USA > New Hampshire > Coos County > Shelburne > History of Shelburne, New Hampshire > Part 2
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Typhena married Thomas Jackman and lived where Moses Hazeltine does. Mr. Jackman died suddenly of heart disease while yet a young man. He cut two cords of wood ou the day of his death, and came into the house at night in his usnal health. Taking up his little daughter he talked and played with ber for some time. "Now I must go and tie up the cattle." he said. putting her down with a kiss, "be a good girl till I come
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back." Mrs. Jackman got her supper ready, and looking out for ber husband was surprised to see the cattle still in the yard. It was dark in the barn, but she went in and felt round on the floor, fearing he might have fallen from the scaffold. Failing to find him she got a light and called Ezekiel Evans. As he opened the tie-up door, the first object the wife's horrified eyes rested upon was the lifeless form of her husband. Sabri- na. the eldest, married Bostie Head; Eliza, Sewell Lary, and Barak, Arvilla, grandaughter of John Evans.
JONATHAN PEABODY.
It is a popular legend in this family that two brothers of the name came over from England in the May Flower. Soon after their arrival one of them died, and all the Peabodys in this country are de- scendants of the survivor.
Jonathan Peabody came from Andover when a young man, married Phebe Kim- ball of Bethel, and lived on the farm now owned by Horace Green. He had five children. Priscilla, (Mrs. Ben Bean) Phebe, Sally. (Mrs. John Messer) Amos and Oliver. He afterward married Pru- dence Patterson, a widow with three children. Betsy. Jennie and Hosea. From this marriage there were five more child-
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ren, Mercy, (Mrs. Amos Evans) Philena, Charlotte, (Mrs. Nathan Newell) Asa and Jonathan.
Oliver Peabody married Susy Messer and lived with his father. His children were John, Loami, Nancy, (Mrs. Noah Gould) Eliza, Betsy, Sally. who married Peter Runnels and lived and died in the house now owned by Sylvester Hubbard, and Samuel, who married Lovisa Clem- ens for his first wife, by whom he had several children. Only one lived to grow up, Lovisa Ann.
Jonathan Peabody, Jr., had three wives. His first wife, and the mother of his children, was Eliza Coffin of Gilead. Three of his children, Warren, Augustus and Eliza, married respectively, Mary. Lydia and Charles Tenney. Eveline married Madison Gilchrist; Elbridge, Angie Perham; Oravel, Maria Wight, and they all settled in Londonderry. Augustus died in 1865. Oravel lost two children about the same time. and his wife never recovered from this affliction. She died soon after, and her infant boy was adopted and brought back to Bethel by her sister, Mrs. Ed Holt. Josh Bil- lings says of his ancesters. "None of them have ever been hung, as far back as I've traced them." We can say the same of the Peabody's, and add none of
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them ever deserved hanging, either. With few exceptions, they have all been farmers and farmers' wives, and as a family are honest, industrious and fru- gal.
JONATHAN LARY,
a son of Joseph Lary, Jr., married Susan Burbank. a sister of Barker Burbank. and cleared the farm now owned by Daniel Evans. They had five children, Rachel and Elmira, twins, Seliva, Vol- taire and Churchill.
DEARBORN LARY
was a son of Capt. Joseph Lary of Gilead. He married Polly Chandler, a sister of John Chandler, and had a large family of children. Frank lives on the old homestead with his family. Elan mar- ried and settled in Gorham. and his mother and two sisters. Hannah and Deborah, reside with him.
NATHANIEL PORTER
lived just below the stock farm. and had a family of seven girls and one boy. From the little we have been able to learn he seems to have been a quiet, easy-tempered man. fond of fun and practical jokes. He was the first black- smith in town. The story of his shoe- ing the old buck so he might chase the boys on the ice. is familiar to many.
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Col. Head was an uncle to Gov. Head. Two sons, Merrill and Bostie, settled here. Elsie married Hazen Evans. We have space only to mention the names of Jeremiah Gould and his son Noah. Jona- than Bullard and his son Dr. Bazeleel, John Chandler, Sam and Edwin Thomp- son, and William Newell and his descend- ants.
In later times Harvey Philbrook was a prominent and popular man. £
He fur- nished a good illustration of the advan- tages of natural gifts over a school education without those. He filled every town office from highway surveyor to representative, did a large and lucrative business in buying and selling cattle, and acquired a handsome property. He died in the prime of life, regretted by all who knew him.
