USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Chester > History of old Chester [N. H.] from 1719 to 1869 > Part 32
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Augustus A. True,
Jolın Gile, William H. Ferren,
Elbridge G. Moore,
Charles H. Abbot,
William B. Green,
William H. Kenniston,
Hazen Currier,
Alvah Fogg, James Pecker,
George P. Sargent,
George S. Fullonton,
John H. Hill,
J. Francis Fullonton, Henry Robinson, David T. Osgood,
Franklin P. Morrison,
Horatio II. C. Morrison,
George S. Gove,
Laomi G. Warren,
George D. Rowe,
George C. Johnson,
Daniel R. Bean,
James Card, Charles Dow,
Andrew C. Nowell,
Jona. F. Brown,
Gilford F. Gilman,
Timothy Gleason,
Charles H. Edgerly,
George W. Healey,
John H. Dearborn, David W. Towle,
James H. P. Morrison,
Nathan II. Magoon, Thomas R. Tuttle, Isaiah G. Young,
George M. Brown,
Chase O. Wallace,
Samuel C. Nay,
Wm. A. Wallace, Geo. W. Gilman,
Daniel W. Norton,
George B. Robinson,
Samuel II. Robinson,
Jesse F. Morrill, Josiah W. Lane,
(claimed by Candia), Frank S. Heath,
Elias True, Jr.,
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MILITARY HISTORY.
Wm. Y. Griffin,
James L. Stevens,
Leonard G. Tilton,
Samuel Spaulding, Abner Lowell,
Cyrus W. Dwight,
Charles L. Randlet,
Charles E. Dodge, Joseph Gleason, Hiram Gleason,
Wm. H. Thurston,
Edward Gleason,
Charles Jones, David S. Healey,
Charles H. Perkins,
George Tripp,
John D. Folsom,
Joshua Smith,
Daniel Robinson,
Orren B. Cram,
John D. Brant,
Samuel G. Healey,
Robert P. Kennard,
John M. Smith,
Joseph A. Littlefield,
Daniel Bachelder,
Samuel M. Heath,
George S. Gove.
Those who furnished substitutes for Raymond :
Charles W. Lane,
Elisha T. Gile,
T. M. Gould, M. D.,
Thomas B. Bachelder,
William B. Blake,
John F. Lane,
Saml. I. Locke,
Horace G. Whittier,
Charles A. Bachelder,
Irving Folsom.
The following votes were passed by the town of Ray- mond, respecting raising men, paying bounties, &c.
Sept. 28, 1861, voted to adopt an act authorizing cities and towns to aid the families of volunteers, and authorized the selectmen to pay the families of volunteers.
April 5, 1862, six hundred dollars were appropriated.
Aug. 22, 1862, voted to pay a bounty of two hundred dollars to all those who have enlisted since the first of August, 1862, and all that may enlist, to a number sufficient to fill the quota of the town for the six hundred thousand ; to be paid on their being mustered into service. The selectmen were also instructed to pay the families of volun- teers the full amount that the law allows.
March 10, 1863, the selectmen were authorized to hire eight hundred dollars to pay the families of volunteers.
July 31, 1863, Josiah S. James was chosen agent to see that the quota of the town was allowed.
August 20, 1863, voted to pay a bounty of two hundred
James O. Scribner,
Cyrus E. Poor,
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HISTORY OF CHESTER.
and ninety dollars to all those who are drafted and mus- tered into the service, and compelled to serve in the army of the United States, and also to all substitutes that may be mustered in and serve.
September 24, 1863, voted to pay all men drafted from the town of Raymond, up to the present time, mustered into the service of the United States, or their substitutes, three hundred dollars, agreeable to an act of June, 1863.
May 31, 1864,
" Voted, that the town pay three hundred dollars, drafted on a call for two hundred thousand men, or their substitutes when mustered into service.
" Voted, that the town pay two hundred dollars to all that have, or may reenlist, to keep the quota full for the town.
" Voted, that the selectmen be anthorized to hire men to enlist, to fill the quota of the town, all that the town may be called upon to furnish by the government in future, not to exceed three hundred dollars per man, and hire a sum not exceeding ten thousand dollars."
June 5, 1864, the selectmen were authorized to hire substitutes for drafted men, and pay not exceeding three hundred dollars each, and also for those called for in future ; and to hire a sum not exceeding fifteen thousand dollars.
December 26, 1864,
" Voted to pay citizens of the town, who may volunteer, one hundred dollars in addition to the state bounty for one year, and two hundred dollars for two years.
" Voted to pay substitutes for volunteers three hundred dollars.
