USA > Maine > York County > Parsonsfield > A history of the first century of the town of Parsonsfield, Maine > Part 4
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The early pioneers found the land covered with a growth of maple, oak, birch, poplar, hemlock, and pine, intermixed with minor trees and shrubs. The forests rapidly fell before the woodman's axe, and fires were employed to finish the work of clearing the ground for crops of corn, potatoes, winter rye, wheat, and oats, to be followed by crops of herdsgrass and clover. The land, prepared by the combined heat from the fires and the rays of the sun, to receive the seed in early spring, in a few days threw into the light the opening leaf, rapidly growing into the dark green blade; and soon into the yellow-ripened harvest of fruit.
The farmers gained courage from their abundant crops, their cart-loads of potatoes, large, rich, and mealy, from their long, well-filled ears of yellow corn, and from their fine crops of grain and hay. Thus encouraged, our fathers somewhat over-estimated the abiding fertility of the soil, and its powers of pro- duction, without the condition of paying back to the ground the price of its expended resources. For here the elements of fertility of the land, unlike that of England, lay nearly all not far below its surface, and the deepened furrow failed to bring up from below new elements of productiveness in sufficient quantity to make up for the loss of those above, when once exhausted by con- tinued cropping.
Fire had been but a spendthrift agency of a temporary fertility. In its mill it had dissipated the grist, and left to the defrauded soil only the toll in the ashes of combustion. The farmer did not discover the cheat till his land, in its third or fourth crop, began to call for payment for its repeated losses; and seemed to hint to our fathers the " law," soon after promulgated by scientists, " of the con-
* Since deceased.
1
Nous ny John Such.
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HISTORY OF PARSONSFIELD.
servation of forces," and to illustrate the impossibility of creating energy from nothing. The log that rots on the ground in a hundred years, gives out the same amount of heat it would have produced in burning in a hundred minutes; but in the first case, it has been leaving its energy a legacy to the soil from which it had come, while in the latter case, it has dissipated its estate in the air. The land is ever suggesting the lesson of honest dealing to those who do business with it. It repudiates no just debt, nor gives a crop on trust; but is ever boun- tiful to the liberal hand.
But years rolled on. Men and women, ruddy in the glow of health, strong in muscle and in mind, with children inured to winter's cold and summer's heat, multiplied and replenished the earth. And as they annually assembled around the family board on a November THANKSGIVING, they returned their unfeigned thanks to the Divine Being for a bountiful harvest, and the increasing blessings on every side. The tables of the husbandman groaned under the weight of wholesome viands, including always the rich pumpkin pies, celebrated in song, which our mothers knew so well how to make and mold in the immense pewter platters of our antiquity.
To the youth, especially of those days, the early breakfast, the midday dinner, and evening supper, always interesting formalities to those healthy youngsters, with appetites ground to a keen edge on the stone of hard work, became emi- nently absorbing ceremonies on Thanksgiving day, when, connected with plays and mirth and other social joys, they made the day memorable to them when youth had passed into manhood, and even old age.
But farm life was not all a day of rest and joy like that. The summer of 1816 was remembered by that generation as the coldest on record. The low ground and valleys were visited by frosts every month in the year. It was only on the hills, or beside sheets of water, where the morning fog melted the frost in advance of the sun, that corn matured at all.
At that time, it hardly need be noted, that the prairies of the West lay all untilled in the solitude. The millions now busy in driving the steani plow, the mower, or the reaper, were yet unborn, and their farms lay in the embraces of that vast region then designated on the maps as " unexplored." No locomotive engine, drawing its long, extended railway train, bearing a burden of grain and flour, had ever broken by the sound of its whistle, or the noise of its rumbling, the stillness of a New England town. The failure of the crops here, therefore, threatened famine to the families of our fathers. Anxiety sobered alike the countenances of the farmer, and the laborer working for wages by his side in the field. A day's work that year, worth fifty cents, would purchase only a peck of corn worth two dollars a bushel; and a week's labor of the house-girl would buy no more of the necessaries of life than a day's work of the farm hand. And yet the laborer, bearing to his family the little he had received, returned at night with a thankful heart, not envying his employer, who had it to spare.
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HISTORY OF PARSONSFIELD.
