USA > New York > Orange County > Monroe > Chronicles of Monroe in the olden time : town and village, Orange County, New York > Part 5
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They came at midnight and surrounded the house, which theinmates barred. Finding they could not break in, they climbed on the roof and tried to descend the chimney. But one of the ladies opened a pillow and poured the feathers on the fire, which was too much
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Chronicles of Monroe in the Olden Time.
for them. They then retired, but returned again when Mr. Reynolds was at home. They entered, pre- tending they were commissioned to look for deserters. They took Mr. Reynolds, tied him to the lug pole, and hung him in the chimney while they searched for treasure. But his daughter Phœbe cut him down. Then they caught him again and suspended him. They also cut him with their swords and knives, leav- ing him for dead. His daughter cut him down again, and, assisted by other members of the family, dressed his wounds and saved his life. He lived to a good old age (eighty-three years), and showed his scars as honorable mementos of the encounter. The plucky daughter also gave the alarm to the neighbors, who pursued the miscreants, wounding one and shooting another. One, named Kelley, was found dead on East Mountain, and on him were the clothes of Friend Reynolds.
The brave daughter Phoebe was married afterwards to Jeremiah Drake and removed to Sullivan County, where she reared a family, and is mentioned, with an account of her adventures with great interest, in Quinlan's " History " of that county.
The proclamation of peace was hailed by every true patriot and reflecting mind with sincere joy. It is recorded of Peter Townsend, then a young man, that he rode on horseback all the way to New York to see the British fleet evacuate the harbor. Warm wel- comes awaited the return of the brave soldiers to their homes. But these they did not find in a prosperous condition. Buildings had been burned, cattle stolen, fences thrown down, and fields and gardens overgrown with brush and weeds. But the Anglo-Saxon is not one who sits down in despair,
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The Dawn of Peace.
but has wonderful recuperative energy. He betakes himself at once to rebuild. He starts again the plow. His axe rings through the forest. He lays out new roads and projects new enterprises, looking with hope for their realization in the future. He has had enough of war and ruffianism. He believes in the regeneration of society, encourages home building, immigration, the setting up of the school, the organi- zation of the church and all those institutions that belong to a well-ordered society. He crowds out the lawless, who retire to the mountains. The disloyal find it uncomfortable to remain, and some move to other parts, or learn to hide their pedigree or hold their tongue.
Now come in most of the modern families who engrafted upon the old form a new society, the foun- dation of Monroe of the present.
It is an interesting matter of history that James and Charles Webb came from Goshen in 1798 and bought each 300 acres on opposite sides of Mombasha, dividing it through the middle. Their father was Samuel Webb, who was seven feet in height. He was killed in the Minisink war by the Indians, who boasted they had killed the biggest man in the settle- ment. His brother was also very tall, measuring more than six and a half feet. Samuel Webb, Jr., was the son of Charles, succeeding him in ownership of lands in the east side. He had also a sawmill below the outlet where was an old road soon to be reopened to afford a beautiful drive about the lake and to connect with that from Tuxedo. Cyrenius and the late J. Madison are the sons of Samuel Webb, and they or their heirs still occupy the same tract, now for a hundred years in possession of the family.
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CHAPTER XI.
HOME BUILDING IN THE OLDEN TIME.
INTHE log cabin is the prototype of the homes of Monroe. Under these thatched roofs rich and poor alike rested. By these rude firesides the best of her sons learned their first lessons of life. In one, it is said, the Father of his Country did not disdain to rest. But it was not long before an evolution began. Soon the sawmill arrives, and lumber is drawn for a "lean-to." Then there is a stoop, with rude benches, where the family receive neighbors, crack nuts, and tell the news. But soon comes an honest pride. The log cabin must go. A neighbor of more means has started with a frame house, and so the cabin is con- verted into a stable, and in its place rises the dry- goods box, which is topped out with gambrel roof and two-story piazza; this again passes through a white elephant period, or "Crazy Jane," at last efflorescing into a Queen Anne with all the modern improvements. Some, however, "to the manner born," conceived, more in accord with the fitness of environment, that in a country of granite rocks stone is the proper ma- terial for the homestead; hence persons like Harvey Bull, John Brooks, and Dr. Carpenter built their stone mansions, at once enduring monuments of their sturdy good sense and taste. One of these gentlemen
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Home Building in the Olden Time.
