USA > New Hampshire > Cheshire County > Keene > History of the town of Keene, from 1732, when the township was granted by Massachusetts, to 1874, when it became a city > Part 28
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A "good burn" would clear the land of brush and everything except the bodies of the trees. These the young farmer would cut into logs small enough to handle, and roll them into piles to burn, saving enough to build a fence around his piece. For this heavy work, and for building his cabin, he would "change works" with his neighbor. Sometimes neighbors joined in "bees" to clear the land after the burning, and from the practice of shrewdly plan- ning the piles for hastening the work, came the satirical political term "log-rolling." Yet in many cases the pioneer had no neighbor within many miles, and had to do all the work himself. In later years, when he had oxen, the logs would be hauled together and piled for burning. If the land was rough and intended for pasture, the logs were left on the ground, and the rye and grass seed were sown
1 Spoonwood pond in Packersfield (Nelson) was thus named from the laurel. called spoonwood, which grew on its shores and from which the Indians and early settlers made spoons.
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among them. Oxen were used almost wholly for hauling and for work on the farm, and horses were kept for riding only. Bringing his seed rye from the nearest supply -fre- quently on his back, sometimes on a horse barrow-he would sow it "broadcast" and scratch it in with a small two-pronged "scratcher." This preparatory work for his new home would occupy the young adventurer till late in the autumn, when he would return to his former home for the winter. Sometimes young wives accompanied their husbands in the first instance, and lived in the primitive manner above outlined. In that case a more elaborate out- fit was carried and the log cabin was built at once.
Corn would be planted in the following spring by opening the soil with the hoe and putting in the seed wherever there was room for a "hill" of corn to grow between the stumps, rocks, and such logs as might be left on the ground. This method was called the "Indian plant." Pumpkins, peas, beans and other vines and vege- tables could also be planted. It would be several years before ploughs could be used among the stumps and roots.
Then the log cabin would be built, of straight, smooth logs, matched and locked together at the corners to bring them in close contact and make impervious walls. Un- avoidable cracks were filled with sticks and plastered with mud or clay mortar. When time and the expense could be afforded the logs were hewn, otherwise they were left round. One opening was left for a door and one for a window, the latter to be closed with a shutter without hinges, made of slabs split from logs. The door, made in the same way, would be hung on wooden hinges. The roof was of poles covered with bark, or thatched with rye straw. The earth formed the floor, and was soon trodden hard and smooth by use. Sometimes a puncheon floor was laid, but that was a luxury. In many cases there was but one room, sometimes two, the partition being made of logs like the walls. The first chimney was usually of stones at the bottom, topped out with short logs and sticks built like the cabin walls, and plastered with clay mortar. Sometimes there was simply a hole in the roof, with the fire on the ground in the middle of the cabin;
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and sometimes the fire was outside, in front of the cabin door. Over the fire a "lug-pole" of green wood was placed, supported at the ends by crotched stakes, or in the jams of the chimney, with wooden hooks for suspending pots and kettles. Poles were laid across overhead in the cabin, on which articles could be stored; and sometimes puncheons were laid for a more permanent upper floor and the loft was made a sleeping apartment for the children, the hired man, and even for guests, to be reached by a ladder. For a cellar, an excavation was made outside the cabin and covered with logs and earth.
In two or three years, our farmer would have some grass on his place, and there was always good browsing and some native grass in the lowlands, and he could keep a cow; and it would not be long before he would have young cattle, a pair of young oxen, and a few sheep. Hogs and poultry he could have from the first, but the horse was a luxury and usually came later. Seeds would be brought at the first, and one of his first acts would be to plant a nursery of fruit trees; and a few years would bring him an abundance of apples, peaches and plums; and the women never forgot to bring a few seeds of their favorite flowers, and bulbs and roots for the garden. Every mother knew the medicinal qualities of many herbs and plants and other physician was rarely employed in the family, or could be obtained.
