1808. In time the business drew farmers from the plow and field to the woods and highways. It was a set back to improvements and prosperity.
The opening of stores was coeval with the exportation of lumber, the millman and merchant often being the same. Over the store door the sign "West India Goods and Groceries" was affixed. Rum and other liquors, molasses, salt fish and crockery could be found within.
The embargo, or non-intercourse between the United States and the colonies of Great Britain checked these imports and exports. From
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1808 to 1812 business was paralyzed. It was hard to return to the frugal methods of primitive days, and harder still to find means to meet increasedj expenditures. The war of 1812 to 1815 gave to business a little life. Following close upon the return of peace were the cold years of 1815 and '16, and the suffering during the first half of 1817.
During the summer of 1816, there was a killing frost every month, with snow occasionally. There was no southern or western granary, from which to draw supplies. Labor was not wanted, for there was nothing with which to pay. A wealthy farmer* said, that not being able to buy, he borrowed a bushel of corn of a miser, gladly promising him fourfold the next winter.
REVIEW TO 1800.
Having traced farming operations and changes from the first openings in the wilderness to the close of the last century, we will pause and note the condition of this all-important industry and the families engaged therein. As more than ninety-five per cent were nothing but farmers, their wives and children, it is convenient to include the few exceptions.
The gain in population was from nobody in 1775, to eleven men in 1780, then sixty-two in 1785 and one hundred and fifty in 1794, while at the beginning of the new century two hundred and seventy-one names of residents are on our tax lists.
It is safe to assume that there were then at least two hundred and fifty farms under cultivation, a majority of them having comfortable buildings, and producing food sufficient for the whole population. Also that the increase in valuation kept pace with the increase of pop- ulation. The changes already delineated prove that the augmentation of comforts and conveniences were even greater than the gain in pop- ulation or wealth. Neither should we overlook the great gain in social educational and religious privileges.
*Dea. John Pease.
CHAPTER IV.
TOWN BUSINESS-1785.
ON the twenty-fifth of September, 1785, a town-meeting was called to act upon matters pertaining to the interests of the inhabitants. They first voted to remove obstacles from roads, or rather,to make their bridle paths passable. By the second vote, preliminary steps were taken toward building a meeting-house, but this vote was made void by the action of a subsequent meeting, and the meeting-house question dragged along till 1790, when Mr. Parsons put up and boarded a house according to his agreement with the Shapleigh proprietors. After a controversy last- ing four years the town withdrew opposition and the house was finished and paid for by the members of the Congregational society, but the town was allowed to hold meetings in it for nearly forty years.
The selectmen went through the ceremony of assessing a ministers tax on all up to 1796. Then on Congregationlists till 1802, when all connection between church and state ceased in Parsonsfield. The taxes of all who asked were abated.
ROADS-1786.
At several town-meetings during the year 1786, special attention was given to the opening of roads. The first one accepted by the town was from Province Pond through the Doe neighborhood to New Hamp- shire line, probably connecting with the Effingham road over Grace's hill. A road from Francesborough (now Cornish) to Granville's mill was pro- vided for. This was from East Parsonsfield over Chapman's hill, then aslant Merrill's hill and along the mountain road to near the Emerson schoolhouse, thence to Lord's Mills.
Preliminary steps were taken this year to make the Middle and South roads public highways. These projected roads were not imme- diately completed. In 1794 the County Commissioners legally estab- lished a road from Effingham, by Lord's Mills, Middle road, South road and so down that road to Newfield line. For fifteen years the selectmen
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were busy locating and altering. Porter Bridge was commenced, 1798, and finished after two years. Kezar Falls Bridge was not built till 1832.
TOWN-1787.
At the annual town-meeting, 1787, more than half the officers chosen refused to take the oath required by law. We can only conjecture their reasons for refusing. One theory is that they would not agree to assess and collect the ministers tax required by law, but as there was no Congregational minister in town and Elder Weeks could not claim a salary, this supposition is not probable. Another and more probable conjecture is that they were opposed to the change of government from a Confederacy to a Union, according to the vote of Congress, Feb- ruary 21, 1787. It is matter of history that there was war almost to the knife between the advocates of these two forms of government, and that a majority of our citizens prefer red to retain the confederate form. A new town-meeting was called and officers chosen who served the remainder of the year.
The next spring the majority party elected their old officers, and they did not refuse to be sworn.
WATERS AND WASHINGTON CLAIM-1789.
In addition to the election of officers in 1789, two important matters came before the town for action. From information gathered here and there, we infer that Colonel Waters of Boston, had acquired, or got control of the Bridget Phillips claim to the Ossipee towns and was pro- ceeding against citizens. The town chose a committee to confer with other towns and employ an able attorney to defend them in court. If the case ever came to trial the decision was against Waters, for we hear no more of the Phillips claim to lands between the Ossipees. We are free to say both grants were fraudulent and should have been repu- diated by Massachusetts.
The other measure was the request of Washington Plantation, now Newfield that Parsonsfield would surrender to them two ranges of lots next that town. By agreement between the Small and Shapleigh pro- prietors, the territory west of Limerick was to be equally divided, the Smalls taking the southern half. Parsonsfield by the act of incorpora- tion secured more than two-thirds, and refused to give it up.
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VOTERS.
When the old States prepared constitutions, the law-makers assumed that transient residents had not sufficient interest to entitle them to the ballot, therefore the right of suffrage was restricted to freeholders, or persons owning real estate.
The tax lists of 1796 and 1808 show several entries of less than ten cents on real estate, some only two cents in addition to the poll tax. After the close of the war of 1812 political excitement died out for a season, and poor men were not so anxious to vote, consequently this class of land owners were not so numerous.
