USA > Vermont > Orange County > Bradford > Stories of old Bradford > Part 6
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It was discouraging to be told when he reached the man, whose criticism and help he had so much wanted, that he could not correct the mistakes on the model he had but must begin at the beginning and start all over again! But this man who had started out to learn geography when nearly forty and who had rebuilt his house in Bradford after it burned down three different times was not to be discouraged.
* He made all his own tools, including lathes and presses. He did his own printing, and even made his own ink and varnish. He spent 300 days making his first copper plate for a globe. (From newspaper item).
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He went home to Bradford and kept on trying until in 1811 or 1812, about the time of our second war with England, he succeeded. So in Bradford, Vermont, was made the first perfected globe in America. Soon he received orders from a firm in Boston.
There were still setbacks and discouragements, but from now on he had a growing business of making globes. He made some of them in Bradford and some of them in Londonderry, New Hampshire, his birthplace. Soon he built a globe fac- tory in Albany, New York. He charged $55 for a pair of large globes and $5 for a pair of little three-inch globes.
Eleven children1 who had watched their father's long struggle to make a selling globe were happy at his success. By this time three of his sons were grown and wanted to enter the business with their father.
When Mr. Wilson finally became too old to carry on his factory, these sons ran the business while their father returned to the place he loved best-Bradford, Vermont. Here he work- ed on his last invention.
His last years were saddened by the deaths, one by one, of his four sons. But the business in Albany was carried on by Cyrus Lancaster. This young man had attended Dartmouth College and had taught in Bradford Academy. He had mar- ried into the Wilson family.2
Mr. Wilson continued to study and to work at his globes until he died at the age of ninety-two.3 But the result of his lifelong work lives on in the globes which are now seen in every school in the United States.
A few of the previous old globes which Mr. Wilson made are still scattered about the country. These are very valuable. Mrs. William Spencer, a great-granddaughter of James Wil- son has one, a terrestrial globe. Mrs. Mark Moody of Water- bury, another descendent of Mr. Wilson, has two a terrestrial
1-Three of his children died young.
2-He married the widow of one of the Wilson sons.
3-Mr. Wilson was past 80 when he invented and made his own orrery or Wilson Planetarium. He engraved the large copper plate when he was 83.
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globe and a planetarium. One was given to the Bradford Pub- lic Library and one to Dartmouth College. The Vermont His- torical Society and the University of Vermont each has one. A pair of them is owned by Yale University and another pair by Harvard University. Two were exhibited at the Congres- sional Library at Washington, D. C. several years ago.
Although the Encyclopedia Americana gives the year 1814 as the time when Mr. Wilson completed his first globe, Norwich University in Northfield has just put on display in the Henry Prescott Chaplin Memorial Library two Wilson globes, one a model of the world and the other a model of the heavens, dated respectively 1811 and 1812.
Stop your bicycle some day at the north-end water trough and read the story of Bradford's famous inventor on the his- torical milestone which the Vermont Historical Society has placed there.
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AGNES MCDUFFIE WILSON Third wife uf JAMES WILSON WIL' IAM WILLARD WATERMAN (No. A7) At the age of 13
MARY ANN WILSON WATERMAN No 34
JANE WILSON WATERMAN (No. 40.)
Some of James Wilson's Family
A COAT OF ARMS
"Let's play Treasure Hunt !" Agnes suggested one bright summer afternoon in the year 1823 as the three Wilson sis- ters sat in the open barn door at their home on the Goshen Road. "You two blind, and I'll hide a treasure for you to find."
"What shall we use for the treasure?" Mary Anne asked practically.
"This stone!" shouted little Jane* picking up a pretty little rock from the yard.
"No. We couldn't tell it from other stones. We'll use this," decided Mary Anne, bringing a curious piece of painted wood from the recesses of the barn.
"I wonder what this was?" Agnes puzzled, studying the faded picture of a lion with a sword in his paw.
"Boyd said it was once the back of a sleigh that belonged to Grandpa McDuffee," answered Mary Anne. "He said that when the sleigh was quite worn out Marmie cut off this piece with the picture and brought it up here."
"But why would Marmie save it? it's so old and faded," wondered Agnes. "Let's run and ask her !"
