USA > Maine > Saco Valley settlements and families. Historical, biographical, genealogical, traditional, and legendary > Part 7
USA > New Hampshire > Saco Valley settlements and families. Historical, biographical, genealogical, traditional, and legendary > Part 7
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These log-houses were warm and comfortable when well built and served the settler's purpose until facilities for preparing better building materials were available. To just such dwellings hundreds of the pioneers of the Saco valley led their young wives, and in such some of the noblest spirits whose names have graced the pages of American history first saw the light. More- over, the members of these early families extracted as much comfort out of existence while living in these humble abodes as when, subsequently, they
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OLD TIMES ON THE SACO.
were settled in their more capacious farm-houses and supplied with more pretentious furnishing. However, we have fancied that some of the young wives, who had been bred in homes westward, where the more refined asso- ciations of an older settlement had been enjoyed, must have keenly felt the sacrifices submitted to when they began life in the wilderness. This is illus- trated by an old manuscript, now at hand, written by a man when rising eighty, who was one of the first pioneers of the plantation in early life. In this document he has described, with great fullness of detail, the many deprivations to which he and his brother submitted when they established themselves in the backwoods.
The winter following their first summer's work at making a clearing on their claim was passed in a small cabin without the cheering companionship of woman. Eight bushels of corn had been purchased in the autumn; this was reduced to meal and carried on their shoulders eight miles to their cabin. The same number of bushels of potatoes were stored in a rude cellar under the floor, for which boards were drawn by the brothers on a hand-sled sixteen miles through the woods over the early snows.
During winter their vegetables were all frozen but were boiled, mixed with meal, and baked into "potato-bread." in a Dutch oven buried in coals. Without sauce or sweetening, and with no meat with the exception of an occasional rabbit, partridge, or fish, these isolated men passed the long New England winter, surrounded by a wilderness, remote from other human beings. their low hut almost buried under the accumulated snow -but quite contented and comfortable.
The following spring, the elder brother went to Portsmouth, where he was married, and brought his young wife by shallop to the mouth of Saco river. ITere he found his brother in waiting and the three carried by footpath the meagre stock of household goods and belongings to their prospective home in the interior. lle writes : " My dear wife was cheerful and right well pleased on our journey until we reached the borders of our clearing, where she saw amid the fallen timber the house in which she was to live: then she remem- bered the good home she had left behind, and sat down upon a log and wept. She soon recovered her composure, however, and went bravely forward. For more than a year from the day when she left the settlement at Saco, she did not see the face of one of her sex."
During the second winter the anticipated appearance of an additional member to the household made it necessary to procure the services of a nurse. The unmarried brother mounted a horse, and, leading another with an un- occupied lady's saddle, started through the deep snow on his urgent errand. On reaching the nearest settlement he found a woman who con- sented to undertake the journey and who accompanied him back to his home. Their progress through the drifts was slow, and when they arrived at their
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OLD TIMES ON TIIE SACO.
destination the little stranger had opened his eyes in the cabin and was lustily experimenting with his new-found voice. From that glad hour the uprising of maternal affection was manifested in many a lullaby sung soft and sweet to the time of the cradle rock, while the father's heart grew warmer, and his arms stronger for toil, as his willing ears were saluted by the prattling voice of his offspring.
When the enormous burden of timber and brushwood had been burned off, and the rain had carried the strength of the fertilizing ashes into the virgin soil, a thousand hitherto latent seeds, deposited there by the Creator in the beginning, were developed by sunshine and moisture and sprang forth in luxuriant abundance to cover the black and unsightly ground with pleasing verdure.
Before the plow could be used, corn was planted, and rye sowed, upon the "burn." The former was "dug in" with a heavy hoe and the latter "hacked in" with the same implement. This was sometimes done before the settler found time to pile up the charred logs ; nevertheless, it grew rank and tall, even to the stature of the tallest man, and reached forth its broad green leaves in great extent. On one of these "ricks" an aged man told me he raised one hundred and fifty bushels of beautiful, fully ripe, shelled corn, before the logs were piled, and which, having been harvested before he had a family, was turned over to pay for his land.