" Voted to pay drafted men all the law allows.
" Voted to authorize the selectmen to advance the state bounty.
" Voted to authorize the selectmen to hire not exceeding five thousand dollars."
March 14, 1865,
" Voted to refund to each and every person who may have provided a substitute the one hundred dollars paid by them, over and above the amount previously received from the town."
CHAPTER XV.
HOW THE EARLY SETTLERS LIVED, OR THE INDUSTRIAL HIS- TORY OF CHESTER.
Everybody will understand that the first tenements must have been log-huts with stone chimneys. As a specimen of the carly chimneys, Joseph Basford built a frame house on the place where Wells C. Underhill lives, which was sold to Moody Chase in 1769, who reared in it a large family. His daughter Mary (wife of B. P. Chase) used to relate that they could see to work the longest by the light which came down chimney, of any place in the house; and that the child who sat the farthest back against the back-log was the one who complained most of the cold. Cranes to hang their kettles over the fire were not in fashion, but two pieces of wood called " cross-bars" were put into the chimney, some three feet above the mantel-piece (which was of wood), and another called a " lng-pole " across them on which to hang " trammels." The ovens were built in beyond the back of the fireplace, so that the smoke came into one common flue. Then came half-flue ovens, being built about half way from the back to the jamb. Next came ovens built out to the jambs with a separate flue for the smoke, called whole-flue ovens. Perhaps there were no chimneys built without cranes, or with back ovens, since 1800, but a great many have been in use since then. Some of the fireplaces were so capacious as to burn wood four feet long. They would first put on a " back- log," from a foot to a foot and a half in diameter, and a " back-stick," smaller, on the top, then a " fore-stick," and small wood in front laid on andirons, if they were able to have them, if not, on stones. Where such a fire of good
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HISTORY OF CHESTER.
hard wood was in operation, it gave out a great amount of heat, and the cooking had to be done over such a fire.
The ancient windows were of what was called " diamond glass." The sides of the panes were about five inches and the angles oblique. The longest diagonal stood perpen- dicular, so of course the outside of the casement was half- panes. The outside sash was of wood, and between the panes was lead. At a meeting of the Congregational par- ish April 21, 1743, Jacob Sargent, Benj. Hills and Enoch Colby were chosen a committee to sell the old lead and glass, and glaze the house with new saslies and glass.
STOVES.
I make a few extracts relating to the history of stoves, from an article in the " Scientific American" of Nov. 9, 1867.
" Stoves are comparatively of recent general use, though they were known in this country as early as 1790. In that year Mr. Pettibone of Philadelphia was granted a patent for a stove which he claimed to be capable of warming houses by pure heated air. Pettibone's stove was soon after put up in the alms-house at Philadelphia. This was probably the first attempt to use, at least in this country. From this time forward, for many years, the stove was confined to public places ; its use for warming private houses or for cooking purposes not having been thought of. The long box-stove, capable of taking three-feet wood, was the only stove our ancestors knew anything about. The first advance towards a cooking stove was making the Franklin stove with an oven; and the first that deserves the name was an oblong affair, having an oven running the whole length, the door of which was in front, directly over the door for supplying fuel ; and having also a boiler- hole and boiler on the back part of the top near the pipe. Then a stove similar in arrangement, with swelling elliptic sides was made, generally called the nine-plate stove.
"About 1812 cooking stoves were made at Hudson from patterns made by Mr. Hoxie, who was the first to elevate the fire-box above the oven. In 1815 William T. James of Lansingburgh, afterwards of Troy, made the stove known as the ' James stove,' which not only continued the leading cooking stove for nearly a quarter of a century, but may
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INDUSTRIAL HISTORY.
yet be seen on board of small eastern coasting vessels, where, being cheap and durable, it supplies the place of a caboose."
In the James stove, the oven was directly over the fur- nace, and the sides were swelled out to give place for an oval boiler on each side ; they were cast heavy and were very durable. They were very liable to burn whatever was in the oven, unless the utmost care was used. I have heard it related that when one of these stoves was first set up, the goodman waited to be called to breakfast until out of patience, and upon going into the house found the good- wife in a perfect storm : the stove was good for nothing, - the biscuit were burned, -and as a penalty for getting such a piece of furniture he would have to dispense with his breakfast. With a good deal of coaxing he prevailed on her to mix another batch, which, with careful atten- dance, he succeeded in baking, and at ten or eleven o'clock succeeded in having his breakfast. There was a cooking- stove made at Franconia (a heavy, coarse-made concern) earlier than the James stove was used here, but I think was never used in Chester. Jonathan Aiken, Esq., of Goffstown, had used one of them several years and thrown it by previous to 1836. Other patterns were soon intro- duced with the oven by the side of the furnace and under the furnace.