Dr. Oliver Howe was a student of Dr. John Grover, and came here when quite a young man, He married Esther Bur- bank, built the house now known as the Winthrop House, and is the only physi- cian who ever lived in Shelburne for any length of time. Hiram Cummings own- ed the upper half of the Great Island, and the farm opposite. He was a suc- cessful book farmer, as experimenters are derisively called He sold out to John Wilson, and moved to Paris, Me., about
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two years ago.
Of the old names, Evans is still borne by twenty individuals, Hubbard by seventeen. Green by thirteen, and the descendants of those three famlies com- prise more than one third of our present population.
CHAPTER III. INDUSTRIES.
For some years people could only at- tend to clearing the land and raising food for their growing families. The largest and straightest trees were reserved for the frames of new houses ; shingles rived from the clearest pine; baskets, chair bottoms. cattle bows, etc , made from brown ash butts, and all the rest were piled and burned on the spot. Thousands of timber and cords of wood were thus consigned to the flames as of no practical value. Corn, potatoes, wheat and rye grew abundantly on the new soil, enrich- ed by the fallen leaves of many centuries. Plenty of sugar could be had for the making, and moose, deer and the deli- cious brook trout were free to all, re- gardless of the game officer.
Next to the actual necessity of some- thing to eat, comes something to wear, and on every clearing could be seen a little patch of blue blossomed flax. This
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was pulled, broken. combed. carded, spun and woven, entirely by hand, and made into tow pants and tow and linen shirts for men's summer wear, into serv- iceable checked dresses and aprons, and the nicest of bed and table linen. A day's work was spinning two double skeins of linen, carding and spinning four double skeins of tow, or weaving six yards, and for a week's work a girl received fifty cents. Mrs. James Austin has had a hundred yards out bleaching at once.
Wool was worked up about the same way, and all through the fall and winter the irritating scratch. scratch, of the cards, the hoarse hum of the big wheel, the flutter of the flies on the little wheel, and the rattling of the loom machinery, made cheerful music in the dismal log houses. Much more enlivening to some minds than the heavy, resonant wailing of the modern organ.
Piles of fleecy blankets and stockings were packed away against the marriage of the girls. Pressed quilts were part of the outfit, lasting for years, often to the third generation.
Mrs. Hepzibeth Peabody had one over fifty years old. It was originally a bright green lined with straw color, and quilted with blue in inch squares. Mrs.
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Aaron Peabody had a blue one quilted in little fans. Mrs. George Green had sev- eral. One was quilted in feather work with a border of sun-flower leaves, and then cross quilted in straight lines. Mrs. Ezikiel Evans was usually called upon to mark out the patterns, and the best quilter was the belle of the company.
Overcoats were just a trifle less hide- ous than the ulster. For while the ulster comes only in somber gray, the old-fash- ioned overcoat was bright as a flower- garden. Ben Bean had one made of red, green and brown plaid, a gorgeous affair, even for those days. Ladies' cloaks were made of similar plaid ; about four breadths plaited on a deep yoke. Put one of these cloaks and a pumpkin hood on to the dearest girl in the world, and you couldn't tell her from her grand- mother. To keep the snow from getting into the low shoes, gaily striped socks were worn, and every child could knit double mittens in herring-bone or fox and geese pattern. Peggy Davis could knit the alphabet. and in a pair of mittens she once knit for Barker Burbank she in- scribed a verse. Others took pride in knitting remarkably fast. Many could knit a pair of double mittens in a day ; but the best job in that line was done by Nancy Peabody. Her brother Allan
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came out of the woods and wanted a pair of mittens as he had lost his. There was no yarn in the house, nor rolls, but plenty of wool. Miss Peabody was equal to the emergency. She carded, spun, scoured out and knit a pair of double mittens. (white) and had them ready to wear into the woods the next morning.
Money may be the root of all evil. but like poor rum, many people want it bad enough to run all risks. No sooner had the new settlers begun to be comfortable than they cast about them for ways and means to make money. The nearest market was Portland, eighty-six miles away. Hay, grain and potatoes were too bulky to pay transportation; but Yankee ingennity soon overcame that difficulty. The hay and grain was trans- formed into butter, cheese, pork or beef. Wood was condensed into potash. and in that state was easily carried away. The process of making potash is quite com- plicated and interesting. The wood was cut eight or ten feet long. piled. and burned to ashes. Leeches capable of holding ten or fifteen bushels were placed over a trough made from a large tree, and the lye boiled down to a black, sticky substance called salts. Some- times it was sold in this state at $5.00 a
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hundred. but where business of any amount was done, it was further reduced to potash. Then it was dissolved, boiled down again and baked in a long brick oven till changed to a white powder, called pearlash, which was used in bread. Mrs. Enoch Hubbard informs us that she got her first print dress by bringing ashes off the hill and selling them for nine pence a bushel.
