USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Hillsborough > The history of Hillsborough, New Hampshire, 1735-1921, Volume 1 > Part 28
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Vanished are the trees they blazed; gone are the cabins they built ; long-since snuffed out in smoke the house of worship they erected as a temple in the wilderness. But their clearings remain, and the example of their industry and heroism live as a guiding star to those who travel the self-same route, the self-same round of life, enlarged with the increasing horizon of an expanding civilization. Perhaps no man in his calling has been more mis- judged and cared so little about it as the farmer. Until only a few years since he was not only a feller of trees and tiller of the soil, but he was of necessity a mechanic, a smith, his own lawyer,
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HISTORY OF HILLSBOROUGH.
when one was needed, thanks to the good mother of the house- hold, his own doctor, and his own manufacturer.
The agricultural history of a country town is really its most interesting and important phase. Other industries, such as . manufacturing of various kinds, inventions of improved pro- ducts, have succeeded the more labored efforts of the tillers of the soil, yet after all he made these possible-was the pioneer of all achievements. While Hillsborough did not prove an Eden of fertility (what town ever did?) there was much good land in the territory originally covered by Colonel Hill's deed. We have become familiar enough with its history to know that these were developed with marked certainty if not with a great degree of speed.
The largest numbers of acres under cultivation existed at the time of the breaking out of the Civil War, when Hillsborough had fewer acres overshadowed with wild growth than the majority of towns.
FARMS OF YESTERDAY.
Mr. Frank French, the artist, in an article upon life in the days when a certain room, usually unfinished, was set apart as the weave-room, says very aptly: "The Widow Bussiel's weave- room was an enchanting place. There was a mystery about the ponderous machine that excited our boyish imagination, and responsive sympathy in the face of the weaver that appealed to our hearts. As she sat upon her rude bench her head was sil- houetted against the light of a cob-webbed window and framed in by the shadowy posts, beams and braces. The cords of the harness and the threads of the warp were illuminated, and the light glinted upon the reed as it jerked sharply forward, driving the thread of filling home with a thud; and upon the polished shuttle as it was deftly thrown back and forth by the weaver's hands between the crossed ranks of the warp, whose positions were reversed by squeaky pedals after receiving the weft from the shuttle. The widow wove an occasional web of cloth, a rag carpet or a bed tick for home use or for a neighbor.
"Nothing was thrown away in those days. Every wornout dress or apron was cut in strips, which were sewed together at the ends and wound in balls for rag carpet. Scraps too small for
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THE FARMER'S SUNDAY.
carpet rags were put in the rag-bag to be exchanged with the peddler for tinware ... All the sewing was done at home, except an occasional Sunday suit made by the traveling tailor. Stock- ings, mittens and tippets were knitted from yarn spun at home. Apples were cut, strung and dried and boiled cider apple sauce' made. Milk had to be cared for daily, and butter and cheese called for attention. The tallow dip, which was the staple light of the household, was manufactured at home. Chickens and turkeys were killed and picked, and the feathers carefully sorted for beds and pillows. Very little was bought from the butcher and nothing from the baker. Saturday was baking day. What an appalling task it must have been to prepare for those savage appetites, in the heat of summer a host of apple, pumpkin and custard pies, a pot of pork and beans, a great loaf of brown bread and many loaves of wheat, a large Indian or apple pudding, gingerbread, cookies, cup custards, etc .! Moreover the great oven had to be heated and cleaned to receive them. Need one wonder that the Sabbath was eagerly looked forward to in those days of toil ?
"It can be hardly said that the boys, brimming over with fun and spirits, shared with their elders this longing for the quiet peace of Sunday. All forms of play were sternly repressed, but we enjoyed the respite from work. In a long closet off the spare room hung the Sunday clothes and hats, while the Sunday shoes were in orderly row upon the floor. These articles of apparel were seldom put on except upon the Sabbath, and some of them had descended from the eldest to the youngest. Father always maintained an air of extreme gravity as we rode over the three miles of hill road to the Centre meeting house, but I have no doubt it was a matter of secret pride to him to drive up to the meeting house with two wagon loads behind such likely looking horses. As we walked up the uncarpeted aisle our stiff Sunday shoes embarassingly announced our presence and their infrequent use. There was a long morning service, followed by a half-hour intermission during which we went over to the horse-shed and ate our luncheon. Then we walked over to the grave yard, back of the meeting house, holding silent communion with those sleep- ing there. Returning to Sunday School, we stopped at Blake
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HISTORY OF HILLSBOROUGH.