All the first years of the pioneer's life were devoted to clearing his land in the way described, piece by piece, and raising crops of corn, rye, vegetables, and sometimes wheat and other cereals. The virgin soil was rich-improved by the ashes of the burnt trees-and the yield was abundant and farming was remunerative. True, much of the soil was consumed by those furious fires and was left so thin that years of cropping nearly exhausted it. So hardy and powerful were those men, and so skilled in the use of the axe, that many a one felled his acre of heavy timber in a day, and some of them would drink a quart of rum and chew a "hand" of tobacco apiece while doing it. The writer remembers men who were known to have accom- plished those feats, and has heard it from the neighbors of
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others who had done the same. He also distinctly remem- bers one woman of that class of people, a farmer's wife, and the mother of a good deacon of one of the churches here at the present time1 (1900), who has been known to pick up a barrel of cider and throw it into a cart. And her son relates the fact that when water was scarce and was hauled to the house in barrels, she would lift a full barrel, poise it on the edge of a large tub and empty it from the bung-hole.
The principal growth of the forest was oak, maple, beech, birch, white and black ash, and elm about the low grounds, with hemlock and spruce on the higher altitudes; while the plains and some of the lower elevations were covered with lofty white and yellow pines, perfectly straight and frequently reaching the height of eighty to 100 feet without a branch, making some of the finest lumber in the world. Boards may still be seen in the finish of some of the old houses that are three to four feet wide and perfectly clear. Those trees were so valuable that in every grant of a township in New Hampshire they were reserved for masts "for the use of His Majesty's Royal Navy."
The "sweetening" of the pioneers was made from the sap of the sugar maple, caught in troughs made from small logs split in halves and hollowed out. Such troughs were still used for that purpose within the memory of people now living.
The principal animals of these forests were the black bear, wolf, fox, wild cat, catamount, moose, deer, raccoon and the smaller ones still found here. The otter lived in the ponds, so numerous in these eastern states, and vestiges of the work of the beaver may still be seen where he built his wonderful dam, formed his artificial pond, and con- structed his ingenious house.
In 1801, "A Mr. John Butler, while digging a cellar, on the first day of April, in Washington street, found, under a stump, fifty snakes of various kinds-house adders, striped, green, and white bellied snakes. They measured
1 Mrs. Leavitt Philips, of that part of Nelson which is now Roxbury. Her maiden name was Mary Hinds, niece of Capt. Jacob Hinds of Chesterfield, one of Col. Reed's captains in the Revolutionary war. (Dea. Harvey Philips.)
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from one foot to three feet in length. All were torpid but the house adders." A nest of "upwards of three hundred" was found at another time. (Annals, pages 90 and 91.)
The flesh of the moose was considered equal to beef, and deer furnished venison for those who were skilful enough to shoot them. Wild turkeys were sometimes shot, but they were not here in large numbers; and wild geese simply made some of our larger ponds, as they do at the present time, occasional resting places on their long jour- neys north and south. At harvest time wild pigeons came in immense numbers to feed upon the grain. Sometimes their flocks were so large that they obscured the sun like a cloud, and they had special roosting groves where mil- lions of them would gather for the night. Their speed on the wing was 120 miles an hour. They were taken in large numbers in nets, and were delicious food. They have almost wholly disappeared, and naturalists tell us that they have migrated to Chili and Peru, South America. Song birds were plentiful, and morning and evening, in bright weather, the air was filled with their music.
Bears and wolves were a terror and scourge, and bounties were paid by the state for their destruction. Bears sometimes paid the penalty of their temerity in devouring pigs, and corn in the field, by furnishing the pioneer's table with their flesh, but it was not considered a delicacy.
"About this time [1777] a furious fight between a man and a bear took place in the North part of the town, of which the following account has been furnished by his son. Mr. Eleazer Wilcox, of Gilsum, going into his pasture, and having with him his gun, loaded with a small charge of powder, saw a very large bear, six or eight rods from him. Taking a bullet from his pocket, he dropped it into his gun, fired, and hit her in the head. She fell, but before Wilcox could get to her, sprang up and ran off. He then went to Mr. Joshua Osgood's, who was an experienced hunter and had a large dog, and they together followed the track of the bear, which was marked by her blood. Having fol- lowed it about three miles, supposing they were near her, they separated that they might have more chance of obtaining a shot at her. On a sudden, Wilcox saw the bear advancing, in a furious rage, towards him. His gun missed fire; the bear, coming near him, knocked it from
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his hand with her paw, and then, by a blow on the head, knocked him down. He rose on his knees, when the bear, putting her paws on his shoulders, endeavored to throw him on the ground; but he, being a very athletic man, maintained his position with desperate effort. During the struggle, the dog aided him and perhaps saved his life by frequent and furious attacks. Osgood soon came up; for some time, the combatants being closely grappled and their positions often changing, he hesitated to fire, fearing to kill his neighbor; but perceiving the case desperate, he at length fired, and fortunately shot the bear in the side, without hitting Wilcox. She ran off, and the next day was found dead, East of the Branch. Mr. Wilcox, having re- ceived many wounds, and strained his back severely in the struggle, was carried home on a litter; and, though he lived many years, never entirely recovered."