With a more liberal supply of money came the chance for some enterprising fellow to set up a store. Thomas Green, Jr., was the first merchant, and had a potash manufactory in connection with his store on the Jewett farm. Years after, George Green and Robert Ingalls opened a store, first in partnership, then separately. The Bisbee brothers and William Hebbard each tried trading, but were uncuccessful.
Now-a-days a man would hardly ac- cept a bushel of corn as a gift if he had to carry it to a Fryeburg grist-mill on his back ; yet, seventy-five years ago, every necessary of life was carried in that way or hauled on the light, flexible hand sleigh. The first grist-mill was put up by the Austins on Mill brook. William Newell, Sr., worked there after he sold out to Mr. Gates. Afterward saws were put in, and Stephen Peabody sawed the
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lumber for his house on shares. Clear pine boards, twenty-four inches wide, only cost him six dollars a thousand. Still later the Newell brothers put in machinery for sawing shingles and spool wood. The mill was washed away in the freshet of 1878, and has not been re- built. Another grist-mill stood on
Scales' creek, now called State-line
brook. When William Newell, Jr., lived at Berlin, he used to carry a bushel of corn to this mill, stop and do a day's work for Barker Burbank, and carry his meal home at night. This was before the ten bour system of labor. On Clem- ens' brook were two saw mills ; one own- ed by Lawson Evans and one by Jeffer- son Hubbard, The Wheelers owned one on Ingalls brook, and Enoch Hubbard one on Lead Mine brook. All of these mills were local conveniences, not mon- ey-making enterprises.
The earliest carpenters were Mr. Pea- body and his son Oliver. C. J. Lary's old barn was framed by them, and was the second framed barn in town. Of shoemakers we have Thomas Hubbard, Moses Harlowe, Richard Boswell and John Burbank. Col. Porter was the first blacksmith, followed by John Chan- dler, Sumner Chipman, James Hall and Isaiah Spiller. Joseph Conner made
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cart wheels. He was working for Har- vey Philbrook one day, and the conver- sation turned on the wholesale destruc- tion of pine timber. With considerable irritation the old man exclaimed : "In a few years there won't be a pine tree . to lay your jaws to !" .
Some men made a living by making sap-buckets, ox-yokes or sleds. Others shaved shingles. It looks to be slow work, but Aaron Peabody could turn off a thousand a day, and a building once covered could be warranted to last a life- time. One of R. P. Peabody's barns was covered with pine shingles, shaved by his grandfather more than fifty years ago, and last fall the overlapped end was found perfectly sound. Picking up a handful for kindling we saw one marked H. P. S. in large. handsonie capitals. Fifty years distant in the past, yet how easy for the imagination to picture the clearing, a tiny island in the forest sea, the rough log house, the pile of spicy pine logs, and the young fellow in home- spun clothes, idly cutting letters in the smooth white surface of a new shingle. Were they his own initials, or did they staud for a rosy face, lit up by sweet, shy eyes, smoothly braided bair and lit- tle brown hands hardened by incessant spinning and weaving. We were fast
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losing ourselves in a possible ro- mance, when our matter-of-fact com- panion suggested that they might have been made by Henry Smith, when as boys they played together on the scaf- fold. Twenty-five years ago Judge Ingalls had a brick-yard near the pres- ent residence of I. W. Spiller, employ- ing four or five men. Part of the bricks were used to build a coal kiln near the bridge crossing. Mr. Jacob Stevens did a good business burning coal and haul- - ing it to the Glen. It is a tedious and rather disagreeable way of making mon- ey, but he was one of those steady, persevering men who do well at any- thing they undertake.
Logging has always been a standard industry, and the timber holds out like the widow's meal and oil. All the pine went first. Nothing else was fit for building purposes in those days. The old-fashioned tables, two and a half feet
wide, made from a single board without a knot or blemish, the beautiful ceiling and floor in old houses are enough to make a man's heart ache with envy, particularly if he has just been using spruce boards so narrow that when laid they seem to be two thirds cracks. A Mr. Judkins, from Brunswick, was one of the first contractors, paying from .75
-
1136504
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to $1.00 per thousand, delivered on the rivers. Years later Stephen Peabody hauled from Success for $1.83 per thou- sand. Barker Burbank was agent for the undivided lands, and did an extensive business. It was while in his employ that Amos Wheeler and Samuel Phipps. brother of the late Peter Phipps, were burned to death in a camp up Dead River. The unfortunate men were so nearly consumed that they could only be identified by the length of the charred bones. Millions of nice timber have been taken from the intervales, and as much more from the uplands and hill- sides. Manson Green has quite a hand- some growth back on the ridge. Others have reserved small tracts of second growth. but no pine trees of size can now be found. The Lead Mine Valley has always been famous for nice spruce and hemlock. For several successive years all the timber worth hauling has been taken out, yet this winter eight oxen, six horses and a dozen or so of men are still finishing up. Our present industries outside of farming are first, the
SAW MILLS.