Martin's well-sweep for a drink of water, and my mother and sister gathered sprigs of spearmint and heads of caraway for the sleepy boys to brouse upon during the long afternoon service which immediately followed Sunday School.
"Any little incident which might relieve the tediousness of the service was anxiously looked for, and a very slight occurrence was sufficient to excite our sense of the ridiculous to the point of explosion from which we were saved by a glance at father's stern face at the end of the pew. Perhaps at a solemn moment the neighs of two horses which had been tied close together would pierce the Sabbath stillness ; or a wasp would come through the window, trailing his long black legs just above the flower- decked hat of a girl and cause her to cower in fright; or weary old Deacon Stephens would nod lower and lower till the strain upon his neck would awaken him with a start."
A ludicruous affair that occurred some years before Mr. French's time, seems worthy of place here. A certain divine, who shall be nameless here, out of respect to his memory, one balmy June morning came to perform his part in the worship decked out in his buckskin suit for the first time that season. According to custom this suit during the interval since cast aside the previous summer had been hanging in the attic chamber. Here a colony of hornets had found a way, and finding no likelier receptacle for their abiding place, had taken possession of the parson's unmen- tionables. Unaware of these unsolicited tenants the good man had hastily donned the garments on this particular Sabbath morning, and his mind engrossed with clerical duties he entered the pulpit, feeling no doubt a pardonable pride in his summer raiment. But, as he warmed with the subject matter of his dis- course, the merry little occupants of his nether garments began also to feel the thrill of new life, and so began to move about very much to the Parson's surprise and wonder. Surreptitiously placing his hand somewhat heavily over the scene of action he was horrified to feel a sharp prick as if a needle had been thrust into his limb. Nor did the disturbance stop here, but immediately a complete storm of attacks made him fairly writhe. Still in the dark as to the meaning of this warfare waged at this most un- propitious moment, he turned an agonizing look towards his
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SALTING THE CATTLE.
parishioners, crying out: "Bretheren and Sisterens, there will have to be a halt in our services! While the word of the good Lord is in my mouth, the devil is in my breeches!"
Resuming Mr. French's narrative: "The long sermon would end at last, and amid the rustle of silk brocade and bombazine the congregation would arise and face about to the choir with a flutter of relief. On our return home the Sunday dinner of pork and beans and brown bread, which had gained richness and ripeness of flavor from twenty-four hours's exposure to the heat of the old brick oven, was served.
"After dinner, during the rush of haying, we were allowed to go to a distant pasture on Sunday to salt the cattle. This pleasant duty belonged by custom to Saturday afternoon, but was doubly enjoyed on the Sabbath, as it filled most pleasurable a portion of the day which otherwise would have been given up to the house and religious reading. With what a sense of joyous freedom we walked down the shady hillside, where the green and red berries of spikenard glistened like glass beads; then up and down the steep ledgy pitches of the blackberry and raspberry bordered road, where yarrow, daisies, Queen Ann's lace and jewel weed mingled their many hued blossoms with the tangled vines and the rich red pompon of sumach held their smouldering torches above.
"These visits to the cattle were to us like intercourse with friends. We had cultivated close relationship with them during the long winter and knew their habits, their characters and dis- positions, even their voices, as well as those of our playmates. There was always a pleasant leave-taking at the bars, where the calves rasped our bare feet with their tongues, and the cossett sheep nibbled at our jackets, and the colts put their noses over our shoulders to be caressed. We might have chosen to go with them to the dark cool woods rather than to prayer-meeting at the schoolhouse in Deacon Dascomb's district in the evening.
"As I observe the success of many of the sons of New Eng- land who have gone into larger fields of endeavor, which has depended on sterling character, tenacity of purpose and self-help, I feel they owe much to the New England Sabbath ; to encouraged
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HISTORY OF HILLSBOROUGH.
habits of industry and thrift, and much, very much, to the early, discipline that was so rigidly enforced."