In the constitution of Maine adopted in 1820, the property qualifica- tion was omitted.
TAXATION-1796.
The tax book of 1796 gives the names of two hundred and nineteen persons who had a poll tax, and thirteen persons who were exempted making two hundred and thirty-two resident tax payers. The property tax amounted to two hundred and eighty-four dollars and eight cents ; viz., on real estate one hundred and thirty-nine dollars and eighty-four cents, on personal estate one hundred and forty-five dollars and twenty- four cents, rate two and one-fourth per cent on assessed value. Assessed value one-third of real value. Making a property valuation of about thirty-seven thousand, eight hundred and eighty dollars.
Persons named below paid more than five dollars money tax : -
Elisha Piper seven dollars and sixty-eight cents ; Thomas Parsons, Esq., six dollars and forty-seven cents ; Philip Paine six dollars and fifty-two cents ; Joseph Parsons six dollars and five cents ; Gideon Doe five dollars and forty cents. Thirteen non-resident proprietors are taxed ninety-two dollars and seventy cents on real estate valued at one thousand, three hundred and seventy-three dollars. About one-third of this is assessed to the heirs to Patrick Tracy on land in the Gore.
If we call the property of residents thirty-seven thousand, eight hun- dred and eighty dollars and add value of non-resident land equal to four thousand one hundred and twenty dollars, we find the valuation of the town to be forty-two thousand dollars. The whole tax was five
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hundred and seventy-five dollars and sixty-six cents, divided as follows : Commonwealth one hundred and sixty dollars; County sixty dollars and three cents; Town three hundred and fifty-five dollars and fifty- three cents. Poll tax one dollar and five cents. The statement and footings do not quite agree but they approximate.
TAXATION-1808.
Coming down to the year 1808 we find three hundred and twenty names on the tax lists. The whole tax is one thousand, three hundred and eighty-eight dollars and sixty-two cents divided as follows : Com- monwealth two hundred and seventy-three dollars and seventy-three cents ; County one hundred and fifty-one dollars and seventy-five cents ; Town nine hundred and sixty-three dollars and fourteen cents. The rate is one and one-third per cent assessed on one-third value. Poll tax one dollar and forty cents, which deducted leaves eight hundred and ninety-six dollars and sixty-two cents on property. The non-resi- dent tax is twelve dollars and eighty-seven cents on land estimated to be worth two thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine dollars. Add- ing this to the resident valuation we have seventy thousand, one hun- dred and thirty-three dollars. At this period the value of personal and real estate is nearly equal. The Patrick Tracy interest in lands in the Gore is taxed to Dearborn & Leavitt in the resident list.
The following persons paid more than ten dollars tax: Dearborn & Leavitt thirteen dollars and thirty-eight cents; Zebulon Pease twelve dollars and fifty cents ; Elisha Piper eleven dollars and fifteen cents ; John Sanborn ten dollars and forty-two cents; Joseph Parsons ten dollars and forty cents; Samuel Burbank ten dollars and thirty- two cents.
TAXES-1817.
In 1817 the names of four hundred and forty-nine tax payers are entered. The whole tax was one thousand, nine hundred and sixty- seven dollars and forty-three cents. The State tax was two hundred and sixteen dollars ; County one hundred and fifty-three dollars ; Town one thousand, five hundred and ninety-eight dollars and forty-three
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cents. As the percentage is not given we cannot estimate the valu- ation. Persons here named paid more than ten dollars : James Brad- bury ten dollars and eighteen cents ; Amos Blazo & Son seventeen dollars and twenty cents ; Henry Boothby ten dollars and forty-three cents ; Paul Burnham ten dollars and eighty cents; Caleb Burbank fifteen dollars and forty-seven cents ; Samuel Burbank fifteen dollars and eighty cents; Josiah Colcord thirteen dollars and sixty cents; heirs of Enoch Neal twelve dollars and thirty-one cents; George New- begin twelve dollars and eighty-one cents ; Thomas Parsons ten dollars and twenty-five cents; Joseph Parsons ten dollars and seventy-five cents ; John Pease sixteen dollars and seventy cents ; Zebulon Pease twelve dollars and thirty cents; Nathaniel Pease twelve dollars and fifty-four cents ; Elisha Piper fifteen dollars and twelve cents; A. Mc- Chapman ten dollars and twenty-five cents; Ichabod Churchill thir- teen dollars and seventy-eight cents ; Jeremiah Dearborn twelve dollars and twenty cents ; heirs of Joseph Dearborn ten dollars and eighty cents ; Jeremy Doe twelve dollars and forty-eight cents ; Samuel Fox fourteen dollars and twenty-seven cents; Samuel Garland twenty dollars and fourteen cents ; Eben Gould twelve dollars and sixty cents; Dudley Hilton fourteen dollars and eighteen cents; Israel Hodsdon thirteen dollars and seventy-eight cents ; Abner Kezar ten dollars and eighty- three cents ; Richard Lord twelve dollars and forty cents ; Morris Lord fourteen dollars and thirty-four cents ; Caleb Marston twelve dollars and forty-nine cents ; Hardy and Joseph Merrill seventeen dollars and forty-one cents ; John Merrill sixteen dollars and fifty-two cents ; Sam- uel Moulton seventeen dollars and eighteen cents ; John Sanborn sev- enteen dollars and sixty-six cents ; Andrew Welch thirteen dollars and eighty-two cents ; Noah Weeks sixteen dollars and ninety-one cents ; Simon J. Whitten twelve dollars and forty-three cents ; William Moul- ton, Jr., twelve dollars and fifty-two cents ; John Moore and John Moore third, seventeen dollars and eighty-six cents ; James Morrison thirteen dollars and twelve cents.
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