Mr. Jewett's on Rattle river is run by steam, and employs fifteen or twenty men, cutting, hauling and sawing spool
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wood, which is loaded on the cars at the siding. and sent to a Massachusetts mar- ket. Mr. Hubbard's on Lead Mine brook can only be run during the spring rise of water. They can work up a hun- dred and fifty cords of wood.
The summer hotels are not only a source of profit to their owners, but af- ford a home market for syrups, chickens, eggs, butter or berries.
THE WINTHROP HOUSE.
At the village was formerly the Dr. . Howe stand. It accommodates thirty- five city boarders, and is open to tran- scient company beside. Josh Billings stopped here one season, and spoke a good word for Shelburne through the columns of the New York Weekly. Longfellow also sp-nt a day or two here . an absent-minded, dreamy old man he seemed to those who saw him. The Post Office is in this building, and Charles Hebbard propriet or of the house, is also postmaster.
THE ST. CHARLES
is situated on high land, two miles and a half from Gorham. and commands an extensive view-that is, if any view in the Androscoggin valley can be called extensive. Mr. Endicott, a western mer-
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chant. who has stopped here several seasons. gave $250 and the town raised an equal sum to expend on the road from Gorham line to the nearest river bridge. Marked improvements were made near the brook above the school house and at Pea brook. Now it some generous soul would urge the expediency. and aid to cut off the top of the Great Hill and graft it on to the bottom. we should em- balm his memory in our hearts and daily p. ay that his path of life might be an easy grade.
THE PHILBROOK HOUSE
is the largest and handsomest, though they receive only 25 guests. Good car- riages and horses and careful drivers are ready to take visitors to all places of in- terest. Sometimes a gay party preter a ride in the hay-rack and the sweet. shrill laughter of the girls accords with the singing as the blended music rises and falls in the summer twilight. Up the north side of the river. across the Great Bridge down, the south side, and across the wire bridge at Gilead is round the square.
THE LEAD MINE.
More than sixty years ago Amos Pea- body discovered lead ore near the banks
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of the Great brook, since called Lead Mine brook; but it was not till twenty- five years later that New York capital- ists became interested enough to investi- gate., A rich deposite of lead was found. and the mine first opened in the fall of 1846. Two shafts were sunk in the bed of the brook, and a tunnel projected thirty -five feet into the hillside. Au eu- gine pumped air into the shaft and water out of it, but the ore was hauled up by horses attached to a whimsey. Augus- tus Newell used to drive when the boys thought it fine fun to sit behind the horses and ride round the ring.
A large framed building was erected in the basement, of which was the heavy erushing machinery and smelting works. Above were pleasant rooms for the use of Mr. Lum. the superintendent, Mr. Farnham the boss. and others.
A dining and cooking house, and sev- eral dwelling houses made quite a vil- lage. Thomas Culhane, who married the oldest daughter of Enoch Emery, began housekeeping in one of these log- houses, and here their little son was born. James Howard lived across the brook a little below.
John Colby, the blacksmith, was an inventive genius. and for years followed that will-o'-wisp perpetual motion. He
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had a wooden model that had run twelve years, and all his spare time while at the mine was spent in the vain effort to utilize his pet theories. He stuttered terribly, and was as homely a man as you'd meet in a day's journey. Bearing this in mind, the point of the following incident will be seen. In those days Natural Philosophy was not so general- ly understood as now, and Mr. Colby's assertion that we see a reflecting image instead of the object itself, inet with con- temptnous unbelief. All his arguments and explanations went for nothing. Everybody could see the absurdity. One day Jim Gordon stood in the door, look- ing intently at something outside. "Wha-wha-what do you see?" inquired Colby. going toward him. Turning till his eyes rested full upon the philoso- pher, Gordon replied with a comical ex- pression of reluctant conviction :
"I give it up. I can't see anything but an image."
Ed Merril and Enoch Hubbard built the big water wheel and did most of the carpenter work on the buildings.