Mother was glad of an excuse to stop her work in the hot, bare farmhouse kitchen and sit on the broad stone door- step for a few minutes. She looked down into the eager faces of her three little daughters. "Well, it's a long story, but I guess you are old enough to understand.
"You see, my family, the McDuffees, came originally from Scotland and were thought to be descended from old King Duff ** whose son was called Macduff, which means 'son of Duff.' My manv-times-great-grandfather was the thane-that is another word for lord-of Fife. a nobleman of Scotland during the reign of King Duncan. A traitor named Macbeth.
This five-year-old Jane was Mrs. William Spencer's grandmother.
** King or Chief Duff ruled in Scotland nearly 2,000 years ago.
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with the help of his wife, murdered King Duncan and ruled as king of Scotland until he was dethroned and killed by the brave Macduff. Then Prince Malcolm, son of the murdered King Duncan, became king. As a reward to the loyal Macduff King Malcolm added 'fee' to the nobleman's name and ever since that time his descendents have been called 'McDuffee'.
"Among other honors, King Malcolm also gave his loyal friend a coat of arms."
"What's that-a coat of arms, Marmie?"
"This!" Mother fingered reverently the piece of wood with the faded design .*
"Back in Europe in the days when steel-armored knights fought for their kings, a knight was sometimes rewarded for his brave deeds by being given a certain design or emblem which was embroidered upon his coat and painted upon his shield. Later his son would use the same design. Finally one could tell to what family a knight belonged by the emblem emblazoned upon his shield. Later on when knights settled down on great tracts of land awarded them by the king, these coats of arms were handed down in their families. Nowadays folks think it a great honor to have a coat of arms. It shows that our ancestors belonged to the nobility even if we do be plain folks like us. It makes us proud to know that our ances- tors were brave and loyal .**
"So this is a copy of the original coat of arms that was given to Macduff. Your half-brother Boyd could tell you the story much better than I can. Shakespeare, who was a great English writer, wrote a play about the wicked Macbeth whom Macduff conquered. Perhaps Boyd will teach the play to his pupils. When you go to high school you will read the play, I've no doubt."
"But how did the coat of arms get onto the back of Grandpa McDuffee's sleigh ?" asked Agnes.
*On the McDuffee coat of arms in addition to the lion holding the sword, there is a crown which stands for the Kingdom of Scotland and three hawks which represent the three witches you can read about in Macbeth.
** Originally a coat of arms was a short, light garment with pictures on it which the knight wore over his heavy, steel fighting suit. The pictures on it were sacred to the king and his country so that anyone seeing a man wear- ing it woud know that he was a favorite of the king.
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"A copy of the McDuffee coat of arms was brought to this country by William McDuffee way back before the old French and Indian War, and later a copy of it was painted on the back of the sleigh in which your grandpa brought the younger children from Londonderry, New Hampshire, to this town in 1796. I was just a year older than Agnes then, and I remember how cold it was and how thankful we were to reach your Uncle John's place which was to be our new home. My mother followed a little later on horseback .*
"I know where you lived when you were a little girl like Agnes !" piped little Jane, pointing in the direction of the Up- per Plain.
"Yes, if we go down the road a way we can see Grand- pa's house," suggested Mary Anne who was getting restless.
So the children ran down the narrow, dusty road until they came to an opening in the bushes where they could look down across the green fields at the wood-colored house just south of the ledge north of the old cemetery .** Just north of this house was Uncle John's little store.
"Next time we go down to see Grandpa I shall have some- thing else exciting to ask him about besides the old Connecti- cut River ferry near his house," Agnes was thinking.
"Marmie, you said that you went to Uncle John's house to live when you first came to Bradford. How did your brother John get here before Grandpa and Grandma and the rest of you children did? Why didn't he wait to come with you?"
"Oh", laughed Mother, "John was one of the older chil- dren. He was all grown up and away at work years before we came to Bradford."
"What kind of work-farming?"
"No. John was a teacher-taught in Maine for a while. He also did surveying. John was always a great one for books and learning, same as your half-brother Boyd is. I mind my father
According to Mr. McKeen they came in the sleight. It has been ques- tioned whether or not there was at that time road enough for a sleigh.
** This old house and John's store north of it was probably never seen by anyone now living.
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used to tell how when John was growing up one of his teach- ers had a ciphering book. Books were even scarcer then than they are now-"
"What's a ciphering book, Marmie?"
