USA > Vermont > Orange County > Braintree > The history of Braintree, Vermont, including a memorial of families that have resided in town > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23
SC
THE CENTENNIAL.
Grammar, or reading over chapters in Scott's Lessons, little stories like the farmer who found a rude boy in one of his apple trees, from Webster's Spelling Book, or the New England Primer full of short words and sentences. Back in the room are urchins in the trundle-bed which is partly drawn from beneath the parents' cot, while the infant is in the cradle so near its mother that she jostles it while plying her needle or knitting pins. In the cupboard against the wall we see earthen, pewter and wooden dishes, and a pewter porringer or two. Suspended by wooden hooks in the wall is the old flint lock gun, powder- horn and leather shot bag, the warming-pan and birch broom, tin lantern and tin candle moulds, and by the way of ornament a few rounds of dried beef, crooked necked squashes, and skeins of yarn and bunches of flax. The fire. place is decorated with a checkered holder; on one side are shovel and tongs, the bellows and poker on the other. Upon a shelf above stand the iron candle- sticks with snuffers and tray beside them, with ball of yarn, packages of herbs, and odds and ends of all sorts. During the winter at odd times, the good mother would in those days spin and weave and color her webs blue from the dye pot in the corner of the fire place, and butternut from the one-handled piggin, while the good man would make spiles and wooden dug-outs in prepara- tion for the next sugar season; or perhaps make a few baskets, and bottom some chairs, when not working at the large woodpile in the front yard. In early spring time, when the snow was melting by day and crusted by frost at night,. from among the maples of the forest, smoke could be seen curling up through their wide-spread branches from a pile of great burning logs over which was. hanging a five-pail kettle or two filled with boiling sap, replenished when necessary from large buckets of the sweet juice, suspended from the sap yoke. which the boys wore across their shoulders.
As now, each season brought its own work. The carc of the lambs and calves came on, and, with the disappearance of the snow, the necessary repairs on fences and outbuildings, until plowing and planting occupied their time, until the hay season commenced, which brought all work and no play; for no ten hour system was in vogue then. At the first dawn of light in the east the mowers werc in the meadows vying with each other for the width of swath, smoothness of cut, and dexterity of movement. No mowing machines, horse rakes, or pitching traps disfigured the hay fields, but the scythe, hand rake, and the two-tined fork were the implements uscd, and worked by brawny arms until gradually lengthening shadows of the stately elm and maple had disappeared in the dimness of evening twilight. The early breakfast, mid-day dinner, and evening meal were often interspersed with lunches of bread and cheese and nutcakes with sweetened water and ginger, hard cider, and not unfrequently draughts from the brown jug in the bushes near the cold spring. Soon the busy hands would be at work until the sheaves of wheat and stooks of corn were gathered with the sickle and cradle; one thing followed another until finally in every room from garret to cellar were stored the products of the earth. In fact all the necessaries and luxurics of life, all the accumulated wealth of nations, comes from mother earth by the work of the hands and the sweat of the brow.
87
THE CENTENNIAL.
We have briefly alluded to the ways and means of procuring food in those days of toil and hardship, and would like to say a few words with regard to their clothing and how it was procured. Mr. Almon Spear, whom I see is present, will probably remember, as 1 do, the little patch of flax, which grew at the corner of the barn and which his sisters and I pulled from the ground and laid in rows, where the damp nights and foggy mornings would loosen the husk from the fibre. Afterwards it was gathered into bundles and laid away in the barn. In due time it was submitted to the horrible brake that worked like the jaws of a walrus, then it was put on a swingling board and with a long wooden swingle knife the husks were taken off. The female members of the family then took it in charge and, after drawing it through a course and a fine hetchel, carded it into soft moss-like rolls, ready to be wound around the distaff of the little spinning wheel, and drawn into threads which passed along the fliers and wound upon the spindle, thence to the swifts, and lastly to the loom, where it is ingeniously arranged and woven into cloth. The matron, as she sat upon her high seat working the treadles with her feet and alternately throwing the shuttle with her hands, while the piece of cloth before her was thread by thread growing in length, seemed to me a more wonderful person than the Queen of England. I hoped to see on exhibition here to-day some of all the articles then in use for domestic manufacturing. No doubt many a garret or shed-loft in this place has some of the many articles, then in daily use, packed away as useless. I can show you at my house a room in which will be found hetchels, cards, the great wheel and the little one, swifts and the reel, a reed, shuttle, spools and quills, also a brass warming-pan, footstove, candlestick, snuffers and tray, a pewter platter, etc .; have as yet no quill wheel, nor light stand with movable top, but expect some of the good ladies will send me these and other relics to aid me in completing my assortment.