(Annals, page 49.)
In 1811, the inhabitants of Keene, Gilsum and Sullivan joined in a large and well organized bear hunt, to rid them- selves of the pests.
Wolves made the night hideous with their howling- two or three making sounds as if there were twenty-and were dangerous when pinched with hunger, particularly to children; but they seldom attacked men. They were so annoying in 1796 that a wolf hunt was organized at Wal- pole in which five hundred persons joined. Two wolves and a bear were shot, and the hunt ended with a supper at the several taverns in the vicinity.
In each settlement a sawmill was one of the first things to be set up, to provide lumber for building and finishing; and the blacksmith, and the shoemaker carrying his bench from house to house on his back, soon followed the leading pioneers, often combining farming with work at their trades. Here in Upper Ashuelot, in 1735, the year before the first permanent settlement was made, the pro- prietors voted 100 acres of "middling good land and twenty-five pounds in money" to any one who would build a sawmill on Beaver brook; and in 1738 "a set of blacksmith's tools" was bought by the proprietors for the use of the settlers. Until the blacksmith came-and after- wards in many cases-wooden pins, withes, and the inner bark of the elm and basswood did duty in the place of nails, bolts and wire.
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Mechanics were very important members of a com- munity, for all tools and implements had to be made by hand. Scarcely any ready-made article could be bought. In repairing old furniture, one often finds even small brads and finishing nails made by hand one hundred years ago or more.
Coopers were very much relied upon for making all sorts of wooden vessels. They were required by law to brand their casks with their name or initials and were punished with fine for making defective ones.1 They not only made casks, tubs, barrels, buckets, etc., but also the keeler, piggin, noggin and many other vessels in common use.
It would not be long before a gristmill would be added to the sawmill. In 1736, the year of the first permanent settlement, the proprietors of Keene appointed a commit- tee "to agree with a man to build a gristmill," and one was soon in operation. But until the gristmill came the settlers had to go long distances to have their grain ground. When John Kilburn and Col. Benj. Bellows first went to Walpole they had to go to Northampton to mill. In 1763, Ruth Davis of Rutland, Mass., at the age of seven- teen, married "Breed Batchelder 2 of Keene, gentleman." They lived near the east line of the town, in what is now Roxbury, and she used to take a bag of grain on a horse and go to Rutland, fifty miles, to mill, doubtless including a visit to her home.3 John Taggard, the pioneer of Stod- dard, settled there with his family in 1768. Their nearest neighbors were at Peterboro, Keene and Walpole. He had to carry his grain on his back to Peterboro, twenty miles, to have it ground. On one trip he was delayed by a great snow storm till his family nearly starved.4 "It is related that Mrs. William Greenwood,5 one morning in winter, when the snow was deep, put on snowshoes, took half a bushel of corn on her shoulder, went by marked trees to Peterborough, had it ground into meal, and returned to Dublin the same day."
1 Law of 1718.
2 The tory of 1776.
3 She lived till 1840-ninety-four years-and was buried in the small grave- yard near Joseph Chase's.
+Gould's History of Stoddard.
5 History of Dublin.
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In winter the snows were usually deep, and the only means of travel was on snowshoes, in the use of which the pioneers became very skilful. Children, and even men and women, went barefooted the greater part of the time. "Children are early used to coarse fare and hard lodgings; and to be without shoes in all seasons of the year is scarcely accounted a want." (Belknap's History of New Hampshire, vol. 3, page 259.)