"Well, you would call it an arithmetic book, I reckon. It had all the rules for working out different kinds of problems in it. A real smart young one like John could puzzle out how to do problems from those rules. John almost memorized that book. Later after he'd earned a little money teaching, he man- aged to attend Andover Academy for a short while. He work- ed for his board, surveying for folks. After he came to Brad- ford to live, he helped survey all the land in Bradford up into lots.
"Yes, John was always a smart one. For a while he ran the Connecticut River ferry, by which folks used to trade and go back and forth across the river before any bridge was built. And he kept a store in his house on the Flain. Before he and your Aunt Martha moved up onto the mountain, folks used to hold meetings in his house. Most always when the village folks had a knotty problem to solve, they would hold meetings at John's house, and usually John would talk to them."
'Oh, tell us some more stories about old times, Marmie !" begged Mary Anne, as her mother returned to her work.
"Not now. I must get supper for your father. He has been working all afternoon on the new engraving he wants to get finished to take to the factory in Albany. When he comes in he will be hungry."*
"If he remembers to come in at all," Agnes laughed.
"Next time you go to see your Uncle John ask him to tell you some stories. He has had many adventures and can tell more exciting stories than I can."
*Marmie could have told many more interesting stories had she had the time such as stories about the children's ancestors. Alexander Wilson and the young woman, Martha McDuffee, who were both in the Londonderry Siege at the time the Stuart King lost his throne to William and Mary. During the seige when the people of Londonderry were starving, Martha saved the lives of many soldiers by finding some food and bringing it to them. Among the McDuffee descendents are three wooden plates, which were used in the seige of 'Derry.
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"We'll go and see him tomorrow if it's pleasant," decided Agnes.
"But now we'll help you Marmie," offered Mary Anne, noting the tired sag in her young mother's shoulders. "I'll set the table while Agnes straightens up the kitchen."
"When we played this was our treasure, we didn't know it was a real treasurer," Agnes said thoughfully, as she picked up the coat of arms to put it away.
: - /
A VISIT TO UNCLE JOHN'S
Bright and early on the following morning Agnes and Mary Anne packed a lunch, bridled Pegasus, threw a blanket over his back and climbed on.
The rough road that led over the hill toward Goshen nar- rowed from a grassy lane between bushes and brambles into what was hardly more than a brown, piney path. It was cool and nice in the woods. For one whole day they would be free from Marmie's hot farmhouse kitchen and from the blazing sun that hung over the fields. They dug their bare feet happily into Pegasus' soft brown coat. Once they cut across a grassy field and found some ripe berries to eat with their plain bread and butter sandwiches. At last they rode up the rocky trail and came at last to Uncle John's house.
"I'm glad you'll take us home in the buckboard," shivered Agnes, taking off her pink sunbonnet. "I was scared of meet- ing a bear all the way through the woods."
"I reckon if you'd met one, he'd have been more scared than you," laughed Uncle John.
"But, your Aunt Margaret, your Uncle David Wilson's wife, once met a bear that didn't run. She was coming to our house from her cabin away on the other side of the mountain. That was before there was any carriage road. She had your cousin David who was a baby then in her arms and James, her next youngest toddler, by her side. Sud- denly she saw a bear sitting right in her path! The bear didn't move aside, as a gentleman should, to let a lady pass. But he was gentleman enough to allow her to turn around and hurried- ly return home. We didn't see your Aunt Margaret for quite a while after that."
"I don't wonder," said Mary Anne.
"Your Uncle David Wilson once came face to face with three big black bears in his grain field. He saw the grain moving and went out to drive away his neighbor's hogs that he supposed had gotten into the grain again. Instead he found himself trapped by savage bears. He leaped on a stump and
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let out a blood-curdling shout. The bears, who had started for him, were not used to such a strange noise. They were fright- ened and ran away."
"I declare !" exclaimed Agnes. "I'm never going to walk though those woods again !"
"My soul and body, you modern young'uns don't know what it is to walk through real woods ! Back over twenty years ago, there was a young lad name of Flanders who rode horse- back clear from Salisbury, New Hampshire, to Bradford just to bring two bushels of corn to his older brother's family. They had settled here on Wrights Mountain, too. Let's see, it must have been about seventy miles that boy had to come, most of the way right through the woods. His father sent him because in those days it was hard for folk's up here on the Mountain to get hold of flour and meal. His brother's family liked to have starved, or thought they did, on potatoes alone for six weeks.