Sixty-nine summers have come and gone since that cold season. Now the laborer, often fresh from Europe, and from poverty, making himself more than at home with the liberties of a free country, is often seen in the cities of the East and the West, joining in " a strike for a higher wages," because he can earn and receive no more than a bushel of wheat, or two bushels of corn in a day.
The question sometimes comes to our lips, Is gratitude and contentment pro- portionate to our wants, rather than to our wealth ?
The latest reports of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor (the fifteenth and sixteenth), show that the percentage of increase of wages for the last fifty years, is considerably greater than the percentage of increase in the cost of living, while the hours of labor have been diminished, as the conveniences and comforts of life, with the means of education, have been augmented. If this is the case in Massachusetts, the reverse can hardly be found in Maine. But it is hoped that the next hundred years will open a still brighter page in the history of labor, as well as in the intelligence of the laborer.
To illustrate further some of the peculiarities of country life, sixty or eighty years ago, the following, which may be of interest to some, is sketched, and embraces a short account of
THE OLD-FASHIONED "RAISING."
House-building, in the early years of our century, differed considerably in method and style from the present fashion; though but few log-houses appear to have been at any time constructed. Most of them, though of ample width, and good length, were only one story high, and low posted. But as early as 1800, there had been erected quite a number, scattered here and there, in town, two stories in height, and about forty feet in length. The frames of these were often of red oak timber, and large enough for a ship of war. Of course it took a large number of men to raise such a frame, as the entire broadside, its great plate, ponderous posts, studs, and numerous braces, all framed together, had to be put up at once, according to the custom. This was a job requiring the greatest care and skill, for if any accident should occur through misunderstanding, or the negligence of a single boy at the foot of a post to direct with an iron bar the tenant into its place in the sill, the whole side might drop with a crash, and the killing of twenty men, more or less, might be the result.
As the raising of a frame, whether of house or barn, was quite a notable event in a neighborhood, the old men and boys, as well as the able-bodied farmers, were invited to enjoy the occasion as a sort of holiday for those not able to do much lifting. As the older men were able, without interrupting their stories, to make oak pins which the boys were eager to toss, as they were wanted, to the men on the frame, there were social joys, work, and play mingled, to make the afternoon a pleasant one.
When the frame had all been successfully put up, and the shades of night began to appear, there yet remained the final ceremony of naming the building.
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HISTORY OF PARSONSFIELD.
This was a work too important to be done in prose, so the very best poet in the neighborhood was called to duty. He had of course been privately notified the night before to prepare for his ascent, and now the hour had come for his eleva- tion to the ridge-pole of the new fabric, on one end of which he was to sit astride " like a monarch of all he could survey," while on the other end, face to face with him, was perched the second officer. The crowd below, having hushed itself to silence, and standing with eyes upturned to the men above, the voice of the second man rang out the words slowly and distinctly: -
" Here - is - a - fine - frame, It - deserves - a - good - name, And - what - shall - we - call -it ? "
Then came the response from the poet laureate, no less distinct: -
" Here is a fine frame, Stands in a fair view, The owner is industrious, And the frame it is new."
To lines like these were added a quaint allusion to any curious event of family history, or such prophecies of future luck to the owner as the genius of the bard enabled him to put into rhyme. The air having been duly rent with three hearty cheers, and the windows of the next house having been dropped behind retreat- ing spectators, the men and boys were all invited in to supper, where they could enjoy with their coffee and pies, a clearer view, and the social recognition of those who had witnessed their doings through the open windows.
FRUIT.
If it took time to clear the land, to build houses and roads, it took still longer time to raise orchards and fruit. When at length apples and pears from natural stock came to hand, very few were such as to tempt the appetite. It was thirty years or more that the pious admonitions of mothers, and the rod of Puritan fathers, were supplemented by the sourness of neighboring orchards, to produce in their sons a predisposition to honest habits.