The supply of kitchen utensils was very small. In some cases the whole family would eat their bean porridge, hasty pudding and other food from a single dish, often of wood, placed on a rude table, the members taking turns in using the spoons, of which there were seldom enough to go round. Noggins, pewter porringers, and the shells of gourds were used for drinking cups. At first the supply of water was brought from the spring or stream near which the cabin was placed. Afterwards a well would be dug and the water drawn by fastening a bucket to the end of a long, slender pole with a wooden spring. Later, the "well sweep" would be erected and the oaken bucket attached. As time progressed the carpenter and the brick- maker appeared in the settlement, or bricks would be made within hauling distance, and framed and finished houses could be built, when desired; but the log cabins remained for many years. Hardware was not to be had, and hinges and latches were made of wood. A heavy latch was placed on the entrance door, to be raised from the outside by a rawhide string running through the door. To fasten against intruders the string was pulled in; but this was seldom done, even at night, except in times of hostile Indians. "The latch-string out" is still one of the forms of expressing hospitality.
With the framed house came the ample brick chimney, with its huge fireplace, provided with crane and pot- hooks, its spacious oven and its safe and convenient ash- hole. The brick oven turned out its great loaves of brown bread-two-thirds rye and one-third corn meal-its "In- dian" puddings with the same proportions, its earthen pots of beans and pork, its roasts of beef, fowl and mut- ton, its delicious mince and pumpkin pies-all put in at
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night and taken out steaming hot in the morning 1-the materials for all of which were produced on the farm, ex- cept the salt and spices, and even some of the latter, as sage, mint, carraway, coriander and some others. These delectable viands were a great accession to the cuisine, and the family had now reached a stage of luxurious living, but the butcher and the baker were still unknown. After some years they began to raise wheat, but that was a luxury, and the economical housekeeper would make the upper crust of her pies of wheat flour and the under crust of rye. From that custom came the term "upper crust" as applied to aristocratic society.
The house was provided with a cellar, a comfortable chamber, and at least two rooms on the ground floor; and a barn would be built for the stock, hay, grain and fod- der. For roofs, shingles split from large pine logs, and shaved, were exceedingly durable. The old meetinghouse built in 1786, on the north side of our present Central square, was covered with such shingles by Eliphalet Briggs, and they lasted until 1853, sixty-seven years, when they were replaced with the same material by his grandson, William S. Briggs. The ample kitchen fireplace, with its glowing logs, was the only ordinary source of warmth for the whole house even in winter. The sleeping rooms would be like the frigid zone, and the children in the chamber would often feel the snow sifting in their faces during violent storms, find their beds covered with it in the morn- ing, and have to wade through small drifts with bare feet to get to the kitchen. And as the family gathered around the rousing fire their faces would be scorched while they shivered with cold from the rear.
At night tapers from the yellow or "pitch" pine were used in place of candles, and the large pine knots from trees that had fallen and decayed, gathered and stored for winter use, were laid on the coals and gave sufficient light for reading. Candles could be had only when a fat beef was killed, which was not often, and oil and lamps had
1 To avoid desecrating the Sabbath with unnecessary labor, Saturday was made the baking day of the week. The food was prepared on that day, put into the oven at night, and came out hot Sunday morning. Thus came about the Yankee custom of having baked beans and pork and brown bread for Sun- day morning breakfast.
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not come into general use. Candles were made by sus- pending half a dozen wicks at proper distances apart, on each of a number of slender rods and dipping them in tallow, in cold weather, when the tallow would adhere and quickly cool. The rods, suspended between two poles, were taken alternately, and after many immersions the "tallow dips" would be formed. When moulds could be had the tallow was sometimes run in those. Soap was made from scraps of grease cut with the lye of hardwood ashes.