But it was not all work in those early times. We had many things con- taining fun combined with the useful, such as apple paring bees, huskings, and spelling schools, besides singing schools. What fun we had, after paring, coring and stringing a few baskets of apples, in playing blindman's buff, hunt- ing for the button, and dancing, though that was wicked in the days when Deacon Bass and Esq. Nichols regulated the morals and actions of the young people; but it was hopping to the music of the Jew's harp played by the celebrated Ellery Pettis, whose grimaces and graceful movements have been rarely excelled by the pianist of modern times. After sport came refresh- ments-wheat bread, nutcakes, cheese, and pumpkin pie baked in a square tin, and a lucky fellow was he who had a corner piece. The huskings, too, didn't we enjoy them? seated in a half-circle around a heap of corn on the barn floor, the place dimly lighted by a tin lantern; and the commotion when some one found a red ear! The spelling schools at the school house on the hill, where Master Flint conducted the ceremonies with all the pomp and authority of a major-general of the army. In choosing sides for spelling, who was to sit beside us was of more importance than the selection of seats in the halls of congress.
Our grand-parents and fathers then paid their debts with promptness;
88
THE CENTENNIAL.
while their fourpences and ninepences were saved for postage and taxes, the products of the field and the forest were exchanged for services and luxuries. On the first of April of each year stock payments were made-oxen, cows, sheep, and young stock of all kinds were appraised by those authorized to fix their value. Many a cow and calf and sheep would pass from the farmer to the doctor, from him to the blacksmith, and by him transferred to the mer- chant. In time of sickness and poverty the aged and the widow were not overlooked, for the neighbors would join with hearts and hands and gather forage for the cows and fuel for the hearth.
There were no railroads then to transport the surplus products to market. Capt. Isaac Nichols and Capt. Nathaniel Spear, with horses or oxen or both combined, would transport to Boston in canvass covered wagons, corn, oats, frozen quarters of beef, carcasses of hogs, sheep, and poultry, with a few thousand shingles, a gross or more of bushel baskets, and sometimes wool and home-made cloths would be added to the load. All such articles would be exchanged for "boughten " sugar, "boughten" molasses, tea, salt, cod-fish, and other articles which were considered luxuries in those days of primitive life. Wagons and other vehicles drawn by horses were rarely in possession of the early settlers. When going to meeting and taking children to school, when making visits to distant neighbors and attending social gatherings, even to balls and weddings, a yoke of oxen and sled was the most common mode of conveyance, the excursionists wrapped in woolen bed blankets to protect them from the cold. It was also quite common to see husband and wife and one or two children on the same horse wending their way to meeting and to other places. Often have we seen huge bags of grain taken to the mill in that way, and blankets tied up full of fleeces of wool hung to the horn of the side saddle, conveyed to the carding machines many miles distant, by the mistress of the farm house or by one of the grown up girls.
We had our holidays. Of Christmas we knew nothing, and we had never heard of Santa Claus with his toys and his jimcracks. It was Thanksgiving we looked forward to, weeks in advance of the coming day. Jolin Antwoine, the tailor, and Crispin, the shoemaker, had been at work in the kitchen pre- paring our winter garments to be put on for the first time on Thanksgiving morning.
When morning came everybody was astir in the house, a fire was blazing in the kitchen fire place, the oven heating, and the anniversary fire in the square room, where stood the high post bedstead with its copper plate cur- tains. the bureau, extending from floor to ceiling, and a few other articles of simple furniture, and whose walls were ornamented by a few profiles and pictures of the martyrs, and among them John Rogers burning at the stake. What a great fire place that was in the kitchen and how much could be done at it to prepare the Thanksgiving dinner !- pots and kettles dangling from the crane, the turkey and spare-rib suspended before it, and the joints of beef in the roaster on the hearth. But it was insignificant compared to the old brick oven; why! when the door was opened to that mysterious cavern, out of it would come huge plum puddings in brown earthen pans, chicken pies, loaves
89
THE CENTENNIAL.
of bread, and all sorts of pies, in square tins, large plates and saucers and fragments of crockery. What an abundance of everything there was, and so good, too! all the better for being prepared by the hands of our dear loving mothers.