would point to some of the stones of the corner and tell the story of their quarrying with loving pride. But let us look outside on garden and farm. Would you know what it cost of toil to subdue a little piece of ground for garden, we call to remembrance a small piece cultivated by Phineas Brooks opposite the Granite House. Year after year the old man toiled, throwing out the stone till he had a huge pile, enough to macadamize rods of road; and still there was
plenty. Asking Sammy Gregory to explain their origin, he said, "He guessed they growed." But we need not smile, for one of the old furnace-men at Southfield remembered "when Tom Jones' mountain was no bigger than a coal-basket." These pioneers had to content themselves with the simplest and coarsest esculents of the garden, and the humblest modes of taking care of them. It was related of one of the careful dames that she took her turnips to bed with her to keep them from freezing, finding them but poor bed-fellows. The dirt-cellar was soon thought out, and became a necessity. The Hessian had gone home, leaving behind only his curse, the wild daisy. But his cauliflower and sprouts and Antwerp berries
were a better legacy.
The love-apple developed into
the tomato. The black-bog Irish potato found a friend in the Rev. E. P. Roe, who gave us the perfec- tion of tubers. And since that the cornucopia of the world has been pouring in seeds of plants and flowers from the uttermost parts of the earth. The puckery crab-apple of the Indians has been superseded by the Newtown pippins, dominies, and seek-no-furthers of the orchards. Deacon Van Valer used to say, " Never plant a shade tree when a fruit tree will do as well." His farm was an orchard, and when, nearly eighty
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Chronicles of Monroe in the Olden Time.
years of age, a neighbor laughed at him for continu- ing to plant and graft, he said : "I not merely expect to gather fruit from these trees, but to pick from this ladder which I am making." And he did.
If it was so hard to make a garden, what must it have been to clear a farm ? The sturdy woodsman would soon clear up the timber; but the rocks and boulders with which every rood was strewn were enough to appal any but one of these hardy sons of toil ; particularly when we remember the rudeness of their appliances : the pick, the crow-bar, hammer, wedge, the gunpowder, the oxen, and stone-boat. No dynamite, no stump and rock extractor. But co- operative industry was the order of the times. Stone- bees were made, and neighbor came to the assistance of neighbor.
The good dame did her part in the kitchen, turning out the pot-pie and other appetizing productions of hands well taught in the culinary art. At such times the best stories were told. Toasts were drunk in the old-fashioned cider, for as yet total abstinence was in its cradle. With mirth and jollity the rocks were torn up as by giants; the stones " snaked " towards the limits of the outlined fields, to be broken up on the morrow by the fence-builder, who would rear them into the characteristic fences of the town. Mr. John Brooks buried the stones on his farm in great holes dug for the purpose. But let us hear him tell the story of his labors :
"'Twas thus by honest toil I smoothed the rugged soil, For forty years or more, Till orchard, grass and grain Spread o'er the barren plain,
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Home Building in the Olden Time.
Where nothing grew before. By powder, picks and sledges, By levers, bars and wedges, By prying, splitting, mauling, I brought the rocks to reason, As rebels were from treason, And fitted them for handling ; In fences rough and strong,
In fields square and some oblong, Then took they proper station,
As they came struggling through The rubbish of creation.
As each redeemed spot, Grew to a garden plot, A longer breath I drew,
Took courage from the past,
And prayed that I might last To put the hard task through.
And now in fact 'tis done As I planned when I begun. And tho' 'tis true that I
Shall ne'er receive the gains,
The needful for my pains, These fields shall never die.
Whate'er shall be my fate, E'en up to death's dark gate, Thro' health, wealth, want or pain,
The fame I fought for most
Will be this honest boast, I have not lived in vain ! "
JOHN BROOKS.
How well expressed! Let the young men who have entered into possession of these ancestral acres learn what they cost, and not be ashamed of the farmer's profession,- for such it is,-nor ever turn away in scorn from the homestead farm even, although the moss covers the roof and the cricket steals in by the hearth.
The implements of the farm were very rude at first.
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Chronicles of Monroe in the Olden Time.
For example, the plow used was what was called the "hog plow." It had a rough beam, with share of wood shod with iron that had to be taken to the smithy to be sharpened. It was followed by the Eng- lish plow, which had a movable coulter that would cut the sod and lay it over a curvilinear mould-board in even furrows. What would one of those gray fathers have said had he been told that his grandson would ride behind a spanking team upon a sulky plow of steel, over a carpet-like sod, and lay it smooth as a floor, and another follow after, dropping corn from a patent planter, to be covered also by machinery ? This was that same maize which they had received from the Indians, who taught them to plant it when the oak leaves were as big as squirrels' ears, and to go to the brook and bring two shiners for each hill of corn. "Succotash" was an Indian term, as was " kintakaue"; and after eating the one the other helped digest it. This was the elementary lesson of that primitive time.