In one of the new clearings of a Saco valley township about forty miles from the mouth of the river, two boys were left at a camp to care for the growing corn, and drive the bears away, from June until September. One of these sons informed me, when he was nearing the century line, that he and his brother became very lonesome at times and used to climb a mountain-side and look down river with the hope of seeing their father coming. They obeyed the orders given them in the spring, saw the growing corn mature, enjoyed excellent health, and survived to relate to their puny, degenerate descendants, who had been reaping the fruits of their father's toil, earned by many an aching back and sweating brow, their experiences of vicissitude and hardship.
The Farm-House .- This was the third generation of New England dwell- ings. As soon as the land had become sufficiently productive to supply the family with food, and to support a pair of oxen and two or three cows, a new and more commodious dwelling was talked of. A mother's delicate ideas of propriety suggested more privacy for her daughters, whose fair cheeks were becoming tinted, like the sky of the orient at day dawn, with the blushing harbingers of womanhood. There must be room for more beds, a wider table, and more expansive fireside. The surplus crops could now be carried to market and exchanged for such furniture and conveniences as were required in a house of several compartments.
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OLD TIMES ON THE S.CO.
The principal materials for a new dwelling were near at hand. A cluster of tall, straight pines was left on the border of the clearing for this purpose, and toward them, with contemplative gaze, the toiling pioneer had often turned his eyes when forming his ideal of the house that was to be. Cheer- fully and right lustily did the sturdy yeoman wield the shining axe when cutting the timber for farm-house, and, meanwhile, the rumbling saw-mill in the distance was ready to cut out the boards for covering the frame.
The wide, low-posted farm-house that succeeded the New England log- cabin must have been an invention of those who settled the eastern colonies. No models existed in England like them ; there were none in the colonies south that resembled them. They were more like the houses of the well-to-do "bonders " in Norway ( Europe) than any dwellings we have ever seen - in capaciousness, comfort, and the large timber of which they were constructed. A few of these remain quite unchanged to remind the sixth generation of men and women how their ancestors built. In such a farm-house the author spent his early years and he can vouch for the accuracy of his description. They were nearly forty feet square on the foundation, the posts not more than eight feet in height, and the gables very high. Framed of enormous timbers and braced with white oak, no tempest known to New England was ever power- ful enough to blow them down, although they were usually located with defiant aspect upon a high hill. But they would sometimes creak and groan under the force of a strong wind like an old timber ship in a storm at sea.
The original plan for one of these wide houses was marked out on the ground with the "ten-foot pole "; hence the origin, we assume, of the "ground plan " for a building. Husband and wife visited the spot selected for the new dwelling, and when making estimates for dimensions considered their present and prospective needs. Housewives of that period who had lived for a series of years in the narrow-walled log-house wanted "elbow-room." room to "turn round in," plenty of room, if you please. And so they marked out the number and size of the apartments required. There must be, to employ the parlance of the old people, the kitchen, backroom, foreroom, bedrooms, dresser-room. cellar-way, scullery, stair-way. entry-way and clothes-press. When the space to be covered by such rooms had been outlined upon the ground. the farmer knew the length of his beams, sills, and plates; there is not a doubt about that. He was just to wall in said space and then, as the primitive joiner would say, "ruff it over ": that's all there was to it : no estimating for swell fronts or alcove windows. "Raising-day" came at length and with it the planters and their robust sons. There were but few tools in these settlements and those were of rude and ungainly pattern. To borrow pod-augurs, cross- cut saws, framing-chisels, scratch-awls, and snap-lines, boys were sent in all directions. But little attention had been paid to squares and plumb-lines. Those quaint old fellows who had been trained to look along gun-barrels, said
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OLD TIMES ON THE SACO.
they could " squint straight," and measure near enough with outspread palm or ball of thumb. The timber was "skewing," tenons were sure to "slant 'nunder," the whole had been framed by "scribe-rule " and would go together somehow ; most anyhow.
When the broadsides had been laid out and pinned together; when the shores, consisting of long poles, had been attached to the plates with oxchains, man and boys, and sometimes women, were called to a post of duty and orders given them by the master-workman.
Shirt sleeves were rolled up, collars unbuttoned, gallowses tightened, · hands spit upon to give a firmer grip, and the "boss " shouted in stentorian voice :
"Are you all ready?"
"All ready," responded the stalwart men.
"Then pick him up," cried the commander, and the heavy broadside began to rise.