It was not before 1830, or '35 that there came to youth the temptation of the apple of finer flavor hanging from the grafted limb. If any boy then fell from his integrity, it was from the same cause that had brought ruin into the world once before. But this time the culprit (if there were one) fared better than his prim- itive ancestors; for he was graciously permitted to retrieve his honor by subse- quent honest dealing; and by hard work, to make for himself an Eden of his own. If not miracles, at least wonders, have been accomplished by the indus- trious farmer with an honest wife to aid him. Where not long since the wild beast had his lair, and the primeval forest afforded hunting ground for the Indian, now the orchards spread their mantle of whiteness in spring-time over the land- scape, and lend their fragrance to the air; and before the falling leaves shall
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HISTORY OF PARSONSFIELD.
forebode the coming snows, they shall fill the farmers' bins with the best of fruit .*
While the soil and physical features of Parsonsfield render the town best adapted to the raising of stock and fruit, yet corn, potatoes, and oats, are next to hay, the most important crops. The total yield of corn for the present year, is estimated by one of the centennial committee (Rev. L. T. Staples), to be from ten thousand to fifteen thousand bushels, with a much larger crop of potatoes. Wheat, which in the early years of the century was extensively raised, has ceased to be a profitable crop on account of the low price of western flour, the best of which can be bought this year for six dollars a barrel. Oats therefore have sup- planted wheat.
Farming is profitable in proportion to its net income, rather than to its ag- gregate production. Persons realizing this obvious fact are seeking the best farms, and concluding to cultivate well their best acres. Some pieces of ex- hausted land they will ultimately turn out to pasturage or perhaps profitably remand to forest, while other acres never yet cultivated perhaps, will be found, only awaiting sub-soil drainage to be converted into the most productive part of the farm.
The rapidity with which the country is being stripped of its pine timber ought to admonish land-owners everywhere of the wisdom and duty of carefully pre- serving their young growth of pine.
IMPROVEMENT IN STOCK.
The fondness for neat cattle characteristic of the English people, had its origin perhaps as far back as the Christian Era; and the trait may have been trans- mitted through eighteen centuries to the people of Parsonsfield, as an hereditary feature of character. As early as the days of Julius Caesar, cattle had become important property in England.
The British island being divided into various local sovereignties, cattle were deemed the safest kind of property, because they could be driven before retreat- ing or advancing bands of predatory warriors. It has been, however, only dur- ing the present century that England has carried the breeding of stock to the greatest perfection.
What is called in the United States the native breed, has arisen from a mixture of various breeds, imported by early settlers at a time when the fixed breeds now in favor did not exist. The first imported to New England were suffered to deteriorate from hardship and exposure to our severer climate.
The earliest importation to this continent on record was by Columbus in 1493. In 1553 there were some shipped from Portugal to Newfoundland; and in 1611, a hundred head were imported from England to Virginia. A few years later, on the settlement of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts, other importations were made
* Appended to this paper may be found an estimate of some of the results of the harvest of 1885. Also names of prominent farmers.
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HISTORY OF PARSONSFIELD.
to that state. It was some years after this period, that the distinctive breeds of Durham, Ayrshires, Jerseys, etc., became famous in England.
In Parsonsfield the first to introduce improved stock of these distinguished English breeds, was Dea. Harvey Page, in the southern section of the town. From 1833 to 1836 he kept on his farm a bull about seven-eighths Durham, and stock became much improved in that vicinity, and stock raising received a new impetus.
At a date somewhat later, John Kezar introduced the same breed in the north- erly part of the town; and subsequently in the eastern section Nathaniel Church- ill and Albion Towle introduced the Hereford stock.
Through the interest created by these importations of English bred stock, and the improvement seen as the result, the town has reaped an annual income from the growth of beef cattle much greater than ever before. At the present time, not only the Durham, but the Hereford stock has gone into every section of Par- sonsfield, attracting numerous buyers from abroad, augmenting the profits of farming in its most remunerative branch, and conferring a public benefit, shared indirectly, if not directly, by every inhabitant.
The improvement made in farming tools, during the century, has been fully proportionate to the rapid advance made in other directions. Prior to the estab- lishment of manufactories to make farming tools by machinery, and before the invention of various modern machines and tools to facilitate farm labor, farming required an expenditure of time and strength vastly greater than now, to accom- plish the same results.
The cast-iron plow, the horse-rake and mowing machine, among the inventions of the middle and latter half of the century now closed, outrank all the others in importance to the farmer. But added to them the horse-hoe, the hay-tedder, and other inventions, have contributed much to the saving of muscular labor and time. Human strength is as impotent to compete with horse power, as the latter is to compete with steam power.