But sagacity early discovered that Monroe soil was best adapted for grazing; hence attention was turned to pasture fields. But no cultivated grasses were known till comparatively recent times. Meadows and marshes were relied upon to furnish forage and hay. The hay cut with the scythe was raked by hand, forked upon poles, and carried out or stacked up, till winter brought frozen ground that would bear up team and wain. Mr. Samuel Webb could recollect when the first Timothy Hurd grass seed and red clover were introduced. It was an era in agri- cultural history-a revolution. The marsh is out- shone by the meadow, and the milch cow and sleek steers are seen grazing over the clovered plain. The wooden hay-fork and home-made rake give way to
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Home Building in the Olden Time.
better tools. But for many years scythe, sickle and the clumsy cradle held the field before anything better was thought of. The present generation can remem- ber when the carpenter left his bench, the clerk the counter, and the smith his anvil, to take part in the labors of the hay and harvest field. The country was one vast hive of industry. There was turning the grindstone, the boy's spectre, which kept saying, " Beware of the man who has an axe to grind "; and whettings that filled the air with clear metallic strains ; hanging of scythes, which Webster regarded as suc- . cessfully done when he hung it in a tree; then the march of the peaceful procession across the field, with even step and graceful sweep as well timed as an aria in Handel's "Seasons."
Then came the little army with hand-rakes draw- ing hay or grain into windrows, to be followed by binders if grain, or tossing into hay-cocks or mowing away if hay. All this had to be done by hand, with rude tools and slow ox-teams. It made weeks of frolic and hard work for field hands and wives and daughters; for all were interested, and not seldom could be seen the fair hands of Ruth bearing, if not the sheaves, at least the basket of lunch for the tired reapers. But how all is changed now! First came the horse-rake; then the mowing-machine. The last came in 1854. It was the Ketcham machine, cum- brous and heavy, galling the necks of the horses, and unwilling to back down when it struck stump or rock. This gave way to lighter and more convenient inventions, the acme being reached when the reaper and binder came into the field. Then, when the horse hay-lifter and mower followed, the burden of farm- ing was also lifted, and the problem of gathering the
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Chronicles of Monroe in the Olden Time.
crops with few hands was solved. Indeed, if such improved machinery had not been introduced, much of the crops during the Civil War must have been ungathered.
Vehicles passed through similar evolution. First, the cart; then the wagon without springs; then the spring seat. In these rude, lumbering things they even went to church. Chairs were set in them when a number rode. On one occasion, when at a later period the custom was repeated, after the load had been deposited at the church door one of the little girls in the congregation, seeing the wagon and chairs pass the window, observed that " some one was mov- ing." One of our older citizens remembered distinctly the time when the first springs were introduced and the gossip they occasioned.
Oxen also constituted the earliest beasts of burden. They snaked out the stumps on week-days, and took the family to church on Sunday. Moonlight rides in the one-horse open sleigh were then undreamed of. The patient ox was better adapted to the slow work of subduing the wilderness. Experiences with them were sometimes odd : as when a green son of the Emerald Isle yoked a pair of steers facing each other, and said, "Did yees ever see the loike ?" or when John Fowler's cattle stepped on a large snapping- turtle; and on another occasion, when he left them yoked to feed near a fence while he went to dinner, and found one of them choked down by a large black- snake. He cut the throat of the ox and dressed the carcass. Attention was largely paid at first to the raising of cattle for market, but this gradually gave way to the dairy business, and the development of the best milch cow has been the aim and effort since.
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Home Building in the Olden Time.
The scrubby native animal with crumpled horn had to give way for the coming of the Holstein, Jersey, Alderney, and lastly the chef d'œuvre, according to one of our best cattle-raisers, the belted stock. Fifty years ago the butter-producing quality was the aim, when the very bank-notes of Orange County took on a butter hue. But in 1841, when the Erie Railroad was constructed and sent its first train into this region, keen eyes saw the advantage of sending milk to the great city ; and ever since the Monroe farmers have turned their attention to milk.
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CHAPTER XII.