People were very punctual in going to meeting, and some of them riding three, four, or even six miles on horseback, when there was not sleighing, their horses standing out of doors exposed to the cold, and they remaining in the meeting-house without fire during two long services and intermission, except that a part of the men would resort to the neighboring tavern where they could warm inside as well as outside. In 1821 Samuel D. Bell, Esq., drew up a subscription paper and carried it round and collected money and purchased a stove which was put into the Con- gregational meeting-house. In 1822 the Rev. Clement Parker went round at the Long Meadows and procured a subscription, and when people plead poverty he offered to
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HISTORY OF CHESTER.
advance the money and take his pay in wood. The stove was procured and put into the house in the broad aisle in front of the pulpit, the funnel going up nearly to the ceil- ing, and then out at the front window. The first time a fire was kindled the stove cracked, when the conservatives said, " I told you so."
The first cooking stove in Chester was bought by Daniel French, Esq., in 1824. The next about the same time by Hon. Samuel Bell. The James pattern was perhaps the carliest here.
The first cooking stove in the Long Meadows was one of the James, by Hon. John Folsom, about 1830, but not liking it, he carried it back ; and the first to permanently remain was a rotary, in which the top turned to bring five different boilers over the fire, bought in January, 1835, by the writer; and several others were bought the same winter.
Before cooking stoves were generally introduced, the tin baker was invented, and used to bake cakes, pies, &e., before an open fire. It consisted of a tin box about twenty inches long, the bottom about a foot wide, inelining about twenty-two and a half degrees, and set on legs ; a perpen- dicular back four or five inches wide, with a hinge, and the top similar to the bottom, with a sheet-iron bake pan sus- pended between them, so that when the baker was set before the fire at a suitable distance, the inclined surfaces, top and bottom, reflected the rays of heat upon the materi- als to be baked. The first of these in the Long Meadows- probably in Chester-was bought by the writer in the spring of 1832.
Previous to the stove or baker was the Dutch-oven, for baking, frying, &c. It was a shallow cast-iron kettle, with a cast-iron cover. The articles to be baked were put into it, over the fire, and the cover filled with coals.
Previous to any of these devices, for roasting meat a spit was used. It was an iron rod about a yard long, with a crank at one end. The andirons had bearings to support the spit riveted to the side next the fire. The meat was attached to the spit, which was laid into these bearings,
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INDUSTRIAL HISTORY.
and the crank turned to bring all sides to the fire. I have seen the apparatus, but I think not in use.
Another mode, which I have seen a great many times, was to suspend the spare-rib by a hook and line before the fire, with a dripping-pan under it, and one of the children would turn it with a stick. When the line became hard twisted, it would turn itself the other way until untwisted.
Before the introduction of stoves, they endeavored to " keep fire " by burying a good hard-wood brand in the ashes. When fire was lost, and neighbors were not at hand to borrow from, resort was had to flint and steel, with tinder (a cotton or linen rag burnt to coal) to catch, and a sulphur match to take from that; or a gun, with a little powder and tow, was sometimes used. When stoves be- came common, about 1832 or '33, friction or lucifer matches were introduced.
A story used to be told of a " Mother Hoit," who, when her fire was low, poured powder from a horn, intending to stop it off with her finger, but it proved too quick for her, and the horn went out at the top of the chimney. It used to be a saying, " as quick as Mother Hoit's powder-horn." Oliver Eaton, of Seabrook, informed us that it occurred there, and that he once heard the expression used on a wharf in New York by an English sailor, who said that he had heard it used on the wharves of London.
The milk-pails then in use were wood, and the pans of earthen, tin not being used until within the present century. Their dishes were of pewter, the dresser - a set of open shelves- being set off with platters and plates, basins and porringers. These may be seen in the back- ground of the cut illustrating combing flax and spinning linen. Then the children had wooden plates, or, perhaps, a square trencher to eat from. I used a wooden plate when a boy, also a pewter spoon. Their spoons were mostly made of pewter. They were clumsy, and very liable to be broken.
Robert Leathhead, who lived where Matthew Dickey
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HISTORY OF CHESTER.
lately lived, used to itinerate with ladle and spoon-mould to run pewter spoons. He was a religious man, a Presby- terian, and knew nothing of responses, or the use of amen, except as a finis to a religious exercise. On one occasion he put up with a family of Freewill Baptists or Methodists, who invited him to lead in their family devotions. He had but just commenced, when there came a loud, responsive " amen," which Mr. Leathhead took as a signal for him to close, which he reluctantly did.