There were so many of us: grandfather, grandmother, father and mother, uncles and aunts and cousins by the dozens! we couldn't all sit down to the table. The old folks sat in chairs and the younger stood around the festive board. After dinner it was play and sport; the whole house was licensed to the childen; the garret, the cellar and the most sacred of all places even, the square room, the buttery, the closets, and all the cupboards were ransacked and everything turned topsy-turvy. When it was time for the children to go to bed the establishment looked as if there had been an earthquake. But we had a real good time, didn't we ?
The Monday following the feast day was the opening day of the winter schools. We all went with our best clothes on. How neat the girls were, dressed in their bran new flannel gowns with a vandyke bound with blue and white calico! Point lace, Honiton and Valencienne laces had gone out or had not come into fashion then. Their hoods, neatly quilted, covered their heads and ears to keep them warm. Girls did not wear hats then perched upon the tops and sides of their heads, ornamented with fowls and feathers, and of all shapes as if they had been run over by a train of cars. They wore good warm woolen mittens and stockings knit by their mothers or themselves, not the three, four and five button gloves to cover pipe-stem arms, shrivelled wrists and vulture clawed fingers, nor thin, bright colored cotton stockings with long dresses to cover the holes in the heels.
Wasn't it glorious to look at those red, full faced, broad shouldered, big waisted girls ? It was rarely we saw a pale-faced girl with wasp-like figure in the days of our youth. When we did it was an object of our pity and commiseration.
The boys, too-great stalwart fellows in blue frocks and home made coats and trowsers and cow hide boots, brave, bold, and strong of muscle, well fitted for the plow and scythe in the field, and the axe in the forest.
Such girls and boys were fit for the sculptor to chisel in marble his Madon- nas, Venus di Medicis and Ariadne and the Lion, Hercules and the wrestlers now seen and so much admired in ancient Rome and Greece.
Where are the girls and boys who were with and of us in those halcyon days of our youth ? As I look around me I see few that I know, I hope there are many others whom I do not recognize; those I do know have stamped upon them the marks of time, upon their heads are the significant tokens of age, and the senses that bridge over the space between life and death are dim and weakened.
Where are the Nicholses, the Basses, the Welds, the Pratts, the Flints, the Harwoods, the Curtises, the Whites, the Craigs, the Spears, the Fittses, the Kidders, the Hutchinsons, the Copelands, the Frenches, the Morses, the Smiths, the Holmans, the Crams, the Duboises, the Riders, the Killums, Hunt- ingtons, Howards, Tilsons, Boltons, Wellses Albans, Cushmans, Cleverlys
90
THE CENTENNIAL.
Vintons, Snows, Bentons, Goochs, Randalls, the Partridges, the Waites, the Rifords, the Battleses, the Chases, the Linfields, the Clarks, the Byams, the Wakefields, the Hunts, the Burridges, the Lyons, the Sumners, the Browns, the Bracketts, the Thayers, and many others whose names I do not recollect, so many years have passed since we were daily meeting each other ? Many of them are sleeping the sleep from which none awaketh. By them and their descendants Braintree is represented in almost every state and territory in the Union, in the councils of the nation, in the defense of our country, in the struggles for the freedom of a race bowed down and oppressed, in the develop- ment of this vast country-its power, its wealth and luxuries-in the promo- tion and advancement of education, the diffusion of knowledge, in the spread of the gospel in foreign lands, in commerce, in manufactures, and in improved methods for interchange of thoughts, sentiments and principles among all peoples throughout the world. What a source of gratification and of thanks- giving it should be to us that we have lived and are still living in this age of improvement and advancement.