" Steady ! Steady, there! Steady, men! Now put him up, up, UP! Hold your shores there ! All together ! S-t-e-a-d-y! There he goes. Hold ! hold ! Put on the stays ! There ! Well done, men ! well done !" repeated the master-work- man appreciatively, as the red-faced, panting men straightened their aching backs and chafed shoulders.
"Bear a hand here," shouted the master after a brief rest, and all moved to the other broadside.
"Say when you are ready."
" All ready."
"Then put him up, men ; put him up, I say. H-e-a-v-e him up, up, UP. Steady now! There! All r-i-g-h-t. Squint and say when it is plumb. A-1-1 r-i-g-h-t. Put on the stays."
Now for the cross-beams. Level-headed men were now called upon and they climbed upon the plates. Those upon the ground raised the heavy timbers up with in hand-grasp, and shouted, "Give beam! give beam!" as they moved the tenon into the mortise. "There you are; throw up a pin." Now the crack of a mallet rang out as the pins and keys were driven home.
When all the beams, braces, and "studdin'" were in place, the work of raising the "ruff" was attended to. This was the most difficult and dan- gerous part of the laborious undertaking. Men of composure and prudence were required at this juncture, and those of experience "went aloft." Two by two the huge rafters were raised into position ; one by one were the purlines dropped into the "gains " cut for them, and the crowning feat, the putting on of the ridge-pole, was consummated. When the last pin had been driven, the rustic poet announced that the "raisin' would be concluded by naming the new frame." He then recited slowly, measuredly, solemnly, something like the following, improvised for the occasion :
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OLD TIMES ON THE S.ACO.
"Here's a mighty fine framm ... Which de-s-arves a good name; Say, what shall we call it? The tim-be-r's all s.t.r.n.i.g.11. And was hewed inst rate:
The frame is well put together,
May the man and his wife. Who may here spend their life.
Be sheltered from heat and cold weather:
May their hearts he united, As when they were plighted.
And at last dwell in h-e-a-v-en together.
Yes, 'tis a good frame, that desarves a good name, Say! What shall we name it?"
When this primitive ceremony had been performed, the master-workman congratulated the owner, thanked the neighbors in his behalf for their gen- erous services, and pronounced the raisin' done.
Months passed and the " jiners " were busily engaged in finishing off the new house. If the farmer was well-to-do he had the rooms " ceiled up " with matched boards of clear pumpkin pine; possibly. some wainscot and panel- work under the windows and about the mantel-shelf. Everything would be plain, substantial, and workman-like, but one seldom saw any filigree about this class of houses : sometimes, however, a few small mouldings and a narrow "bead " at the joints of matched boards. The doors might be of panel-work, more likely "cleat " doors, which were adjusted with wrought-iron hinges and latches, the former in shape like the carpenter's square, windows small, twelve-lighted, with seven-by-nine glass set in sliding sashes. *
These houses were warmed by broad fireplaces; sometimes there were three of these in one great chimney facing as many rooms; they were built of brick. The hearth was made of a hewed slab of granite, long, wide. and warm for toasting your feet, sir. Hinged to one "jamb " of the fireplace was the long, iron " crane," resting upon iron sockets ; this was well supplied with various sizes of pot-hooks, trammels, and a few chain-links, peradventure. From one of these the tea-kettle sang many a soft, low, and soothing song of "family glee." At the fireside stood the shovel and tongs, " which together
· Window glass being expensive was often carried a long distance with great care. The story was told of a Saco valley settler who had built a log house and after moving his family in, went to Gorhamtown to purchase twelve lights of seven by-nine glass for the two small windows. This was well tied in a large handkerchief and he started on his return. Selecting even places for his feet at every step, and avoiding alt obstacles, be moved slowly homeward. All went well until he had reached his door-yard. As he approached his house he saw his wife standing in the door, and shouted, " Well, Sally, I have got my glass home without any accident "; and at that moment, having his attention diverted, he caught his foot in a small bush by the path and fell headlong. Quick of thought, he raised his band high lo shield his glass, but it came down with full swing upon a flat stone and every light was broken into "splitherins." It was reported that his language, following this aggravating incident, was too highly seasoned with brimstone for every day use, and that be registered a vow then and there that he would never look through glass in that house and kept his word. He said : " If I'd fell half way to Gorhamtown. I wouldn't a keered, Imt 'Iwas too farnation bad to go down right off agin my own door'n smash it."