WOMEN OF PARSONSFIELD.
No account of agricultural life in Parsonsfield for the century now closed, would be complete without a word of just homage paid to the tireless energy and enterprise of the women of those early days.
Persons who have no recollection of the era of domestic spinning wheels, and hand-looms of old, can hardly appreciate the labor of manufacturing cloth from wool, flax, or cotton, by hand. Every thread had to pass the wicket of the spinster's thumb and finger, be reeled, warped and woven by skill of hand, and strength of muscle. After that, the woolen cloth having been fulled, colored, and dressed at the mill, must be cut and made into garments for the family; and the family that had wool enough for its needs, and simple machinery, with the ability to manufacture it, was deemed scarcely less than opulent. But this work was but an incidental addition to the everyday labor and care of the growing family.
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HISTORY OF PARSONSFIELD.
The making of cheese and butter also, was not reckoned least among the duties of women. As the epoch of oleomargarine, though a substance derived, 't is said, from Ancient Grease, had not yet dawned on the world, good butter, with sometimes maple syrup, was the only substitute those early settlers had for the invention of a later civilization. And, strange as it may seem, the good farmers of Parsonsfield cling to this day, as strongly as ever, to the old prejudice in favor of butter, which adds, as prejudices will, not a little to domestic labor. All such circumstances combine to give truth to the couplet :-
"Man's work is from sun to sun, But woman's work is never done."
If, however, some kind-hearted devotee to fashion or pleasure should feel impelled to drop the tear of compassion for the sorrows of those hard-working mothers and daughters, we would like to lift the curtain for a moment, which sixty years have dropped before the scenes of the past, and let her look in upon the matron at her loom, or the maid at her wheel, and listen to her lay; for
" She sings by her wheel at that low cottage door, Which the long evening shadow is stretching before, With a music as sweet as the music which seems Breathed softly and faint in the ear of our dreams.
" How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye, Like a star glancing out from the blue of the sky; And lightly and freely her dark tresses play, O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely as they."
The woman of that day saw in useful employment nothing inconsistent with her dignity, or the highest degree of happiness. In point of fact, it was labor for the family that lent its wonderful charm to her life. If her sons and daugh- ters have achieved distinction for integrity, intelligence, or honorable success, it has been largely due to her example and admonitions. There are living monu- ments to her worth, that tower higher far than those of marble, and shall be more enduring than granite; for in her busy life of self-abnegation, she uncon- sciously touched the chord that reaches into heaven, and shall vibrate in melody there, when the marble shall have fallen from its pedestal, and the granite shall have crumbled to dust! Let her virtues live forever in her descendants; and let the likeness of her daughters be ever, as now, recognized in the sweet lines of Whittier: -
" Our homes are cheerier for her sake, Our door-yards brighter blooming, And all about, the social air Is sweeter for her coming.
" Unspoken homilies of peace Her daily life is preaching, The still refreshment of the dew Is her unconscious teaching.
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HISTORY OF PARSONSFIELD.
" And never tenderer hand than hers Unknits the brow of ailing, Her garments, to the sick man's ear, Have music in their trailing.
"Her presence lends its warmth and health To all who come before it, If woman lost us Eden, Such as she alone restore it."
The traveler is sometimes perplexed with the question, why the roads so often lead over the hills, when they might avoid them by passing on the slopes lower down. The explanation may be found in the facts that houses were the first necessity of the pioneers; and that there was an era of horse-back riding, before that of riding wagons, or of "The Deacon's one-hoss shay," when carriages on wheels necessitated carriage roads. Naturally the settler had built his house on the eminence that commanded a fair view of the landscape, and overlooking the forests below. After houses, then came roads to reach them.
At this time women as well as men had become accustomed to the saddle, and one now living, then but a child a year old, was carried in 1808 by her mother and father each on horse-back from their home in the west part of the town, to Hampton, N. H., a journey of sixty miles, and back again. Had they not been impelled by the power of love for their native town and friends, that journey, though represented by tradition as pleasant, might not have been taken.