THE IRON INDUSTRY OF MONROE.
T THE surveyor Clinton calls attention to lot No. 3, which he calls "the great iron lot." Twenty thousand acres in this vicinity were sold by James Alexander, Lord Stirling, to a London company who established the Stirling Iron Works in 1752. The anchory and forge were built over the line in War .. wick, but the mines are largely in Monroe. When owned by Messrs. Noble and Townsend the great chain was forged, as we have already described. The Forest of Dean Furnace was started before the Revo- lution, but the fall of Fort Montgomery forced it to close, and now it is an unsightly ruin. Queensboro
continued till the War of 1812, when it extinguished its fires. The Augusta works were established in 1783 by Solomon Townsend, for the manufacture of bar iron and anchors; but the plant was removed elsewhere, leaving a picturesque ruin on the banks of the Ramapo. Greenwood Iron Works were estab- lished in 1811. At the opening there was a proces- sion, each workman bearing the tool of his branch of work. Songs were sung, toasts drunk, speeches made, an ox roasted, and dinner served. Messrs. Robert and Peter P. Parrott were the owners. This furnace
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The Iron Industry of Monroe.
furnished the iron from which most of the cannon used by the government during the late Civil War were made. Now the fires of this historic furnace have been extinguished; the well-known and respected manager, Mr. P. P. Parrott, is dead; the property has passed into other hands, the scene of toil turned into a park, and its name changed to Arden.
Southfield Iron Works came into the possession of Messrs. William and Peter Townsend in 1827, and have had a memorable record. For seventy years the fires glowed and the huge engine puffed, the molten stream poured forth, and weird figures moved in the lurid firelight, while on every hand were signs of thrift and labor. How sweetly came the sound of tinkling bells across the valley, as the cows of the cot- tagers returned from the mountain pastures ; and how restful the notes of the whippoorwill in the gloam- ing, when around the old homestead played the grand- children of that old couple who knew so well how to " welcome the coming and speed the parting guest "! But the scene is all changed now. Some of the fam- ily return to spend the summers, but the fires of the furnace are out, the long breath of the engine is no longer heard, the teams are released, the men dis- charged, and their honored employer and his benevo- lent wife are resting on the cliff yonder, whither sturdy hands, not without tears, carried them a few years since.
The scene was a very different one some sixty years ago, when the iron industries of the country flourished, as will be seen from the following lines from the fertile pen of our town poet, the late John Brooks, who was employed as clerk and storekeeper for the Stirling Company about the year 1832 :
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Chronicles of Monroe in the Olden Time.
" MR. PETER TOWNSEND :
I send you by our lazy brawny,
Chuckle-head and a Montawney,
Eighty-four bars well-wrought and strong, Two tons, one hundred fourteen pounds ; Send us some Indian and some flour
Immediately, if in your power. Send us some shoes, we're out of leather ; We can't go barefoot this cold weather.
Bill Babcock wants a pair; also his wife ; "Tis twelves both wear.
Some of our dames do scold and pout, Because our tea does not hold out- Three and a half pounds allowed per week ; For I'm so dumb I've not yet found The art of making from three pound Just sixteen quarters. Must I serve The first that come, just like the rest ? Or will you send a little more ? Three and a half and sometimes four. Send me the news, for I want to know How Adams and Old Hickory go. Some of us will want some money For training ; therefore I'll just dun ye. Two shillings each will pay stage fare, And as much more will keep us there. But send as much as you can spare. The coaling jobs go on right well; But on the forge there lays a spell. And where 'twill end no one can tell ; Tho' now she thumps away like Sheol. Now when you and your better half Are reading this, 'twill make you laugh. 'Tis childish verse wrote with pot-hooks And trammels. I remain,
Yours, JOHN BROOKS."
Now if these lines have little merit on the score of rhetoric, they are worthy of preservation as giving a picture of the times, and of some of the cus-
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The Iron Industry of Monroe.
toms in that mining region. Supplies were furnished the families from the company's store. Estimates were made on the basis of three and one half pounds of tea to a family. But as the clerk had not learned the art of making sixteen quarters from three pounds, it was obvious that he must have some more tea, or there must be an unequal distribution. Other touches of humor will be appreciated by those who were fa- miliar with the author and his times.