In this day of general manufacture, when the implements used upon the farm are bought ready made, and the farmer pays little heed to the construction of the tools and machinery that assist him in his labors, it was only yesterday he was making these, or those of more simple design which answered a place in his unending round of duties. His carts, his wheel-barrows, his ax-helves, ox-yokes, goad sticks, sleds, etc., practically every tool and machine needed on the farm were made by him upon stormy days, evenings, and during the long winters when he was not obliged to be in the wood lot. One of the stints for the boys, when not employed at more steady occupation, was to pound green ash logs with heavy mallets until the annual growths of wood were separated so as to form long, thin strips of the pliant wood, and these slender bands were woven into the baskets used on the farm. Even the shingles covering the roof over his head were riven from blocks of pine logs and shaved thin by the draw- ing knife. The iron work of all of these tools were fashioned, if rudely, well tempered, at the farm smithy.
Early in the spring, usually in March, the rock maples on the farm were "tapped" by boring a half inch hole in the trunk to the depth of about an inch, and "spouts" made of the sumach, the pith carefully scraped out so as to form a channel nearly the length, and one end rounded to the proper size to fit the augur hole. From the sap thus obtained a supply of syrup and sugar of finest quality was secured by boiling the liquid in great iron kettles attached to cross beams over a hot fire. This method of obtaining sweets, sometimes enough to last the family a year, was a legacy of the red man, who boiled the sap he had secured by heating stones and dropping them in the earthen vessel that he had made but which would not stand the elements of the fire.
Another oldtime custom, not abandoned so very long since, was the task of making the soap for the family use during the coming year. This was usually done in the spring. All of the refuse fat during the year was saved and the wood ashes kept until the good housewife was expected to perform one of the hardest tasks of her life, soap-making. Two posts, with notches
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FARM THRIFT AND FRUGALITY.
or branches at the top to receive the cross-bar, were driven firmly into the ground, and an old iron kettle, holding perhaps four gallons, was suspended from this beam by a section of some broken chain. Into this vessel was placed the soap grease and a fire kindled under it. Nearby a half molasses hogshead was placed upon a raised platform and filled with the ashes, which were saturated with pails of water brought from the spring. When the water had had time to permeate the ashes the strong liquid called lye was drawn out by a spiggot at the bottom, and pouring this upon the boiling matter in the kettle made the old- fashioned soft soap, strong enough to remove the most obstinate coating of dirt if it did not obliterate the material itself or remove the skin from the hands of the user. Until within comparatively a few years this was the only kind of soap used among the country people of New England.
Not only were the spare moments utilized in making the implements needed in the farm and house work, but the young were taught lessons of frugality and providence for the future in laying by stores for winter of almost everything that grew. Herbs of all kinds from spearmint to the swamp onion were gathered before dog days had set in and were carefully hung over the cross beams of the unfinished kitchen or chamber, ready for use in times of sickness ; hazelnuts, beechnuts, butternuts, chest- nuts, walnuts, etc., were stored away for winter evenings, when with pop corn and a mug of cider for the older ones, made a feast of pleasure. The enumeration might be continued almost indefinitely to show there were really no "spare moments" in farm life as conducted a generation or so ago, when the manly art of self-reliance and development of resources were uncon- sciously taught in every act of daily life.
Farm work during that period required strong limbs and muscular arms. All of the work on the farm was done by hand, except breaking the greensward which was done by a wooden plow as late as 1830. Think of tearing up the rock-bound sod of Hillsborough with a clumsy wooden plow!
Linen was the favorite material for clothes, and flax was grown in quantities sufficient to supply the family, which usually consisted of six or eight members. This added greatly to the
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HISTORY OF HILLSBOROUGH.
work performed in the house as well as in the fields. When grown, the flax was pulled by hand a slow and tedious operation. It then had to be exposed to the weather, until it had been properly cured, after which it was moved into the barn or some other building, where it was left until it was convenient for the farmer and his boys to break and dress the flax, which called for the removal of the outside or woody part of the stalks and the preparation of the fibre for spinning. By working hard and making a long day at his task, a man could dress about twenty pounds of flax a day. It then went to the women of the family to be spun on foot-wheels and to be woven on the old hand looms. The flax industry, due to the increase in the factories, in the out- put of woolen and cotton goods, practically ceased about 1825. The hand spinning of wool and the knitting of stockings con- tinued for half a century later.