"My sakes! I bet that Flanders boy was even more glad than we were to get here," said Agnes. "I reckon we ought not to complain when we don't get everything we want to eat, though I do get tired of having nothing much for meat but salt pork. Father is too busy with his inventing to do as much farming as some folks."
"Uncle John, tell us about when you were young," begged Mary Anne.
Uncle John laughed. "Well, let's see. Your being afraid of bears 'minds me of the time I was nearly caught by wolves. I was about nineteen then and was walking from my house in Londonderry, New Hampshire, to Maine to teach. My journey led through the woods and took many days. One night just at dusk I called at a farmhouse to inquire how far it was to Saco Falls. They told me it was about five miles, but they didn't tell me that theirs was the last house until I got to Saco.
"The road became but a path leading through deep woods, and I had not gone far before I heard the bark of a wolf be- hind me. I quickened my steps. The first wolf was answered by a second. Then another and another wolf howled. A whole pack seemed to be following me. I broke into a run. The foot-
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pads behind me grew faster and faster. The howls grew nearer -more savage. The wolves were gaining on me! My breath came in quick short gasps now. Through the darkness behind me, I could see the savage glitter of wolfish eyes. My heart pounded wildly. There was a pain in my side, so I was running more slowly now. It seemed to me that I hadn't strength or breath to run another step. Soon the whole pack would be upon me, tearing me to ribbons. It wouldn't take long for those half- starved brutes to finish a man. I was still running, but I seemed to be hardly moving. Nearer and nearer came the patter of many padded feet, the panting of many hungry wolves. Just then I saw a light in a clearing. The wolves were snapping at my heels. I do not know how I reached that house. With my last bit of strength I pushed upon the door and fell ex- hausted upon the floor.
"When I recovered, I found that the young ladies of the household were giving a party. The young folks crowded about me to hear my story. All the girls made quite a to-do over me and stared at me until I was embarrassed, for I was a shy lad.
"The people of the house told me that just a few days before, a man who lived nearby had gone into the wood with his team and had been attacked and killed by wolves. He had evidently put up quite a fight because his ax was found em- bedded in a dead wolf. The wolves, having so recently tasted human blood, were all the more eager to kill another victim."
"My stars, Uncle John, I will be more afraid now than ever !" declared Mary Anne, shuddering happily.
"Do tell us another story !" pleaded Agnes.
"Well, this is a different kind of story. When I was a boy, my father hired a young Irishman from the Old Coun- try to help him on the farm. For awhile this fellow seemed happy with us. Then one day he suddenly told my father that he must leave.
"He had seemed to like me, so I walked down the road with him a piece and begged him to tell me why he was leaving.
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"He hesitated. Then he said, "Oh! Ye live so near the chimney of Hell I dare not stay !'
"I was mystified. Upon further questioning, I found out that he was referring to the lightning bugs, which he had never seen before! I persuaded him to delay his departure until eve- ning, when I caught a lightning bug and explained to him what caused the little flash that looked like fire. After that he decided to stay."
"Marmie told us that you didn't always live up here on the mountain, Uncle John-that you used to live on Grand- pa's farm on the Upper Plain before Grandpa lived there."
"Yes, I built the little house and store. The one below it was your Uncle Samuel McDuffee's. First town meeting in Bradford was held in that house with John Peters the Modera- tor. After my father-your grandad-brought the rest of the family up here from Londonderry, I left that house for them to live in and built this house up here for your Aunt Martha and me.
"The house and store north of the cemetery have al- ways belonged to McDuffee's then?" asked Agnes.
"Yes, and the house across the road. Probably in time there will be more houses. The McDuffee sons and grandsons seem to like to stay on the old homestead near the old folks, but they will want houses of their own."
"How did you happen to come to Bradford, Uncle John?" Agnes wanted to know.
"I came here to settle Uncle Samuel's estate. He was drowned in the Connecticut River near the ferry, and his wife sent for me. I liked it so well here that I stayed on."