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OLD TIMES ON THE SACO.
belong," well-worn and shining in the glimmering firelight. Upon pegs, hung "quilted holders," hand hooks, candle snuffers, shears, and the bellows for putting spirit into a smothered spark. Upon the long mantel, which nearly spanned one side of the room, were the iron and brass candle-sticks, a pair of great, high-handled smoothing-irons, and the small tin trunk for the tinder- box, in later years, for lucifer matches. Above the hearth-stone in every house built at the time of which I write, were two or three long, neatly peeled, spruce poles, suspended from the beams by strings or straps, upon which pumpkins, bellpeppers, apples, and gourd-shells were drying at one end; at the other, skeins of domestic yarn, stockings just dyed, or a pair of new "fox- and-geese mittens." Hanging upon a pair of buck horns, or wooden hooks cut from a crippled tree, was the long, clumsy, clamped musket that had been a " Revolutioner." or. possibly, was one of the many with which Chamberlain killed Paugus. From the same supports were suspended, by leathern string, the curiously carved powder-horn and "cutryments " thereunto belonging.
The farm-house furniture was heavy and substantial, but a great improve- ment on that in the log-house. High-posted, tall, red, basket-bottomed chairs stood in military order about the wall. A two-leaved table, with a drawer at one end for the spread and cutlery, and a rail about the legs to rest one's feet upon ; a small "light-stand" between windows for the family Bible and work- basket : the canopied, constantly patronized cradle, and when "fore-handed," a tall, solemn-ticking clock in the corner. In the back room a "chist o' draws," in the foreroom a bureau over which hung a "mournin'-piece," in brindled pine frame, headed " Sacred to the Memory," over the picture of a disconsolate woman wiping her weeping eyes with a voluminous handkerchief, supported all this time by leaning upon a two-handled urn under the shade of a " weepin' willer." By the side of this, the appropriate " Family Register," filled out by Nathaniel Fox, " from Oxford county amongst the rocks," and containing the names of a whole baker's dozen of sons and "darters." The transient articles of furniture were the great spinning-wheel, flax-wheel, and loom ; occasionally. also, the warping-bars and swifts.
We must not forget the great. hard-wood, framed bedsteads always found in the wide farm-house; these were of sufficient stability to hold up Goliath of Gath, and his wife, too, if he had one. No patent springs to crease your back or give you a boost in the morning, but ropes, ropes, if you please, cross- ing each other at right angles, that would snap and creak like a rickety wagon. These were well guarded with thick beds of straw or dried corn husks, above which was the billowy bed of "live-geese feathers." Over all were heavy, warm, homespun blankets, patch-work quilts of woolen, surmounted by a blue and white coverlid. Let the winds howl, the snow drift, the ice rip on the river, the sled shoes groan on the road, the sash rattle in the window-frame or nails snap in the wall, but he or she who was enveloped in such a bed could
·
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OLD TIMES ON THE SACO.
bid defiance to the elements and wander undisturbed in the province of delight- ful dreams. Into such beds many a lad or lassie was tucked with a hot blanket about their feet, while the blessed benediction of a loving mother's good-night kiss was a summons for the guardian angels to come down and touch the drooping eyelids.
There was one "annex " of the farm-house kitchen in the olden time that demands careful descriptive treatment: this was called by the grandmothers "a dresser." or "dresser-room." In the first houses, they were built against the wall at one side, and exposed to view in the common living room: latterly, they have been in side room or pantry. This was the housewife's most sacred precinct, and no mistake. Here she exercised woman's rights, and from her arbitrary decree there was no appeal that could avail for the intruder. U'pon the "lower shelf," which was elevated four inches above the floor of the room, were arranged with precision the articles of wooden ware, consisting of pails, piggins, noggins, keelers, runlets, trenchers, puncheons, and pudding-sticks. At one end was a small, low cupboard, where the groceries and spices were stored; this cuddy was protected by a door fastened with a wooden button. About two feet higher up was the "broad shelf." so called, whereon reposed the large bowls, platters, porringers, pewter plates, and japanned trays, all marshaled in single file. Still higher, raised tier upon tier, were the " narrow shelves," in the back of which deep grooves were ploughed to keep the plates, set on edge, from falling. Higher yet, yea, the third heaven of the dresser. was a shelf containing the blue and white, figured tea-set presented by the mother of our good dame on her wedding-day. The occasions were rare, and the company very "select," when this treasure was placed upon the table within reach of careless hands. At one end of the "dresser " was a rack for spoons and meat-knives, and a peg for the polished tin pepper-box. This is the way it was all arranged, true's you live, and he who has had line upon line, and warning upon warning, when seen only looking toward such a crockery case, to say nothing of the corporeal emphasis applied when caught upon the "broad shelf" thereof, cannot well forget how every part appeared in his youthful days. Ah, never!