THE WELL.
Originally of course the settlers sought the springs and streams for their supply of water, often being obliged to carry the much-desired fluid in the heavy pails of the times for a con- siderable distance. This proving no slight task on many home- steads, especially in winter time, wells were dug nearer the houses. To facilitate the lifting of this precious water from its prison in the ground, and some of these wells were from twenty to thirty feet in depth, a stout post was set not far from the rim or opening where usually a curbing had been built, and from this upright a long cross arm was fastened about midway and so balanced that when the bucket was filled with water it could be easily raised to the top of the frame work.
Sometimes the digging and stoning of one of these wells was no slight task, as it has been described by an old resident and published fifty years ago: "He bores, he digs, he digs and he bores! through strata after strata of various depths and forma- tion. But he makes slow progress ; he finds no water as yet, nor does he make any miraculous discovery, for he has not reached any of the antedeluvian formation though at the close of each day he is a little farther from home and a little nearer the antipodes. His labor is irksome, tiresome, a cloud of melancholly over-
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EXCITEMENT IN DIGGING A WELL.
shadows him and he gets a fit of the blues, and desponding until nearly despairing of success, he thinks that some strange fate holds the undertaking in its luckless grasp. He is so nearly discouraged he is about to abandon the job, when a neighbor, Nathaniel Cooledge, approached the spot and engaged in conversation ap- propriate to the day and occasion, thus cheering the heart and encouraging the hand of the laborer. At the same time he was talking the new-comer watched with eagle eye the progress of the work as though inspired with the thought that something un-' usual was about to come forth at the stroke of the pick. Nor was this expectation, if such he had, long deferred in its realization for very soon in response to a well directed blow of the pick, a large mass of earth and debris was broken from the irregular wall and fell at the workman's feet. As it tumbled from its place the leg of an iron pot was disclosed. The watchful eye of Cooledge saw this object before the laborer, and his imagination quickly fired with stories of hidden treasures, he shouted in stentorian tone, just as the other was about to deal the thing a smashing blow : "Hold on! save the pot for yourself, but the money is mine."
Half frightened by this unexpected command the laborer suddenly stopped in his work, while, with that strange telegraphy by which such news is sent broadcast, a crowd, wondering and curious, began to collect at the brink of the embankment, looking down with strained eyes upon the mysterious vessel, which pos- sibly had been buried there by some Captain Kid. Pushing the point of his pick under one side the man carefully turned the precious object over, prepared to meet with any sight that might be revealed to him, the while Cooledge was oblivious of every- thing else. Alas! for human hopes, all the ancient vessel con- tained was some rather darkly colored earth and a little iron rust -nothing more-an old, broken, discarded pot belonging to an early settler-just that. Water of excellent quality and in abundance was found the next day, a fountain which has not failed to this day.
There were no close-cropped "lawns" about these old- fashioned farm-houses, but the spacious grounds bore the more plebeian name of "door yard." One of these was large enough to contain the year's supply of fire-wood, which was no small
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HISTORY OF HILLSBOROUGH.
quantity, as witness one of the huge, conical-shaped piles reaching above the eaves of the ell, besides the full catalogue of farm tools and vehicles, some of which had long outlived their usefulness. Left promiscuously here and there the effect was not altogether pleasing nor profitable.
Every great war leaves in its wake certain changes in popula- tion, in business efforts and in society. So it was with America's great Civil War. Drawing its forces largely from the country towns, as it did, these reservoirs of population and industry naturally felt the effects first and most. The war marked the beginning of the decline of rural live as a factor in the progress of the nation.
In common with her sister commonwealths, Hillsborough sent every other of her able-bodied men into the field of action, and suffered accordingly. A considerable percentage of these never came back. Those were spared to return came with wounds, broken in health, or if not physically disabled prema- turely aged, unable to take up the burden of working for an existence where they had laid it down. So from that period dates the decadence of country life of the old regime.