The ore was hauled from the shaft to the wash-house, as the framed house was called. crushed, sitted, washed, smelted and the lead run into bars about two feet long. No effort was made to
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save the silver, and sometimes pieces of slag could be found as large as a man's fist that when broken open looked like pure silver. Potter Smith hauled the leaden bars down to Barker Burbank's with an ox team, and from there they were transported to Portland. Probably the enterprise did not pay, for it was abandoned in 1849. Mr. Farnham and his family, consisting of his wife and seven children, stayed through the sum- mer at Mrs. Stephen Peabody's. and then went back to New York as they came-in a covered carriage drawn by a pair of buckskin horses.
In 1856 a Mr. Pinch came on, hired some men and partially pumped out one shaft. A few blasts were put in, the ore on hand crushed and put in barreis, and the mine was again deserted. The dam rotted. and for many years the Shelburne Lead Mine was one of the interesting features of the past. Last spring rumors were afloat that the old mine was to be again worked. Of course the conserva- tive natives took no stock in these re- ports. Had they not already seen the beginning and the end? But they watch- ed the carriages coming and going over the grass-grown road, and felt great interest in the strangers who were confi- dentially pointed out as members of a
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new mining company.
E. M. Hubbard and sons built a dam, and soon after. four or five men under the direction of Mr. Johnson began to empty the shaft. The stagnant. milky looking water was very offensive, and many feared the foul gases would gener- ate fevers, but nothing worse than head- ache and nausea was felt,
At a depth of seventy-five feet a piece of candle was found that must have been there for twenty-five years or more. A quantity of ore was sent away, and ex- perts decided it was rich in silver and lead.
In October, 1880, Washington Newell contracted to put up a shaft-house and boarding house. The lumber was haul- ed from Gorham and the buildings ready for use in less than four weeks.
The mine seems to be a success. Fif- teen or twenty men are employed there at present. Recently five hundred pounds of nice ore was taken out at three blasts. Mr. Holt is superintendent, and Mr. Johnson is connected with a contemplated mine at Gorham.
Several years ago Dr. Rowe, while at work on Mt. Hayes, was attracted by a glittering object on the other side of the pond. To gratify his curiosity he went over. and found it to be a lump of lead
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projecting from a rock. Near by was a broken square indication that some one had previously been there. Dr. Rowe knocked off a piece of this lump and melted it in a spoon, but probably from lack of interest he said nothing of his discovery.
Last fall Messrs Johnson and Culhane went out prospecting on Mt, Hayes. and report ore near the surface, the vein run- ning towards the Shelburne mine. It there should prove to be a continuous line of lead ore from Shelburne to Gor- ham. mining could hardly fail to become a permanent and profitable industry.
THE STOCK FARM.
A. description of this valuable property which Shelburne proudly claims as all her own, we shall defer till later, when we hope to have the pleasure of visiting it ourselves.
CHAPTER IV. TRAVELLING FACILITIES.
Social intercourse is an imperative necessity, and where limited to a few, harmony and good will are much more likely to prevail. Crusoe could not be long angry with his man Friday. and neighbors separated by miles of gloomy forests. seldom find occasion to quarrel.
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"Be sure." said one lady, and her assertion is repeated by others, "Be sure and tell how much better people enjoyed themselves in those days than they do now."
Is it really so. we wonder. or are everyone's young days their best days? It can't be the world is degenerating, for in spite of many illustrations to the con- trary, we cling to the belief that the di- vine is unchangeable. In the same cir- cumstances and under the same in- fluences, "every human heart is human." Our grandparents were less selfish be- cause more nearly equal. They were more social and neighborly because they had no outside resources, and they were more helpful because more depend- ent.
Doubly imprisoned by mountain walls and trackless forests, the early settlers seldom communicated with the outside world. Fryeburg was the nearest village, and people went there on foot, carrying their supplies on their backs in the sum- mer. and in the winter using snow-shoes and hand-sleighs, which was much the easier way. Mrs. Oliver Peabody nee Susy Messer rode over from Fryburg on one of these light sleds, and they were always used to bring in large game.
When Amos Peobody lived at Gilead.
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he went out hunting with Daniel Lary, and they killed a moose up towards Suc- cess. The next day it was packed on to a sled, hauled over the mountains to Milan, and then down the river, the journey requiring three days time. Girls were good walkers, and thought nothing of going from Capt. Evans' to Fletcher Ingalls' to meeting, or from one end of the town to the other to attend singing schools. huskings, dances or quilting's One young girl walked over the moun tains to attend protracted meeting at Milan. "They had different preaching then." and it ought to have been if it cost so much to hear it.
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