They had a piece of cooper's ware, called a piggin, hold- ing about a gallon, one stave of which projected four or five inches above, for a handle. It served as a ladle to dip water, and also as a wash-dish. They also used a gourd- shell as a ladle. It had a long neck, like some species of squash, which made a convenient handle. One may be seen lying on the floor in the forementioned cut: Hard- shell pumpkin-shells were used to store balls of yarn and remnants of cloth. It was told of one old lady that at her death she had pumpkin shells which she carried from her father's at her marriage, fifty years before.
Almost as a matter of course, coming poor into a new and hard, rocky country, our ancestors must have fared hard, and sometimes had a scanty living. I have heard it related that a lad, some sixty or seventy years ago, re- marked that he supposed Mr. So-and-so's folks lived well ; that they had meat all the year round -implying that his folks had not, which was probably truc. I have heard the woman of the other family relate that they were short of meat, and boiled a small piece with some sauce and greens ; that they had a caller to dinner who was probably meat- hungry, and he took the whole and ate it.
It was usual for a man who had a family to go to the " Falls," or to Haverhill, and get and salt a barrel of ale- wives, or the Derryfield folks of lamprey-eels. Once when the fish were rather short at the Falls, and many were wait- ing, one of the fishermen fell in and went down through the falls some distance, and when he got his head above water one of the anxious customers inquired : " And saw ye any fish in your downcoming ?"
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INDUSTRIAL HISTORY.
The English, by boiling beans very soft with their boiled dish, and thickening the liquor, made bean-porridge, whichi was a common and favorite dish. It has been said - I do not vouch for its truth - that when the man was going away with his team the woman would make a pot porridge and freeze with a string in, so that he could hang it on his sled-stake, and when he wanted to bait, would cut off a piece and thaw it. The Irish had a corresponding dish in barley-broth, barley being substituted for beans. It was related of old Mrs. Linn that she had company one day, and had some charming good broth, but forgot to put in the meat. The Irish used to churn their milk and cream together, and use the buttermilk as a common drink.
There was another dish which was a great luxury, which was baked pumpkin and milk. In the autumn and early winter, take hard-shell pumpkins and cut a hole in the stem end sufficiently large to admit the hand, and scrape the in- side out clean, and replace the top. If the oven was not, like Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, heated seven times hotter than it was wont to be heated, it was a great deal hotter than usual, and after the pumpkins were in, it was plastered around the lid to keep the heat in. Dr. Bouton, in his " History of Concord," says that they filled them nearly full of new milk, and ate directly from the shell, and that Governor Langdon, when boarding at Deacon Kimball's, preferred that mode as being the most genteel. I never saw that mode practiced, but have eaten pumpkin and milk a great many times. The shells were very useful to hold balls of yarn and remnants of cloth.
Some wheat was raised, and the flour used, but most of the bread used was brown, composed of rye and Indian. Such a thing as purchasing flour was hardly known previ- ous to 1810, or later.
A favorite and good method of cooking potatoes was to open the hot embers on the hearth, and put the potatoes in and cover and roast them.
The most common drink was cider, but in warm weather beer was made. In some places malt-beer was used,
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HISTORY OF CHESTER.
but I have seen no indications that it ever was in Chester. It was commonly made of hops, though sometimes by boil- ing spruce boughs. Spruce beer has been made at my father's long since my recollection. Beer would be an indispensable article for every innholder in cold weather, for the purpose of making flip.
When the people had large families it was not uncommon to have but one suit for each of the children, and the mother must wash and dry the clothes after the children were in bed. I have heard an old man say that when he was a boy his mother made him wear his shirt backside for- ward half of the time, to make it wear out alike.
The clothing was mostly of domestic manufacture. The men, however, sometimes wore leather small clothes of moose-hide, buck-skin or sheep-skin. The Committee of Safety (Col. N. H. Hist. Soc., vol. 7, p. 63) " agreed with Mr. Daniel Gilman for 100 coarse moose hide breeches at 18s." Simon Berry and William Locke came from Rye about. the same time, and their fathers soon made a journey to Chester to see their sons. Mr. Berry wore a pair of sheep- skin breeches, and being caught in a shower, the breeches got wet and sagged to the calf of the leg. Mr. Berry took his knife and cut them off at the proper place at the knee ; soon the sun came out, and the breeches shrank, so they were as much too short as they had before been too long.