Not a century has elapsed since our farmers had to go to Charleston, N. H., quite a hundred miles distant, to have their corn and wheat ground into meal; now it is at our very doors. Weeks would pass in conveying intelligence to our friends in Massachusetts and Connecticut and in receiving replies from them; now it takes only as many minutes. Messages from our government to foreign lands would require months for transit; now, within a few min- utes the same can be done.
Our languishing President in the White House receives messages expres- sing anxiety and sympathy from kings and potentates in the far-off nations of the earth, as they fall from their lips. Lovers, miles and miles apart, are whispering tender messages into each other's ears. Then, full three years were required to circumnavigate the globe; now, it can be accomplished in three months. It is truly wonderful what steam navigation, railway travel, the telegraph and telephone have accomplished in our day, and who knows what is before us even in the days that we may live ? The experience of the past exalts us to extravagant visions of the future.
However, let us not be puffed up with pride, nor exalted by vain glory. Let us not be allured by false doctrines and heresy. Let us not forget the good principles inculcated in us by our forefathers, nor fail to practice their virtues. May our prayers daily mingle at the throne of Divine Grace, that we may be faithful in the discharge of all our duties to the end of life and receive the plaudits of "good and faithful servants," and meet in that happy world to come, where love will make an endless day and we part no more forever.
Then the glee club sang the "Star Spangled Banner," and the platform was open for miscellaneous speaking, remarks, reminiscences, etc., by former citizens, visitors, etc., the latter, we noticed, occupying the time. Mr. Rowell of West Randolph made some remarks complimentary to the town, and some general remarks in reference to the principles of government characteristic of our townsystem. Dr. Bradford of Northfield spoke at length of early times,
-
91
A FEW SKETCHINGS.
and the exercises, extending through several hours, wound up with music by tle band.
There were probably none present who will ever witness another cere- mony of the kind in the town, for though towns may count their age by cen- turies, men in these later ages never do. Braintree has some distinguished sons, who, if they could have been present, would have added much to the interest of the occasion. Letters were read by Judge Nichols from Elias Weld of Buckston, Me., once a resident, and Hon. J. P. Kidder of Vermillion, Dak., a native of the town, expressing an interest in the centennial, and regret- ting their inability to be present.
Guns were fired at sunrise and at intervals throughout the day. The band furnished excellent music, and those having parts to perform, and the managers of the affair carried out their parts with a good degree of success. We heard of no accidents worthy of mention, notwithstanding the great num- ber of teams in and about the grove. The people went to their homes seem- ingly well pleased with what they had seen and heard, and their thanks are due those who gave them an opportunity for so much enjoyment in reunions and reminiscences of the past.
VII. A FEW SKETCHINGS.
Without effort nothing is, and much that is, cost not only effort but many a severe struggle. An apparent denial of this is found, perhaps, in the magic growth of towns and cities on the frontier, as the tidal wave of civilized life pushes over the plains, toward the great mountains, to be checked only by the shores of the vast Pacific. But there is a struggle even here, though in a short time cash, seeking investment, comes and helps push. Cash buys lands, improves them, and encourages settlement. Settlement soon makes a market, a town arises, and merchandise moves to and from by cartloads, ere long, by carloads. Ready cash does wonders. Braintree and her sister towns had no such backer. First, the town was granted by the legislature to a body of men, from whom was exacted only a tax sufficient to defray costs, and who thereafter were required to pay their quota of governmental expenses. It was covered with forest. Who had most muscle and courage had most available capital, and each capitalist was his own laborer. Such capital it was that bought and improved these lands. The growth was slow, butit was earning the cash, which has such power to-day. Compare a man compelled to cope alone with a hundred acres of forest with one able to employ a dozen or a score of laborers in the same enterprise.
Again, no frontier settlement to-day is so isolated that it is not within comparatively easy reach of the necessaries of life by horse or steam power. But the Braintree pioneer was obliged to take a stock of provisions with him, lead a cow along to furnish milk for what browsing she could find, carry seed potatoes in his pocket, and his grist on his back, live on boiled wheat, little or - no meat, leeks, clover tea, work hard, and almost starve at that, to say noth- ing of keeping his clothes on and his family tolerably sheltered.
92
A FEW SKETCHINGS.