Cattle and sheep ran at large in the woods, each owner having his mark or "brand," which was recorded in the town books. Hogs also ran at large, but were required to be yoked and ringed, and it was the duty of hogreeves, appointed by the towns, to enforce the law, and if neces- sary, themselves to put on the yokes and rings. Cattle, hogs or sheep found in fields might be put in the pound provided by the town and the owner notified and required to pay the cost. Each farmer kept at least a few sheep and raised his own wool for family use. The sheep were sheared at the proper season and the wool stored in the chamber. When the women were ready for the work the wool was "sorted"-the fine from the coarse-scoured, carded by hand into rolls a foot and a half to two feet long and half an inch or more in diameter,1 and spun into yarn. Wool was spun on a large wheel, turned by hand, the spinner walking back and forth to draw and renew her thread. The speed of the twist was produced and regulated by a band from the rim of the large wheel, turn- ing a small one in the "wheel head," which carried . the spindle. Azel Wilder in his time made all the wheel-heads for this part of the country and shipped many to distant parts. For evening work, the large pine-knot already men- tioned was laid on the fire and the wheel so placed that as the spinner drew her thread from the spindle it came directly between her eyes and the flame of the burning
1 Towards the close of the 18th century machine cards were invented - wire teeth set in leather, as in the hand cards, and fastened on cylinders which were propelled by water power-and people sent their wool to be carded. Previous to that hand cards had been used from time immemorial. In 1778 the legisla- ture offered a bounty of two hundred pounds for 2,000 wool cards to be made within the state.
1
AZEL WILDER.
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knot, which gave her an excellent light.1 The yarn was knitted into stockings, mittens and other articles, and woven into cloth for the clothing and bedclothing of the family. Cattle's hair from the tanneries was sometimes spun and woven into bed coverings.
Some of the woolen yarn was dyed, and the indigo blue dye-pot stood in the chimney corner, always ready for use, potent with its vile odors whenever it was stirred. Other dyes were used also, as the bark of the butternut tree, the sumac, the golden-rod, and other plants, gathered from the fields. Indigo dye mixed with the flowers of golden-rod and alum made green. Sassafras was used for yellow and orange. Pokeberry, boiled with alum, made crimson. Sorrel with logwood and copperas made black.
Flax was raised for the family linen. When matured it was pulled up by the roots and laid on the ground in gavels to "rot"-so that the woody part of the stock would separate from the fibre-then bound in bundles, and stored in the barn. The winter's work of the farmer was to break his flax with a "brake," "swingle" it on a "swingling board " with a "swingling knife"-a two edged, wooden sword-" hetchel" it (hatchel or heckle) ready for spinning; and to thresh his grain with a "flail." Swing- ling the flax must be done on a clear, sunny day.
The linen was spun on a "foot-wheel," the long, silken, combed fibres of the flax wound on a distaff, and carefully fed through a socket to the spindle, which was turned by bands, the power furnished by the foot, the spinner sitting. The Scotch Irish who settled Londonderry introduced their method of making linen and gave an impulse to that industry in New England. From the spindle the yarn was reeled off into knots and skeins. The reel was made to take on seventy-two inches in length at each revolution, and forty such threads made a knot; and seven knots of woolen yarn, or fourteen of linen, made a skein. The hand-reel for woolen yarn was called a "niddy-noddy." Linen thread was wound off on a clock-reel which counted and ticked off the exact number of strands for a knot.
1 Many a time has the writer brought the knots from the pasture for his sainted mother, and lain on the floor reading by the same light that enabled her to draw her threads to perfection.
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Spinning four skeins of woolen yarn-the spinner carding the wool herself-or two of linen, made a day's work, the pay for which in the early days of Keene was fourpence ha' penny (six and a quarter cents) and later sixpence. By the week, the pay was fifty cents. For common labor, men were paid from one shilling sixpence to two shillings a day.
All farmers' and mechanics' daughters learned to spin and weave, and they usually made their own marriage outfit. The loom was set up in the unfinished chamber, the yarn woven into cloth, the cloth sent to the clothier to be fulled, dyed, "finished " and pressed; and the tailoress -sometimes the tailor-went from house to house, to make up the garments for the family. There were regular prices for a day's work at weaving, varying with the width and kind of cloth woven.
"Leather breeches," of deer or sheep skin, sometimes of moose, were much worn by men for heavy work, as were leathern aprons of the same. In the same way the women used the strong, coarse cloth made of the combings of flax, called tow. Calico was beyond their means, sell- ing, in 1788, at sixty-two and one-half cents a yard. The Scotch Irish of Londonderry brought with them also the art of making "striped frocking;" and it became an article of universal wear for farmers and laboring men, made in nearly every family. Straw braiding was also a profitable industry for women.
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