Food and Cooking .- We omitted mention, purposely, of the great brick oven which was absolutely indispensable in the home of the early settlers of Maine. This was built into the back of the chimney and opened into the fireplace in the earlier houses; latterly, the oven opened at one side, and under it was the "ash-hole," otherwise "stock-hole." This was heated once a week. on Saturday morning, and on important occasions, as elsewhere mentioned, at other times. It was heated with small, light wood prepared for that purpose and called "oven-wood." After a fire had been kept burning in the oven until the brick floor thereof and the walls and arched roof were thoroughly heated, the coals were mostly drawn out with the long-handled fire-shovel,
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OLD TIMES ON THE SACO.
and the capacious vault filled with such good things as were toothsome in those days. As a rule, the beans, puddings, and brown bread were baked in earthen ware, while the spare-rib, or chicken, was cooked in an iron pan. When there was a deficiency of dishes for this purpose, the housewife would go to the garden, or cellar, and select a few large cabbage leaves for a sub- stitute. These were washed and placed upon the hot floor of the oven with the unbaked bread upon them; this, in its plastic state, would conform to every indented vein of the leaf, which, when the loaf was withdrawn, would crumble in pieces. No better bread was ever eaten than that baked on a cabbage leaf in a brick oven. Hungry boys have been known to remove a few bricks from the back side of these ovens, and when a well-browned loaf had been removed, to be feasted on in a shady grove, and the bricks carefully replaced, the superstitious old mothers would insist that their oven had been "bewitched."
Sliced meat and pancakes were fried in an iron spider over coals raked upon the hearth. Cooking in this way was hot work for the face and hands. If a goose or turkey was to be roasted outside of the brick oven or tin kitchen, it was suspended by a stout string before the open fire and a "dripping-pan " placed under it. By twisting the string between the thumb and finger the housewife would start the fowl upon a rotary movement, and in this way all sides were equally exposed to the heat. Betimes the savory meat was basted from the pan below. Nothing could be richer than the flesh of a fowl thus roasted, as many an old farmer, who sniffed its rich aroma when hunting for the "lucky-bone," can testify.
But bannocks, gentlemen, bannocks were, of all the treat, the most delicious, when made and baked in the most primitive fashion. As the even- ing meal drew near the well-aproned housewife began her preparations by brushing the hearth with a turkey's wing taken from its place on a nail at the chimney-side. Then a bank of live hard-wood coals was raked forward between the andirons, and the broad bannock was placed before the fire to bake, the bake-pan leaning against a sad-iron. How beautifully the yellow batter grew darker, shade by shade! Occasionally the busy housewife shielded her face with her hands and glanced at the steaming bread, and her practised eye saw the exact surface tint which indicated that the time had come when the analogy between this cake and Ephraim should no longer exist. She seized the bake-tin and, by that dexterity acquired by all the early cooks, quickly turned the bread upside down and in a twinkling had the unbaked side exposed to the glowing heat. We were in no haste to say farewell to that sweet-smelling bannock; it was excellent company, and favored was he whose knife hung low on the edge when cutting his slice. Let us linger awhile.
The white cloth of Simon pure linen, homespun and homewoven, was
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OLD TIMES ON THE SACO.
now spread daintily upon the low table; great flaring bowls, bearing many a fantastic figure and crinkled stripe. were placed in order upon the spread, each having a spoon laid by its side. Next came the great, high-handled pitcher that was opulent and weighty with cool milk, well becreamed - not the blue, consumptive-looking liquid peddled out by modern dealers, who have the habit of pouring milk into water -- from the udders of "Pink " and " Buttercup." Then the bannock, done to a turn, appeared upon the great platter, smoking hot, and was placed in the centre of the table.
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