After a good supper of corn bread, corn meal mush, and molasses, the children said goodbye to Aunt Martha and rode home behind Topsy. In the gathering darkness, the bobbing lantern threw queer, dancing shadows among the leafy boughs and over the winding grassy road. Frogs cheeped sadly in a nearby swamp and a whippoorwill sobbed farther away in the lonely forest. But after they entered the deeper woods. there was nothing to mar the peaceful quiet save an occasional
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"Giddap, Topsy !", and the girls thought sleepily of the stories that Uncle John had told them. Suddenly the too-close, ghost- ly voice of an owl followed by the sudden whir of partridge wings shattered the silence. Peggy, following behind the buck- board, shied a little.
Mary Anne shivered and clutched the gift of wildflowers for Marmie more tightly. "That Flanders boy must have been afraid at times," she thought.
"I wouldn't like to be in this dark woods at night all alone. Did the people come to Bradford on horseback or on foot in those days?"
"No," replied Agnes. "Don't you remember about Grand- pa coming in his sleigh? The women and older children rode horseback."
"Many people came with oxen," said Uncle John. He flick- ed Topsy lightly with the reins. "Oxen were much slower than horses, but they were stronger and cheaper. People brought their household goods in ox-carts that looked something like dumpcarts. One time back in 1797, a man and his wife named Simpson crossed the Connecticut River on the ice near Uncle Samuel's. They had an ox-cart loaded with four children and a few household goods. The ox-cart was drawn by a cow and a heifer yolked together with an ox in front to lead them! Queerest sight you ever saw! Seems they had started out with a yoke of oxen and with the cow and heifer hitched behind the cart. Halfway from Windham, New Hampshire, one of the oxen had met with an accident and died. They couldn't figure any other way to get here but to yoke the cow and the heifer! They stayed for a while in a log house on the Mc- Duffee farm and then moved up onto the west side of Wrights Mountain .- Well, blessed if there isn't the Wilson house com- ing into sight! Know anybody who lives there, do you?"
"I'm glad we went to see Uncle John," said Mary Anne, as the two sisters climbed the little ladder into their high four posted bed. "He can tell such nice stories !"
THE ENGLISH GIRL WHO BROUGHT A CHURCH TO BRADFORD, VERMONT
The air was sweet with budding locust trees and the odors of fresh new grass and damp earth. Gentle silver rain slanted downward cutting off the distant green fields and spoiling an otherwise perfect day. This seemed fitting to the groups of people who, dressed in their best black homespun, stood chat- ting with lowered voices in front of the little wood-colored schoolhouse on the Lower Plain. Surely the whole world should weep now. Not that they themselves were weeping, unless the few secret tears hastily brushed from sad eyes and weather-beaten cheeks could be called weeping. No, they were busy farm folks with no time for weeping, and she, they well knew, would not approve of tears now. But they watched with hearts heavy as lead as the beloved form of their best earthly friend, snugly wrapped in a buffalo robe, was carried gently from the schoolhouse. They were proud of the box, home-made and smelling sweetly of fresh pine. That was modern. Not all folks had one. Strong loving arms, which were already burned from spring plowing and stone-wall mending in the wind and the sun, lifted it gently into the back of the waiting farm wagon. The group of people broke up now as, one by one, each climbed heavily into his saddle or into his cart and slow- ly followed the farm wagon with its precious load to the bury- ing ground. Soon their last earthly farewell to their beloved teacher and leader would be over. They wondered dismally how the sun could bear to shine at all. Always she had been their friend and comforter. She had reproved them gently for their shortcomings. She had urged them on to do their best. She had helped them with words of wisdom to solve their problems, listening patiently to their stories of troubled love or loss of crops.
Often on a bare table in some neighboring farmhouse kitchen, she had placed a supper lovingly cooked by her own hands, or tenderly wiped away with her own handkerchief and her prayers the tears on some heartbroken mother's face. And in between the preachings of the circuit preachers who
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rode horseback the rounds of the neighboring towns from Ver- shire to Newbury or Groton, she had taught them from the platform in their little schoolhouse. Many of them could re- member earlier meetings in "Mother" Peckett's kitchen, back before the schoolhouse was built .* A few could remember the first class. Sarah and "old" Joseph could remember lessons even before the first class. Almost as soon as the Peckett family had moved among them from Haverhill, New Hamp- shire, long before the days of the first circuit riders, Margaret had begun to tell her new neighbors about this wonderful new religion that she had learned about from the lips of the great John Wesley himself when she had been Margaret Appleton, before she had become Mrs. Peckett.
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