The houses and barns have since been remodeled, or oftener replaced by new ones; but it has been on the old roads, and usually on the old sites. So the homestead has its buildings where they were, and the roads still lead over the hills; roads built by our fathers' labor, and first honored by their foot-prints.
We who remain, the remnants of a generation fast passing away, may be par- doned even amidst the joys of the day, as our eyes involuntarily glancing down through the vista of past years, and over the familiar fields, once made fertile by the sweat of our fathers' brows, - if the old question of the fleeting centuries comes back to our hearts, -"OUR FATHERS, WHERE ARE THEY ?" Our missing brothers, sisters, mothers and neighbors, - where are they ?
If we ask of the sculptured marble, that adorns the numerous yards of the town, and other towns, in other counties, and other states with the sad memo- rials of the dead, - many are those that will tell us how many summers the tall grass has waved over the graves of departed worth and affection, -our own de- parted ones. If the thought of them in any degree tempers with sadness the festivities of the day, it is only because memory is not dimmed by the lapse of time into forgetfulness of those whose lives are inseparable from the century whose completion, by the blessing of Providence, we have lived to see, and to celebrate; - to celebrate with thankful hearts, and cheering hopes, but with touching memories,
3
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HISTORY OF PARSONSFIELD.
" The era done, And trust God for the opening one.
To thank Him while withal we crave The austere virtues strong to save, And honor proof to place or gold, The manhood never bought or sold."
" O make Thou us through centuries long,
In peace secure, in justice strong; Around our gift of freedom, draw The safeguards of thy righteous law; And cast in some diviner mold, Let the new cycle shame the old."
When the curtain that time will drop, shall hide us all from human eyes, - and " the curfew shall toll the knell " of another century, -there will stand under the same sun that shines on us, and in view of the same hills that now circle the horizon, another multitude assembled to raise a monument to its memory. .
To that Assembly, on the wings of their hope and love, the farmer's and peo- ple of Parsonsfield send their greeting, and their benediction; and bid it wel- come to their fair fields, towering hills, and happy homes; and welcome to all the transcendent blessings transmitted through them by the fathers, to the advanc- ing generations as an everlasting inheritance.
1
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HISTORY OF PARSONSFIELD.
GRAFTED FRUIT HARVESTED IN 1885 .* (Estimated.)
By Gilman Lougee. .1,000 bush.
Silas and James Cartland. 1,000 66
" John Henry Foss 500
" Timothy Eastman
500
" L. T. Staples. 400 66
And by many others large quantities not estimated. Among these are men- tioned John Brackett, Silas Boothby, Alvin Eastman, C. O. Nute, Edmund Weeks, and James Burnham. The crop will exceed in town ten thousand barrels. 1169849
PROMINENT FARMERS,
Who have made their business a success in Parsonsfield, who are now living, or but recently deceased. Some among them will be readily recognized as hav- ing served the town, county, or State, in different offices of trust: - Luther Sanborn (deceased), Chase Boothby,
Charles F. Sanborn,
Gilman Lougee,
Seth Chellis, on farm formerly of Jona- than Morrison,
Joseph Merrill, Elisha Wadleigh sen.,
Alvah Doe (deceased),
John M. Ames (deceased), Marston Ames,
Daniel Elliott jr.,
John Towne, George I. Doe,
Jacob Mudgett,
Dominicus Ricker,
Israel Banks,
Benjamin Piper (deceased), James Burnham,
Eben Foss,
John Boothby,
John Sutton (deceased),
Joseph Moulton,
William B. Davis,
Samuel Moulton,
Harding Newbegin,
Albert Rand, Silas Cartland sen.,
Zebulon Pease, John and Lorenzo Pease, Nehemiah Libby,
Jonathan M. Johnson (deceased), John Brackett,
Nathaniel Churchill,
Jeremiah and John Dearborn (de- Thomas Churchill jr., ceased), Robert Merrill, L. T. Staples, Ivory Fenderson, Daniel Piper,
Asa Parsons sen., Joseph Parsons, John Fenderson, Joseph Wilson,
Otis B. Churchill, Samuel Merrill (deceased),
J. W. Cook, David Perry.
* Papers referred to on page 30.
E. S. Wadleigh,
Daniel Elliott sen.,
Thomas Wentworth,
J. W. Trueworthy,
Samuel Boothby,
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