In time, Boston was as distant then as Omaha is to-day; and the nearest places available for obtaining food were, by the same measure, almost if not quite as far away as Chicago, and far less accessible. Horseback and afoot were for a number of years the only means of travel; trails, the only high- ways. However, if provisions are brought to your door and your purse is empty, what does it matter ? To the average settler coin was scarcer than food, and he who had aught to barter for it might regard himself most fortunate.
Whatever the genius of husbandman and housewife could produce by hook or crook and dint of perseverance, they had-little else. House, furniture, sleds, carts, plows, etc., were fashioned with an axe and one or two other simple tools. Oiled paper served for window panes. As a rule, each family raised, spun, wove and wore its own flax and wool. The whir of the distaff and the clanking of the loom were more commonly and constantly heard than the sewing machine is now. Everything was clumsy and homely, but servic- able. Every man's Sunday suit (those able to have one) looked at least second cousin to his overalls, only they were neater. All ate, wore and slept on the products of their own industry. No matter how plain and coarse their fare, enough was luxury. A gentleman who has lived a long, industrious life acquired a handsome property and reared a large family, said that his annual average account at the store for years did not exceed twenty-five dollars- labor in-doors and out supplied the rest, This, too, was as late as 1825-30. Thus we see how necessity taught our ancestors that sharp economy which spreads a dollar the farthest. For actual necessaries, a dollar in coin had the value of ten in greenbacks. One person has said that five dollars would bury one as respectably then as fifty will to-day.
True, there were speculators in those early days. James Brackett, Jacob Spear, Samuel Harwood, Bass & French, and perhaps two or three others, at different times bought and sold, altogether, a large part of the town of Brain- tree, and some of them got rich by it. The most of them labored with their own hands, also, and did much to settle and improve the town. A few others speculated less largely. . There may have been the common talk and complaint about the few getting rich at the expense of the many, can't tell; but it seems evident, at least, that the pioneer speculator was more philanthropic than his modern relative. Capital and labor had not dissolved partnership then. Then, they who worked were gentlemen, and poverty, alone, did not ostracize any from church or society. The poor were in fashion: at the same time, no one cared for fashion only so he acquired wealth.
It is not difficult to understand the greater or less indifference of our ancestors to moral and mental culture, especially the latter. Food and cloth- ing they must have; these obtained, the surplus, if any, was meagre, and required in reserve against possible need. It is not very strange that some got the notion that the sole object of living was simply to live, and a hard pull at that. We can almost, if not quite, condone the attitude of those who closed ears and pocket against all appeals for the support of religion, or opposed even schools for rudimentary instruction. The most of the earlie
93
A FEW SKETCHINGS.
settlers, and a part of the generation immediately following, were the most zealous in sustaining religious worship, and during this period the churches did their best work. As these dropped out, one by one, religious interest waned, and the circle of those on whom the burdens fell grew smaller and smaller. It was true, also, that more on a few members than on the churches has always rested the religious life of the community; in this sense no church in town has ever been self-sustaining, and, with but slight modification, the same is true of each, financially. All that has been accomplished, the little that is now being done, is due almost wholly to the individual effort of a few. Sagacity taught men then, as now, that one's name on a church subscription paper would buy custom, and the sole interest of few, in church and religious matters, was simply their personal aggrandizement. Jolin French, for instance, fought spot after spot for locating the meeting house, till finally it was set near his premises, and thereby increased their value. That was all he cared about it. In fact, between then and now, the spirit of the times las changed very little.
Perhaps it may not be unfair to say that a good majority of the early inhabitants of Braintree had some degree of disdain for "book-learning "- plausibly because penury of pocket was more grevious than brain penury. By some, going to school was regarded a waste of time and money, the making of idlers and fops. The present generation has here and there a specimen who thinks the same. To such, a fellow with a pair each of strong, sound legs and arms, even if they groped in darkest ignorance, was lengths ahead of any edu- cated "dunce." They were poor at first, unable to educate their children even if good schools were at their door, and free of cost; children, as soon as they were old enough, had to earn their living, and with their help hunger was too often a pitiless visitor. In time, the new settlement outgrew this; there was plenty and to spare. Nearly all the permanent population became "well off." There was little change in public sentiment about schools, how- ever. They scarcely improved when means were ample. This indifference to mental and moral improvement is part of the legacy which the past has bequeathed to the present.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.