The last generation witnessed much greater activity in the iron industry than the present. The time was when the mines near by were all worked, the smoke of furnaces mingled with that of cabins in the moun- tains, teams toiled along the roads from Bull Hill, Forshee, Rye, Hogancamp, O'Neal and Frederick mines. But, owing to several causes, a change has come over the scene. The exhaustion of timber, the necessity of using costlier fuel and of penetrating deeper for the ore, have all conspired to produce the present con- dition. When foreign supplies are exhausted and tariffs are better adjusted, the iron-men will again look to these hills, and with better machinery take out the rich metal which the magnet indicates is still stored there.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MILK BUSINESS.
T HE all-absorbing business of Monroe is producing and selling milk. We may say there was a pre- destination for it in the very composition of the soil and in the situation. But it did not materialize until the Erie Railway was organized and laid to Monroe.
The first train ran through in 1841. It created a great sensation at the time, as we describe elsewhere, and opened up a new channel of industry not merely for the town, but the county also. Hitherto the county was famous for butter. Shortly after the opening of the road, Mr. John Milton Bull conceived the idea of utilizing the new means of transportation for the benefit of the farmer, by shipping his milk to New York. It was soon caught up and put in prac- tice. John Milton, Jesse and Ira Bull, in the spring of 1842 started the enterprise. When the business was in its infancy we are told that varied receptacles were employed, such as cans, churns, and tubs.
Cloths were placed under the covers to prevent leakage. The early cans had no handles or flanged lids, but were carried by a bail. We are also told that the brakemen bolted upon bringing the empty cans back, because they were so hard to handle. The farmers were their own collectors. The price began,
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The Milk Business.
as we are informed from the books of a farmer, with one and three quarter cents per quart for summer and two for winter; but went up to four, five, six, and even seven cents during the late war. At first the milk was cooled in troughs, sometimes lowered into wells. The supply of milk was small, so that farmers would borrow and lend or club together. The scarcity of ice rendered it difficult to keep the milk; hence it was shipped twice a day. All kinds of business re- ceived an impulse. New needs were created. Milk- wagons, cans, milk-houses and cooling-tubs, ice- houses and ponds, better cows, better barns and stables, different feeds and new methods of farming, all were in demand. The big churn was out of use, the churning-machine dilapidated, the dog dead, and the very piggery deserted. " Yes," said one old gen- tleman who had been used to the old régime, and who was vexed that a storm or accident had thrown hun- dreds of quarts of milk on his hands and the good- wife could find no means of disposing of it, "we want a new kind of woman."
It brought a new age, if not a new kind of woman. For ever since the labor of the milking-yard, the handling of heavy cans has fallen upon men; while she is released to attend to her own realm in home and social life. After the introduction of this new business it was found it was not without its own irregularities. Now it was a combination of middle- men, then an over-supply, again a cut in price on milk or feed; then an increase in competition from the opening of new roads and widening areas of milk supply. But the great obstacle to the prosperity of the farming community has been the uniform rate of shipment by the railway companies for long and
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Chronicles of Monroe in the Olden Time.
short distances. A gleam of hope shines in from a recent decision of the Supreme Court, bringing the interstate commerce regulations to bear on the case. To remedy some of the difficulties above referred to, creameries were instituted. Monroe and Turners were early in the field. The Farmers' Creamery, or Monroe Dairy Association, has shown what farmer managers can achieve in conducting a cooperative business. The two other creameries, one for the col- lection of milk, the other for the manufacture of fine cheeses, are built on the lake, and another is conducted at Satterly town by the Neuenswander brothers.
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CHAPTER XIV.
INDUSTRIES OF THE HOME AND FARM.
0 UR sketch would be imperfect if we did not advert to the industries of the home. In the early days of farming, the farm was expected to yield nearly all things needed for subsistence, clothing, and comfort, and the housewife was expected to adapt them to the needs of the household. As in Bible times, "she looketh well to the ways of her household. She riseth while it is yet night and giveth meat to her household. She seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her hands. She layeth her hands to the spindle; her hands hold the distaff. She is not afraid of the snow for her house- hold, for all her household are clothed in double gar- ments." How true in every particular except the spindle and distaff! But its more advanced sister is there in the flax and woollen spinning-wheel. All the linen used for bed, table or clothing was the product of her hands; sometimes from the hetchelling to the final bleaching. So with the wool. She carded and spun and knit, and sometimes wove. The very name "wife" was derived from weaving, she being the woof; while spinster was from the art of spinning, and was then an honorable name for married and unmarried alike. How the needles flew in those days, verifying
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