Their sheep were of a coarse-wooled kind. The wool was carded with hand-cards, which was very laborious work for the women. Sometimes, to make it more cheer- ful, they would have a bee or wool-breaking. It was, I be- lieve, as much work to card as to spin it, and a woman's stint of spinning was five skeins per day, for which the usual price was fifty cents and board per week, perhaps less sometimes.
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INDUSTRIAL HISTORY.
CARDING AND SPINNING WOOL, COTTON OR TOW.
In Coffin's " History of Newbury," under date 1794, it is said: "In June of this year the first incorporated woolen factory in Massachusetts was erected at the falls of the river Parker, at Newbury. The machinery was made in Newburyport, by Messrs. Standring, Armstrong and Guppy." This was probably the first wool-carding done by machinery in this region, if not in the country, and I am so informed by Mr. Dustin, of Salem, N. H. The next was by Mr. Alexander, where Mr. John Taylor's factory now is, in Salem, N. H., soon after the year 1800. The people of Chester used to go there with their wool, and pay atout 27
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HISTORY OF CHESTER.
eight cents per pound for carding. I believe Mr. Alexander did some manufacturing.
In 1805, Samuel Haynes, of Chester, procured a carding machine, and ran it that season, and then returned it to the vender. The next carding machine in this region was made at Chelmsford, Mass., and put up at Poplin Rocks, by Samnel Gibson, who came from Methuen, Mass., in 1806. The next carding machine was made by D. & J. Marsh, Haverhill, Mass., for Moses Chase, and set up in the Haynes fulling-mill, in 1810. Some of the conservatives, or fogies, were much offended at the innovation, as it would ruin the women, and make them idle and lazy. The cards were then all set by hand, giving employment to women and children to set the teeth.
For men's wear, fulled cloth was made and dressed by the clothier at from ninepence to one shilling and sixpence per yard. Sometimes, to save this expense, heavy waled cloth was made and dyed with bark at home. For women's win- ter wear, "baize " was made and dyed green, or without any fulling or napping, dyed with redwood or camwood, and pressed, and called pressed cloth ; or sometimes merely dyed with bark at home. Nearly every good house-wife would have a blue vat, in the form of a " dye-pot," in which, instead of dissolving the indigo at once with sulphuric acid, it was put in a bag and dissolved gradually in urine. Those old enough to remember the operation will retain vivid recollections of the operation of " wringing out the dye-pot," on their olfactories. Here was dyed the wool for stockings, and mother's and grandmother's woolen aprons. Many times when I was a small boy, when I came from sliding, or other recreation, with my hands aching with cold, I had them wrapped in grandmother's blue woolen apron.
For summer wear the men had a cotton and linen cloth called fustian. The women had for dresses, aprons, &c., plaids of various patterns. So occasionally a web was made for handkerchiefs.
The raising of flax and the manufacture of linen was
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INDUSTRIAL HISTORY.
first introduced by the emigrants from Ireland to London- derry, in 1719, and they were eminent in that line of man- ufacture. It may be wise to preserve a knowledge of the various processes of it.
After the flax was " pulled," the seed was threshed off, and the flax was spread to rot. It lay exposed to the dews, rain and sun, until the woody part had become tender, so as readily to break in pieces. The fibre would meanwhile turn of a darker color, and become more pliable. After the sledding had broken up, about the first of March, the flax was "got out." The first operation was breaking.
BREAKING AND SWINGLING FLIX.
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HISTORY OF CHESTER.
The flax-break was an oak stick some six feet long and a foot square, set on legs, with about four feet of it about half cut away diagonally, leaving one foot square of each end. Here were inserted four hard-wood slats, edgewise, with the upper edge sharp. To match this were another set of slats, one end inserted in a block called a " head," and the other in a wooden roller hung to the back part of the body of the break. The operation of breaking was to raise the top slats with the right hand, by means of a pin or handle in the head, and with the left hand put the flax into the break, and it was operated until the woody part of the flax was broken fine, and most of it fallen on the floor. The next operation was combing the seed ends by drawing it through a comb of twelve or sixteen iron teeth inserted in a board. The next operation was swingling. A board about seven inches wide and four feet long was set in a heavy block to keep it steady and upright. This was a " swingling board." A heavy wooden knife about two feet long was used to beat the flax over this board to separate the finer " shives " and the coarser tow. This operation was called " swingling." A very smart, man, with good flax and a good dry day, and leaving it rather rough, would swingle forty pounds in a day, though twenty pounds would be an ordinary day's work. The breaking was about equal to the swingling, which would make ten to twelve pounds on an average, as an ordinary day's work of dressing from the straw.
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