To offset this in a measure the public meetings and open discussions of the farmer-politicians during the war had proved beneficial in the manner that hitherto prone to reason within him- self and leave his neighbor alone, now began to broaden his ideas and progressive action followed. One by one improvements in farm work began ; one machine after another came. If the num- ber of those willing to follow the arduous round of farm work became less, fewer hands were required to accomplish the end.
Over this steady-moving, hand-to-hand way of living came a swift change. No more does the farm boy follow his round of drudgery from sunrise to sunset. The lowing herds upon the hillsides have vanished, and where the farmers yoked up twenty pairs of oxen and steers to break out the roads, horses draw the big roller. It is true some farmers keep good-sized herds of cows to furnish milk for the creamery or to ship to some distant city to be peddled out by the milkman. He buys the grain with which to feed these animals, and the oldtime field of ripening corn is almost unknown, for if he does plant any of the useful crop it is
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IMPROVEMENTS ON THE FARM.
harvested while the milk is in the stock and the silo, standing at right angles with the barn like the tower of some olden castle, receives the crop as the winter feed for the cows. The pastures. alas! are grown over with junipers and thriftless bushes, where once the succulent grass grew to the ruminating animal's knees, and here and there great patches of luscious strawberries tempted the palate of the husbandman. The great tracts of lofty pines have fallen victims of the circular saw that cut them in twain with as little compunction as a man was beheaded in the days of King Charles. A sadder phase than this is the frequent cellar holes-tombs of abandoned farms-that greet the gaze of the traveler along the highways and even upon the byways, now over- grown that erstwhile echoed to the hoof of the stage horse. Homesteads once enlivened by throngs of merry life now lie deserted, and silence broods by day and night in a lonely watch over the dead and missing.
If this picture is not pleasant to look upon turn it to the wall. If fewer in numbers the farmers of to-day have twenty opportu- nities to turn an honest dollar where their forebears had one, and his day of labor is not timed by the sun but the factory whistle or his gold repeater reminds him when the modern schedule of a day's work has been measured off as the store- keeper would run off so many yards of calico. He rides in his sulky plow to turn the sod of his fertile hill side ; he opens, drops and covers the seed by machine; he stirs the soil, adjusts the tender shoots and gently lays the cool earth about them by machine ; he cuts the grass, rakes the newly-mown hay and places it away on the high scaffold by machine; he even milks his cows by machine, digs his potatoes; ay, at the pace he has taken it won't be long before a neat little contrivance will grace his dining table to save him the effort of lifting the food to his mouth. . Water is brought to his kitchen sink from the spring on the side of the hill; an electric light dispels the darkness of night from the road that he travels, so it is always day with him. Does he wish to go to the town or some further destination he no longer waits for the lumbering stage coach to bear him on his way, but he steps lightly into his well-cushioned gasoline car, presses a button, and lo! he is speeding like the wind upon his way. Does
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HISTORY OF HILLSBOROUGH.
he want anything at the village store-the country store is almost an institution of the past, he steps to the telephone and orders it as a king might. The rural delivery brings his mail to the door ; the baker his bread, the butcher his meat; and while he scans the morning daily with keen avidity over the news he seldom stops to compare the present with the past.
Still, with all these advantages and in such close touch with the great round world, he finds his neighbors farther and farther removed ; sees the farm of a brother taken by some rich New York nabob to be transformed for a brief summer month into a castle of delights, awakened by the rhapsodies of city people going in ecstacies over the rocks that abuse his machinery ; the white weeds that will spring spontaneously where he has tried to coax the green grass to cover the rocks ; the shattered hemlock that grimly reminds him of last year's thunder storm; the mountains that block the west and the sunsets that at best to him portend the possibility of another fair day. And then the long white silence of winter, when this merriment and liveliness has been trans- planted to the bustling city ; when his automobile is housed and himself sits in the chimney corner chewing the cud of reflection and wondering if farming can be made to pay upon these old wornout homesteads. So the picture fits the time, and farmers as well as others are carried on the wave of continual change never knowing where the end will be.
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